The Improving Learning series showcases findings from projects within ESRC’s Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) – the UK’s largest ever coordinated educational research initiative. Each book is explicitly designed to support ‘evidence-informed’ decisions in educational practice and policy-making. In particular, they combine rigorous social and educational science with high awareness of the significance of the issues being researched.
By Mary Fuller, Jan Georgeson, Mick Healey, Alan Hurst, Katie Kelly, Sheila Riddell, Hazel Roberts, Elisabet Weedon
July 31, 2009
How do disabled students feel about their time at university? What practices and policies work and what challenges do they encounter? How do they view staff and those providing learning support? This book sets out to show how disabled students experience university life today. The current ...
By Gert Biesta, John Field, Phil Hodkinson, Flora J. Macleod, Ivor F Goodson
April 05, 2011
Adult learning matters. There is now widespread agreement that modern countries depend on the creativity, skills and knowledge of the entire population for their prosperity. Many people talk of our future well-being in terms of a ‘knowledge economy’ or a ‘learning society’ in which every person’s ...
By Mark Rickinson, Judy Sebba, Anne Edwards
March 10, 2011
There are increasing calls for social science researchers to work more closely with research users. References to engaging users in and with research are now common in research funding requirements, national research strategies and large-scale research programmes. User engagement has therefore ...
By Alison Wolf, Karen Evans
December 21, 2010
Modern societies demand high levels of literacy. The written word is pervasive; individuals with poor literacy skills are deeply disadvantaged; and governments are increasingly pre-occupied with the contribution that skills can make to economic growth. As a result, the basic skills of adult workers...
By Celia Hoyles, Richard Noss, Phillip Kent, Arthur Bakker
June 17, 2010
Improving Mathematics at Work questions the mathematical knowledge and skills that matter in the twenty-first century world of work, and studies how the use of mathematics in the workplace is evolving in the rapidly-changing context of new technologies and globalisation. Through a series of case ...
By John Brennan, Robert Edmunds, Muir Houston, David Jary, Yann Lebeau, Michael Osborne, John T.E. Richardson
January 28, 2010
Received the ‘highly commended’ award by the Society for Educational Studies for books published in 2010. What is learned in universities today? Is it what students expect to learn? Is it what universities say they learn? How far do the answers to questions such as these differ according to what, ...
Edited
By Jim McNally, Allan Blake
October 30, 2009
Improving Learning in a Professional Context provides vital new evidence on exactly how teachers learn to be teachers; evidence that is likely to affect and influence the profession for many years to come. Demonstrating that learning in schools is more than simple ‘cognitive’ knowledge of the ...
Edited
By Miriam David, Ann-Marie Bathmaker, Gill Crozier, Pauline Davis, Hubert Ertl, Alison Fuller, Geoff Hayward, Sue Heath, Chris Hockings, Gareth Parry, Diane Reay, Anna Vignoles, Julian Williams
October 22, 2009
Improving Learning by Widening Participation in Higher Education presents a strong and coherent rationale for improving learning for diverse students from a range of socio-economic, ethnic/racial and gender backgrounds within higher education, and for adults across the life course. Edited by ...
By Alexandra Withnall
August 18, 2009
With life expectancy increasing, there is growing emphasis on encouraging older people to continue learning. This comes as part of a strategy to allow them to remain healthy, independent and vitally engaged in society for as long as possible. All the same, policymakers have barely begun to address ...
By Andy Howes, S.M.B. Davies, Sam Fox
August 11, 2009
This timely book addresses the need for increasing multi-agency capacity in schools, as the success of initiatives such as ‘Every Child Matters’ or ‘personalised learning’ depends on teachers understanding the challenges faced by young people in learning effectively and happily in their school. ...
By Alan Felstead, Alison Fuller, Nick Jewson, Lorna Unwin
June 09, 2009
Interest in learning at work has captured the attention of many people around the world, often taking centre stage in policy debates about improving economic performance, prosperity and well-being. This book is about the learning that goes on in workplaces – ranging from offices, factories and ...
By Roz Ivanic, Richard Edwards, David Barton, Marilyn Martin-Jones, Zoe Fowler, Buddug Hughes, Greg Mannion, Kate Miller, Candice Satchwell, June Smith
April 06, 2009
What's the problem with literacy at college? How might everyday literacy be harnessed for educational ends? Based on the first major study of literacy practices in colleges in the UK, this book explores the reading and writing associated with learning subjects across the college curriculum. It ...