Awarding gaps between various groups of students persist across the Higher Education sector, yet the responses designed to address the contributors remain localised. The sudden spread of COVID-19 led to various responses across the University sector creating an unprecedented natural experiment and offering the opportunity to compare outcomes from…

As elsewhere across the globe, for the past two decades doctoral education in the UK has been in the throes of change. This article seeks to describe and analyse developments in 1) the national framework for doctoral education, 2) institutional structures, 3) doctoral programmes, 4) doctoral candidacy, 5) doctoral supervision and 6) doctoral…

Assessment and feedback are common sources of student dissatisfaction within higher education, and employers have shown dissatisfaction with graduates' communication skills. Authentic assessment, containing 'real-world' context and student collaboration, provides a means to address both issues simultaneously. We discuss how we used authentic…

The objective of this article is to analyse the development and content of research in the global literature on student agency in higher education (SAHE) based on a bibliometric review of 224 articles published in the Scopus database during the period 2000-2022. VOSviewer, Excel, and Tableau software were used to analyse the texts. The review…

Background: Two UK academic centres were commissioned to provide a responsive rapid evidence synthesis service. The service covered topics identified by the National Institute for Health Research Health Services & Delivery Research (NIHR HSDR) programme as priorities for the National Health Service or to inform research commissioning. Aims and…

Over the past decades, peer review of teaching has become commonplace at many universities around the world. Though research on the topic is expanding, much of the literature is composed of qualitative studies that offer relevant empirical findings but often have limited foundations in theory. Using a framework synthesis approach, we synthesize…

Drawing on recent research involving approximately 6000 higher education staff, this paper examines the impact of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF) on their professional lives since its launch in 2016. Our findings raise fundamental concerns, methodologically and conceptually, about the fitness for the purpose of the TEF…

Both formative assessment and growth mindset scholars aim to understand how to enhance achievement. While research on formative assessment focuses on external teaching practices, work on growth mindset emphasises internal psychological processes. This study examined the interplay between three formative assessment strategies (i.e. sharing learning…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the teaching of programming for undergraduate mathematicians was moved online. This was delivered asynchronously, with students working through notes and exercises and asking for help from staff via online messages as needed. Staff delivery time was redirected from content delivery into a formal system of formative…

With increasing evidence highlighting the link between psychological factors such as self-esteem, self-efficacy and optimism on employability outcomes, this paper reports an evaluation of a unique student experience initiative called 'Life Design' developed to support the professional and personal development of undergraduate students. First year…

This paper aims to provide a tentative roadmap for ensuring that higher education policy makers and practitioners are apprised of what might be done to advance a concept of socially just assessment praxis. It extends current thinking around the notion of social justice approaches to assessment by further developing the conceptual framework…

This article describes a usability evaluation that was conducted among student users of improved learning areas (sites) designed as part of the WebLearn Improved Student Experience (WISE) project conducted at Oxford University (UK). WebLearn is the university's internal brand for the Sakai open source virtual learning environment (VLE). The…

Assessment is not something that stands alone and teachers need support to develop their understanding of both assessment practices and the subject being assessed. Teachers at Shaw Primary School were fortunate to take part in the Teacher Assessment in Primary Science (TAPS) project and, in this article, the outlines how science and assessment can…

This chapter examines the responses of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to assessment-related challenges introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The sudden move to online teaching and assessments required institutions to re-think their approaches to current practices and provide alternative solutions almost overnight. Our survey aimed to gather…

Black and Wiliam (1998a, 1998b) demonstrate that formative assessment is one of the most effective strategies for promoting student learning. Since the publication of their reviews, formative assessment has gained increasing international prominence in both policy and practice. However, despite this early innovation, the theory and practice of…