A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

Supporting student learning
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which arguments should be presented and authorities referenced, the extent to which
personal opinion is acceptable or quotations are expected, the use of specialist
terminology (or jargon?), and many other subtleties that are rarely made explicit to
students. Other forms of English, such as the laboratory report, legal writing and research
reports, are all context-specific forms of social practice.
Higher-level cognitive and analytical skills
Higher education is distinguished by the demands it makes on students to operate at
higher levels of thinking, creativity, problem-solving, autonomy and responsibility.
The QAA Qualification Descriptors state that ‘typically, successful students at honours
level will be able to critically evaluate arguments, assumptions, abstract concepts and
data (that may be incomplete), to make judgements, and to frame appropriate questions
to achieve a solution – or identify a range of solutions – to a problem’ (QAA, 2001).
It is sometimes only too easy to take for granted that students know what is meant by
terms such as analysis, critical understanding, interpretation, evaluation, ‘argument’. The
meanings of these terms are quite subject specific and tutors within the same discipline
can have different expectations about what students need to do to demonstrate them in
their work. Greater transparency may be achieved by using learning outcomes and
assessment criteria, but it is essential that tutors take the time to discuss with students the
meanings of the words used and give feedback using the same vocabulary.
Case study 2: History Department, Warwick University
The basic principle is to integrate skills into core modules – to have a spine
running through the course so that all the students have the opportunity to
acquire the skills they need.
We do not assume that students have got those skills or can acquire them without
any direction. Certainly part of the reason we went down this route in the first
place is that we found in the second year that some students still did not know
where periodicals were, or tools such as referencing, critical analysis, or putting
together bibliographies and using numerical techniques. Students tend to think
that as historians they do not do numbers.
We were not checking that they were clear about these essential elements and we
found that they did not just pick it up from comments on essays like ‘You should
have looked at a journal’ and ‘You can’t reference properly’.
The skills-rich essays are very focused on historical sources compared with
standard essays which may be more to do with historical problems or
interpretations. This is a more source-orientated exercise and is very much