Biosciences Takeover Week: Supporting Biosciences Students with Non-Traditional Entry Qualifications
By Fran Henshaw, Paul Gokhale, and Cara Mahon
Overcoming Barriers in Bioscience Assessment
The School of Bioscience assesses level 1 students by a range of means, but this includes in-person invigilated exams for each lecture module.
The majority of students entering the School at level 1 have high-quality A levels in science and other subjects. As such, these students have had considerable practice at invigilated exams and fare well in the January and June exam periods.
However, Biosciences also has a considerable number of students entering level 1 with a range of non-traditional qualifications, including STEM-based: BTECs, Access to HE, as well as internal and external foundation years. Generally, these students have had much less exposure to invigilated exams since their GCSEs (in excess of 2 years and sometimes considerably longer) and as a result can lack confidence in their abilities and experience a high level of anxiety (Lenski et al, 2024) under these conditions.
Programme of Intervention
To address this within the cohort, a weekly programme of study, revision and exam skills was designed to run throughout the first semester in level 1. The aim of the programme is to guide and support students to develop their own study, revision and exam habits, not only for success in the level 1 January exams, but to take forward with them as part of their academic journey:
- Time management and organisation for success
- Taking useful lecture notes, finding your style
- Revising for understanding, actively engaging with the key information:
- Diagrams and revision notes
- Using scaffolded questions and model answers from low to high challenge
- Spaced repetition and exam revision scheduling
- Analysis of weaknesses, metacognition and RAG rating
Two academic members of staff (Year Tutors at level 1 and 2) and a GTA run the sessions, in order to maintain the University’s headline staff to student ratio. We were fortunate to recruit a GTA with a genuine interest in education and supporting students. Serendipitously, she was also closer to the students’ age, so potentially more likely to be viewed as a 'peer' offering good advice. In addition, this gave an opportunity to promote the established peer-assisted learning activities run by the School and the 301 centre, in which level 2 students support the level 1 on core modules throughout the year.
The Story So Far
The programme is halfway through, but already there has been observable ‘added value’.
Sense of community
As year tutors we often hear how isolated students from non-traditional backgrounds feel, not least because they have ‘imposter syndrome’ and therefore often choose not to integrate with other students. One of the positives of bringing the cohort together has been the building of a community within the group, which is well established as an effective way to promote a sense of belonging, increase happiness and ultimately improve outcomes for students in HE (Cwik and Singh (2024).
A network of ‘study buddies’ and increased confidence
A side-effect of students working together has been the natural formation of study buddies and groups that students have continued to utilise outside of the sessions. This in turn has built confidence and resilience, as students have someone to discuss their studies with and seek support from and understand that developing academic skills is an ongoing process.
Meaningful Knowledge
It is well established that students learn better if they can identify the value of what is being taught (Eccles and Wigfield, 2020), we sought to establish this ‘meaningful knowledge’ by explaining the correlation between the skills being taught and outcomes. We felt that having the right programme name was essential in capturing students’ interest. By calling the programme ‘Success at Sheffield (S@S)’ we aimed to convey that students were on a journey to success, whilst being part of community of learners within Sheffield University. Interestingly, students who were not originally enrolled (but had heard of the programme) have asked to be included.
One of the key features of the sessions is dedicated time to apply the skills being taught and practice them under the supervision of the staff. This ‘application time’ is key to establishing the correct study and revision habits with feedback from staff. Students have also been exposed to formative questions under timed conditions (available to all students through the module Blackboard pages), as several have self-reported anxiety about the examination process.
The Journey Towards Spring Exams
Semester 1b will continue the iterative process of developing students’ study and revision techniques by encouraging reflection upon their resources and study tools. By the end of the semester we hope to have established metacognition within the cohort by providing a ‘recipe’ for successfully study habits and the space and support to develop them.
Acknowledgement
The S@S sessions are in addition to a comprehensive study skills programme in the School of Biosciences, that address the full gamut of academic skills.