Writing has a central role in UK higher education as a technology for, and signifier of, the learning, teaching and assessment of students. The nature and quality of student writing has also become an important issue outside the academy, particularly in the context of a globalised neo-liberal knowledge economy discourse which emphasises the importance of transferable and employability skills. Although there is a considerable body of research relating to student writing, the work that I undertook for earlier professional doctorate assignments suggested that the role of academic staff in regulating student writing was under-researched and under-theorised. The research carried out for this thesis sought to address this gap in knowledge by focussing on two central questions. Firstly, what role do academic staff play in regulating student writing? Secondly, how is this role shaped by the specific departmental, disciplinary and institutional contexts in which they are located? The research was undertaken in a criminology department in a post-1992 university in the UK. It was positioned in an academic literacies framework which conceptualises writing as a social practice, and drew on linguistic ethnographic methodologies to explore the written feedback that staff give on student writing. The written feedback encounter is where staff and student expectations about academic writing practices intersect, and is therefore a telling site for the study of educational discourses relating to knowledge and how it is represented. Data were collected from three main sources: written feedback and comments given by academic staff on 120 pieces of student work; 18 interviews with staff about academic writing; and institutional policies and procedures relating to marking, assessment and feedback. Employing a range of theoretical perspectives, including those informed by feminist and poststructuralist analysis, these texts were analysed to explore the relationship between institutional discourses, pedagogical practices and identity construction. My research showed that there was a considerable disjuncture between the institutional discourses which governed marking, assessment and feedback and the actual feedback practices of staff. Despite the strong scientific and positivist discourse that pervaded institutional documentation on assessment and feedback, some staff drew on a range of alternative pedagogical discourses and engaged in assessment practices which were more subjective and localised in nature. This gap between the institutional discourse and the situated literacy practices was mediated to some extent by the assessment coversheet and marking procedures which worked to provide an appearance of consistency and agreement to external audiences. This promoted a technical rational approach to feedback which obscured the epistemological and gatekeeping functions of feedback. The thesis concludes that the effective theorisation and teaching of student writing rests on an understanding of how academic staff construct and police the boundaries of appropriate knowledge in their discipline. This approach draws on existing academic literacies theories but argues for a more holistic model which understands academic writing as co-constructed through the practices of both students who produce the written work and the academic staff who mark it.

Conflicting definitions, understanding and consequent limitations in identifying an appropriate body of knowledge present a major problem for educators who wish to define, adopt and teach cultural competence. A standardised meaning of the term enabling specified outcome measures to be identified could assist effective translation and evaluation of its contribution in developing professionalism in undergraduate health care education. In attempting to seek clarity, perception and relevance of cultural competence in a professional undergraduate programme, a review of the literature and a mixed methods case study of a cohort of 63 undergraduate physiotherapists were undertaken. Constructs of cultural competence were elicited using repertory grids and meanings explored with the use of questionnaires, interviews and evaluation in the teaching and learning of the topic. Results gave new insight into undergraduate physiotherapists’ perception of cultural competence vis-a-vis their clinical competence. Interpretations of perception and expressions of cultural competence varied throughout the literature but, despite this, specific learning and resource needs of students studying the topic were identified. Implications of cultural competence in developing professionalism within health care education were highlighted and evaluated. The need for further research into teaching and learning of the topic in physiotherapy education is supported by the study.

This thesis explores how students can be helped by learner autonomy-focused instruction to develop motivation in learning English in a Japanese university EFL setting. It also aims to ascertain the factors in learner autonomy support that account for its relationship with a higher degree of students’ motivation. Both quantitative and qualitative data from 21 students in the group with learner autonomy support (including metacognitive awareness-raising, instruction of learning strategies, and the use of extrinsic rewards) and 19 students who received the conventional instruction without learner autonomy support were analyzed. The focus of the analysis is to determine the trajectory of motivational development in terms of type and the students’ perception of their level of motivation using the self-determination theory (SDT) framework over 13 weeks of instruction in a university English course. Results suggest that students receiving learner autonomy support performed better and were more motivated than students who did not receive the support. They also indicate that increased and more self-determined motivational development occurred only in the students who received autonomy support.

