Rethinking higher education persistence. This project aims to address the issue of early departure from university. Many students leave higher education and disproportionate numbers are from educationally disadvantaged groups, including first-in-family learners. Too often, the individual learner is 'blamed' for this departure and perceived as deficit in necessary knowledge. This project extends previous research into how first-in-family students manage and engage with higher education. Expected ....Rethinking higher education persistence. This project aims to address the issue of early departure from university. Many students leave higher education and disproportionate numbers are from educationally disadvantaged groups, including first-in-family learners. Too often, the individual learner is 'blamed' for this departure and perceived as deficit in necessary knowledge. This project extends previous research into how first-in-family students manage and engage with higher education. Expected outcomes include knowledge about university persistence behaviours and a capabilities informed framework to design and implement future retention strategies.Read moreRead less
Tracking reading comprehension: What experts reveal about the mind. This project plans to use expert readers to provide a window on what defines optimal reading. Reading is a complex skill that requires precise coordination of cognition, perception and attention. By measuring skilled readers’ eye movements while they read sentences and short passages, the experiments are designed to investigate how individual differences in reading, spelling and vocabulary influence the timing and coordination o ....Tracking reading comprehension: What experts reveal about the mind. This project plans to use expert readers to provide a window on what defines optimal reading. Reading is a complex skill that requires precise coordination of cognition, perception and attention. By measuring skilled readers’ eye movements while they read sentences and short passages, the experiments are designed to investigate how individual differences in reading, spelling and vocabulary influence the timing and coordination of word identification and comprehension processes during normal reading and how this changes with a readers' goals. The results would distinguish between competing theories of how skilled readers balance word identification and comprehension processes, an issue that is critical to current debates about how reading should be taught.Read moreRead less
‘Grantsmanship’ in the social sciences: an international comparative study. University-based social scientists spend considerable time each year applying for competitive research grants. It is a significant undertaking for universities and individuals. Taking an international comparative approach the project aims to offer original in-depth insight into how so-called ‘grantsmanship’ is undertaken, how it is learned and how it is experienced. It investigates how different policy and institutional ....‘Grantsmanship’ in the social sciences: an international comparative study. University-based social scientists spend considerable time each year applying for competitive research grants. It is a significant undertaking for universities and individuals. Taking an international comparative approach the project aims to offer original in-depth insight into how so-called ‘grantsmanship’ is undertaken, how it is learned and how it is experienced. It investigates how different policy and institutional contexts influence such work and how social scientists negotiate scientific and strategic exigencies in the process of proposal writing. Such analysis aims to enhance understanding of the contemporary mechanisms that shape social scientific practice and stimulate professional, political and public debate central to democratic well-being.Read moreRead less
Cracking the code for skilled reading: the role of lexical quality in word and sentence reading. This project tests the hypothesis that highly skilled reading depends on precisely specified stored knowledge about written words. This project will investigate how individual diffences in reading, spelling and vocabulary among expert readers influence the time course of early orthographic and semantic processes in word identification and the pattern of lecical and contextual influences on eye moveme ....Cracking the code for skilled reading: the role of lexical quality in word and sentence reading. This project tests the hypothesis that highly skilled reading depends on precisely specified stored knowledge about written words. This project will investigate how individual diffences in reading, spelling and vocabulary among expert readers influence the time course of early orthographic and semantic processes in word identification and the pattern of lecical and contextual influences on eye movements during sentence reading.Read moreRead less