Skip navigation.
 

Flying Start: Practices, Communities and Policies to Ease the Transition to University Writing and Assessment

Flying Start is a collaborative project to help bridge the gap between Further and Higher Education.  Writing is crucial to student success at university: for assessment, for learning within disciplines and for employability. This widening participation project takes a cross-sector approach to bridge the ‘separate worlds’ of writing and assessment at pre-university and undergraduate level and ease the transition between the two. There are three strands to the project:

  • The Practice Stand
  • The Community Strand
  • The Policy Strand

The project details are are available in this PDF poster (164KB). Further details of each strand are given below.

The project is funded by the Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellowship Scheme Project Strand. Liverpool Hope University is the lead institution, and the collaborating partner institutions include the University of Derby, Thames Valley University, and Edge Hill University.

Project team and contact details

Background to the project

Further education alone does not sufficiently prepare students for university study. In a recent poll only 26% of university undergraduates strongly agreed that studying for A levels adequately prepared them for university (ICM Research, 2006; Smith, 2004).  A comparative study of teaching methods by Ballinger (2003) found that A level students were not expected to study autonomously, and development of critical analytic skills was mainly limited to preparation for specific exam questions, whereas HE students were expected to be more autonomous, and were encouraged to develop more general analytical skills for assessment.

A major widening participation priority has been to provide preparatory support prior to university entry (Robertson & Hillman, 1997) including outreach work at schools and FE colleges (Yorke & Thomas, 2003). One transition programme focusing on the skills required for coping with teaching and assessment in HE, delivered just prior to entry to university, significantly increased HE retention and completion (Knox, 2005). Concern, however, continues about transitions from schools to universities (Times Higher Education, 2008). There is a demonstrable need for greater shared understandings of learning and assessment across the FE and HE sectors (Birnie, 1999).

Training pre-university students in decontextualised writing skills is unlikely to ease transitions, but working within  theoretical frameworks of epistemological beliefs and approaches to learning is more likely to be successful.  There is considerable research showing links between epistemological beliefs and approaches to learning (Chan, 2003; Hammer, 1994; Roth & Roychoudhury, 1994), which not only impacts on how easily students adjust to university teaching but also on how easily they are able to cope with written assignments (Kember, 2001). While school students’ epistemological beliefs are less sophisticated than those of university students, there is evidence suggesting that interventions could help students develop epistemological beliefs more appropriate to university study (Cano, 2005; Gill et al, 2004). Assessment practices provide a practical focus for such interventions.

A developing feature of UK post-compulsory education is the emergence of dual-sector institutions providing FE and HE, and universities with close links to schools and FE colleges (Burns, 2007). Those institutions have developed transition programmes focusing on generic study skills, peer mentoring, and residential experiences, which have been shown to improve university retention, progression and completion (Bathmaker, 2006). At both Liverpool Hope and Derby there are well established Widening Participation Compact programmes that guarantee agreed numbers of university places for students achieving ‘lower’ grades.

At Liverpool Hope there is a dedicated Widening Participation Centre under the remit of the PVC for External Relations and Widening Participation. The Centre has several years’ experience of providing and evaluating WP initiatives, including a 4-year cross-sector collaborative project (the Syndicate Project) funded by AimHigher Greater Merseyside. The most recent initiative is the STARS project, a Compact Scheme where 120 year-12 students from 22 local schools work with Hope undergraduate mentors in a programme of monthly contact, special events and a four-day project focussed on writing for assessment at A level. The programme focuses on the synoptic A level paper and reflective writing, as well as transferable competencies related to university assessment criteria.

At Derby, the first UK integrated dual-sector institution, there is an FE college offering A levels on over 16 subjects, and a Compact Scheme with over 50 partner schools, whose students made over 11,000 individual applications to study at HE at the University in 2006-07. Over 90% achieve the grades they need and over 70% go on to enrol. The Compact Scheme employs undergraduate students as student mentors and Compact Assistants in schools and colleges (www.derby.ac.uk/fpl/partnerships), as well as operating an award-winning web site providing information about choosing courses, applying to university, study skills and being an effective student.

