Improving What is Learned at University: An exploration of the social and organisational diversity of university education

As higher education has expanded, it has diversified both in terms of its institutional form and the characteristics of its students. However, what we do not know is the extent to which it has also diversified in terms of 'what is learned'. In this book the authors explore this question through the voices of higher education students, using empirical data from students taking 15 different courses at different universities across three subject areas - bioscience, business studies and sociology. The study concentrates on the students' experience, lives, hopes and aspirations while at university, through data from interviews and questionnaires, and this is collated and assessed alongside the perspectives of their teachers and official data from the universities they attend.

John Brennan is Professor: of Higher Education Research and Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information at the UK Open University. Robert Edmunds is a Research Student in Systems Engineering and Human Factors at Cranfield University in the U.K. Muir Houston is Lecturer in Adult and Continuing Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Glasgow, UK. David Jary is Visiting Professor in the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information at the UK Open University. Yann Lebeau is Lecturer in Educational Research in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia, UK. Michael Osborne is Professor of Adult and Lifelong Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Glasgow, UK. John T.E. Richardson is Professor of Student Learning and Assessment in the Institute of Educational Technology at the UK Open University.