Roughly 20 per cent of all students in higher education have sustained clinically significant head injuries during childhood or adolescence. Although these injuries typically do not seem to lead to any long-term intellectual deficits, little is known about their possible impact upon the students' academic attainment. Nevertheless, many…

Organisational change in UK higher education has resulted in control of the student learning environment passing from specific disciplines such as psychology to central management teams and university-wide course frameworks. This poses the general question of how disciplines can exert influence upon broad pedagogic issues, when their control…

The introduction of modular schemes and a semesterised academic year are amongst the most fundamental changes ever to occur in UK higher education. There is, however, a notable lack of pedagogic research evidence on the effects upon student learning of course frameworks and the temporal structure of large-scale learning units. In the absence of…

This article describes the development of assessment criteria for specific aspects of examination answers and coursework essays in psychology. The criteria specified the standards expected for seven aspects of students' work: addressing the question, covering the area, understanding the material, evaluating the material, developing arguments,…

Since the report of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher education (1997) on university teaching in the UK, there has been increasing emphasis on the professionalization of university teaching. Following the expansion of higher education, and widening student diversity there is even more of a need for teachers to teach well. Pedagogical…

The value of increasing student input to learning opportunity design issues was explored through an action research project. In response to student-identified learning needs, a learning session on a first-year undergraduate research methods module was re-designed. The learning outcomes of two parallel student groups (one experiencing the original…

This paper considers some of the problems inherent in teaching qualitative research methods within psychology. It stresses the use of a reflective approach to course design that aims to "emancipate" students in their own study and research, as well as equipping them with a combination of practical and theoretical skills. In addition to a brief…

Previous research has shown that university students, when asked to rank different methods of learning and assessment tend to rate student presentations unfavorably. There are though, sound reasons for constructing learning situations around student presentations, resulting in presentations being an integral part of our psychology degree over the…

Providing structured work experience for undergraduate psychology students is seen by many authors, employers and students as academically desirable and the Dearing Report (1997) indicates that work experience is something which all undergraduates should undertake. It is a problem for psychology degree course administrators to provide relevant…

The aim of this action research study was to identify learning outcomes for assessing work-related transferable skills during undergraduate psychology sandwich year placements as part of an ongoing cycle of development of the placement. The merits of assessing such skills are considered in relation to the role of universities in preparing…