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Transitions and trajectories

Mantz Yorke mantzyorke@mantzyorke.plus.com

University of Reading 8 December 2011

Agenda

1. ‘Where I’m coming from’

2. Challenges of transition

3. ‘The deal’

4. Transformative higher education

5. Transition: a student-centred perspective

6. Expectations, formative assessment and language

7. The LJMU ‘Sophomore Slump’ Project (briefly)

What is higher education for?

My ‘take’:

Helping students to succeed in a complex, changing environment

• Academic study

• Social development

• Employability

Implication:

Supporting the development of autonomy (inter alia)

Can be challenging for students in inter-related ways:

• educationally

• psychologically

• socially

• culturally

• financially

and, for some,

• linguistically It’s also very challenging for the staff

Transition into HE

Educational aspects

• Understanding HE, including its language

• Subject discipline

• Graduate attributes / employability

• Curriculum structure, including pacing of demand

• Independence in learning / development of autonomy

• Appreciating what ‘academic demand’ is

• Feedback on drafts

• Speed of feedback

• Nature/quality of feedback; feedforward

• Grading

• Learning at a distance, including any associate institutions

‘The deal’

What’s the match between expectations and experience? The importance of prior knowledge of what to expect in HE

Did aspects of the course match your expectations? Data from 634-694 first-year students in Art & Design

On the whole, Yes

Demographics made relatively little difference

But

Prior information was important ...

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

No Partly Yes

Low

High

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

None V lim Mod Cons Compl

Low

High

0%

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20%

30%

40%

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70%

None V lim Mod Cons Compl

Low

High

0%

10%

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70%

None V lim Mod Cons Compl

Low

High

Teaching

Assess’t methods Course organisation

Learning environment

Data from a survey of first-year students at a UK university in 2011

N = 1857 responses

We have to be cautious about ‘match’

Satisfaction and ‘match’

0

10

20

30

40

Definitely agree Mostly agree Neither agree nor disagree

Mostly disagree Definitely disagree

Yes

Don't know

No

Match

Satisfied?

Acquiescence Autonomy

Kohlberg (1964) Perry (1970, reprinted 1998) King and Kitchener (1994) Kuhn and Weinstock (2002) Baxter Magolda (2009)

Becoming a graduate: a trajectory

Ought to involve young people, and may involve older people, in a significant transformation

David Boud and Royce Sadler strongly emphasise the need for students to develop the capacity to self-evaluate, which is part of the ‘autonomy aim’

Guiding learners through the transformation from authority dependence to self-authorship is a primary challenge for twenty-first century higher education

Baxter Magolda (2009, p.144)

Transformative HE

Key requirements of students:

1 Motivation 2 Engagement

A key requirement of the university:

Curricula that foster these (‘engaging curricula’): plenty already do

Pedagogical approaches at tertiary level must motivate students to learn if deep, effective and engaged learning is to take place. (Kift and Field, 2010, p.4, original emphasis)

Motivation

Low Low

Moderate

Motivation level

Engagement level

Teaching approach

High High

Motivation and engagement

Developing powers of critical appraisal

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General health 16 times better...

Pain cut in half...

Mental capacity 15 times better...

I haven’t had a guy turn around and look at me when I passed him on the street for years. Guess what. It happened last week. I can’t tell for sure it’s the product but I sure feel a lot better since I’ve been taking Bio-Krill. Susan C, New York

[The Student as Producer project at the University of Lincoln] challenges academics to design the curriculum, in partnership with students, so that learning is through a process of discovery - where risk, innovation and excitement are restored

The corollary is not to have an assessment regime that punishes risk-taking After all... Learning ought to be more important to students than grades (‘Learning goals’ ought to trump ‘Performance goals’)

Generating a buzz?

Transition: a student-focused perspective

Students often take time to ‘get it’ (or, it’s often a slo-mo trajectory)

[School study] habits can continue well into the first year of university. (Leckey and Cook, 1999)

[N]ew undergraduates often see the tutor as the 'expert' who can (and perhaps should) give them 'the information'. By contrast university history teachers emphasise the need for student autonomy and independent judgement.

