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There is an increasing focus on collecting more diverse demographic data from research participants but standard methodological approaches still hinder such efforts. This paper addresses the need for methodological improvements by advocating for the inclusion of self-written diversity statements in demographic surveys as a form of epistemic justice. Using examples from a large qualitative research study, I demonstrate the depth and richness of data that can be obtained through self-written diversity statements. In particular, I highlight the benefits of combining open-ended demographic questions and self-written diversity statements into holistic introductory stories to help capture the complexity of participants' intersectional identities. Therefore, I argue that using such an approach gives participants the agency to choose how they are represented in research.

This paper reports a study coauthored with second-year undergraduate students that examines student experiences of undertaking real-life, client-set marketing assessments with an equality and inclusion remit. Students were set a marketing assessment with an explicit social justice focus, thereby prompting them to reflect on their own backgrounds and unconscious biases whilst addressing issues of societal injustice. This study explores the impact on students of closely engaging with this material and how the assessment, which involved them interviewing experts and developing actionable recommendations, altered their views and career plans. Data were generated via focus groups with students who undertook the assessment, supplemented by some alumni and client interviews. The findings are presented as a "3A" framework of Awareness, Application, and Action: first, the assessment raised "Awareness" of broader societal issues and fostered transformation in terms of personal views; second, students developed core skills and networks they could "Apply" in their future careers; and third, "Action" describes the way students felt empowered to make a positive difference to their client and wider society. The 3A model provides simple design principles that educators could implement if they want to introduce transformational experiences based on social justice issues into the marketing curriculum.

Through historically oriented critical discourse analysis this article considers how the messages regarding the purpose of higher education, as presented in prospectuses of four case study institutions, have been impacted by massification and marketisation in England between 1977 and 2018. The prospectuses of four higher education institutions of different status were analysed to trace how discourses relating to the value of an undergraduate degree could be identified in the prospectuses. The findings suggest that while the prospectuses presented multiple rationales as to why students should undertake degrees, there was a significant increase in focus on graduate transitions to employment and a parallel hollowing-out of information relating to course content. The study found that over the period the vocabularies drawn on to present the value of a degree have become homogenised, yet the rationales given for undertaking tertiary study became more numerous and complex, making diversity of institutional offers difficult for prospective students to differentiate.

An objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) has been recognised as a reliable but workload-intensive assessment method across health sciences studies. Though a variety of digital marking tools have been employed to improve marking and feedback provision for OSCEs, many of these require specialist software or maintenance. This pilot study examines the development and trialling of Microsoft Forms as a marking and feedback instrument for an OSCE within a Sport and Exercise Therapy module. This study aims to assess whether the use of a non-specialist digital tool, such as Microsoft Forms, might be able overcome limitations in current assessment procedures and ultimately provide a more effective method for marking and feedback provision for an OSCE. Results from OSCE examiners (N = 8) and students (N = 30) who participated in the pilot indicate that Microsoft Forms does have the potential to provide a more effective experience for examiners and ultimately improve upon feedback provision for students when compared with a paper-based marking tool. However, concerns around the form's ease-of-use may ultimately influence its adoption as a marking instrument above current paper-based methods.

This paper sets out the importance of teaching contextualized understandings of value within different disciplinary contexts in order to enhance employability and to foster greater levels of engagement with enterprise and entrepreneurship education. Key research has recognised the broader benefits of enterprise and entrepreneurship education, including that of developing graduate employability. Yet enterprise and entrepreneurship may not feel comfortable or relevant to students (Enterprise Educators UK (EEUK), 2012; Henry, 2013). It has been identified that students can better relate to enterprise and entrepreneurship when it is contextualised in professions, sectors and communities of practice, moving away from a focus on venture creation and start up (Gibb, 2005). We argue that taking an approach which is explicitly based on value creation is a crucial driver of student engagement with enterprise and entrepreneurship education. This needs to be based in students' individual values, embedded in their disciplines, and related to the communities of practice which as graduates they will go on to be part of. When grounded in the creation of value at an individual, disciplinary, and societal level, enterprise and entrepreneurship education can appeal to a wider constituency of students. In this paper, we discuss how value creation is understood in three diverse academic disciplines, Business, Biomedical Science and Music. Building on key research and drawing on our extensive practice as educators, we argue that explicitly foregrounding understandings of value within our different disciplinary contexts and developing appropriately contextualized, experiential forms of value creation-based pedagogy, is key to student engagement and enhances graduate employability. [Note: The page range (1-20) shown on the PDF is incorrect. The correct page range is 1-15, 17-20.]

