Group items tagged

"Lecturers with formal teaching qualifications are valued by students far more highly than those who are active researchers, says a major survey that is likely to reopen the debate over the need for compulsory teacher training."

"This document summarises the key findings of a review of the National Student Survey (NSS). The NSS, first launched in 2005 , collects feedback from undergraduate students in the UK, via a survey, on their experiences of various aspects of their courses. The review was commissioned by the UK Higher Education funding bodies, and undertaken by NatCen Social Research in partnership with the Institute of Education and the Institute for Employment Studies."

"MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses, have become all the rage, with numerous institutions joining forces with Coursera, edX, FutureLearn, and other providers. The Babson Survey Research Group recently found that although 55 percent of institutions said they were undecided about their plans for offering MOOCs, 9.4 percent said they were in the planning stages of offering one, and 2.6 percent have already taken the plunge;  the same survey showed the number of students taking at least one course online has reached an all-time high of 32 percent."

This report analyses the findings of the 2012 survey of various aspects of the student experience, including the amount of contact students have with their staff, the size of teaching groups, and the overall number of hours they devote to their studies. It updates the results of earlier surveys conducted in 2006 and 2007, and reflect on some of policy lessons to be drawn from the results

"This report presents the findings from a UK pilot of selected questions from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). 8,582 responses were gathered from nine institutions in Spring/Summer 2013. The report includes breakdowns for different groups of students, in addition to findings relating to the validity and reliability of the survey questions."

This report summarises the findings from 74 UK institutions who ran the tracker survey with their students collecting 22, 593 student responses on their expectations and experiences of technology. Institutions had the options of running surveys designed specifically for their learner types, HE, FE, adult and community learners, skills learners and those learners studying remotely online.

Despite their fondness for social networking and cell phones, most college students say they prefer textbooks in printed rather than e-text form. Nearly 75% of students to recently respond to a major new research survey from the Book Industry Study Group

This study investigated the impact of Open Educational Resources (OER) use on teaching and learning. To achieve this, the project team reviewed current research in the area; surveyed, interviewed and ran workshops with suitable participants to collect dat

"This study investigated the impact of Open Educational Resources (OER) use on teaching and learning. To achieve this, the project team reviewed current research in the area; surveyed, interviewed and ran workshops with suitable participants to collect data; and produced an accessible report on the study findings. The report considered the use of OER from both an individual and institutional perspective looking at the benefits OER can offer each and identifying the pedagogic, attitudinal, logistical and strategic factors conducive to uptake and sustained use of OER, as well as the associated issues and challenges." Video, "accessible" report and full report available. Cited on Paul's e-Learning Resources https://sites.google.com/site/technologyenhancedlearning/home/the-resources/open-educational-resources-oer

"Findings from the Student Academic Experience Survey 2014 commissioned by the Higher Education Academy and the Higher Education Policy Institute show that while full-time undergraduate students in UK universities have high levels of satisfaction - 86% are fairly or very satisfied with their course - wellbeing among some students is lower than in the general population."

After six years of study, more than 3,000 student surveys, nearly 40 interviews, close to 700 anonymous written responses, and numerous observations of students in classes across four disciplines, Dr. Angel Hoekstra knows a thing or two about how to use clickers in the classroom

"Academics often treat students' discipline-specific literacy as unproblematic. In doing so they may underestimate the difficulties for university students as they move between subjects of study that may involve different disciplines, language genres and academic practices. This paper describes an initiative aimed at supporting students in reading academic articles in preparation for completing an essay for an assessment task. This initiative involved a structured and collaborative two-week tutorial exercise that provided students with practice in using a framework to extract the main ideas from academic readings. Students were surveyed after this exercise, and their reflections of its value are described in this paper. The findings of this study will inform further stages of the project which aim to develop and investigate practical ways to develop student's academic literacy across several business disciplines."

"Objective - To describe the development and implementation of two courses designed to help university students avoid plagiarism. Design - Quantitative and qualitative analysis. Setting - A university in the United Kingdom. Subjects - An unknown number of university students who took a Plagiarism Awareness Program (PAP) course between 2008 and 2011, and approximately 3,000 university students enrolled in a Plagiarism Avoidance for New Students (PANS) course delivered via a virtual learning environment (VLE) between October and December 2012. The authors attempted to collect rates of continued plagiarism among students who had taken plagiarism education courses. The authors also surveyed 702 university students about plagiarism in 2011. Methods - Data collected from PAP participants informed revision of the authors' approach to plagiarism education and led to development of the second course, PANS. At the end of the course, students completed a test of their knowledge about plagiarism. Authors compared scores from students who took a course supervised by a librarian to the scores from students who took the course independently. Main Results - Students reported that many aspects of citation and attribution are challenging (p. 149). The authors discovered that 93% of students who completed the PANS course facilitated by a librarian in-person passed the final exam with a grade of 70% or higher, while 85% of students who took the same course independently, without a librarian instructor, in an online VLE scored 70% or higher (p. 155). The authors report that referrals of students who plagiarized declined significantly (p-value < 0.001) since the implementation of a plagiarism avoidance curriculum. Conclusion - As reported by the authors, first-year university students require more extensive education about plagiarism avoidance. A university plagiarism avoidance program instructed by librarians reduces the total number of students caught plagiarizing an

"Voting for the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2013 is now open.  This is the 7th Annual Survey which will be compiled from the contributions of learning professionals worldwide. Voting closes midnight GMT on Friday 27 September 2013, and the Top 100 Tools list will be revealed on Monday 30 September 2013."

"We're often asked for detailed information on how educators are using blogs. The main reasons why we get these requests from educators are: They need information to convince school administrators to allow blogging. They are trying to work out the benefits of blogging and how blogs are used with students. They want to know more about which blogging platforms are commonly used by educators (and why). So last year we decided to conduct an annual survey on how educators are using blogs.  Our goal is to document the trends in educational blogging."

A Survey of Undergraduate Technology Use and Attitudes. Funded by Evaluation of Learners' Experiences of e‐learning Special Interest Group (ELESIG ) Small Grant

Many academics see e-learning as "expensive and time-consuming", a survey has found. About half of university staff polled believe that learning technologies are popular with students but only a small proportion of academics are embracing them.

The University of Leicester, a research-intensive institution, has topped the National Student Survey for mainstream universities for three consecutive years, hence is in a position to offer insight into effective learner-centred design. Leicester's pilot

"In this paper, we explore the benefits of using social media in an online educational setting, with a particular focus on the use of Facebook and Twitter by participants in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) developed to enable educators to learn about the Carpe Diem learning design process. We define social media as digital social tools and environments located outside of the provision of a formal university-provided Learning Management System. We use data collected via interviews and surveys with the MOOC participants as well as social media postings made by the participants throughout the MOOC to offer insights into how participants' usage and perception of social media in their online learning experiences differed and why. We identified that, although some participants benefitted from social media by crediting it, for example, with networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities, others objected or refused to engage with social media, perceiving it as a waste of their time. We make recommendations for the usage of social media for educational purposes within MOOCs and formal digital learning environments."

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