(Booth, 2005)

There may not be a ‘truth’ that can be handed down

Despite help, students did not grasp what was required of them as regards essay-writing. (McCune, 2004)

At the beginning you have no idea what constitutes a pass as you have no frame of reference. Need feedback on earlier work before progressing to next assessment. (Student, in Johnston and Kochanowska, 2009)

Students often take time to ‘get it’

But what if the next assessment task is very different?

Students need help in order to develop as autonomous learners. (Fazey and Fazey, 2001)

Self-theories

I didn’t think university was for me to start with. I thought I was thick. I just thought I couldn’t do it.

(Student in Leathwood and O’Connell, 2003)

I was really, really scared because it was my first report. I had to hand it in just to see where I’m at. Where am I standing?

(Student comment in McGinty, 2011)

Anxiety

Psychology

They are writing all over my work and it is like mangled up and most of the lecturers use red pen and I don’t know it kind of gets to me if I open it up and it’s covered with red crosses and marks and it’s horrible. It’s like my work is bleeding.

(Student interview, in McGinty, 2011)

Psychological pain

Week 4 Week 10

Lack of confidence 23% 40%

Expected Actual

Distinction + 7% ~ 7%

High pass 80% 57%

Fail 1% 17%

Cameron (2008)

Self-confidence

Expectations, formative assessment and language

Two equations (after Maddalena Taras)

Grade + Feedback + Feedforward = Formative assessment

Formative assessment + Engagement = Learning

Good assessment and feedback should…

1. Clarify goals, criteria, standards

2. Encourage time and effort on challenging tasks

3. Give good feedback that helps self-correction

4. Provide opportunities to act on feedback

5. Ensure summative assessment assists learning

6. Encourage dialogue about learning

7. Facilitate self-assessment and reflection

8. Encourage motivation and self-esteem

Adapted from Nicol, 2009

9. Give students choice regarding assessment

10. Involve students in policy and practice re assessment

11. Support development of learning groupings

12. Inform teachers about their teaching

Sadler: Students should

internalise standards

Expectations regarding feedback

Issue (abbreviated) 2006 2007 2010

N=979 N=1774 N=3091

% Agree % Agree % Agree

Ready access to staff outside f2f important 87 87 87

I expect teachers to read drafts 52

Feedback on drafts important to learning 92 95

Crisp et al (2009); Scutter et al (2011)

Acceptable time-interval for return of work

1 week 2-3 weeks 4-6 weeks

2006 % 34 57 4

2007 % 38 55 3

2010 % 19 60

Expectations re feedback ... and experience

Item

no.

Item theme

(varies with

group

studied)

At

orientation

% Agree

End year 1

% Agree

Year 2

% Agree

Teachers

% Agree

7 ‘Ready’ access to

lecturers, tutors

88 89

61 50

73 57

64 94

8 Feedback on

submitted work

97 97

66 37

74 48

100 59

9 Feedback on

DRAFTS of work

94 91

20 7

21 26

0 22

Colour code: Humanities Science Note: phrasing adjusted to fit circumstances

Brinkworth et al (2009)

Inadequate understanding of the task (Glover & Brown 2006)

Student-staff differences in perception (Maclellan 2001)

Feedback not understood (Chanock 2000; Weaver 2006)

Tutors’ intentions re feedback not understood (Higgins et al 2002)

‘Being told’ is not engaging (Crisp 2007)

Disjuncts in the feedback loop (Hounsell et al 2006)

Transferability not perceived (Carless 2006; Duncan 2007) ...

... especially where assessment demands are diverse (Gibbs, ongoing)

Timeliness (Brinkworth et al 2009)

The grade’s the thing (Snyder 1971)

Espoused theory & practice out of sync (Orrell 2006; Orsmond et al 2011)

Issues relating to the effectiveness of feedback

Where might enhancement efforts most usefully be targeted?

