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Medical education has historically relied on high stakes knowledge tests sat in examination centres with invigilators monitoring academic malpractice. The COVID-19 pandemic has made such examination formats impossible, and medical educators have explored the use of online assessments as a potential replacement. This shift has in turn led to fears that the change in format or academic malpractice might lead to considerably higher attainment scores on online assessment with no underlying improvement in student competence. Here, we present an analysis of 8092 sittings of the Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA), an assessment designed to test the prescribing skills of final year medical students in the UK. In-person assessments for the PSA were cancelled partway through the academic year 2020, with 6048 sittings delivered in an offline, traditionally invigilated format, and then 2044 sittings delivered in an online, webcam invigilated format. A comparison (able to detect very small effects) showed no attainment gap between online (M = 0.762, SD = 0.34) and offline (M = 0.761, SD = 0.34) performance. The finding suggests that the transition to online assessment does not affect student performance. The findings should increase confidence in the use of online testing in high-stakes assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to Cotton, Miller and Kneale's 2017 paper on the current state of higher education research within UK universities. It seeks to contribute to the debate surrounding the inclusion of pedagogic research (PedR) via SoTL in the UK's Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the context of researchers who reside within a disciplinary context. The inclusion of PedR in the REF continues to be contentious, despite recommendations in the Stern Report which could make its inclusion more feasible. This paper focuses on PedR which is conducted, published and disseminated by academics situated within Life Science departments, rather than Schools of Education. The twenty-one teaching-focused academics in this study discussed their commitment to PedR integral to their academic identity, the challenges they faced in carrying out PedR, and their thoughts on REF 2014. Their opinions and conclusions give food for thought on decisions regarding inclusion of PedR in REF 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performance assessment is permeating increasingly diverse domains of higher education, even in areas previously perceived to be too complex and idiosyncratic to quantify. The UK's attempts to assess 'research impact' within the Research Excellence Framework (REF) are illustrative of this trend and are being closely monitored by several other countries. A fundamental rationale for employing narrative case studies to assess impact within REF, rather than taking a (less resource intensive) quantified approach, was that this would allow for the variation, complexity and idiosyncrasy inherent in research impact. This paper considers whether this promise of narrative flexibility has been realised, by analysing a combination of REF impact case study reports and interviews and focus group discussions with actors involved in case study production. Informed by this analysis, our central argument is that the very quality which allows narratives to govern is their ability to standardise performance (albeit whilst retaining a degree of flexibility). The paper proposes that REF impact case studies position narratives of impact as technologies of governance in ways that restrict the 'plot line' and belie the far more complex accounts held by those working to achieve research impact. This is partly because, as research impact becomes institutionalised within universities' measurement infrastructures, higher education institutions become impact gatekeepers, filtering out narratives that are deemed overly complex or insufficiently persuasive, while perpetuating particular approaches to recounting tales of impact that are deemed likely to perform well. Crucially, these narratives not only describe impact but actively construct it as an auditable phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inequality in students' degree outcomes has been a concern for the higher education sector and the UK government for more than a decade. Since its inception in 2018, the Office for Students in England has prioritised the need for evidence of causality through requiring institutions to evaluate the effectiveness of their initiatives as set out in Access and Participation Plans. This policy development responds to several reports which identify a dearth of evidence-based interventions and scant knowledge of 'what works'. This paper traces the interplay between policy and research, focusing on the assumptions they make about causality. It concludes that unwarranted positions are taken in both spheres of practice, making progress unlikely. A conception of causality situated in extant formal theory on evidential pluralism and that draws on current practices would help us address inequality more effectively. Alternative framings of the problem of inequality in students' degree outcomes is offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private schools have long played a crucial role in male elite formation but their importance to women's trajectories is less clear. In this paper, we explore the relationship between girls' private schools and elite recruitment in Britain over the past 120 years – drawing on the historical database of Who's Who, a unique catalogue of the elite. We find that alumni of elite girls schools have been around 20 times more likely than other women to reach elite positions. They are also more likely to follow particular channels of elite recruitment, via the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, private members clubs and elite spouses. Yet such schools have also consistently been less propulsive than their male-only counterparts. We argue this is rooted in the ambivalent aims of girls elite education, where there has been a longstanding tension between promoting academic achievement and upholding traditional processes of gendered social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the experiences of students with chronic illnesses in UK universities. Sixty-seven students with chronic illnesses completed an online survey with open-ended questions about their experiences in higher education. Questions covered four main topics: academic work; university staff; social and extracurricular activities; and participants' miscellaneous opinions. Using thematic analysis, the data were analysed with references to the social model of disability and social representations of chronic illness. Participants wrote of misconceptions surrounding chronic illnesses, a sense of inequality, and feeling undervalued. Many staff members seemed to lack understanding and so 'policed' academic regulations rather than accommodating for their chronic illnesses. However, some participants wrote of social and academic 'allies' who offered understanding