In nations facing austerity measures, students risk diminished quality in their higher education experiences. Universities function increasingly like corporations as they struggle to compensate for budget shortfalls caused by declining public support. As a result, students become positioned as consumers of a private commodity that exists to…

The use of screencasts as an instructional technology is increasing rapidly in higher education. While there appears to be a consensus around students' satisfaction with the provision of technology-enhanced tools, there is limited evidence revolving around their impact in terms of knowledge acquisition. Moreover, the reasons why students…

Much has been written about student and faculty opinions on academic integrity in testing. Currently, concerns appear to focus more narrowly on online testing, generally based on anecdotal assumptions that online students are more likely to engage in academic dishonesty in testing than students in traditional on-campus courses. To address such…

This article revisits the notion that to facilitate quality learning requires teachers in higher education to have pedagogical content knowledge. It constructs pedagogical content knowledge as a teaching and learning space that brings content and pedagogy together. On the content knowledge side, it suggests that threshold concepts, akin to a…

There are many pressures on academics to "satisfy" students' needs for feedback, not least the inclusion of questions about feedback. Many have commentated on the lack of student engagement with summative feedback while most believe that feedback is necessary to improve individual student performance. Several have looked at a range…

Students' experience of higher education comprises not only their academic studies but also their extracurricular activities. This article reports on the findings from a mixed-methods research project, exploring in detail the nature and value of extracurricular activity engagement and the significance of institutional schemes encouraging…

Educators have integrated instructor-produced audio files in a variety of settings and environments for purposes such as content presentation, lecture reviews, student feedback, and so forth. Few instructors, however, require students to produce audio files and share them with peers. The purpose of this study was to obtain empirical data on…

In this article, the impact of assessment tasks on examination result (measured by examination grades) is investigated. Although many describe the advantages of electronic assessment tasks, few studies have been undertaken which compare a traditional approach using a classical examination with a new approach using assessment tasks. The main…

This article addresses a question for those seeking to deepen engagement with nontraditional students for strategies of widening participation in the higher education setting. The question is as follows: how can the academic subject be made more "open" to what the student (and therefore also the nontraditional student) can bring to it?…

Although feedback has a great potential for learning, students do not always make use of this potential. This article therefore reviews research literature on students' use of feedback in higher education. This is done in order to find answers as to why some students do not use the feedback they receive and which factors are important in…

This article presents the findings of an empirical study that examined the learning value of a novel group assessment activity aimed at promoting first-year students' development of basic self-directed learning skills required for university study. A content quiz group learning assignment was designed to enhance students' capacity to ask…

Nowadays, teaching and learning have been shifted from traditional classrooms to technology-supported learning environment. By offering a convenient, efficient and financially affordable information technology learning environment, mobile learning is a topic that is of considerable interest for education audiences owing to the pervasive nature of…

The study looks at issues around the power of the hidden curriculum of assessment and its effects on student behaviour. The assessment regime at school level has an impact on study approaches at university level, and if we are to help students to make the transition from school to university, then it is important that we understand the beliefs and…

Assessment is acknowledged as a central motivator for learning, as being perhaps the most difficult and arduous task for tutors, and also, a defining component of institutional quality, curriculum, courses and degrees. Therefore, given this, surely our understanding of terms, processes and their relationships, which reveal our knowledge of…

The increase in popularity of group work in higher education has been accompanied by an increase in the frequency of reports of students not equally contributing to work within the groups. Referred to as "free-riders", the effect of this behaviour on other students can make group work an unpleasant experience for some. Of most frustration to…