The practice of Corrective Feedback (CF), which is situated within a Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Paradigm, is currently positioned towards an accuracy-orientated delivery based on native speaker norms. This is despite the recognition in different areas of linguistic research that there is considerable variation in the way that English is spoken around the world. This paper argues that the epistemological assumptions and methodological approaches to investigate CF within an SLA paradigm have various underlying weaknesses that undermine research findings. These findings purport to provide support for an accuracy-orientated CF in the English classroom. However, it is suggested in this paper that a meaning-orientated CF would be more reflective and beneficial for students given the transformative changes that have occurred to English over the past 30 years. This perspective is discussed in relation to one teacher's approach to CF who participated in a larger project which examined CF conducted in a British-Sino University.

This paper seeks to illuminate new perspectives on the concept of crisis in globalised higher education (HE) by focusing on knowledge generated by doctoral research. Doctoral research is a significant part of research and knowledge building in HE, particularly in science, and doctoral students contribute to the research capacity and knowledge building of institutions. This source of knowledge offers alternative perspectives on crisis in HE, providing a rich source of research which is often under-consulted. Using the British Library's digital repository EThOS, a collection of around 637,000 doctoral studies carried out in British universities, the research harnesses Generative Artificial Intelligence approaches in order to analyse the ways in which crisis is defined and constructed in doctoral research since 2000. Through a pilot study using a prototype of a new AI tool, the paper offers both conceptual and methodological insights into constructions of crisis in this under-used field of research.

This paper presents a reliable tool for measuring transformative learning in undergraduate social work education, the Social Work Transformation Survey (SWTS). The SWTS was developed from a qualitative theoretical model and translated into quantitative scales. The study collected data from 248 undergraduate students from eight countries who participated in a transnational project using creative journaling to facilitate transformative learning. Structural equation modelling was used to validate the internal structure of the SWTS. We then confirmed the measures' reliability, and subsequently the effectiveness of creative journaling practices as a pedagogy for facilitating transformative learning in social work students. This paper highlights the potential of combining qualitative and quantitative research approaches to develop educational evaluation tools for higher education settings and presents one specific measure for transformative learning.

This paper explores the lived experience of university students with dyslexia, focusing on identity and self-esteem. The qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with five students with dyslexia and discussions with learning support tutors at four UK universities. Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed the impact of dyslexia's stigma on students' academic self-concept and self-efficacy in their studies, including how students manage stigma through decisions on when and with whom to declare dyslexia: some even rejected study support. Concealing dyslexia led to identity conflict and low self-esteem, compounding students' already low academic self-concept, particularly when dyslexia had been unrecognised through school. The study highlights significant academic, practical and identity consequences for students who hide dyslexia from their peers, subject lecturers or study support. The conclusions outline priorities to lessen dyslexia's stigma at university, increase student agency in their support and open dialogue on dyslexia, particularly important between students with dyslexia and subject lecturers. By exploring dyslexia's identity impacts and disclosure, this paper contributes to wider conversations on increasing the representation, achievement and retention of students with dyslexia.

Charities are facing a crisis in recruiting board trustees. Additionally, boards have been criticised for lacking diversity and being unrepresentative of society. The purpose of this paper is to propose a solution to the problem of trustee recruitment, by considering university business students as trustees. Through an analysis of advertised trustee jobs, the proposal is evaluated against degree subject benchmark statements. The findings identify some key person characteristics specified by charities when recruiting trustees. The generic criteria could be met by most students and many of the personal skills are developed by students while at university. However, to address some of the experience criteria, may require additional training and some yielding by charities. The paper offers originality in its proposition of appointing university business students as trustees and in its approach to examining the feasibility of that proposition through an analysis of trustee jobs.

