Cross-curriculum comparisons help open up new perspectives on old issues. The flight from physics by students is one such issue. Here a comparison is made with music education and language education. Where these comparisons provide useful insights they can also warn against knee-jerk panaceas. It is suggested we need to understand how and why…

Online discussion can be designed to develop the skills and confidence of students as well as providing an opportunity for constructing knowledge. If students decide not to participate or join too late, they put their own development and the quality of the learning community at risk. This article reflects on a first term undergraduate experience…

Commencing each class session with a class quiz, which emphasizes the previous week's work and is supported by immediate feedback, encourages students to revise their notes ahead of the session, undertake more reading and keep pace with course progression. It reduces the necessity for any spoken review of the previous week's work, provides…

In recent years, a growing political emphasis has been placed upon the development of transformative assessment-driven reform in schools. There is global consensus on the value of assessment activities that are carefully designed to be consistent with desired learning outcomes, and which coherently connect learning theory, the curriculum,…

Purpose: International students' HE decision making is a high stakes process. There is an insufficient evidence base that would aid university level strategic planning in areas of recruitment from the African continent and in supporting its students to maximise the benefits from a UK HE experience. This paper aims to explore the decision making…

Student interviews revealed that some British students with demanding family or employment commitments were able to integrate the demands of the course into their lives, while others had little time available for academic work. Suggests that the use of motivation-enhancing approaches to teaching will be limited unless there is also change at the…

The Languages Review Consultation Report recommends exploiting the potential of communications technology for the enhancement of curricular offerings. Newly developed instructional software is credited with opening doors to the cultures of young people while serving as an infinitely patient and supportive tutor. Thus, in the UK as in the US,…

This document summarizes research to demonstrate the difference that Building Schools for the Future (BSF) schools are making to young people's attitudes towards education and learning, as measured by their levels of engagement and enthusiasm for school. The key research objective was further broken down into a number of research questions: (1)…

This paper reports on the incorporation of wiki technology within physical education. Boys from two classes at a school in the United Kingdom were divided into small teams and given the task of creating a new game in a same genre as football, hockey, netball or rugby. Each team had a wiki on which were recorded all the plans and developments of…

Research evidence that well-executed formative assessment raises achievement and enhances motivation and autonomy has influenced policy and practice in schools and universities in the United Kingdom. Formative assessment is also built into the aims and assessment activities of outcome-based qualifications in post-compulsory education. Behind these…

Describes how a nursing school employs active learning in a nursing skills lab and in a physiology lab, increasing student motivation. (SK)

Describes a study that investigated student citation practices in the Department of Information Science, Loughborough University (United Kingdom). Also reports on a survey of undergraduates that assessed their attitudes toward sources of literature, citations, and motives for citing particular references. Results show a trend toward citing…

This article presents an analysis of the way in which a group of students at one UK university mobilised their interest in and commitment to pro/feminist values and ideals through the establishment of a student society geared towards combating anti-sexism. Placing the students at the centre of the discussion, the article describes the various…

In this article, the authors visited with the Arsenal Double Club Coordinator, Scott an amateur footballer, and a career teacher who is able to bring his considerable experience and administrative skill to the project. The authors were delighted to realise that they were talking to a teacher committed to what is first and foremost an educational…

Recruitment onto pre-registration learning disability nursing courses has decreased considerably over the last decade. This paper reports the findings of the first stage of a longitudinal study that investigated the factors that influence students to train as learning disability nurses, and those that influence their decision to continue or leave…