Departments and programmes in higher education are required to participate in an increasing number of programme, course and student assessments. These assessment requirements are also opportunities to develop student skills related to scientific literacy and research, if students are included in the process of developing, administering and…

There is an expectation that medical students in the UK will be able to demonstrate conversancy with social science relevant to medicine and health, including the means by which the relevant bodies of knowledge are generated through the use of social science research methods. This paper explores the structural and pedagogical challenges and…

Conducting social science research is a complex process, and social science students face a number of learning challenges in order to develop their skills. Moreover, new sources and types of data including so-called big data are providing new opportunities for research, but also pose methodological challenges. In this article, we explore a…

Some librarians embrace discovery tools while others refuse to use them. This lack of consensus can have consequences for student learning when there is inconsistent use, especially in large-scale instruction programs. The authors surveyed academic librarians whose institutions have a discovery tool and who teach information literacy classes in…

Recent calls for reform have advocated for extensive changes to undergraduate science lab experiences, namely providing more authentic research experiences for students. Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) have attempted to eschew the limitations of traditional "cookbook" laboratory exercises and have received…

Focus group interviewing is widely used by academic and applied researchers. Given the popularity and strengths of this method, it is surprising how rarely focus group interviewing is taught in the undergraduate classroom and how few resources exist to support instructors who wish to train students to use this technique. This article fills the gap…

Responding to globalization trends, many engineering schools are internationalizing their courses and curricula to prepare graduates for careers that involve working across countries and cultures. As a result, both students and staff are looking beyond study abroad to international work, research, and service learning opportunities as alternate…

Arts IRIS (Introductory Research and Information Skills) is a compulsory online information literacy unit for commencing students in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at The University of Western Australia (UWA). The aim of Arts IRIS is to provide students with a foundation in research and information literacy skills for studying…

Reports on recent survey of 266 faculty views on undergraduate information skills in university setting, which covered evaluation of students' library skills; use of card catalog, bibliographies, and reference tools; assignments requiring student use of library resources; faculty explanation of literature tools in field; and librarian role in…

A successful undergraduate research experience depends on a good mentor/ teacher. Surveys, interviews, and focus group discussions reveal that students and their mentors agree that research learning is very different from classroom learning. They do however disagree about some of the dynamics and priorities of the mentoring relationship. (Contains…