Improving Students’ Scholarship Skills - Briefing Paper
Introduction
Scholarship is a fundamental purpose of higher
education, and yet students don’t always seem
to perceive themselves as ‘scholars’. This brief
booklet offers some ideas on how to improve
your students’ approach to scholarly work, and
the skills they need in order to do that work.
One useful point of reference is Bloom’s
Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956)
which covers three domains – cognitive,
affective and psychomotor.
At the lower
cognitive levels, students have outcomes which
relate to gaining knowledge and understanding.
With greater conceptual and intellectual
challenge, students learn to carry out the higher
level activities of synthesis and evaluation:
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
(Conceptual change: changing as a person)
Evaluation
Synthesis
Analysis
Application
Understanding
Knowledge.
These categories have been adapted for the
Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework,
and by Heriot-Watt, to differentiate between the
different educational levels. At Masters level
(Level 11), for example, the verbs used to
describe student outcomes denote a higher level
of intellectual expectation than for first year
undergraduates (Level 7):
http://www.scqf.org.uk/downloads/Handbook%2
02004.pdf
When considering the idea of scholarship skills,
these are much more likely to be developed
when students are operating at the more
demanding intellectual levels of analysis,
synthesis and evaluation. There is no reason
why these cannot be present from the first year
of study; in fact, it could be argued that if
students experience a culture of passivity in
their first year, then it is harder to inculcate them
into higher level outcomes at a later stage. So
scholarship skills need to be developed from the
beginning of their course.
Bloom’s affective domain is particularly
important in disciplines where attitude and value
development are an important part of the
learning. The following list begins with the
simplest level and moves to the most complex.

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Receive
Respond
Value (understand and act)
Organise personal value system
Internalise a set of values
His psychomotor domain has particular
relevance where practical work (lab, workshop)
plays an important role:

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Imitation
Manipulation
Development of precision
Combine/integrate skills
Internalise complex physical processes –
become skilled.
The most basic level describes simply copying a
physical process often with a great degree of
active consciousness (imitation) – this is likely to
be the level that new students are at. By the
end of a degree programme, however, we
should expect students to be able to engage in
skilled, confident behaviour (eg use of a
complex piece of equipment) without any need
for conscious thought.
Each of these taxonomies suggests a need for
scaffolding of learning so that students develop
increasingly subtle and complex abilities.
What is meant by Scholarship?

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A culture in which academic inquiry is a
common aim of both staff and students
Students’ understanding that academic work
involves inquiry, research and higher level
thinking
Students engaging with academic processes
Students’ ability to use academic methods
and skills
Involvement of students in your academic
community
What are the academic skills we want
students to develop?

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Academic writing (technical ability
quality of writing)
Skills of gathering and analysing data
Study and learning skills
and
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
Attitude and expectation of independent
inquiry
Ideas for skills development

Collaborative essay writing
or
oral
presentations, so students have to compare
and agree ideas

critiques of web resources, to develop skills
of critical appraisal

peer feedback on written drafts (under staff
guidance and supervision)

learning diaries, in which students note what
they have learned from each assignment or
exercise

student self-assessment (perhaps using a
short, self-assessment questionnaire)

problem-based learning exercises, in which
concepts have real-world applications

students produce posters to explain and link
their ideas; they peer assess the posters

rather than write an essay or lab report, ask
students to simulate authentic academic
activities (eg write a journal paper or book
review)