This paper introduces a project to develop a digital academic writing tool at Leeds Beckett University (LBU). Essay X-ray is an interactive online tool designed to help students get to grips with the structure and style of academic writing and was developed using the Articulate Storyline 360 platform. The aim was to expand LBU's academic skills support for students tasked with essay assignments, especially at Level 4 (first year, undergraduate), enabling independent learning using a self-paced format available open access and 24/7. This would complement existing academic skills provision (one-to-ones, workshops, drop-ins, static online resources), with the interactive element facilitating active, hands-on learning (Lumpkin, Achen and Dodd, 2015). Following a successful development, review and rollout process, the utility of Essay X-ray as an independent learning tool but also as a classroom resource was reported by students and colleagues. Tentative talks about additional versions (Dissertation X-ray, Report X-ray) have taken place, indicating its potential for rollout to other subject areas and assessment types. Finally, in-house digital academic skills tools like Essay X-ray are posited as a potential response to the recent upsurge in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools. Essay X-ray requires users to think critically about essay structure, style and content to create their own original pieces of writing, thus responding to questions about the maintenance of academic integrity in a digital world. These features enable users to develop their essay writing skills, in contrast to passive engagement with a GenAI programme that merely writes an answer for them.

This article explores the extent to which students of different ethnicities, (dis)abilities, sexes, POLAR groups, and academic abilities undertake Year in Industry (YINI) placements and realise post-placement academic improvements, in comparison with non-YINI students. The benefits of work placements on student employability and graduate prospects are well-documented but less is known about which student groups gain access to placements. The study analyses secondary data relating to the sex, ethnicity, disability, POLAR group, grades, and degree classifications of 31,159 undergraduates graduating from a UK Russell Group university between 2016 and 2023, representing the largest study of its kind to date. The study found that students completing YINI programmes are significantly more likely to achieve first class (70.1% YINI, 28.5% non-YINI) and good degrees (97.7% YINI, 83.6% non-YINI). Importantly, the study found that YINI completion narrows awarding gaps found in the non-YINI population in relation to sex, disability, ethnicity, and POLAR group. The potential gains are greatest for male students, students with disabilities, Asian, Black and mixed ethnicity students, and students from low POLAR groups. However, access to placements is not proportionately distributed. Female students, students with disabilities, students from all ethnic minority groups and those of unknown ethnicity, and students from low POLAR groups are under-represented within the YINI population, suggesting placement access gaps in relation to sex, disability, ethnicity, and POLAR group. The paper concludes with strategies to encourage YINI participation amongst diverse student groups and calls for further research into lived experiences of YINI and non-YINI students.

This paper discusses the implementation of exemplar essays within an undergraduate first-year diagnostic radiography module to encourage active learning and the development of academic literacies. Nine essays ([approximately]400 words each) were provided over six sessions, using lecturer-guided discussion to explore the academic virtues and pitfalls demonstrated alongside assessment criteria. Exemplars were based upon a fictitious baking profession to illicit student interest and eliminate the risk of imitation or plagiarism. The quality of essays varied, with overt examples of common mistakes in spelling, essay structure and selection of appropriate literature. Upon completion of the sessions, and prior to summative assessment, students were surveyed with regard to their opinion of the teaching intervention. Feedback was obtained from 65% of the cohort (n=31/48), who reported an improvement in essay writing confidence. Students found the marking of the essays in class useful and the baking analogy was well received. Not all students found the classroom activities engaging though, with some wishing greater interactivity due to boredom and repetition. Furthermore, there was a slight reduction in pass rates and average marks across the cohort when compared to the previous module delivery. Nevertheless, there was a substantial increase in students attaining marks of 80% or more. This study highlights exemplar essays as a low-tech, low-cost option to increase assessment literacy but accepts the wide diversity in student learning preferences and experience. The efficacy of exemplar essays cannot be guaranteed, and teaching staff must be cognisant of individual student learning needs.

The rise in technology-rich learning environments is reflective of a global trend in higher education (HE), recently accelerated because of necessary digital teaching and assessment practices embraced during the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative study facilitated through focus groups and an interview explores the teaching and learning experiences of tertiary level students in the COVID-19 era. Data from 24 students based within a UK Higher Education Institution highlights how an expanded digital environment can optimise conditions for some students to independently practise and apply what they are learning at their own pace. Digitally enhanced opportunities to interact with teaching staff and learning resources also increased the options for these students to experience themselves as competent members of the HE community. This was particularly relevant for first-year students new to the processes and practices of tertiary education. In contrast, third year students with more experience of HE appeared less reliant on the provision of online learning resources. Participants also identified some potential problems associated with the enhanced flexibility of online teaching and learning resources in relation to students' ability to be self-regulated. This paper rationalises the need for educators and educational and learning developers who teach and undertake scholarship in teaching and learning to consider the sociocultural context of the student and their learning environment when designing teaching activities and curricula. The data presented here highlight the need for a clearly defined framework to underpin the integration of digital technologies with on-campus activities.