and proactive support. The findings add substance to the chronic illness literature with the focus on students at university, and we offer recommendations to universities for improving inclusivity for students with chronic illnesses. Disabled students with energy-limiting chronic illnesses are frustrated by a lack of support and feel that they have fewer opportunities than non-disabled students. Some university staff may hold negative views of disabled individuals, and so provide inadequate support. This can lead to students' reluctance to disclose chronic illnesses. Students with chronic illnesses felt that some staff and peers did not class chronic illnesses as 'real' disabilities and felt that they were perceived lesser than those with visible disabilities. Some students proudly owned the label of 'disabled' to educate others, including staff, who sometimes used university regulations inappropriately to excuse not adjusting support for disabled students. Some staff and students were perceived as supportive allies. Universities must listen to disabled students and those with chronic illnesses to ensure they fulfil their legal and moral obligations of providing equality of opportunity, enabling all students to succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is currently much interest in the interconnections between research and teaching in Higher Education. This relationship is usually termed 'the research/teaching nexus' (RTN). However, within this wide body of literature, there has been little attempt to explore the emergent experiences of students across the entire length of their degree programme. Drawing on the results of a three-year qualitative study that followed 40 students through their whole student lifecycle, this paper explores how undergraduates in an English university experienced the RTN, how those experiences developed over time, and how these changes can be variously enabled or constrained. Situating the findings in the context of the 'post-truth' society and the uncertainty of employment futures, the paper highlights how the nexus can also often serve to exclude students as much as it includes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the subjective experiences of PhD holders from Switzerland and the UK who pursue careers beyond academia. Drawing on the concepts of organisational culture and culture shock, we examined the challenges that characterise this passage from academia to non-academic workplaces. With an exploratory aim, we analysed 32 semi-structured interviews conducted with PhDs engaged in non-academic careers in private, public, or parapublic sectors for ten years or less. It emerged that, when they entered non-academic workplaces, half of our participants devoted a large portion of their time and energy to understanding a new organisational culture, including their workplaces' daily functioning, the values shared within their organisations, and the statuses to which they were assigned. This puzzling experience, which we define as organisational culture shock, was reported more frequently by those who entered non-academic workplaces directly after the PhD and those with little or no work experiences prior to the PhD. These findings contribute to the ongoing global conversation about how to prepare PhDs for careers beyond academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internationally, there has been considerable literature on the predictors of academic performance in higher education. However, the empirical findings are still limited in Cambodia; therefore, this paper was conducted to examine the determinants of academic performance of 329 undergraduate students selected from a university in Cambodia. Based on the findings from the multivariate regression analysis, a number of variables, namely high school grade, English ability, class attendance, study effort, academic self-efficacy, and family socio-economic status were found to be positively associated with academic performance. Term-time employment and family size had an adverse impact on academic performance. However, there was no sufficient evidence to indicate age, gender, household location, parental education, parental involvement, and teaching evaluation to have predictive power on academic performance. Hence, the study concluded that the personal backgrounds played the potential role in predicting academic performance of undergraduate students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alongside the usual exam-level cut-score requirement, the use of a conjunctive minimum number of stations passed (MNSP) standard in OSCE-type assessments is common practice across some parts of the world. Typically, the MNSP is fixed in advance with little justification, and does not vary from one administration to another in a particular setting—which is not congruent to best assessment practice for high stakes examinations. In this paper, we investigate empirically four methods of setting such a standard in an examinee-centred (i.e. post hoc) and criterion-based way that allows the standard to vary appropriately with station and test difficulty. Using many administrations (n = 442) from a single exam (PLAB2 in the UK), we show via mixed modelling that the total number of stations passed for each candidate has reliability close to that of the total test score (relative g-coefficient 0.73 and 0.76 respectively). We then argue that calculating the MNSP based on the predicted number of stations passed at the 'main' exam-level cut-score (i.e. for the borderline candidate) is conceptually, theoretically and practically preferred amongst the four approaches considered. Further analysis indicates that this standard does vary from administration to administration, but acts in a secondary way, with approximately a quarter of exam-level candidate failures resulting from application of the MNSP standard alone. Collectively, this work suggests that employing the identified approach to setting the MNSP standard is practically possible and, in many settings, is more defensible than using a fixed number of stations set in advance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role that social characteristics play in determining the academic success of students who begin university with roughly similar entry grades. The data used were drawn from the administrative records of over 38,000 UK-domiciled undergraduate students from one British university between 1998 and 2009. Results show that the characteristics of entrants have varied only slightly over this period and intake is still largely in favour of ‘traditional’ entrants: namely those from professional occupational backgrounds, the privately educated and those of traditional age. The relationship between background characteristics and eventual academic success also reflects patterns seen at earlier education stages. However, when prior attainment was taken into account, the link between degree outcome and many social characteristics does diminish – notably for students who were privately educated and who came from professional occupational groups. This suggests that once students have overcome barriers to admission, it is entry grades rather than social characteristics that may most strongly influence eventual academic success. