Self-belief is argued here to be a key aspect of employability development that has been largely under conceptualisation in terms of what the construct may mean and how it may be developed through higher education (HE) study. This paper proposes three fundamental beliefs that need to be fostered in order to develop student self-belief: (1) that…

This article suggests that student engagement research is not often investigated critically. It attempts to change this. After briefly outlining a conceptual framework for student engagement, it explores three critical questions about it. First, it asks whether in trying to be all things in teaching and learning, student engagement focuses too…

In this paper, I draw attention to a lively and accessible way of helping academics to make sense of their practice as teachers. First, I define "collaborative close reading" and "teaching texts". Then I invite the reader to eavesdrop on three (lightly fictionalised) reading sessions. Finally, I suggest some guidelines for…

This study aims to explore Chinese international students' academic and personal transformation under the influences of formal education in schools and informal education outside of the classroom. A qualitative inquiry using in-depth, semi-structured interviews was employed with eight senior undergraduate Chinese international students attending…

Investigations of whether students taking undergraduate work placements show greater academic improvement than those who do not have shown inconsistent results. In most studies, sample sizes have been relatively small and few studies have taken into account pre-existing student differences. Here data from over 6000 students at one university over…

Evidence regarding the impact of teachers' instructional development on student learning in higher education is scarce. In this study, we investigate the impact of an instructional development program for beginning university teachers on students' learning outcomes. We also explore whether this impact is dependent on class size and student level.…

This study investigates differences in academic engagement and retention between first-generation and non-first-generation undergraduate students. Utilizing the Student Experience in the Research University survey of 1864 first-year students at a large, public research university located in the United States, this study finds that first-generation…

There are substantial reports on working-class student non-completion and the challenges of engaging or not with the teaching in higher education. The students in our study were all successful at university but the different universities provided different types of experiences for their respective students. In this paper we focus on the pedagogic…

Academics' development as teachers is traditionally considered independently from their development in other aspects of their work, or from their development as an academic holistically. Through the analysis of two previous phenomenographic studies of academics' experiences of: (1) their growth and development as an academic holistically; and (2)…

Central in this study is the relationship between the pedagogical approach and generic skill development in the first 10 weeks at university, students' perception of the fit between secondary and university education and first-year achievement. Information regarding the pedagogical approach and generic skill development was gathered through…

Equality and quality in higher education (HE) are frequently juxtaposed in the literature. This paper presents evidence to contest deficit assumptions about widening participation, particularly the belief that entering HE with "non-traditional" entry qualifications lowers standards. Drawing on a three-year constructivist grounded theory study with…

The aim of this paper is to report on an experiment in the School of Management at the University of Surrey whereby the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is being promoted through an approach which is organic in nature. The paper argues that the nature of such scholarship means that its promotion is more likely to be successful when the…

In this paper, we argue that, as indicators of the educational quality of graduate degree programs, student theses and dissertations are best used in specific contexts. High-quality theses and dissertations, that is, may be the result of factors such as verbal skills students already possessed at admission or of complex interactions between…

In this paper, I advocate for enhancing critical thinking skill development in undergraduate education by taking advantage of the increased experiential maturity of today's students. I argue that many undergraduates are in fact "adults", by virtue of their age or experiential maturity, and they should be educated as such. Undergraduates who have…

This paper questions current policy discourses that equate student success with hard outcomes like retention, completion and employment. It offers another view, one that uses "soft" outcomes and student engagement literature to widen our understanding of student success. In the paper, we first draw on literature to explore student engagement,…