This qualitative study employed a participatory approach to consult with sixteen autistic students on their experiences of success. Participants were students at five different UK higher education institutions. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the research explored how they defined their successes and made sense of them in relation to their autism diagnoses. A flexible, multi-staged interview process was used. Evaluations indicated that the methodology enabled participation on both practical and theoretical levels. Participants became co-analysts of their data and demonstrated commitment to the project. The students described a wide range of successes, from the academic to the deeply personal, providing powerful counter-narratives to the dominant deficit-based interpretation of autism. The encouragement of one key individual (professional, family member or friend) had often been greatly influential to their achievements. Findings indicated the need for participants to both resist essentialist discourses regarding autism and to make themselves ‘extra-visible’ as an autistic person in order to assert their rights, with the autism diagnosis perceived as both an aid to self-understanding and a cause of additional barriers. In raising awareness of their own needs, participants contributed to broader understandings of autism, becoming educators and role models. The research demonstrates the importance of insights from autistic individuals, in particular showing how making sense of the autism label relates to perceptions of success. Implications for post-diagnostic support are discussed.

A third of medical students at Birmingham Medical School fail one or more first year exams. Alarm has been raised about the apparent over-representation of ethnic minority students amongst those who fail. In this case study I ask: 1. Is there a connection between students’ ethnicity and performance in end of first year exams? 2. Is the experience of medical students at this medical school conducive to effective learning? 3. What, if anything, could be done to improve students’ learning? I show that there is a link between particular students and exam performance, but the link is with socio-economic background, not ethnicity. Students from a privileged background appear to perform better than students from a disadvantaged background. I argue that this may be due to an environment which is not conducive to effective learning. Using a range of research methods I describe how students are expected to support themselves intellectually to become independent learners while passive educational methods such as lectures and a heavy timetable are favoured and students receive limited formative feedback on their progress. The study ends positively, however, as I identify improvements that could be, and in some instances have been, made to the environment.

Pupil’s interests in rapidly changing technology pose threats and opportunities in schools. The present research examines the perspectives of pupils, teachers and parents from two high schools in relation to their experiences of using and regulating mobile phones. Psychological and social (psychosocial) influences on regulation and use of mobile phones are explored. Three key psychosocial factors were found to influence behaviour in relation to use and regulation of mobile phones: Teaching and Learning; Value Sets; and Availability. Teaching and Learning – whether there were advantages to mobile phones in school and their compatibility with the school and its principles of teaching. Value Sets – personal values in relation to identity and belonging, self knowledge and individual responsibility. Availability – the feeling that individuals are more available because of technology. The subject area studied is changing rapidly with the introduction of new technology. The study proposes that the relationship between individuals and mobile technology is an evolving one. The study recognises the psychosocial influences on parents, pupils and teachers. Educational psychologists do have knowledge and skills to contribute in relation to modern technology. Key areas include the role of modern technology within identity and belonging, risk taking behaviours and developmental differences.