engage students in discussion to raise
awareness of the process of development of
skills in particular areas and link this to skill
development activities
Some Practical Examples:
1. Glasgow Caledonian University: Second
year undergraduates are offered the
opportunity to write a Research Briefing
Paper following a fieldwork project.
A
'Research Briefing Paper' is a concise
summary of research findings that is written
for an informed, although not necessarily an
expert, audience. Typically, research briefing
papers are presented as a four-page A4sized pamphlet. Each paper reaches a clear
conclusion based on evidence and concise
argument. This tends to result in a pace of
writing that could best be described as
'swift'. Students can opt to have their paper
peer reviewed and then published on the
STUp web site:
http://www.gees.ac.uk/pubs/student/contents
.htm
2. Trinity and All Saints College, Leeds:
Research-based
modules
on
History
undergraduate
and
post-graduate
programmes provide a means for students to
acquire a large number of high-level
transferable skills, including those that will
be invaluable in the graduate labour market.
However students often fail to reflect on the
learning processes involved, appreciate their
own ‘learning styles' or recognise the range
of
transferable
skills
they
acquire.
A project focusing upon transferable skills in
History undergraduate and post-graduate
research project modules has been
exploring the development of student
appreciation of these factors, through the
use of group activities and personal
reflective learning logs for students
undertaking the History undergraduate
independent study (level 2) or the level 3
History dissertation. The use of a
log/calendar
is
combined
with
the
opportunity to make reflective comments on
the process of researching and writing
history in the log and in group sessions and
interviews.
For a detailed account of this case study:
http://www.hca.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/
case_Studies/snas/drummond.doc?id=220
3. Strathclyde University: The department of
engineering has been trialling structured
worksheets. The idea of these worksheets is
to provide a bridge between the simple
examples of mathematical theory that one
often sees in lectures and the considerably
more complex kind of questions that are
found in exam papers. The worksheets
come as a series, with the first sheet leading
the student through step by step and asking
them to fill in a few blanks along the way. As
the series progresses, less and less
information is given on the sheet, and so the
student has to provide more and more of the
details. As well as building up problemsolving ability at a steady pace, the
worksheets help show students how to set
out answers in a coherent form - something
which is far from universally done at present!
More details available at:
http://www.maths.gla.ac.uk/research/groups/
mathed/ with a weblog tracking progress of
the project at:
http://www.maths.gla.ac.uk/research/groups/
mathed/Weblog.htm
4. Queen’s University, Belfast: In the history
department, students engage in an exercise
in self- and peer-marking of essays so that
they develop skills of evaluation and an
understanding of successful writing. The
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exercise entails the students writing their
essay as usual and making sufficient copies
for everyone in the tutorial group (including
the writer). However, the essay should be
anonymous. The lecturer offers detailed
consideration of the stated assessment
criteria as they relate to the specific question
asked. Each student marks each essay
which is followed by comparison and
discussion of all the marks. Then the group
agrees a ‘peer mark' for each essay (this
counts as 50% of the final essay mark). After
the
exercise,
the
group
discusses
techniques of essay-writing technique in the
light of the experience. There is also a
chance for the student to revise the essay,
with self marking of the revised essay and
an opportunity to request feedback on
specific points. Then the essay is marked by
the tutor which also counts for 50% of the
final essay mark. Further details available
at:
http://hca.ltsn.ac.uk/resources/case_Studies/
essay_marking.rtf
Links
Useful sites with resources for students:
University of Central England’s Staff
Students Development Department:
http://www.ssdd.uce.ac.uk/learner/
and
Lancaster
University’s
Student
Learning
Development Centre:
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/celt/sldc/
What to do now?
1. Using the Planning Tool, work out what
scholarship skills development currently
goes on in your course.
2. Decide which other scholarship development
approaches and methods would work in your
subject area.
3. Plan how they will map across the course,
developing scholarship skills at each level.
4. Make sure that the approach is explicit and
understood by students and colleagues: they
are more likely to engage with tasks if they
can see the point of them.
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Study Skills Links
One aspect of scholarship is study skills, and there is a massive range of resources associated with study
skills available on the Internet. Here are some of the resources that we would recommend, which you
may want to use with your students:
ACTIVITY
General Study Skills
LOCATION
http://www.studygs.net/
http://www.ucc.vt.edu/stdysk/stdyhlp.html
Time Management
http://www.yorku.ca/cdc/lsp/tmonline/time.htm
http://www.yorku.ca/cdc/lsp/downloads/time_brochure.pdf
http://www.ucc.vt.edu/stdysk/stdyhlp.html
Getting The Most Out of http://www.unbc.ca/assets/lsc/handouts/sq4r.pdf
Reading Your Course
http://www.yorku.ca/cdc/lsp/readingonline/read1.htm
Texts
http://www.ucc.vt.edu/stdysk/stdyhlp.html
(Scroll to ‘Increasing Text Book Reading Comprehension’)
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/study/focus.html
Note-taking
http://www.yorku.ca/cdc/lsp/notesonline/note1.htm
http://www.yorku.ca/cdc/lsp/downloads/notes_brochure.pdf
Preparing for Exams
http://www.yorku.ca/cdc/lsp/eponline/exam.htm
http://www.yorku.ca/cdc/lsp/downloads/exams_brochure.pdf
Research and Projects
http://www.aresearchguide.com/
http://www.transitions101.com/researchANDProjects.htm
Managing your
Academic Stress!
http://www.yorku.ca/cdc/lsp/downloads/stress_brochure.pdf
Thanks to Professor John Ford of the HWU Petroleum Engineering Institute for putting together this list.
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