Since the 1980s an extensive research literature has investigated how to improve student success in higher education focusing on student outcomes such as retention, completion and employability. A parallel research programme has focused on how students engage with their studies and what they, institutions and educators can do to enhance their…

The aim was to explore the predictive ability of sources of stress and a range of dispositional and coping behaviours on student satisfaction and motivation. Most research exploring sources of stress and coping in students construes stress as psychological distress, with little attempt to consider positive experiences of stress. A questionnaire…

Context-based chemistry education aims to improve student interest and motivation in chemistry by connecting canonical chemistry concepts with real-world contexts. Implementation of context-based chemistry programmes began 20 years ago in an attempt to make the learning of chemistry meaningful for students. This paper reviews such programmes…

Within his classroom, the author is often confronted by students who fail to see, or accept, the relevance of mathematics both to their lives and the world around them. One topic which is regularly perceived as being disconnected from people's daily lives is that of circle theorems, especially among less motivated students. In this article, the…

"The Puppets Promoting Engagement and Talk in Science" project focuses on using puppets to engage children in conversation to develop their thinking about scientific concepts in an inquiring, explorative approach. This project is also about motivating and engaging teachers to link literacy with science in their teaching and learning…

This article describes a case study of a group of ten 14-year-old students who engaged with an online extended-learning project as an extracurricular activity for about 6 months. The students were physically located in Australia, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom. The facilitation and online learning made use of a progressive pedagogy that moved…

Taking a break between completing high school and entering university is common overseas, and is becoming more popular in Australia. There are many reasons why young people take a gap year. It may be to travel, to take a break, to study, or to work. The authors' definition of a "gapper" is a young person who commenced university one to…

Do prospective students get the information they need to assess what can be gained from attending a particular higher education institution? Professor Gibbs' highly influential 2010 report, "Dimensions of Quality", found that student outcomes can be affected by the way that institutions choose to use available resources; class size, the…

As the focus on international education has changed from international aid to international trade, competition for internationally mobile students has increased. The motivational factors influencing the education destination decision for students from China is of particular significance to destination countries and their educational institutions.…

Students' assessment of their academic experience is actively sought by higher education institutions, as evidenced in the UK's National Student Survey, introduced in 2005. Erasmus students, despite their growing numbers, tend to be excluded from these satisfaction surveys, even though they, too, are primary customers of a university. This study…

Drawing on data from 1740 pupil questionnaires and 160 pupils in focus-group interviews, the study aimed to gain insight into British pupils' ideas about why they study history at school. The paper considers the implications of these ideas for history teachers and teacher educators. The data suggest that many pupils have very vague ideas about the…

In 2006 UCL implemented new scenario-centred degree programmes in Civil and Environmental Engineering. The new curriculum can be characterised as a hybrid of problem-based, project-based and traditional approaches to learning. Four times a year students work in teams for one week on a scenario which aims to integrate learning from lecture and…

To date, scholarship on international students has generally focused on flows from non-western economies to the main English-speaking destination countries (such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia). In contrast, we draw on a qualitative study of 85 UK students who have either completed or are considering undertaking a degree…

Taking a gap year--a break between high school and university--is becoming increasingly popular with Australian students. In terms of length and purpose, the traditional notion of a gap year being a year off between school and university has expanded considerably over time. For the purposes of the analysis reported in this paper, a person who…

There would appear to be an enduring belief that successful sportsmen and women can act as powerful motivational role models for young people, especially disaffected, disadvantaged or disengaged youth. In the UK, for example, this belief has been expressed recently in the development of programmes, such as changingLIVES, the Respect Athlete Mentor…