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) in 2016 has placed the practice and quality of teaching centre of the UK university agenda, with concerns around contact, delivery, research/teaching balance and facility support framing debates within institutions. Situating the implementation of blended learning on a year 2 cultural geography in the broader context of these discussions, this paper explores some of the challenges and opportunities this approach has in addressing some of these broader concerns, whilst improving student engagement and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine digital literacy and explicate how it relates to the philosophical study of ignorance. Using data from a study which explores the knowledge producing work of undergraduate students as they wrote course assignments, we argue that a social practice approach to digital literacy can help explain how epistemologies of ignorance may be sustained. If students are restricted in what they can know because they are unaware of exogenous actors (e.g. algorithms), and how they guide choices and shape experiences online, then a key issue with which theorists of digital literacy should contend is how to educate students to be critically aware of how power operates in online spaces. The challenge for Higher Education is twofold: to understand how particular digital literacy practices pave the way for the construction of ignorance, and to develop approaches to counter it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how community, national and ethnic identities are affirmed, negotiated, marginalized as a part of hegemony-making and resistance in the context of English education in Indian universities. We argue and demonstrate that a complex and ambivalent hegemony that has been operational since the colonial times, continues to shape English education in India. Today, English and English education play a major role in articulating, binding and dividing multiple identities and knowledge systems. In the first part of the paper, we critically review debates and discussions on the significance of English language education in institutes of higher education in India. Specifically, we focus on discourses on the rationale behind continuing and contesting English education. The second part examines how in the postmodern context, English is being taught differently to different groups and highlights how these contexts of teaching have been defining knowledge systems, patterns of dominance and also, articulating resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research-based learning in taught courses develops the skills needed to judge knowledge sources and think critically in a post-truth world. In viewing research skills as threshold concepts, the paper argues that transforming a student cannot be a one-off event. Research capacity must build over a programme and this requires coherent research skill development and assessment that is progressive (ipsative). A study of five programmes each with a different design of research 'throughline' showed that such integrated research-based learning generates three challenges. Firstly, conceptualising the research skills and progression is not easy. Secondly, the accumulation and enrichment of research skills is not readily visible to students. Finally, providing a clear support system across the programme is not straightforward. The paper concludes that these challenges need to be addressed if the potential of research-based education to enable future citizens to interrogate populist claims and reject misinformation is to be realised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with the argument that within modern-day society, engineering has shifted from being the scientific and technical mainstay of industrial, and more recently digital change to become the most vital driver of future advancement. In order to meet the inevitable challenges resulting from this role, the nature of engineering education is constantly evolving and as such engineering education has to change. The paper argues that what is needed is a fresh approach to engineering education – one that is sufficiently flexible so as to capture the fast-changing needs of engineering education as a discipline, whilst being pedagogically suitable for use with a range of engineering epistemologies. It provides an overview of a case study in which a new approach to engineering education has been developed and evaluated. The approach, which is based on the concept of scholarship, is described in detail. This is followed by a discussion of how the approach has been put into practice and evaluated. The paper concludes by arguing that within today's market-driven university world, the need for effective learning and teaching practice, based in good scholarship, is fundamental to student success. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the last 20 years, the use of administrative data has become central to understanding pupil attainment and school performance. Of most importance has been its use to robustly demonstrate the impact of socio-economic status (SES) on pupil attainment. Much of this analysis in England and Wales has relied on whether pupils are eligible for free school meals (eFSM). However, very little is known about the validity of this measure as a proxy for SES. Using a recent major birth cohort study, this paper examines the relationship between pupils' eFSM and their more detailed socio-economic circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high achievement of British Chinese students in the British education system is established in the official literature and has recently been subject to increased attention and comment; albeit it remains the case that few studies have asked students or their families about the factors contributing to their success. This paper revisits findings from an earlier research project that investigated the extent to which British Chinese students and their parents value education (and their rationales), their experiences of British education, and the construction of British Chinese students by their teachers. The study revealed the ‘hidden racisms’ experienced by British Chinese students, the problematisation of their perceived approaches to learning by British teachers in spite of their high attainment, and the benefits, costs, and consequences of their valuing of education. This article contextualises these prior findings within more recent discourses and debates around ‘Chinese success’, precipitated by increased policy attention to the educational attainment of different groups of students, especially from low socio-economic backgrounds. It argues that these discourses on one hand elevate Chinese successes and teaching methods (in contrast to prior narratives), but on the other they continue to exoticise and ‘Other’ the British Chinese, misrecognising educational practices common among White middle-class parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a