Context: This thesis investigates the impact of prior A-level study on students taking degree programmes within the Computing discipline. The focus of this work investigates opportunities to providing more-personalised learning which is based on students’ existing knowledge, for example, by providing additional learning support to those students who had studied a particular topic at A-level. Although other studies have been carried out in this area, these studies have typically focused on outcomes across multiple programmes. Due to the variation of content taught, the researchers carrying out these prior studies have been unable to draw conclusions at the level of specific assignments. Aim: The aim of this work is to investigate the impact of A-level subject selection on the performance of those studying Computing programmes at Durham University. Method: This thesis is a detailed study, tracking Durham students, from entry until the completion of year two, over a particular three year period. This three year period of study was selected as, during these three years, Durham’s entry qualifications and course content remained largely unchanged. Hence, the unintended impact of entry qualification and content change were not factors that needed to be taken into consideration. A statistical analysis framework has been developed to investigate the impact which choosing specific A-levels has on student performance. Particularly, this work considers the impact on student performance, in course work (to the level of specific assignments) and examinations, of Maths, Computing, ICT, and Physics A-levels. The research compares the outcomes for students who have these qualifications against those who have not. Specific combinations of these A-levels are also considered. Results: The results highlight some benefits in year one for students studying specific qualifications: largely Maths. However, the most significant result of this work is that, at the end of year two, any differences are insignificant. Therefore, while students with specific A-levels may gain benefits initially, at the point these student enter the final year of their programme, these differences no longer impact of their ability to study. The curriculum within Durham, therefore, already appears to address the needs of students, specifically by covering knowledge, or promoting individual study, of all topics necessary for successful progression. This research has, thereby, revalidated and added to the current body of knowledge in this research area. While this work has identified students without specific A-levels are not adversely affected, what it points to is that some students with A-levels, for instance, in Computing, perceive their early University education to repeat much of their A-level work. So, although this study was not able to recommend personalisation of learning in support of those who have not studied specific A-levels, this work does highlight that, perhaps, personalised learning for those who have taken specific A-level may be necessary. Conclusions: The outcomes of this research have clear and important consequences for Higher Education Admission Policies for the Computing discipline. As an outcome, it would seem that the requirements placed by many institutions on entrants to have specific A-level is unnecessarily restrictive and may be preventing many students entering a discipline in which they would, otherwise, have been successful.

This thesis is focused on the question of motivation among adult students and the ways in which it can be theorised and investigated. The idea was prompted by three areas of concern. First, the large body of literature on achievement goal theory is developed in the West involving school children and young adults. Second, research in cross-cultural motivation issues has also been focused on young learners. Third, research on adult learners has been fragmented and sparse. Little is understood about the motivation of adult learners in a Confucian Heritage Culture, such as Hong Kong. The purpose of this study is to explore the transferability of achievement goal theory to Chinese adult learners. Based upon the social-cognitive framework, this study enquires if personal, behavioural and environmental factors of Chinese adults' achievement motivation can be satisfactorily explained by Western theory that is developed with young learners in mind. A heuristic approach is adopted to explore personal perceptions and understandings of aspects relating to adult learners' motivation. In the first part of this study, the construct systems of 27 part-time Chinese adult students were explored using Repertory Grid interviews. In the second part of the study, the interview data were validated by data triangulation using two focus groups. The data showed that Chinese adults were primarily motivated by extrinsic goals in an avoidance orientation, while holding a firm belief in effort and hard work. Analysis of the data showed considerable differences between important elements suggested by the Western theory and important motivation factors revealed by the sample. In the final analysis, cultural as well as developmental factors were found to attribute to the gap between Western theory and Chinese adult learners. The thesis concludes by discussing the implications of the findings and the strengths and limitations of the research.

