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Does Teaching & Learning Translate?
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  Dai Hounsell What's distinctive about first year undergraduate courses as teaching-learning environments?  Some empirical findings
   
  Professor Dai Hounsell
  University of Edinburgh
   
    This paper will draw on empirical findings from a large-scale, cross-institutional research project to highlight some distinctive teaching-learning challenges of first-year undergraduate courses, particularly in comparison to final-year courses. In many U21 universities, such first-year courses typically have larger and more diverse student enrolments than their final-year counterparts, and may be taught and assessed by course teams which are also larger and more varied in their make-up.1,2

The project concerned was entitled 'Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses' (www.tla.ed.ac.uk/centre/etl/) and was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council as part of its Teaching and Learning Research Programme. It focused on first- and final-year undergraduate course units in four subject areas (Biosciences, Economics, Electronic Engineering and History) in a cross-section of British universities. Data was gathered by means of two student questionnaires, group interviews with students, interviews with key teaching staff and analysis of course documentation. A distinctive feature of the project design was that it aimed not only to investigate undergraduate courses as teaching-learning environments, but also to explore ways in which the resulting research evidence could be used to inform and underpin initiatives to enhance the quality of teaching and learning.

The present paper is particularly concerned with the findings on the first-year course units surveyed. Building on John Biggs' model of 'constructive alignment', it reviews the extent of congruence or pedagogical goodness-of-fit between the pursuit of high-quality learning and various key dimensions of the course units as teaching-learning environments. These dimensions encompassed congruence of curriculum aims, scope and structure; teaching-learning activities and learning support; assessment, guidance and feedback; course organisation and management; and congruence with students' backgrounds, knowledge and aspirations. Findings on first-year course units will be contrasted with those from the final-year courses surveyed, and related to research evidence from within and beyond the UK.

1. Hounsell, D. & Hounsell, J. (2007) Teaching-learning environments in contemporary mass higher education in Entwistle, N.J., et al. (eds) Student Learning and University Teaching . (Psychological Aspects of Education – Current Trends. British Journal of Educational Psychology Monograph Series II ) British Psychological Society, Leicester: 91-111.

2. McCune, V. & Hounsell, D. (2005). 'The development of students' ways of thinking and practising in three final-year biology courses.' Higher Education 49: 255-289.