Students observed that feedback was given in such a way that they did not feel it was rejecting or discouraging . . . [and] that feedback procedures assisted them in forming accurate perceptions of their abilities and establishing internal standards with which to evaluate their own work Mentkowski and Associates (2000, p.82), emphasis added

Boud and Sadler would approve

Encouraging autonomy

For [first-year] students feedback goes beyond providing information on how to improve assessment marks. The ‘effective feedback’ for these students is that which provides emotional support and facilitates integration into university.

(Poulos and Mahony, 2008)

Acknowledging emotion

To what extent can ‘the personal’ be accommodated in contemporary HE?

Formal statements of expectations are fairly meaningless without exemplification, even for staff (e.g. Wolf, 1995).

Students’ perceptions of what assessment is seeking may not align with what staff think they ought to be perceiving (Maclellan, 2001).

35 of 76 history and politics students did not understand the meaning of ‘more analysis, less description’ (Chanock, 2000).

Staff themselves did not agree on what was meant by ‘analysis’ and ‘evaluation’ (Webster et al, 2000, re u/g dissertations).

Difficulties with language

A/1st: Able to recognise consistency and reconcile inconsistency between information using cognitive and hypothesising skills.

B+/2.1: Consistent understanding demonstrated in a logical and lucid manner.

B/2.2: Demonstrate understanding in a style which is mostly logical, consistent and flowing.

C/3rd: Attempts to demonstrate a logical and coherent understanding of the subject area but aspects become confused or are underdeveloped.

Refer/Fail: Understanding of the assignment not apparent, or lacks a logical and coherent framework, or the subject is confused or underdeveloped.

Price & Rust (1999, p.134)

‘Conceptualisation’ as an example of the problem

The obvious response is greater clarity ...

Clarity in assessment procedures, processes and criteria ... encourages instrumentalism. [Add in coaching and practice] This might be characterized as a move from assessment of learning, through the currently popular idea of assessment for learning, to assessment as learning, where assessment procedures and practices come completely to dominate the learning experience, and ‘criteria compliance’ comes to replace ‘learning’.

(Torrance, 2007, original emphases)

A note of caution from vocational education

Performance goals dominating learning goals?

Terms like ‘check spellings’ and ‘more depth’ are unhelpful, just as are vague phrases like ‘this is unclear’.

(Orsmond et al, 2005)

Opaque words

Feedback I received from my coursework picked up on things I had missed, but the things mentioned were not part of the assessment criteria.

(Weaver, 2006)

Unexpected words

... in [Subject 3] they have a formative which is supposed to help you with the summative after it, but we have not had the work back from the formative before we had to do the summative!

(Duncan, 2007)

Timely words (not!)

Unreadable words

Their writing is terrible. Very messy. Can’t understand 95% of what is written.

(Potter and Lynch, 2008)

The ‘Sophomore Slump’ Project

What can institutional research tell you?

50.0

52.5

55.0

57.5

60.0

62.5

65.0

67.5

70.0

Yr1 Yr2 Yr3

Bus 4

Arts 1

Bus 5

Arts 2

Educ 2

Hum 1

Arts 3

Arts 4

Soc 3 50.0

52.5

55.0

57.5

60.0

62.5

65.0

67.5

70.0

Yr1 Yr2 Yr3

Bus 1

Bus 2

Soc 1

Media 1

Educ 1

Bus 3

Sci 1

Soc 2

Comp 1

A ‘sophomore slump’? Or not?

The need is to dig beneath the data to understand what’s going on

Some overarching considerations

Transition into HE can be very challenging Students differ in their pace of adjustment to HE’s demands

They may suffer from psychological pressures Things that can help include

• Being clear about ‘the deal’

• The pedagogic approach

• Formative assessment The language of HE (especially assessment) can be opaque Institutional data can be used to identify potential problems