One way that universities assess teaching effectiveness is by eliciting student feedback. However, what standards do students themselves use to judge whether a lecturer is a 'good' teacher? As part of a study carried out at a Hong Kong university, students were interviewed about their first-year learning experience and asked what they felt…

Personal tutoring is considered to be an important support mechanism for students in higher education. However, the existing personal tutoring system at the British University in Egypt has needed for quite some time to be reviewed and improved as anecdotal evidence suggests that it is ineffective. This article therefore aims to identify the…

Academic boredom usually contributes adversely towards student engagement and performance across a diverse range of settings including universities. The formal study of academic boredom in higher education remains, however, a relatively underdeveloped field and one surprisingly neglected in the UK. Rooted in Control-Value Theory, details of a…

This article presents an overview of the findings of a recently completed study exploring the potentially transformative impact upon learners of recognition of prior informal learning (RPL). The specific transformative dimension being reported is learner identity. In addition to providing a starting point for an evidence base within Scotland, the…

This research draws on the experience of a group of mature students' studies during their first year at university. All experienced varying degrees of Imposter Syndrome, feelings of fraudulence and a lack of confidence in their ability. The process of "becoming" a mature student is one of identity change and risk. Gaining a sense of…

We report on a mixed-method study that compared students' perceptions of summative assessment across two distinct disciplines--education and mathematics, at two research-intensive institutions in the UK. The disciplines chosen represent opposing positions in Biglan's classification of academic disciplines, as well as having very different…

Interest in the potential benefits of providing tablet computers to students has grown in recent years, both in UK institutions, and across the world. Limited research studies have been reported in higher education (HE), and primary and secondary school settings, tentatively suggesting a range of positive impacts on learners, but little conclusive…

This article explores several aspects of service quality for the provision of higher education. Alongside the trend of the massification of higher education over the past two decades, higher education institutions are required to review quality across a range of outputs, besides teaching and learning. The study was undertaken within the…

This paper investigates the views of 20 full-time international postgraduate students, many of whom were Chinese, on living, learning and becoming successful students at one university in a multicultural city in the Midlands of England. The qualitative study built on findings from the International Students' Barometer (ISB) survey for the…

IELTS scores are widely used in combination with academic results as a way of judging whether non-English background students should be admitted to degree-level courses in Anglophone contexts. However, successful study at university requires more than language competence and intellectual ability and international students often seem to start from…

This article reports on a programme in which peer-assisted learning (PAL) was combined with case-based learning (CBL) in a second-year radiologic biology unit of study. Our aim is to explore evidence of whether PAL supported the development of qualitative conceptions of learning. The programme involved students in small PAL groups preparing and…

As the UK sits on the verge of a major change in the financing of both universities and students, this study seeks to capture and analyse attitudes to money, borrowing and debt among contemporary young undergraduates. It reports findings from a qualitative study of 62 individuals in the second term of their first year at university, these being…

This article presents empirical research exploring adult returner students' patterns of learning via qualitative analysis of a series of semi-structured interviews. Interviewees' comments shed light on the relation between patterns of learning on the one hand, and study skills, epistemological issues and attitudes to peer interaction on the other.…

This study highlights the importance of international spectator sports in the maintenance of collective identity among international students. No research has been conducted on the international student experience of sport fandom away from home and on the impact of such a following on national identification. Using qualitative findings from…

This article reports on and discusses the findings of an investigation carried out to explore the expectations of an English language enhancement course (ELEC) held by a group of undergraduate students at an Australian university. For the study, a mixed-methods approach was utilised, with two instruments: a survey with a combination of closed- and…