Using assessment criteria to support student learning

Since 1998, a skills module for level 1 BSc Psychology students at City campus (formerly London Guildhall University) has been an important part of the department’s strategy to improve students’ baseline and study skills. The discipline-based skills module combines generic and subject-specific skills teaching, links skills provision with the personal tutor system, and includes practical exercises to promote deep learning and improve study skills. One of the exercises involved familiarising students with the Psychology assessment criteria, and this work led to a project to develop tailored resources based on assessment criteria to support students and improve the quality of assessment

A composite light scalar, electro-weak symmetry breaking and the recent LHC searches

We construct a model in which electro-weak symmetry breaking is induced by a strongly coupled sector, which is described in terms of a five-dimensional model in the spirit of the bottom-up approach to holography. We compute the precision electro-weak parameters, and identify regions of parameter space allowed by indirect tests. We compute the spectrum of scalar and vector resonances, which contains a set of parametrically light states that can be identified with the electroweak gauge bosons and a light dilaton. There is then a little desert, up to 2-3 TeV, where towers of resonances of the vector, axial-vector and scalar particles appear.Comment: Version accepted for publication. Two footnotes and one reference adde

A light scalar from walking solutions in gauge-string duality

We consider the type-IIB background generated by the strong-coupling limit of Nc D5 branes wrapped on S2, and focus our attention on a special class of solutions that exhibit walking behavior. We compute numerically the spectrum of scalar fluctuations around vacua of this class. Besides two cuts, and sequences of single poles converging on one of the branch points, the spectrum contains one isolated scalar, the mass of which is suppressed by the length of the walking region. Approximate scale-invariance symmetry in the walking region suggests that this be interpreted as a light dilaton, the pseudo-Goldstone boson of dilatations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Superpotential formalism replaced with effective potential. Main results unchange

Development and evaluation of an intervention to improve further education students' understanding of higher education assessment criteria: three studies

Three studies about helping Further Education students prepare for study at universityThis paper reports three studies about preparing Further Education (FE) students for the transition to Higher Education (HE) by improving their understanding of HE assessment criteria. In study 1, students and tutors in both FE and HE were interviewed for a qualitative analysis of their understandings and expectations about assessment criteria. In study 2, students in FE and HE completed questionnaires measuring self-rated understanding and ability about assessment criteria, and beliefs about essay writing. Studies 1 and 2 both showed that FE students were more confident than HE students about their understanding and ability in relation to assessment criteria, but FE students’ understandings suggested more surface approaches to learning and more naïve epistemological beliefs. In study 3, a workshop intervention to improve FE students’ understandings of HE assessment criteria was evaluated in a comparative longitudinal trial. The intervention reduced FE students’ self-rated understanding and ability, and promoted more sophisticated beliefs about essay writing, by comparison with students who received standard tuition. We concluded that interventions to develop more realistic understandings of what is required in academic writing could be used to prepare FE students more effectively for the transition to HE

In search of an authorial identity

Plagiarism happens so quickly and easily when text can be copied and pasted, especially when students feel under pressure to get good grades and are working to multiple, fast-approaching deadlines. Authorial identity provides a very positive and satisfying focus for pedagogic work to help students improve their writing and avoid plagiarism. It can be applied in many ways to different aspects of student writing development, and it involves a very psychological approach to plagiarism prevention