central paradox that affects the nature of the student experience in the U.K. On the one hand, the marketisation of higher education, with its associated emphasis on performativity indicators, may be seen to have reduced students to numbers, with the attendant consequence that the affective domain of studying and learning has been lost. On the other hand, there is more attention given to student feelings than was ever the case in the past and questions about student satisfaction have become more prominent. This paper will explore this paradox using empirical data gathered from a longitudinal study of ‘non-traditional’ students at one ancient university in Scotland. We indicate the ways in which the tension between the technicist spaces of the neoliberal university and its empathetic, caring spaces are mediated by students as they make their way through their degrees. We argue that caring relationships with staff are of central importance to students’ well-being and success at university, and that students actively seek to construct support when and where they need it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article draws on current literature leading to the development of a holistic framework to support practitioners in observation and assessment of childrens evolving inquiry skills. Evidence from the 2011 Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) in England identifies a decline of year five student achievement in science. A further review of research suggests that learning dispositions towards science should be fostered at a young age when children are intrinsically curious about the world around them. This paper explores how young children engage in scientific inquiry through socialisation and active learning. This paper argues that there are further opportunities to record the scientific episodes of young children in their play within early years settings. An evaluation of various assessment methods and strategies has led to the development of a model and a supplementary tool to record the unique ways in which children demonstrate scientific inquiry skills. Together the model and tool form this Framework for Assessing Science in the Early Years (FASEY). FASEY documents the developing skills within scientific domains as well as socio cultural perspectives of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The term 'feedforward' is increasingly employed in higher education, and this paper focuses on the way in which it fits into contemporary debates about feedback and its impact on practitioners. Semi-structured interviews were used to investigate the practices academics associate with feedforward and the ways in which their intentions and understandings varied. The term resulted in practices being framed as a process and prompted academics to consider the points in the future when students were expected to deploy information and improve. Three future horizons were identified: the 'within-module' future horizon dominated, while the challenges of 'beyond-module' and 'beyond-programme' horizons became apparent. Written comments, guidance, formative assessment and design practices were associated with feedforward, comprising both transmission and student-focused approaches. It is concluded that the modular system restricts longer-term future horizons and sustainable practices, and more must be done to address the divide between theoretical and practitioners' perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to explore the school experiences of mixed white/ black Caribbean children in English schools. The overarching findings of this research confirm that although the mixed-race population as a whole is achieving above the national average, the mixed white/ black Caribbean group is consistently the lowest performing mixed-race group in the country. Views of pupils, their parents and teachers in two London secondary schools suggest various reasons why mixed white/ black Caribbean pupils might continue to be the lowest performing mixed group in the country. These included experiences of marginalization and invisibility in school life, the low expectations that teachers held about them, the lack of knowledge about how to support them at school and how all these issues were exacerbated by the friendship groups they mixed in. This research paper discusses these critical factors in detail and their implications for policy and further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social mobility has been a central tenet of UK Government public policy, viewed as a silver bullet to creating a socially just and ‘fair’ society as well as an economically successful one. Within policy discourse young people's aspirations are deemed of critical importance to achieving educational success and in turn social mobility. However, within both popular and policy rhetoric ‘place attachment’ is routinely posited as a serious hindrance to successful realisation of aspiration, putatively because it embeds young people in ‘place’ (e.g. a particular community or geographical location) and prevents them from accessing employment in national labour markets. This paper, however, problematises the notion that ‘place attachment’ and ‘spatial mobility’ are necessarily mutually exclusive. Calling on data from a qualitative study of young people's aspirations in two distinctive regions of South Wales, UK, the analyses reveal that despite the largely localised ‘imagined futures’ of these young people they held very ‘high’ aspirations for professional forms of employment, which for some young people meant moving away from home and locality in order to achieve. The paper calls for a rethinking of how young people's aspirations are conceptualised both in government policy and academic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are large social class inequalities in educational achievement in the UK. This paper quantifies the contribution of one mechanism to the production of these inequalities: social class differences in school ‘effectiveness’, where ‘effectiveness’ refers to a school’s impact on pupils’ educational achievement (relative to other schools). It builds on the small number of existing studies, whilst overcoming a number of their limitations. It estimates the effectiveness of the (state) schools attended between ages 7/8 and 10/11 by a cohort of children born in the 1990s in Avon, a former county of England, and then compares the effectiveness of the schools attended by children from different social classes. It finds that ‘higher’ social class children attend more effective schools, on average, and that these social class differences in average school effectiveness between ages 7/8 and 10/11 account for 7% of social class differences in average educational achievement age 10/11. This is not a causal analysis, however. