The literature review is arguably the place in a thesis where doctoral authors convincingly engage with theory and theoretical perspectives underlying their research, situating their own contribution to knowledge in established and ongoing dialogues in the field. One difficulty doctoral candidates encounter in their learning to be researchers is…

Most work on writing and publication processes focuses on writing support for undergraduates or postgraduates writing in the disciplines, while work on academic identities frequently considers development as a university teacher. This essay consider the reviewing process for academics who write, whether doctoral students, researchers, teachers or…

Much research into postgraduate student learning focuses on generic issues of research development. Early work, reported here, uses threshold concept theories and theories of conceptual threshold crossing to focus on the learning and supervisory support of postgraduates researching in the fields of literature and art. This paper is based on…

Traditionally, supervisors work with students on an individual basis and postgraduate development programmes are run on site. However, with increasing numbers of part-time and international students, supervisory relationships are likely to be conducted at a distance as students study alongside other commitments. Isolation can often be a key…

Most studies on metalearning and metacognition have focused on undergraduates where reflective and active awareness of learning practices and achievements, or metalearning, has been seen to be useful, indeed essential for the learning achievement of undergraduates (Biggs et al., 2001; Veenman & Verheig, 2003). This paper reports on the latest…

Describes action research conducted at two universities in the United Kingdom to discover how students learn in different disciplines. Results of questionnaires and focus group interviews are presented that discuss how learning takes place; different learning outcome demands of different disciplines; and differences in knowledge structures,…

Reports three activities undertaken with students enrolled in a Master of International Business Studies in Britain and how each contributed to students' success or otherwise: use of a CD-ROM in development of academic English language skills; identification of students' reflections influencing their success as research students; and use of focus…