In the last two decades the international research literature has demonstrated a growing awareness of student cheating, with high levels of self-reported cheating, especially in the United states (U.S.). Much of the early literature on student cheating originated in the U.S. but from the mid 1990s onwards there was increased interest in student cheating in Europe and the rest of the world. The aim of this research was to explore perceptions and self-reports of, and attitudes towards, cheating in undergraduate programmes. There was an element of comparison involved, in trying to identify differences between students studying for degrees in healthcare professions and psychology. A mixed methods approach was adopted. First, students (n=159) completed anonymous questionnaires that invited them to i) rate the perceived frequency of use in "students on a course like theirs" of each of 27 behaviours that ranged from signing as present students who were absent from classes to copying in examinations; іі) self-report their own use of the same behaviours. Second, volunteer students (n=10) and academics (n=12) from the same programmes as the questionnaire sample were interviewed. Questionnaires were analysed using SPSS to identify within-group and between-group differences; interview transcripts were analysed using the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Ninety six percent of the sample believed that "students on a course like theirs" cheated in some way, exact percentages ranging from 24%-96%, depending on the cheating behaviour. When it came to self-reporting, the students in the sample self- reported significantly less cheating than they perceived in their peers. Whilst there were significant differences between healthcare and psychology students in their perceptions of cheating, no such difference was found in their self-reports. Interviews revealed that almost 60% of students believed that academics rarely investigate suspicions of cheating. Fifty percent of academics confirmed that view.

The last decades there is a clear shift in people’s attitudes towards disability and the participation of disabled people in society and especially in education. The new disability law and the anti-discrimination legislation changed the relationship between disabled students and Higher Education, allowing them access and providing support for their needs. The current research aims to discuss support and provision for students with learning difficulties within Higher Education Institutions. Specifically, within the framework of North East Universities in England (Newcastle University, Northumbria University, Durham and Sunderland University) the research addresses the issues around provision for students with learning difficulties at Durham University. The experiences of the students themselves, as well as the views of the Directors of the Disability Support Unit (DSU) from all four universities combined with the perspectives of lecturers and College Officers from Durham University only, they create a framework within which support and provision are discussed. This project used qualitative methodology as it was considered appropriate for the nature of the research problem. Semi-structured interviews were used for the data collection and were combined with the secondary literature (such as journal articles, papers, websites, documents provided by the institutions etc) to draw a more complete picture of the issues of interest. In the end, the sample consisted of 18 students with learning difficulties who studied in the four Higher Education Institutions, 4 interviews with the Directors of the DSUs from these universities and 7 interviews with lecturers and college officers from Durham University only. Clearly, from the findings of the project some of the changes in Higher Education are steps towards an inclusive educational environment where the needs of all students will be taken care of, regardless of disabilities or abilities of students. However, there are still concerns, which were expressed from both students and Directors of DSUs, about ‘attitudinal barriers’, which are necessary to change, in order to achieve the inclusive education for all. The research also concluded that in order to achieve an all-inclusive educational system it is necessary to focus more on personalised services and treatment for students with learning difficulties, where all the individual needs of students are met. The bureaucratisation of the services and the turn of the education towards marketisation where institutions compete for students and promote the market behaviour have to be replaced by personalisation in services and support for disabled students.

The United Kingdom Governments’ third stream education policy is becoming increasingly important for the higher education sector and, in some universities, has become the second stream, after teaching and learning; replacing research. Third stream, originally described as income generation, has more completely been defined by commentators as the generation and exploitation of knowledge, technology and other university capabilities. The amount of third stream Government funding continues to increase year on year. This study has focused upon the adoption and implementation of third stream activities at a traditional university, a new university, and at a college with a significant amount of higher education provision. This study has identified the complexity of policy–making and the imprecise nature of the process. There is a strong case that policy does not emerge as intended. Policy-making is complex, dynamic and often incremental; and is subjected to influences such as the power of globalisation and the experiences and political expediencies of politicians. A qualitative approach to this research, drawing upon ethnographic methods, was selected due to the need to collect raw data in a broad range context. Grounded theory provided a means of data analysis that suited the complexity of the subject and the richness of the data. The number of issues that this study has identified is broad; ranging from the divided views on the benefits of third stream policy to the ability and willingness of academics to engage in third stream activities. The study has revealed that dissemination of third stream policy to academics at the three host institutions is not comprehensive. The issue of incentives for academics to engage in third stream is seen as being vital by commentators, interviewees and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