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Discourses about the value of effort and hard work are prevalent and powerful in many western societies and educational contexts. Yet, paradoxically, in these same contexts effortlessachievement is often lauded, and in certain discourses is heralded as the pinnacle of success and a sign of genius. In this paper we interrogate discourses about effort and especially ‘effortlessness’ in Swedish and English educational contexts. Informed, in particular, by interview data generated in upper secondary schools in Sweden and secondary schools in England, we address the questions: why is effortless achievement attractive, and for whom is it possible to be discursively positioned as an effortless achiever? We argue that the subject position of ‘effortless achiever’ is not available to all categories of students equally, and for some it would be almost impossible to attain; the intersections of gender, social class, ethnicity and institutional setting are influential. We end by considering the problematic implications of effortless achievement discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that knowledge is not a passive product of learning that can be possessed, but rather that it represents an active engagement with ideas, arguments and the world in which they reside. This engagement requires a state of 'knowing' - a complex, integrative, reciprocal process that unites the knower with the to-be-known. Exploring the notion of knowledge, this paper considers the roles of truth and belief in knowledge production, the relationship between knowledge and the disciplines, and knowledge as a social and cultural product. These ideas are contextualized in higher education practice with an example of a course designed to help science and engineering students develop criticality and a sense of 'knowing' about the world. The students are challenged to consider what it requires to turn facts and information into knowledge, and to unite their knowing with their own personal experiences and ideas about the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the nature of higher expertise in society and the role of higher education in constituting that expertise. It is argued that higher expertise relies on disciplined norms against which expert activity can be evaluated, and such norms are the basis not only for knowledge communities in higher education but also for other societal institutions. However, expertise in these communities and institutions is challenged by 'post-truth' developments that are fuelled by the marketisation and commodification of expertise, and by a collapse in deference and trust throughout society to which expert institutions and communities have not yet adequately responded. The consequences for higher education can be usefully explored via Durkheim's discussion of the social organisation of religion and magic. Bernstein's pedagogic rights of enhancement, inclusion and participation are subsequently examined to offer insight into how higher expertise may be sustained in such a context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of quantitative research in the social sciences generally and social work specifically has been highlighted in recent years, in both an international and a British context. Consensus opinion in the UK is that quantitative work is the 'poor relation' in social work research, leading to a number of initiatives. However, Sharland's UK work involves interviews with academics, representing consensus opinion. We have little independent measures of their accuracy. This paper is the first to focus on the academic impact of quantitative research in social work developing measurable outcomes. It focuses on three leading British-based generic journals over a 10-year period, encapsulating 1490 original articles. Impact is measured through three indices: Google Scholar and Web of Science Citations, and downloads. These provide measures of 'revealed preference' in relation to individual scholars' impact (though to use them for a particular methodology is novel), whose particular qualities, strengths and limitations are noted. Contrary to received opinion of quantitative work as the 'poor relation' of social work research, findings show that it is not significantly disadvantaged relative to qualitative work in its 'reach' as measured by citations and downloads. The implications of this, including caveats and nuances, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-leadership is a concept from the organisational and management literature broadly combining processes of self-goal setting, self-regulation and self-motivation. Research has typically focused on the impact of self-leadership on work performance outcomes, with little attention to potential benefits for learning and development. In this paper, we employ a longitudinal design to examine the association of a number of processes of self-leadership with higher educational attainment in a sample of business students (N = 150). Self-reported use of strategies related to behavioural, cognitive and motivational aspects of self-leadership were measured in the first semester of the academic year, and correlated with end-of year grade point average. We found that in particular, self-goal setting, pro-active goal-related behaviour, behaviour regulation and direction, motivational awareness, and optimism were all significant predictors of educational attainment. We discuss implications for educational research and for teachers and tutors in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the development of teaching practice of the multinational staff delivering UK programmes in a higher education institution in Oman hosting these programmes. It presents a tool to evaluate the teaching practice, and points to those elements of an academic development framework that were found to be most useful in supporting staff in moving towards a student-centred, learning-focused teaching approach. The majority of the lecturers made this shift. We therefore conclude by arguing for long-term CPD aimed at enhancing teaching quality to be part and parcel of a partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical Religious Education (CRE) is a contemporary pedagogy of religious education developed by Andrew Wright and various colleagues over the past two decades. There has been widespread academic discourse about the pedagogy in theory but increasingly commentators have called for examples of it in practice. Over the past seven years a writing group associated with The Forum of Religious and Spiritual Education at King’s College London have been developing practical materials aimed at supporting teachers in embedding the pedagogy in practice. Of particular relevance to this paper is the development of an introductory scheme of work, aimed at year 7 students, which has been trialled in a number of schools in and around London. In 2013, focus group interviews took place in four of these schools in order to ascertain the reception that the materials had received. The data suggests a very positive response to the introductory scheme of work and the CRE approach in general, partially dispelling some criticisms levelled at it in academic discourse. The author has thus suggested that the approach and the work of the writing group need further exposure, especially in schools, at conferences and on initial teacher education programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers whether subject choice at 14–16 influences post-16 transitions, taking into account prior academic attainment and school characteristics, and if so, whether this accounts for socioeconomic, gender, and ethnic differences in access to post-16 education. We consider post-16 progression to full-time education, A-levels, and studying two or more facilitating subjects at A-level. We use ‘Next Steps’, a study of 16,000 people born in England in 1989–1990, linked to administrative education records (the National Pupil Database). We find that students pursuing an EBacc-eligible curriculum at 14–16 had a greater probability of progression to all post-16 educational outcomes, while the reverse was true for students taking an applied GCSE subject. Curriculum differences did not explain the social class differences in post-16 progression, but an academic curriculum was equally valuable for working-class as for middle-class pupils. Pursuing an EBacc-eligible curriculum particularly strongly increased the chances of girls and white young people staying in the educational pipeline, whereas applied subjects were particularly detrimental for girls. An EBacc-eligible curriculum at age 14–16 increased the chances of studying subjects preferred by Russell Group universities at A-level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An unprecedented number of unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC) have arrived in Europe over the last decade, and young Afghans account for the highest proportion of UASC across England, Scotland and Wales. Despite a wealth of UK policies aimed at ensuring positive outcomes for young people who have been through the care-system, and a rich body of research exploring the experiences of child refugees and asylum-seekers, less has been documented about the experiences of former UASC after they reach the age of eighteen. An example of practice-based research, this article draws on three new primary data sources to examine the factors that facilitate and impede the socioeconomic integration and wellbeing of young Afghans who arrived in the UK as unaccompanied children but who are now aged eighteen or older. We demonstrate the important role of educational achievement in creating socioeconomic opportunities, shed light on the ubiquitous influence of unresolved immigration status in detracting from wellbeing, and consider the future of these young people in the UK's current socio-political context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the trajectories of initially higher- and lower-achieving children from lower and higher socio-economic status families from primary school through to university in England for the first time. We also explore what explains these trajectories. This enables us to provide new insights into when and why the performance of children with similar initial achievement diverges on the basis of their socio-economic background. Our results indicate that pupils from poor backgrounds who are higher achievers in primary school fall behind their better-off but lower-achieving peers during secondary school. This suggests that secondary school may be a critical period to intervene to prevent poor children from falling behind their richer peers. Our analysis suggests that there is less divergence in performance between pupils from different socio-economic backgrounds who attend the same schools. This result is particularly strong for children with low initial achievement. While we remain cautious about the implications of these findings, they provide suggestive evidence that schools (or the sorting of pupils into schools) play an important role in explaining why the test scores of richer and poorer children diverge over time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills are very valuable for economic growth. However, the number of young people pursuing STEM learning trajectories in the United Kingdom was lower than the predicted demand during the last decade. Several STEM enrichment and enhancement activities were thus funded by the government, private, and charitable organisations to improve understanding of and raise pupil interest in these subjects. One possible way of measuring the impact of these activities in supporting pupil understanding of maths was to track the proportion of young people obtaining a ‘good’ grade in standardised national tests such as the GCSEs. Attainment is of course only one possible outcome of education but certainly a very important one because students are more likely to continue studying subjects in which they score higher. This makes maths attainment even more important as it is a pre-requisite for admission to STEM degree courses. This longitudinal study makes use of the National Pupil Database to assess the impact of these schemes on maths attainment of participating schools. Following up 300 intervention schools for five years the study shows the intervention group did not do any better than the comparator. The paper suggests further directions for research and offers recommendations for practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Combining work experience with degree-level study is seen as a key differentiator for securing employment upon graduation in a competitive employment market. The positive benefits of sandwich courses, where up to 12 months is spent working in industry, are widely acknowledged in academic literature though data analysis tends to focus on cohorts in single subject areas with course-based factors possibly influencing outcomes. This paper explores the benefits of work placements on a cross-cohort basis with an institutional level study empirically analysing over three academic years the outcomes for placement students in comparison to non-placement students. The study found that completing a sandwich work placement is associated with improved academic performance in the final year of study. Placement students are also more likely to secure appropriate graduate-level work and higher starting salaries upon completion of their degree in comparison to non-placement students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, further education (FE) colleges play a key role in providing literacy programmes. This article draws upon our research in FE, with a focus on literacy, learning and identity, to explore how different learners are positioned differently depending on the value of the literacy practices they bring with them from home. Indeed, it is generally considered that recognising the literacies that learners bring into the classroom is an effective strategy to teaching and learning because purposeful and meaningful learning builds and expands on learners’ prior knowledge and experience to shape and construct new knowledge rather than seeing the learner as an empty vessel ready to be filled by the tutor. Learning is seen as a social activity embedded in particular cultures and contexts where assessment is based on the learners demonstrating competence in achieving specific learning outcomes. The achievement of these learning outcomes is situated in the learners’ real life and everyday practices. The paper concludes that New Literacy Studies and critical approaches to education are important to challenging prescriptive pre-set curriculum literacies driven by a neoliberalism agenda and to empowering learners in and out of the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To what extent and why do social origins matter for access to higher education, including access to elite universities? What is the role of private and selective schooling? This paper uses the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) to analyse the trajectories of a generation currently in early middle age. We find that the influence of social origins, especially parental education, remains when both a wide range of cognitive measures and school attainment are controlled. Attending a private school is powerfully predictive of gaining a university degree, and especially a degree from an elite institution, while grammar schooling does not appear to confer any advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The notion of ‘competitive excellence’ is an enduring cornerstone of UK educational policy. Most recently, expanding and adapting New Labour’s Academy project with the introduction of free schools, the Coalition’s approach advances and embeds competitive market-based forms of community engagement in education. Responding to this policy paradigm, this paper draws upon history in order to open up the notion of excellence. Through examining alternative practices of achievement and success in histories of community education, I aim to disturb the unquestioned attachment of educational excellence to the ideals of competitive meritocracy. Comparing across two community educational movements – Socialist Sunday Schools (established 1892) and Black Saturday Schools (established 1968) – I explore how achievement and excellence have been mobilised to very different educational aims. In distinct times and circumstances, both of these community initiatives practiced versions of educational achievement that challenged dominant knowledge hierarchies and underlying assumptions of incapability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the relationship between stream placement and the academic progress made by children in England in Year 2 of primary school, drawing on data from the longitudinal Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). The MCS is a sample of 19,000 children born across the UK around the turn of the century and their families. Academic progress was compared between children in England in the ‘top’, ‘middle’ or ‘bottom’ streams, and among the majority of non-streamed children. Multiple regressions took into account child, family and school characteristics and showed that stream placement significantly impacted on the academic progress made by children. Children in the ‘top’ stream achieved more and made significantly more academic progress than children attending schools that did not stream, while children in the ‘middle’ or ‘bottom’ streams achieved less and made significantly less academic progress. The reasons for this and the educational implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates attitudes to societal impact of research as an entry point into understanding academic identities. Conceptually, we position academic identity at the intersection of global scientific fields and national science policies. We argue that the degree of alignment or misalignment between the two can create coherent academic identities, or on the contrary, tensions in academics' identity. Empirically, we use the disciplines of philosophy and anthropology as proxies for scientific fields in the social sciences and humanities (SSH). The study is based on sixteen semi-structured interviews with mid-career philosophers and anthropologists in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, and an analysis of how societal impact is positioned in the two national evaluation systems. We conclude that 'coercive' national impact policies (like the one in the UK) are less likely to be aligned with global disciplinary norms in the SSH and therefore create tensions in academic identity; these can undermine academics' agency and be counterproductive in terms of reaching policy objectives. By contrast, 'enabling' national impact policies (like the one in the Netherlands) are conducive to more coherent academic identities that are better aligned with disciplinary notions of societal impact. By discussing academic identities in a comparative context, the study highlights the struggles of reconciling disciplinary and national notions of societal impact. To realise the potential societal impact of academic research, we recommend that impact is integrated into a wider ecosystem of interactions where policy-driven notions are aligned with disciplinary norms and values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a time when contract cheating advertisements are proliferating both online and offline, an analysis of their format, wording and approach furnishes critical information for educational providers about the attitudes of international students towards academic honesty. This analysis, in company with the available research literature, points to particular concerns regarding international students, especially those who are undertaking business-related degrees. There is much disquiet on the part of universities generally about the failure of such students to engage in the academic discourse socialisation process and so distancing themselves from the academic community, as well as flaunting academic protocols which uphold the credibility of their university degrees. In light of the challenging nature of contract cheating detection, a comprehensive overview of pedagogical responses is discussed including anti-contract cheating software, the greater use of in-class assessments and a return to more personalised face-to-face classroom teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, the Department for Education in England decided to reform the vocational qualifications offered in secondary education (i.e., for 14–18 year olds) in order to increase their rigour and status. They set out new criteria that vocational qualifications needed to meet, which changed their nature in fundamental ways (e.g., content, assessment structure, grading and progression requirements). At a time when the reforms to vocational qualifications are settling in, it is important to understand their impact on student engagement in vocational education and, also, how the new categories of vocational qualifications help students progress through education. This research aimed to obtain an up-to-date view of progression from vocational qualifications to post-16 education. Using national data, we investigated whether students with different programmes of study and different vocational qualifications in lower secondary school were equally likely to progress to post-16 education and, if they progressed, what routes and qualifications they took. The research outcomes suggest that, although vocational routes do not close students' options, progression