What is Learned at University? The Social and Organisational Mediation of University Learning (SOMUL)

Summary of the project

With a focus on three subject areas, the project explored the relationships between learning outcomes and the ways in which learning is mediated through the different settings in which it occurs.

The results aimed to provide knowledge about how students should be assessed and how the curriculum should be structured, in addition to implications for higher education policy, including how educational quality is assessed, how degree programmes are designed and benchmarked, and how qualifications and other learning outcomes from different types of course and institution can be compared.

3 subject areas	3 ways in which learning is mediated	3 conceptions of learning outcomes
biosciences business studies sociology	by formal educational curricula and assessment by the priniciples of curriculum organisation by the social context of study	as cognitive development as academic and professional development as personal identity and conception of self

Research design:

Three main phases

Phase 1 (January 2004 to December 2004)

Literature review, contextualising subject cultures and contexts (including benchmark statements), selection of cases, negotiating access and development of research instruments.

Phase 2 (October 2004 to May 2007)

Empirical investigation of learning outcomes and their social and organisational mediation involving:

5 case studies in each subject using surveys, focus groups and individual interviews to follow up 'entering' and 'exiting' cohorts over a period of approximately two years, plus interviews with teaching staff
a wider survey of students from a larger set of subjects.

Phase 3 (April 2007 to December 2007)

Assessment of the implications for policy and practice at national institutional and departmental levels.

Data owner:: cheri webmaster

Last updated:: 16/123/09