This study reports on Thai science students’ experiences in writing their master’s dissertations in English in a Thai university. Situated in an interpretive, qualitative case study design, the study implements a theoretical framework drawing on the notions of communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) and imagined communities and investment (Norton, 2000, 2001). The research participants were five master’s students and their paired dissertation supervisors recruited from three master’s programmes in science disciplines where the medium of instruction was Thai. The students, however, wrote their dissertations in English. Data were derived from questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, collaborative conversations, writing samples, and documents produced by the university. The findings revealed that the students’ preference for writing their dissertations in English encompassed their negotiation and shaping of their social identities and investment in their communities of practice. The students reported that they put a great deal of effort into preparing themselves to cope with the perceived linguistic demands of dissertation writing. However, they perceived that their preparation, to a certain extent, was unsuccessful, attributing this to the university’s lack of appropriate language support and their unfamiliarity with autonomous language learning. The students’ negotiation with the demands of writing their dissertations during the writing-up stage reflected their multidimensional engagement in different literate activities of their communities of practice. This included making use of authoritative written artefacts, accommodating their supervisors’ expectations, and developing a linguistic repertoire through interacting with other members of their communities, particularly those from their local, immediate, interactive communities of practice. This study articulates the various needs in understanding dissertation writing practices and other interconnected academic literacy practices as socially and ideologically constructed in a local, immediate milieu. The study also provides EAP practitioners with pedagogical implications for planning, preparing and delivering dissertation writing support for science postgraduate students. It also suggests that dissertation supervisors should initiate an open dialogue with their students during the supervision process and engage in collegial discussions with their colleagues in order to co-construct effective supervision practices.

Since the start of the 21st century the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is experiencing mass development, and this is accompanied by a growing attention to public sector organizations and their need for change. Linked to this need for change in the UAE higher education sector is the search for avenues that improve performance. This thesis is about 'champions' and 'championing' change in a UAE higher education institution. 'Champions' introduce change, fight for change, and defend others through change. In turn, the champion can be viewed as representing a cuase and conquering change. There has been a tendency to overlook the importance of championing in a UAE higher education context, despite the attention given to institutional change in recent years. In this thesis it will be argues that champions of change are a necessary and important part of higher education institutional change. A champion is somebody on whom others can rely during institutional change. While change may be implemented in the form of structured rationalisation and mission statements, it is the champions that secure institutional change. It will be argued that champions are the key to creating institutional change, and are also an integral part of an institution's wellbeing. The goal of the study was to understand and explain how change leadership works at one representative institution. Following a review of relevant literature, research questions were formulated. These were addressed through an interpretive case study undertaken at a particular UAE higher education institution. The study predominantly used ethnographic methods of data collection, which allowed a set of themes to be identified from interviews, focus groups and observation(s) at the case study institution. It will be argued that the themes show how champions emerge during institutional change.

