This chapter argues that time taken talking 'at' students should be minimised while the time for students to be involved actively in the development of their understanding and skills should be maximised and extended beyond the formally scheduled class time into personal and group study. It draws attention to teaching practices that support students' learning with a particular focus on classroom teaching. The chapter seeks to encourage university teachers to create effective learning environments for their students by exploring how to distil and present content and organise learning activities for large and small groups of students. The principles of designing effective classroom teaching apply in practical contexts as for any learning environments. These include the selection and organisation of materials, the alignment of the practical learning with learning objectives and assessment, students' active engagement and the integration of discipline learning with development of graduate attributes.

This chapter explores the changing role of academic developers as they engage more broadly in quality agendas in higher education. Understanding the nature of change and the complexity of institutions has led to the development of models and frameworks as the basis for engaging more holistically with the day-to-day realities of universities. A further aspect of the context is the growing emphasis on the enhancement of the quality, such as the student learning experience, as well as assurance of quality processes and outcomes. These changes have put academic developers very much at the centre of strategy and policy development with regard to learning and teaching and the student experience more broadly.

Evaluation has become an everyday activity for many us, whether of our practice in the classroom, the student experience, institutional performance or funded projects. This article looks at the main aspects of evaluation and adopts a systematic approach to evaluation by looking at why, what, for and by whom, when and how to evaluate. The emphasis is on why we want to evaluate and its use in decision making rather than on how we are going to carry it out. The assumption is also that we want to involve as many stakeholders in the evaluation as possible so as to promote greater ownership of the whole process.

This paper presents analysis of qualitative data from a research project looking at staff perceptions of plagiarism at a post-1992 university. Twenty-six members of staff from departments and academic schools from across the university took part in open and semi-structured interviews. Analysis shows that variable definitions of plagiarism exist; both regarding student activities that constitute plagiarism and the way in which plagiarism is perceived to be related to cheating. The factors underlying these personal definitions are unclear, but the analysis suggests that values perceived to underpin higher education may play an important role. This paper provides new empirical data on staff perceptions of student plagiarism, which complement previous research on student perceptions. The potential implications of different perceptions of plagiarism, and a mismatch between staff and student understandings is highlighted as an area for further consideration.

Recent years have seen a growing awareness of the incidence of plagiarism, though the response has largely been to focus on deterrence through detection and punishment. However, student plagiarism is a much more complex issue than suggested by a one‐solution response and this paper argues for a more holistic institutional approach that recognises the need for a shared responsibility between the student, staff and institution, supported by external quality agencies. Case studies from three institutions are used to illustrate possible triggers for adopting a holistic approach. The paper presents a checklist for identifying the absence of a holistic approach to dealing with student plagiarism and concludes that a key aspect is to adopt assessment‐led solutions which focus on using low stakes, formative (as distinct from high stakes, summative) assessment.

Introduction This paper reports on research carried out at Sheffield Hallam University as part of a study examining the potential for improving student learning by making changes to the way formative assessment and feedback is presented. The paper focuses on a part of the overall study, the perceptions of the quantity and usefulness of feedback in some Biosciences and Physical Sciences subjects at the University. It will report quantitative survey data gathered from questionnaires administered to groups of between 15 and 100 students (depending on enrolment) on each of seven science courses at the University. In order to follow up student responses, and tutors' perception of these, 13 students were interviewed, and staff focus groups and individual interviews (7) were held to illuminate and develop issues identified within the initial survey. Written feedback provided on tutor marked assignments was also analysed to further illuminate emerging issues.

As plagiarism is a notion specific to a particular culture and epoch, and is also understood in a variety of ways by individuals, particular attention must be paid to the putting of the phenomenological question, What is plagiarism in its appearing? Resolution of this issue leads us to locate students' perceptions and opinions within the lifeworld, and to seek an initially idiographic set of descriptions. Of twelve interview analyses, three are presented. (a) A student who took an especially anxious line, his morality having to do with the fear of being shamed were he to be accused of plagiarism in his work. (b) A student who saw academic development as the movement from dependence on respected authors such that the novice's work is near plagiaristic, to autonomy and self-assured originality. (c) A student whose degree involved painting and art history—disciplines with very distinct understandings of plagiarism. To combat plagiarism, then, one must not assume that students have a prior grasp of the unequivocal meaning of the notion, but must accept that a process of acculturation is required.

A three year research study at two universities in the UK has been examining the way the design of assessment on a wide range of science courses affects the ways students go about their studying. Its starting point has been a set eleven ‘conditions under which assessment best supports learning’, based on theory and on empirical evidence from studies of strategic changes in assessment (Gibbs,1999; Gibbs, 2002; Gibbs and Simpson, in press). These conditions concern how assessment captures students time and effort and distributes it across a course, how assessment generates productive learning activity, how assessment provides sufficient prompt feedback, the quality of feedback, and how students respond to feedback and use it to inform subsequent learning. The way these characteristics of assessment systems operate in practice has been explored through interviews with students on a series of science courses at the Open University. The ‘Assessment Experience Questionnaire’ (AEQ), which measures the extent to which the 11 conditions are met on courses, will be described. The AEQ has been administered to students on 15 Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy and Bioscience courses, each with different patterns of assessment. Assessment issues have been identified concerning the volume and distribution of student effort and in the use students make of feedback. The project will go on to implement principled changes to assessment design on these courses and to study the impact of these changes on students’ responses and study patterns using the AEQ and other evaluation evidence.

The Coping Scale of the Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI)16 was administered to a group of serving Scottish police officers (N=699) in order to examine the coping skills they might employ in dealing with routine police work. Differences in coping style according to age, gender and rank were observed. Overall, a preference for more problem-focused, direct action coping strategies was apparent. In particular, officers displayed a preference for balancing the demands of work and home as a means of coping with the self-perceived stressors of routine police work. No significant correlation was found between the OSI coping scales and psychological distress as measured by the GHQ-28; however, some small effects were apparent in relation to rank, gender and age. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper describes an empirical study (n = 699) of occupational stress in a Scottish police force. The self-perceived stress associated with a variety of organizational and operational stressors was examined along with the associated distress in the police officers in terms of symptoms of anxiety, somatic complaint, severe depression and social dysfunction. The analysis revealed that in spite of the potential that police work offers for exposure to adverse operational situations such as violence or death, the highest levels of associated stress lie in relation to organizational factors such as officers' perceptions of staff shortages, inadequate resources, time pressures, lack of communication and work overload. Differential rates of perceived stress are reported according to gender, rank and working location. This paper further validates previous research on stress in British police and addresses the situation from a Scottish perspective.

This article reports a survey of current teaching practice and lecturers‘ perceptions of their role within a Business School. These findings have been placed in a theoretical framework. Analysis of the qualitative aspects of the survey showed some interesting variations in conceptions of the role of a lecturer, the purpose of lectures, tutorials and assessment. The results also showed inconsistencies which are explored. The main conceptions of teaching held by respondents describe the role of the lecturer as either imparting knowledge; providing student support; enthusing and motivating students; facilitating student learning; or some combination of these conceptions. A substantial majority of respondents saw themselves as either facilitators or student supporters. However, the predominant use of lectures and tutorials, with the purpose of disseminating information and applying or checking knowledge and understanding, conflicts with the majority view of the role of the lecturer. This disjunction between stated aims and claimed educational practice has been described as one of the ’mysteries of higher education‘. Lecturers express attitudes and beliefs about teaching which are not translated into their teaching strategies and methods. Possible explanations for this disjunction are explored.