Drawing from the tensions within non-representational and human practice perspectives on affect, this paper continues the task of re-conceptualising academic-hlevel resistance in the context of UK higher education. Such re-conceptualisation is underpinned by the belief that illustrating the breadth of resistant possibility within and between universities can assist in the development of action against the competitive and for-profit imperatives currently overwhelming this educational sphere. Indeed, while resistance research is increasingly interested in the (dis)connections between overt and "everyday" (Scott, 1985) forms of action (e.g. Contu, 2008; Zembylas, 2019), HE researchers have paid little attention to the latter. Consequently, academic-level resistance remains normatively portrayed as exceptional, novel and less influential than that it rejects. For the sake of contributing a counternarrative, this paper employs a diffractive methodology to examine the affective roles of emotion, meaning making practices and pre-personal factors. By speculating how academic-level resistance derives from not only consciously undertaken cost-benefit analyses but from the entanglement of material and non-material elements, this discussion emphasises the notion of "becoming" and so problematises reductive binaries of overt/covert, high-cost/low-cost, resister/complier. Irrespective of the resounding difficulties that accompany efforts to exploit the affective dimensions of resistance, this emphasis nevertheless situates possibility at the heart of UK higher education and the actions pushing against its neoliberal form.

When transitioning from a familiar learning culture to a United Kingdom higher education (HE) culture, international students face a number of academic, cultural, and linguistic challenges. This paper considers the obstacles that international students experience and critically analyzes the use of social media to aid the academic transition of a group of postgraduate international students. Specifically, it analyzed the use of Yammer to support peer collaboration and communication to enhance academic development of a group of Southeast Asian international students undertaking an MA at a UK university in the North of England. The student feedback suggested that social support networks were important for academic engagement and development. This paper recommends more training on the affordances of Yammer, additional online tutor presence, and more scaffolded activities.

There is a need for improved skills development within the UK's Higher Education Institutions (HEI) stemming from the disconnect between the expectations of employers of the skills graduates have and the skills graduates have gained during their degree. It is well-known now that there is a clear skills gap. The present study aims to explore the effect of graduates and students' perception of skills development in HEI in the UK. A total of 420 participants completed an online survey to explore their perception as well as their confidence of skills development by rating each skill on a Likert scale. The paper discusses the results in light of pedagogical strategies developed to teach soft skills in HE. The paper concludes with recommendations for teaching practice.

Academic developers work with colleagues from every discipline to facilitate learning about teaching, learning and assessment. Boud and Brew (2013) called for academic development to be significantly 'closer to everyday practice' while also recognising development involves extending notions of what 'practice' is. Moreover, Loads and Campbell (2015) called for greater authenticity of academic development: questioning and challenging custom and practice within disciplines in higher education. So how do academic developers, tasked with redeveloping their mandatory Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP), create an authentic and practical programme? Especially one that extends the scope of teaching practice, transforms curricula and assessment and meets strategic objectives around developing student literacies, graduate attributes and strengthening engagement in continuing professional development (University of Glasgow, 2015, 2021). This good practice example showcases the curricula design process of redesigning a cross-institutional PGCAP programme at a UK university, to one that has a strong focus on everyday academic practice, while also adopting authentic learning activities and practical assessments to unlock the creative pedagogical potential of early career academics, and build their confidence. The aim of the redesigned curricula being to encourage collaboration across disciplines, reflection, and learning beyond 'normal' and customary practices within disciplines. This paper also discusses the results of a mixed methods survey of academic colleagues (as students) studying the PGCAP, exploring their perceptions of the programme's authenticity, its practicality, as well as the value of learning activities and assessments and, importantly, the impact on their practice. In terms of implications for practice, this paper encourages readers to consider how they could develop their own curriculum, introduce greater authenticity, and move away from deficit models of academic development.

