Student-centred learning and teaching (SCLT) has become a widespread approach in higher education and is praised by students, educational researchers and policy makers alike. SCLT is believed to help students become self-directed learners by placing them at the centre of the learning process. Despite the central role currently ascribed to SCLT in…

This article traces and critically analyses a personal journey in search of effective ways to promote exemplary questioning on the part of students. The article is in many ways a polemic rather than a scientific study, which emerges as much from the 1970s and the writings of Carl Rogers as from the second decade of the twenty-first century with…

Mature learners often invest a great deal of emotional energy in starting a higher education qualification. They have complex needs which are often less to do with their ability to learn and more to do with aspects of confidence and levels of self-belief about achieving or feeling "good enough" to participate. This article explores the…

This article explores the use of discourse analysis and conversation analysis as an evaluation tool in problem-based learning. The basic principles of the methods are discussed and their application in analysing talk in problem-based learning considered. Findings suggest that these methods could enable an understanding of how effective…

This paper comprises a summary of research into the teaching of higher education (HE) courses in further education (FE) learning environments. A comprehensive study of college management and teaching staff attitudes together with teaching practices, pedagogy and research was carried out with six partner colleges of the University of Plymouth where…