The Practice Strand

This strand is about working with students to help prepare them for university. The project is designing and implementing a Transition Mentoring programme for university student mentors to introduce pre-university students to writing at degree level. This builds on research findings and on existing mentoring programmes, at Liverpool Hope and Derby, including the successful Write Now CETL model in which writing advice is integrated with understanding of disciplinary epistemology. This draws on the academic literacy model, which emphasises learning and writing at the level of epistemology and identity rather than skills (Lea & Street, 1998; Macleod & Maimon, 2000).

The transition mentoring programme focuses on helping students to:

  • Develop more realistic understandings and expectations of university study, meta-learning and disciplinary epistemology (O’Siochru, 2008; Norton et al., 2004; Meyer et al., 2006)
  • Understand university assessment criteria (Elander & Jessen ,2007)
  • Understand how to use feedback at degree level (Beaumont, & O’Doherty  2007)

The Liverpool Hope Writing Specialist delivers training for student transition mentors which can be harnessed by other institutions who seek advice on mentor training during the project. A web-based system enables mentors and mentees to work together remotely, providing discussion forums, wikis and blogs. The web-site will disseminate case studies across the wider national educational community during and after the funded lifetime of the project. All materials and research outputs will be freely available, enabling the approach developed by the project to be adopted, adapted and extended across a range of settings by other institutions and organisations.  

The Community Strand

This strand is about developing cross-sector communities of practice in teaching and assessment. The project enables practitioners from HE, FE and schools to develop informed shared understandings of writing for assessment. Consistent with Wenger’s (1998) principles of joint enterprise, mutual engagement and a shared repertoire of communal resources, selected tutors and teachers participate in a guided programme to:

  • Develop an extended community of learners and teachers with a better shared understanding of what is required in written academic assessments
  • Enable Access/A level teachers to prepare their students more effectively for university study
  • Enable university teachers to understand students’ pre-university experiences of learning and assessment to ease the transition in the first year

A Pedagogical Action Research Network (PARN), led by Lin Norton (Norton, 2001; 2002; 2005), aims to engender real conceptual change in participants. This framework enables participants to produce research outcomes and links groups of students and teachers together in shared activities with concrete shared goals.  Action research has been used for many years by teachers in schools and is a recognised form of encouraging reflective practice. It can also have an emancipatory function (Ledwith, 2007), going beyond the specific project outcomes through reflective practice, open debate and discussion, to influencing policy and stake holders.
 
The PARN will be organising a series of cross-sector round-table events at each of the main partner institutions, which will be a focus for cross-sector communities of practitioners working collaboratively in one another’s settings, through action learning/research sets supported by a web resource. The ‘student experience’ will underpin specific elements such as:

  • Perspectives on assessment practices
  • Assessment standards
  • Meanings and application of assessment criteria
  • Writing issues such as authorship and plagiarism
  • Epistemological beliefs

The action learning sets will be formalised in the Pedagogical Action Research Network (PARN), which will produce outcomes for dissemination at external events and conferences, and embedded in ongoing pedagogical research strategies. Lin Norton has extensive experience in this area. She leads a thriving pedagogical action research group of over 50 academics at Liverpool Hope, organises the international biennial Pedagogical Research in Higher Education conference and is editor of  the Liverpool Hope journal Pedagogical Research In Maximising Education (PRIME).

The University of Derby also prioritises pedagogic research, and a very active Pedagogical Psychology Research Group provides institutional support and links between Flying Start team members and the institution. 

The Policy Strand

This strand is about influencing the policy and management for teaching and assessment across the Further and Higher Education sectors. It seeks to make a lasting impact by informing those responsible for assessment policy across the education sectors. The structural division of UK education into separately managed and funded sectors underlies many of the issues addressed by Flying Start, which anticipates national policy debate about closer ‘vertical integration’ and alignment of sectors. UK education policy experts were involved at the planning stage to align the project with relevant and feasible policy implications, and subsequently to take outcomes forward through appropriate channels.