This paper investigates the author's classroom practice of implementing an interpretive perspective on intercultural language teaching and learning in two online intercultural workshops on the topic of face masks designed and delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reflexively examines two critical incidents in classroom practice in terms of what these incidents reveal about the challenges faced by pre-service teachers in operationalizing an interpretive stance towards intercultural language teaching and learning in practice. Based on the epistemology of reflective practice, this self-study seeks to produce knowledge-of-practice by framing the author's practical knowledge as language teacher in relation to theories of intercultural language teaching. Classroom discourse analysis of teaching and learning sequencies provides an emic lens on the enactment of an interpretive perspective on intercultural language teaching at the micro level in terms of two basic aspects of pedagogical practice: 1) Embedding interpretation in learning design and 2) Mediating learners' interpretations in classroom interaction. The findings reveal that this author's attempts to personalise intercultural language learning and elicit meaningful reflections from students were constrained by the limited semiotic richness of the material presented and the difficulty of going beyond a superficial interactional format to provide effective scaffolding and successfully realize a dialogic stance towards knowledge building. The paper considers the implications of these challenges for pre-service teacher education and offers suggestions for supporting teachers hoping to teach interculturally.

This paper deals with the role of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) among staff on teaching-only contracts in UK higher education, particularly in contrast with the activities of research-active staff. Drawing on the results of a quantitative study carried out during the summer of 2021 among modern foreign language teachers in 64 UK universities, the questions of the status and purpose of SoTL are addressed. The results of the survey show that, beyond the traditional two-tier division of academic labour based on the research vs. scholarship dichotomy, a third group of academic staff with no research or SoTL responsibilities has emerged in recent years. The paper concludes with recommendations to review the existing divisions between staff on research, SoTL and teaching-only contracts in order to create a more inclusive academic environment where individuals in different types of academic posts can fulfil their scholarly potential.

Cheating behaviors have been construed as a continuing and somewhat vexing issue for academic institutions as they increasingly conduct educational processes online and impose metrics on instructional evaluation. Research, development, and implementation initiatives on cheating detection have gained new dimensions in the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) applications; they have also engendered special challenges in terms of their social, ethical, and cultural implications. An assortment of commercial cheating-detection systems have been injected into educational contexts with little input on the part of relevant stakeholders. This paper expands several specific cases of how systems for the detection of cheating have recently been implemented in higher education institutions in the US and UK. It investigates how such vehicles as wearable technologies, eye scanning, and keystroke capturing are being used to collect the data used for anti-cheating initiatives, often involving systems that have not gone through rigorous testing and evaluation for their validity and potential educational impacts. The paper discusses accountability- and policy-related issues concerning the outsourcing of cheating detection in institutional settings in the light of these emerging technological practices as well as student resistance against the systems involved. The cheating-detection practices can place students in a disempowered, asymmetrical position that is often at substantial variance with their cultural backgrounds.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of the scholarly literature between 2016 and 2023 on the impact of classroom technology on higher education instructors' assessment practices through the lens of the assessment design in a digital world framework (Bearman et al., 2022). Specifically, the paper focuses on (a) describing the assessment design in a digital world framework, (b) identifying the scope and breadth of the literature relating to technology-integrated assessment, and (c) highlighting any gaps between the Bearman et al. model and the literature. This paper marks an important step in extending our understanding of the factors influencing instructors who integrate technology into their assessment practice and promoting ethical and equitable approaches to technology-integrated assessment in higher education.

This paper discusses the experience of four refugee and asylum seekers seeking access to Higher Education. The methodological framework intersects applied ethnopoetic analysis and poetic inquiry, underpinned by Freirean, Translanguaging dialogue. The approach foregrounds participants' voices to address a structural refusal to recognise the repertoires of multilingual marginalised participants. The paper deals with two types of vulnerability: vulnerability imposed on participants and vulnerability practiced by the researcher. A practice of vulnerability disrupts traditional power dynamics through 'an attitude of not knowing, discovery, critical self-dialogue' with an emphasis on co-creation.