This thesis contains ten chapters: three of them are background literature and five have resulted from practical work during the whole period of the research. Chapter 9 is an attempt to extend the idea of the demand of a task, while the last chapter contains conclusions and suggestions for further research. In Chapter 1, the theories of Piaget, Gagne and Ausubel are described and compared with each other. Piaget's stages of intellectual development and how learning processes take place are described and explained. The contribution of the theory in the domains of curriculum, teaching Piagetian tasks as subject matter and matching instruction to development stages is stressed. However, the serious challenges to the theory are (i) horizontal decalage phenomenon, (ii) relating stages with age, (iii) assessing competence and readiness. Gagne's model of an hierarchy of learning comes from theories of transfer. It is built from the top down. The conditions of learning are internal and external and ranged from signal learning to problem solving. The learning process is based on associational chains. The difficulty of the model comes from the nature of a learning hierarchy and its validation. Ausubel's theory of meaningful learning is based on what the learner already knows. It is built up from seven elements which range from meaningful learning to the advance organizer. Meaningful learning occurs as a result of interaction between new and existing knowledge and its variation is due to the growth of differentiation and integration of relevant items in cognitive structure. Failure in learning may occur in situations such as those of conflicting ideas and forgetting. In Chapter 2, Information Processing Theories of Learning are described and the justification of these theories as a fourth paradigm to guide thinking about research is stressed. A model of human memory is given and the components of memory and their features are listed. Stress is placed upon the memory processes and their levels, organization of knowledge, working memory and chunking as a remedy for overload. Two examples of these theories are given namely Neo-Piagetian Theory and the Predictive Model of Holding-Thinking Space. The main goal of the former is to make Piaget's theory functional not just structural. The latter relates performance to the amount of information to be processed in learning and problem solving. This model is applied in both University and Algerian samples. This can be found in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, the field dependent-independent cognitive style is considered as an important factor affecting performance. The differences between field dependent-independent people may be related to the perceptual field, selected information and the level of guidance. The reason for these differences may be due to the way in which information is both analysed and represented in memory. The practical work has been done with both University and Algerian samples. In Chapter 5, some other factors are described. Most of them are concerned directly with the subject matter. The activities involved in learning mathematics are classified and attention is given to Polya's version of heuristic strategies. The concept of understanding is considered as a basic goal of education and its meaning is given in three different aspects. Most attention is given to the third one, which is known as alternative framework or misconception. The levels of understanding of Skemp are defined and their goals are stressed. The causes of learning difficulties in mathematics are listed, while the different forms of mathematical language are described and their effect on learning is noted. In Chapter 6, the analysis of Paper I (multiple-choice questions) has been done for preliminary Examination of four Scottish schools (a fifth school used only traditional questions). The experimental work is concerned with language, formulation and type of question.

This thesis examined the early labour market experiences of graduates from different class backgrounds at three differentially ranked universities. It finds that outcomes are more than the sum of credentials and hard work. Access to social, economic and non-academic forms of cultural capital is found to be important and graduates from middle class backgrounds are more likely than graduates from working class backgrounds to access the forms of capital recognised by the graduate labour market. This leads to observable differences in graduate labour market outcomes. However, the complex relationship between higher education and the graduate labour market means that class differences are not simply reproduced. In the first instance, patterns in graduate labour market outcomes are a product of the academic requirements demanded by certain occupations. These academic barriers are tangible and affect all graduates regardless of background. Graduates with more prestigious credentials are more likely to access professional or managerial occupations and are more likely to find traditional graduate employment: the proportion of middle class graduates employed in professional or managerial occupations was 100% at the Elite University, 79% at the Russell Group University and 69% at the Post-1992 University. This compares with figures of 100%, 56% and 31%, respectively, for working class graduates. However, labour market success is also predicated upon exhibiting the ‘right’ combination of competencies and experiences, privileging middle class graduates. Middle class graduates have greater access to economic capital, are able to leverage their social networks to augment their employability, and are more likely to exhibit ways of being and doing associated with professional and managerial competence. As such, intra-university comparisons find that middle class graduates are more likely to access graduate employment (79% of Russell Group University middle class graduates were in graduate employment compared to 22% of working class graduates) and work in professional or managerial occupations (see figures above). These observations can be attributed to significant differences in economic, social and cultural capital. However, such comparisons conceal subtle in-group differences. This thesis identified distinct class fractions within both the middle and working class groups. An interesting distinction within the middle classes was that between middle class graduates with parents employed in the public/third sectors and those with parents employed in the private sector. For instance, 80% of graduates in the public sector had one or more parents employed by the public sector and almost 60% had both parents employed by the public sector, which constituted all of those with both parents employed by the public sector. All of the graduates in the private sector had at least one parent employed by the sector and 74% had both parents employed by the sector, constituting 85% of graduates with both parents employed in the private sector. The same pattern did not emerge for working class graduates. The sector of parental employment is significant because it reflects systematic differences in social and political orientation, which for graduates give rise to discernible differences in their inherited labour market orientation, social networks and cultural capital. The graduate labour market outcomes of working class graduates are acutely tied to the institutions they attend and their experiences therein. Unlike many middle class graduates, working class graduates do not inherit forms of social and cultural capital that can be easily realised in the graduate labour market. As such, differences between working class fractions can be traced to differences in educational achievement and trajectory. Through the acculturation of middle class behaviours and alignment of practices, working class graduates benefit from the institutional proximity to middle class peers and become caught in their ‘slip stream’. The benefits are clear to see: 65% of elite trajectory graduates were in traditional graduate employment and 94% were in professional or managerial occupations. For modal trajectory graduates mediocre credentials and low levels of inherited social and cultural capital are compounded by socially segregated institutional experiences. Consequently, they were found in the least competitive regions of the graduate labour market, typically in non-graduate employment and in occupations that did not require a degree-level education. These findings add to our understanding of how class background, higher education and the graduate labour market interact. They raise some important questions for the academic field but also for public policy, particularly around the role of higher education in promoting social mobility and its relationship with the (graduate) labour market.