An adaptation of the Delphi method will be used to capture expert opinion and inform policy-making through the HEA, CETLs and our expert consultants, and foreground key institutional and national priorities. For example, we seek to inform the Quality and Curriculum Authority, the Learning and Skills Council, HEFCE, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, and the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (the largest of the 3 UK examining boards, awarding 43% of A levels nationally). A key player will be the Institute of Educational Assessors, established in 2006 to support the needs of those involved in educational assessment and whose goals include disseminating good practice.

The policy strand will deliver high quality analysis and evidence-based papers to influence and inform the national assessment policy agenda across the UK schools, FE and HE sectors.  These will be supported by a series of seminar and presentation/discussion events for targeted and invited policy decision-making and opinion-leading individuals and agencies. 
The policy strand focuses on areas where there is greatest potential for impact on important national policy issues including:

  • Development of Access and A level curricula
  • Grade assessment and marking policy
  • Social inequality in educational opportunity and attainment
  • Teacher and lecturer training
  • Dual sector education management

A Flying Start policy group advises on statutory and non-statutory bodies to target for a series of seminar and workshop events to which identified policy and opinion formers will be invited.

For more information on the project, please visit the project website www.hope.ac.uk/flyingstart

References

  • Ballinger (2003). Bridging the gap between A level and degree: some observations on managing the transitional stage in the study of English Literature. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 2, 1, 99-109.
  • Bathmaker A M (2006), Positioning Themselves - Higher Education Transitions and ‘Dual Sector’ Institutions: Exploring the Nature and Meaning of Transitions in FE/HE Institutions in England, Paper presented at SRHE conference, Brighton, http://crll.gcal.ac.uk/conf07/parallelabstracts/abstracts/paper8.doc  accessed 8/9/2007
  • Bartlett, S. & Burton, D. (2006) Practitioner research or descriptions of classroom practice? A discussion of teachers investigating their classrooms. Educational Action Research, 14,3, 395-405.
  • Beaumont, C. & O’Doherty, M. (2007).  Improving feedback to first year undergraduates. Paper presented at the Higher Education Academy Conference, 3-5 July 2007, Harrowgate, UK.
  • Bell, K. & West, A (2003). Specialist schools: An exploration of competition and co-operation, Educational Studies, 29, 2/3, 273-289. 
  • Birnie, J. (1999). Physical geography at the transition to higher education: the effect of prior learning. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 23, 49-62.
  • Burns D (2007), Conceptualising and interpreting organizational boundaries between further and higher education in ‘dual sector’ institutions: where are they and what do they do?, Paper presented at the International Conference on researching transitions in lifelong learning at the University of Stirling, 22-24 June 2007.http://www.tlrp.org/dspace/retrieve/2116/DBurnsPaperCRLLConference+June07%5B1%5D.doc  accessed 8/9/2007
  • Cano, F. (2005). Epistemological beliefs and approaches to learning. Their change through secondary school and their influence on academic performance. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 75, 203-221.
  • Chan, K. (2003). Hong Kong teacher education students’ epistemological beliefs and approaches to learning. Research in Education, 69, 36-50.
  • Elander, J., Harrington, K., Norton, L. Robinson, H. & Reddy, P. (2006). Complex skills and academic writing: a review of evidence about the types of learning required to meet core assessment criteria. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education , 31, 71-90.
  • Elander, J. & Jessen, A. (2007). Longitudinal, comparative evaluation of workshops to help Access and A’ level students understand university assessment criteria. Paper presented at the Higher Education Academy Conference, 3-5 July 2007, Harrowgate, UK.
  • Gill, M., Ashton, P.T. &  Algina, J. (2004). Changing preservice teachers epistemological beliefs about teaching and learning in mathematics.: an intervention study. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 29, 2, 164-185.