This paper explores the different epistemologies that define the Professional Doctorate, paying close attention to how Postgraduate Researchers (PGRs) doing a Professional Doctorate reconcile academic and professional knowledge. Through a narrative exploration of the literature published since the first UK Professional Doctorates were awarded in 2000, the paper situates the Professional Doctorate within the confluence of the workplace, the profession and the university. From this stance, the paper explores distinct knowledge terrains between knowledge generated by Professional Doctorates in the context of application and knowledge generated in the context of disciplinary laws applied to sites of practice. The purpose of this discussion is to understand if, how and to what extent Professional Doctorates reconcile competing knowledge terrains. This study draws towards two broad conclusions. The first conclusion suggests that in the literature identified, the distinction between academic and professional epistemologies has little resonance. Instead of the dichotomous knowledge generated in the context of practice in contrast to knowledge generated in the context of disciplinary laws, Professional Doctorates were ensconced within several competing epistemologies. The literature identified focuses on impact and identity, concepts the study employs as lenses to guide a discussion. The paper thus views the process of reconciliation first through the lens of impact and then through the lens of identity. The investigation then draws a second conclusion: The epistemic landscape occupied by the Professional Doctorate is involved in a reconciliation of more significance that the putative academic and professional binary. The paper is compelled towards a diffractive re-reading of this academic-professional knowledge tension. This new reading allows a full recognition of both difference and mutual entanglement between knowledge generated in the context of practice and knowledge generated in the context of disciplinary laws.

The aim of this paper is to foreground network analysis as a statistical lens through which higher education institutions can articulate their own process of striving for teaching excellence, and how it is constituted in their own contexts. The paper offers an approach to analysis that extends the frontiers of methodologies in 'measurement' of teaching excellence; one that responds to the shortcomings of the current methodologies, critiqued for being reductive, performative, alienating, and promoting closure and convergence in how they assess teaching excellence. We review epistemological and methodological shifts in conceptualising teaching excellence and measurement that are required to work with our methodology, as well as provide statistical details, for anyone who wishes to reproduce our profiled examples. We thus build in the paper a link between the theory of (teaching) excellence and practice (of measurement) and champion a theory-based approach to the methodology of educational metrics.

This paper argues that a data-driven, niche-focused approach to strategy development will assist Higher Education Institutions to direct their financial resources to greater effect by providing a more tailored service to students, therefore, increasing student satisfaction and creating brand loyalty. This approach will give institutions greater stability and prosperity in a constantly changing market. It is, however, the cultural risks which remain the biggest barrier to trying this approach in the UK and this paper aims to open the debate.

Inequalities related to racial identity are consistently reported across social institutions, not least education, and sport. These inequalities consistently challenge 'post-race' narratives that rationalise racism down to individual prejudices and poor decision-making. This paper presents part of the findings from a wider a twelve-month research project commissioned by British University and Colleges Sport (BUCS) to explore race equality. This wider research privileged the voices of non-White students and staff in an exploration of race and equality in British UK university sport. 'Non-white' was chosen as a race identifier to focus on Whiteness, the normalised, raceless power that reproduces itself both knowingly and unknowingly, to ensure racial 'others' remain subordinate. This paper presents the findings of the student voices. In this study a research team of academic and student researchers explored the experiences of 38 students across five universities. Generating case studies from each university, the data was analysed from an Intersectional and Critical Race Theory perspective. Two core themes relating to negotiating Whiteness were developed from the data analysis which reflected experiences of university sport as predominantly White spaces; 'Play by the Rules' and 'Keep You Guessing'. Racial abuse was subtle, camouflaged in comments and actions that happened momentarily and hence were implausible to capture and evidence. For incidents to be addressed, evidence had to meet a 'beyond doubt' standard. Students were required to consciously negotiate racial bias and abuse to ensure they did not provide a justification for abuse. Navigating racialisation and stereotypes, plus White denial, was additional emotional labour for students. This mechanism of silencing the victim served to normalise racism for both the abused and perpetrator. The conclusion explores potential ways of disrupting these mechanisms of Whiteness in placing students' welfare at the heart of university sport.

This paper provides an overview of UK Arabic language teaching in supplementary and mainstream schools from available research papers and provides a synopsis of recent developments in supporting Arabic teaching at school level and pathways to Higher Education. The largest study cited is the 2016 research collaboration between the British Council, the Universities of Leeds, Edinburgh, Goldsmiths, and London, and Alcantara Communications [Snowden et al. (2016. "Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language in the UK -- Strand 1 Research: How Arabic is Being Taught in Schools." London: British Council)], exploring current teaching techniques, teachers' perceptions of diglossia and variation in Arabic, and these are incorporated when designing teaching activities and materials. With surveys, interviews and lesson observations, Snowden et al. show teachers believe in the importance of communication as a learning aim and are familiar with the communicative approach but many base learning activities on traditional writing tasks and less on listening and speaking. It shows that Arabic diglossia remains a challenge with teachers stating that learning dialects is important, yet they struggle to find appropriate approaches and materials for it. This paper presents challenges faced by Arabic teachers including foundational teacher training, continuous professional development and material design, concluding with recent developments in supporting teaching Arabic as a community language and recommendations for addressing current challenges.

