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PUBLICATION INFORMATION

TITLE OF PUBLICATION

EASING THE TRANSITION FROM SECONDARY SCHOOL TO HIGHER EDUCATION THROUGH RECOGNITION OF THE SKILLS OF OUR STUDENTS

NAME OF AUTHOR(S)

Orla Kelly and Odilla Finlayson

NAME OF PUBLISHER

New Directions, HEA Academy UK

YEAR OF PUBLICATION

2010

LANGUAGE OF PUBLICATION

English

PUBLICATION TYPOLOGY

Report

TARGET GROUP OF PUBLICATION

Researchers, Teachers

SIZE OF THE PUBLICATION

3 – 10 pages

DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS

The authors of this report started the research in Dublin City University as part of several investigations to address the issues with chemistry teaching and learning for undergraduate students. With only 14% of the leaving certificate cohort studying chemistry at school it has been the increasing experience of lecturers that many of the undergraduate students in chemistry programme sdo not have previous studies in chemistry to underpin their degree studies, or to ease the school-university transition. Orla Kelly continued the research in the University of Plymouth.
This short communication discusses research that has investigated students‟ self-perception of their skills. This was to identify which skills they felt most and least confident in upon starting university. General and scientific and practical skills as well as skills related to improving learning were explored. The results suggested that students felt most confident in working in groups, interacting with people to obtain the necessary information and assistance, and observing chemical events and changes among others.
In contrast students felt least confident in planning and presenting an oral presentation, analysing and evaluating experimental data, and using the internet and other resources to gain information.
Details of how the findings were used to make effective changes to an existing chemistry module in the BSC in Science Education in Dublin City University are discussed. Furthermore, the relevance of this in terms of supporting first year students in their transition to university-level work and subsequently planning appropriate modules are discussed in relation to published results from the UK Physical Sciences Centre Review of the Student Learning Experience in Chemistry and in light of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills Higher Ambitions and Skills for Growth papers.
The skills audit by a cohort of first year students is presented and discussed.

REVIEWER’S COMMENTS ON THE PUBLICATION

This reviewer finds the publication interesting and relevant. It highlights the dichotomy in existence between school and university level chemistry. School students experience chemistry practicals as a series of 'recipe' situations and it is not surprising therefore that first and second year undergraduates are happiest with this formulaic system. This presents a dilemma for the providers of degree programmes who are trying to respond to government and business requirements for problem solvers with an active attitude to learning and discovery.
The publication reports a skills audit carried out by a relatively small cohort of undergraduates. This was to identify what skills students felt they were confident in using, and which skills the students had had little opportunity to develop. The chemistry module was then tailored to enable the students to develop a full range of skills.
The authors acknowledge that this study was carried out in an Irish university, with students who had been through the Irish school system. However, it was hoped that the similarities between the experiences of Leaving Certificate and A-levels physical science students justify implications being drawn for the UK as well as Ireland.
As the authors assert, 'if things change for school level science this should mean that our future science undergraduates will enter our courses with more developed skills. However, in the mean time, it is essential that the skills level of our students is recognised on starting their university degree programme. Moreover, on recognising deficiencies in their skills, we need to give our students experience in developing these areas'.
In summary, this article supports the need for more innovative programmes, encouraging enquiry and problem-solving. It also reinforces the need to evaluate curricula and adjust them to the skills needs of our young chemistry students.

WHERE TO FIND IT

http://journals.heacademy.ac.uk/doi/abs/10.11120/ndir.2010.00060051

PDF OF THE PUBLICATION

44_easing transition Orla Kelly.pdf

NAME OF THE REVIEWING ORGANISATION

Limerick Institute of Technology

Comments about this Publication

Your comments are welcome

Date: 2014.05.14

Posted by Ana Martín Lasanta (Spain)

Message: The work published by McLoughlin and
Finlayson describes a-‐four-‐years-‐research in which the authors tried to evaluate the improvement of communication, problem solving and team working skills of ca. 600 first-‐year-‐undergraduate-‐ science students through tackling multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary science problems. In my opinion, this paper is relevant because it describes a real experience. Its interest stems from the original idea (The objective was set as response to some former employment/skills
reports). In other words, the project is a practical design to improve a weak-‐point of the educational system which has negative
consequences for employment and evaluate the success of the module design afterwards.
In the paper, the proposal is related thoroughtly within the classical format of a research report. Students feedback was used after the first year of implemention in order to identify the problems of the experience and find solutions to overcome them. Moreover, McLoughlin and Finlayson´s work clearly the results of the module, draws some conclusions and makes a general summary facilitating other teachers to develop similar projects by themselves. It has been a really interesting reading for me.

Date: 2014.04.07

Posted by Françoise Derwa (Belgium)

Message: This publication refers to a research project that investigates students self-perception of their skills, both practical and theoretical.
It is in particular focused on the gap existing between students’ effective knowledge before entering university and what is required from them after. On this matter, the publication offers some methodologies to overcome this issue. One of the efficient methodologies is to deliver students a test for a self-evaluation, in order to identify which skills they are confident in and which ones they could not develop. All this is consequently summarized in diagrams that make the results more clear.

Date: 2014.03.29

Posted by Effimia Ireiotou (Greece)

Message: This short communication discusses student’s self perception skills. It aims to provide insight on what skills students have upon entering university and to consider the implications for teaching physical sciences in Higher Education.
This publication is relevant as it engages in a survey that studies various learning skills (general skills, scientific/practical skills and describes skills to improve learning ability) of students gained during secondary education and the confidence they have in performing. It considers verification experiments (where students typically perform the experiment following instructions from a manual) versus practical work where the procedure and the outcome have to be devised.
The publication points out some of the deficiencies students have at the end of secondary education. Indirectly, it does help teachers to keep update to the new teaching methodologies as they are described in the questionnaire given to the students and the use of internet is mentioned as a means for retrieving recent findings. However, it does not suggest how to use ICTs in the teaching of chemistry.
The publication is useful to me as it suggests that emphasis in science education should be on engaging students with science and scientific phenomena and proposes that this is best achieved through extended investigating work and “hand’s on experimentation.

National Reports on successful experiences to promote lifelong learning for chemistry The national reports on chemistry successful experiences to promote lifelong learning for chemistry are now available on the related section of the project portal. The reports presents examples of successful experiences in the partner countries and the results of testing of ICT resources with science teachers.