The adoption of e-learning technologies in campus universities has not realised its potential for meeting the learning needs and expectations of 21st century students. By modelling university learning and teaching as a complex adaptive system, this thesis develops a new way of understanding and managing the adoption of new learning technologies in campus universities. The literature on learning and teaching in higher education indicates that lecturers’ ability to innovate in their teaching is constrained by tacit and discipline-specific educational knowledge. Introducing new methods and technologies into mainstream university teaching requires explicit review of educational knowledge, and requires support from departmental and institutional organizational systems. Research on organizational change in other contexts, such as manufacturing industry, has used complex adaptive systems modelling to understand the systemic interdependence of individual strategies, organizations and technologies. These models suggest that the integration of new e-learning technologies into mainstream campus university teaching will involve corresponding change processes. Part of this change requires the linking up of diverse disciplinary perspectives on learning and teaching. The thesis develops a conceptual framework for researching university learning and teaching as a complex adaptive system that includes learning technologies, people, and their organization within a university. Complex adaptive systems theory suggests that the capacity of a campus university to adapt to new e-learning technologies will be reflected in patterns in the strategies of those lecturers who are early adopters of those technologies. A context-specific study in the University of New South Wales used cognitive mapping to represent and analyse the strategies of a group of 19 early adopters of e-learning technology. These early adopters were participants in a cross-discipline Fellowship programme intended to develop their ability to act as change agents within the university. Analysis of the maps gathered before and after the Fellowship, triangulated with data on the Fellows’ participation in organizational change, leads to a new way of modelling how university learning and teaching systems, including their technologies, adapt within a complex and changing higher education context.

This researcher investigated three academics perceived to be caring, in the naturalistic setting of their everyday work in a UK university. The three academics were selected using LeCompte & Preissle’s (1993) Reputational Case Selection methodology. Two purposes framed this investigation: 1. To gain an in-depth understanding of the educational and pedagogical beliefs and practices of higher education academics who are perceived to be caring and 2. To examine how identity is constructed through autobiography. Using a dual phenomenology and life-history methodology, data sources included a series of interviews, teaching metaphors, observations, participants’ personal writing, research notes and other salient material. Dialogue between the researcher and participants played a major part in ensuring the rigour of the study: throughout, participants were given the opportunity to critically assess their portrayals within the thesis. Results indicated that the participants differed in their views about being perceived as ‘caring’ and possessed a range of beliefs related to its place in academic work. In addition, there was variance in the cultural context of the academics’ work, revealing a difference in the conceptions of institutional prerogatives about ‘the value of caring’. The academics’ autobiographies shaped their values and ethics, and these played a significant role in how their pedagogic identities and practices were conceptualized. This empirical study assists in understanding academic identities at a time of profound change in higher education. It can also contribute to a currently under-theorized account of academic work that weaves values and pedagogic scholarship and examines its effects on students’ experiences. Implications are offered for future research involving the investigation of caring pedagogies in relation to students’ achievement, retention and the values and ethics that might develop as a result of caring teaching.

The use of technology to support teaching and learning in further education has moved from a mere experiment to become a fundamental part of many colleges' curriculum. This has brought a significant change into the FE colleges' operations and management of course delivery. A major part of that change has been intensified by the widespread introduction and use of VLE e-Learning technology. One of the characteristics of the technology is that it combines a variety of tools and resources into a single integrated system. To embed VLE into a college curriculum is not merely to employ a single intervention but to change the fabric of students and teachers' experiences of teaching and learning as well as that of the senior management of the institution concerned. In the past, much of the literature on VLEs has concentrated on studies which list and compare system functions, describing small scale and short term applications or providing speculative theories and predictions. Little attention has so far been paid to analysing what effects a VLE's use has on the participants particularly across a large group of users and over a long period of time. To this extent, this study presents an evaluation of the introduction and management of the recently introduced VLE e-Learning technology at a sixth form college. The study attempted to answer four fundamental questions: - How effective was the case study college in managing the introduction and implementation of the technological change to enhance the use of e-learning? - What was the impact of the VLE e-learning on teaching across the case study college? - What was the impact of the VLE e-learning technology on students' learning? - Did the VLE e-Learning technology cut the costs of course delivery? To answer these questions, a case study research method was used so as to have a real life scenario rather than making hypothetical statements. The impacts of the technology were carefully evaluated against the four stated questions by using the Davis Technology Acceptance Model and change management concepts. The study concluded that the introduction and management processes of a technological change in an academic institution play significant roles in its acceptance and use.