In the UK, all doctoral programmes are expected to include some form of periodic progression assessment, with individual institutions having autonomy to design and implement their own structures. Yet, despite the potential significance of this assessment to individual doctoral journeys, the design of progression assessment processes has previously received very limited attention. This paper reports on a study which investigated doctoral students' experiences of progression assessment at one UK university, where the process involved both written and oral components. Utilising the concept of assessment for learning to support the analysis of narrative interviews with six doctoral students studying in the social sciences and humanities, the paper considers the pedagogic potential of doctoral progression assessment. The findings of the study indicated that the students perceived the dialogic aspects of the assessment to have the most significant potential for supporting learning and understanding, particularly where invitational, reflective, coaching format questions were utilised. The potential of assessment dialogue to present opportunities for reframing and disrupting thinking is explored, as well as the significance of this assessment in supporting autonomy, permission and motivation. The paper advocates careful consideration of both assessment design and practice in relation to these aspects.

According to the UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE), there has been a 36.5% rise in reported cases of work-related stress between 2018/19 and 2019/20, to over 822,000 individual cases. Europe stress-related absence was second only to musculoskeletal disorders, with estimated work-related stress costing European companies 20 billion euros per year and accounted for nearly 60% of lost working days. This paper focuses on the under-researched area of stress among middle leaders in education. While it is widely reported that teachers face high levels of stress, as a result of organisational pressures, there is a paucity of research on middle leaders. This paper considers whether there will be a significant negative relationship between self-reported levels of resilience and self-reported levels of stress amongst 61 middle leaders. The two sets of data were subjected to cross-correlational quantitative analysis to establish the strength of the relationships between each of the six dimensions of resilience on perceived stress. Among the findings, a key result was that the question in the title was answered, namely that high resilience results in low stress in middle leaders in education. However, it was more nuanced than this and there were factors such as levels of peer support and an individual's perception of their future which did contribute to a reduction in perceived levels of stress. The findings suggest that senior leaders in education have a greater impact on middle leaders' levels of resilience and perceived levels of stress than they may think.

In this paper, we take an ecological view of children's development to argue that preventive interventions should move beyond separating the microsystems of school and home to create new intergenerational spaces for nurturing mental wellbeing. Using the 5A's theory of creativity, we draw upon our experiences of creative writing to explore how intergenerational spaces that facilitate co-creating creative writing between parents and carers and their children as actors develop reflective functioning, secure attachment and promote positive mental health. This original idea is explored further with experts from diverse landscapes of practice through a World Café and focus group discussion. Thematic analysis of these discussions conceptualises intergenerational spaces as complex, contradictory and dynamic: addressing potential barriers to actor participation caused by the microsystems of school and home; creating emotional and physical security; being underpinned by pedagogical freedom and structure; involving the writing of different artefacts for competing audiences. For those, including schools, looking beyond performativity and neoliberalism to promote positive mental health in more holistic ways, this paper offers a useful starting point for thinking about what intergenerational spaces that facilitate co-creating creative writing might look like.

This paper reflects on the delivery of Professional Doctorate programmes from a sample of educational (EdD) and sustainable built environment (DSBE) practitioners at a Welsh University in the United Kingdom (UK). The paper explores the 'learner journey' of a sample of Professional Doctorate students as they navigate their studies during COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative approach was adopted, and semi-structured questionnaires were used to collect data from students on the EdD and DSBE pathways. A thematic analysis was conducted, and the data presented explored how students have navigated their respective pathways and change projects across various modules, during their 'learning journey' and how successful they perceive that journey to be, in relation to a range of factors. The findings from this paper provide a unique insight into the experiences of Professional Doctorate students during a period of significant upheaval. Recommendations are provided for supervisors of Professional Doctorates, Higher Education Managers, as well as Policy Makers in supporting Professional Doctorate students during the studies. Best practice is highlighted with regard to practice-based approaches and demonstrates the differences across two academic disciplines. The use of agile digital and online learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic further suggests an ongoing model for leadership in Higher Education.