  • Hammer, D. (1994). Epistemological beliefs in introductory physics. Cognition and Instruction, 12, 151-183.
  • ICM Research (2006 Sep). AoC Undergraduate Survey Results. http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/reviews/latest-polls.asp  accessed 26/9/2007
  • Kember, D. (2001). Beliefs about knowledge and the process of teaching and learning as a factor in adjusting to study in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 26, 2, 205-221.
  • Knox, H. (2005). Making the transition from further to higher education: the impact of a preparatory module on retention, progression and performance. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 29, 103-110.
  • Lea, M. and Street, B. (1998). 'Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach', Studies in Higher Education 23(2) 157-172.
  • Ledwith, M. (2007) On being critical: uniting theory and practice through emancipatory action research. Educational Action Research, 15, 4, 597-611.
  • Macfarlane, B., Filippaku, O., Halford, E. & Saraswat, A. (2007). Managing duality: The role of manager-academics working in a dual sector institution. Paper presented at the Higher Education Academy Conference, 3-5 July 2007, Harrowgate, UK.
  • Mcleod, S. & Maimon, E. (2000) Clearing the Air: WAC Myths and Realities College English, 62, 5, 573-583
  • Meyer, J.H.F., Shanahan, M., Norton, L .,  Walters, D., Ward, S & Hewertson, H. (2006)  Developing students’ metalearning capacity: a grounded assessment framework. In C. Rust (ed.), Improving Student Learning: Improving student learning through assessment. 13.Oxford, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development. Part III, 19, 248-266.
  • Norton, L.S (2005) Pedagogical Action research (PAR): An evaluation of its effectiveness in engaging busy academics with SOTL. Paper presented at the 2nd conference of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (IS.SOTL) Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 14-16 October, 2005
  • Norton, L.S. (2002) Editorial Psychology Teaching review, Special issue on action research in psychology 10, 1, 1-4
  • Norton, L S (2001).  Researching Your Teaching:  The Case for Action Research Psychology Learning and Teaching, 1,1, 21-27.
  • Norton, L., Owens, T. & Clark, L. (2004)  Encouraging metalearning in first year undergraduates through reflective discussion and writing.  Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 41, 4, 423-441
    O’Siochru, C. (2008) How epistemological philosophy and epistemological beliefs interact to affect student performance and retention. Unpublished PhD thesis. Liverpool Hope University
  • Robertson, D. and Hillman, J. (1997), ‘Widening Participation in Higher Education by
    Students from Lower Socio-economic groups and Students with Disabilities’, Report
    6, The National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education
    http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ncihe/report6.htm  accessed 26/9/2007
  • Roth, W. & Roychoudhury, A. (1994). Physicals students’ epistemologies and views about knowing and learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 31, 5-30.
  • Smith, K. (2004). School to university: an investigation into the experience of first-year students of English at British Universities. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 3, 1, 81-93.
  • Times Higher Education (2008). Are schools failing universities? Times Higher Education, 10 January 2008.
  • Wenger, E.  (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System, Systems thinker June 1998 Available at http://www.ewenger.com/pub/pub_systems_thinker_wrd.doc (accessed 21.02.08)
  • West, A. (in press-a) Poverty and educational achievement: Why do children from low income families tend to do less well at school? Benefits: Journal of Poverty and Social Justice.
  • West, A. (in press-b) Redistribution and financing schools in England under Labour: Are resources going where needs are greatest? Educational Management, Administration and Leadership.
  • West, A. (2006) School choice, equity and social justice: The case for more control. British Journal of Educational Studies, 54, 1, 15-33.
  • West, A. and Currie, P. (in press) School diversity and social justice: Policy and politics, Educational Studies, 34, 2.
  • Yorke, M. & Thomas, L. (2003). Improving the retention of students from lower socio-economic groups. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 25, 63-74.