to post-16 education was affected by the proportion of vocational qualifications they took pre-16. More research is needed to find out the reasons behind this association, including whether this may reflect previous experiences with vocational education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There remain barriers to securing robust and complete datasets from counselling embedded in Higher Education (HE). This study aimed to provide the first step towards developing a national dataset of student counselling outcomes drawn from differing outcome measures, platforms and reporting on all clients. Data from four counselling services using two clinical outcome measures and two platforms were pooled and analysed. Students presented to counselling with low levels of wellbeing and functioning, and high levels of depression, anxiety, academic distress and trauma. Counselling was particularly effective for improving depression, anxiety, wellbeing, hostility, social anxiety and academic distress. Results demonstrate value in pooling complete data from HE counselling services and we argue for developing a national dataset of university counselling data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present new evidence on the pandemic's effects on youth, for the first time focusing on perceived effects on the learning of job skills, as well as on education. The context is post-Brexit Britain. We find that 47% of young people in a representative sample perceive a loss of learning of job skills, while a sizeable minority (17%) judge that the pandemic improved matters. The perception of skill loss is worse among those encountering Covid directly, and far worse among those in school, college or university than among those in employment. Among those in education, loss of learning of job skills is higher among those experiencing only online learning, but lower for those who have had some work experience. Among those in employment, loss of learning is mitigated by training, which dropped sharply at the start of the pandemic but recovered and thereafter deviated little from its long-term trend. Neither the average amount of training, nor the perception of loss of learning, were affected by being placed on 'furlough' leave. Finally, perceptions of loss of learning of job skills were greater for women than for men, and greater in Wales and Scotland than in England and Northern Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent events show a government in constant changes of mind about how to control implementation of frequently changing policies, and the inefficiencies and inequalities that result from capitalistic approaches to public service functions. These same factors feature within higher education (HE), demonstrating that the values, culture, decision processes and power structures of twenty-first-century capitalism have filtered into the UK higher education system and permeate the operation of quality assessment for both teaching and research, where, sponsored by government, the structures and processes – the 'commanding heights' – of policy development and delivery have been captured by a small elitist group of institutions. The result has been system inequity, process inefficiency and stress and risk to the mental health and well-being of research staff, as well as failure to meet desirable objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Academic Fellows' Scheme launched by the Cardiff University and the Welsh Government to address the difficulties faced by primary care in deprived areas of Wales. It mentions that the Scheme in South Wales employs qualified general practitioners (GPs) as academic fellows (AFs).

‘Effort’ and ‘ability’ (understood as potential, intelligence or achievement) are concepts widely used in the everyday language of schooling in Britain but each term lacks clear definition of its use in the school context. Meanwhile, the assessment of effort, alongside that of achievement, remains widespread. This article reports on an exploratory case study of conceptions of effort among three major actors in an English secondary school. Qualitative and quantitative data from questionnaires and interviews with teachers, students and parents at an English comprehensive school were collected. Analysis reveals that understandings of ‘effort’ are not uniform. Rather, ‘effort’ is a shorthand term, which can be used variably, therefore can be construed as a tool of negotiation, or a form of investment in a set of aims distinctive to each group or individual case. There is a strong case for more sustained research into the operationalizing of such key concepts in schools and other professional and workplace settings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Higher education in the UK is pressured to widen participation due to the social justice issues of mobility and movement through the class divide. However, those from lower classes and mature students elect for qualifications that do not classically allow entry into university, for example, the Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) and Access to Higher Education (AHE) diplomas. A solution to this is a university bridging programme. Such a programme was analysed as to whether it prepares different cohorts of students effectively for undergraduate programmes, that is, those who have just missed the entry qualification but are coming from Advanced level qualifications, the other coming from nontraditional entry routes. Data from one academic year were anonymised and analysed. Results indicated that students coming from courses designed to widen participation scored significantly lower on the programme than those coming from Advanced level awards of any subject. This indicates that vocational and returning-to-education qualifications fail to prepare students for academia due to being focussed on the outcome, rather than the objective, of learning. The study also questioned entry tariff point equivalency. Those with higher points and nontraditional qualifications performed worse, suggesting that entry points cannot be used prognostically. Tariff points are a system to translate traditional grading systems into a numerical form which then allows for easy comparison between students. Varying qualifications have differing grading systems, and tariff points are used to enable the conversion of these grading systems to a universal one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two years, four research-intensive universities in the UK have appointed senior academic leaders from academic development backgrounds, a new phenomenon in this sector of UK higher education that may suggest a changing pattern. This study interviewed these four leaders to explore what the appointment means for their academic identity. The interviewees identified internal and external drivers for change and noted their backgrounds as academic developers made their routes into these senior roles different from their peers. For this reason, their 'academic credibility' was critical in order to implement culture change effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]