This investigation charts a number of complementary explorations at the site of electronic media in art practice and design and media education. Artists are increasingly using video and computer technology in the production of their work, and these shifts are reflected in the way design and media courses are taught in Higher Education. This study seeks to relate a number of often contentious issues, but complex questions are central to any debate about the use of electronic imaging technologies by artists and the implications for teaching and learning. In this respect, the thesis is informed by my dual role as an artist using electronic media and as a lecturer in video and digital imaging in the Media Department at the University of Westminster. The study is based on a particular model of action research, and seeks after the manner of Glaser and Strauss (1967) to "ground" theory in the aggregate perceptions, understandings, and artistic or pedagogical orientations of those seeking to bring order to their own experiences in the settings. The text is arranged in eleven chapters. It begins by introducing the boundaries of the phenomena under study (which is necessarily ragged and untidy and challengingly gritty, since the composite issues have yet to have attracted any clarity of exposition, and the field is in any case characterised by imaginative leaps and cross-fertilisation) and the methodological and idealogical stances adopted. Methodologically the thesis is wide-ranging and eclectic, although also contained within the kind of feminist epistomology proposed by Sandra Harding (1992), Marnier Lazreg (1994) and others. It then moves on to examine a number of focal points and issues related to the use to which electronic media is put by artists. These topics include my own sustained attempts to develop non-linear computer systems for mapping associative thoughts, and a more general and more detailed study of the principles and characteristics of these systems when they are used for holding information about knowledge domains. Following this, there is a chapter dedicated to the application of these principles to a particular knowledge domain, colour theory, with the aim of designing a computer aided learning package. The interconnections between all the topics, issues and themes studied in the text are highlighted in the middle of the thesis before moving on to more specific investigation of the issue of gender in both technological education and creativity, with an emphasis on the use of imaging technologies by women artists. The impact of these technologies in terms of shifting aesthetic values and tastes forms the basis of the final chapter, and a conclusion seeks to offer both a tentative intellectual synopsis and to indicate how the exercise has influenced and affected my work as an artist. I am aware that to some extent this arrangement challenges both the linear quality of conventional research reportage and academic distrust of promiscuously interpenetrating ideas. I trust that this form of discourse, deliberately chosen, is experienced as working within its own terms.

To what extent does reflective learning in education meet the needs of learners in a reflexive modern society? The thesis constructs a late-modern case for reflective learning in post-compulsory education. It is argued that reflective learning connects with a key concept in contemporary social theory - that of reflexivity. The arguments are developed through the following key questions. • To what extent does reflective learning in post compulsory education correspond with the needs of learners in late-modernity? • What are the key characteristics of late-modernity? • Can the application of reflective learning by practitioners improve student learning in post-compulsory education? • What are the conclusions for teaching and learning in post-compulsory education that flow from this analysis of social theory and educational practice? Enlightenment and contemporary modernity is explored through a review of literature on social theory and philosophy. The second part of the thesis is concerned with praxis the testing of theory in action. Case studies in action research are used to examine how teachers seek to promote reflective learning in their practice. This exploration of theory and practice is then used to present the overall conclusions and make recommendations for future action. In many ways this thesis revisits the territory and thinking of John Dewey, It seeks to connect educational praxis to the wider social context, but from a late-modern perspective.