Manchester Business School
Undergraduate Services
£5000 Bid for Faculty Retention Funding
Below is a request for £5000 of Faculty Retention Funding to support the Study Skills
formative assessment sessions and Maths revision sessions for Manchester
Business School undergraduate students.
Study Skills Formative Assessment Sessions
In 2008/9 all MBS undergraduate first year students (over 550 students) will take a
non credit rated seven week Study Skills course at the start of semester 1.
The course aims to introduce new undergraduate students to a range of study skills
that will assist them with their academic work in both the first and subsequent years
of their degree programmes. These skills include those related to essay writing and
assignments, time management, seminar presentations and group work, as well as
preparation for exams. Guidance is also given as to how students should develop
themselves as an independent learner/researcher, how they should foster good
academic practice and what responsibility they need to take in doing this. From
September 2008, the library sessions that have historically been carried out during
induction week will also form part of this course so that students can put the
importance of this resource into greater context.
A series of five lectures in the first five weeks of teaching will cover the above and
also address some important and common concerns of first year students, who
usually find that what is expected of them at university is very different to their
previous experience of academic study at school or college.
There is also a formative assessment element to this course which will be supported
within seminar sessions of approximately 25 students per group. Every student will
undertake a ‘practice’ non-assessed essay, which is marked by the seminar leader
and will allow all students to receive constructive feedback on at least one piece of
work in the first semester.
A wide range of UG courses use essays as a form of coursework assessment, or use
essay-style responses to examination questions. Given the increasing number of
students entering the first year of UG programmes at MBS, it is difficult for these
inexperienced students to receive the type of detailed feedback and advice that they
need in order to develop their academic writing skills and to establish good practices.
The implications of failing to establish these essential academic skills and ways of
working early in the student’s academic career, is that students find that just working
hard is insufficient to gain them good grades where that effort is not complemented
by well-developed academic skills. Thus, capable students may become
demoralised and unable to reach their potential. This can lead students to doubt
their ability to cope with the programme and so has a negative impact on the
School’s capacity to retain good students. Providing formative feedback sessions in
the proposed seminar format allows first year students to develop these skills in a
supportive environment.
Students will attend two seminars each before reading week - the first, to introduce
essay writing, assessment criteria, and the second one for discussion of students'
draft essay. The format of these sessions is below:
Week 1 Week 2 - seminar 1 (A)
Week 3 - seminar 1 (B)
Week 4 - seminar 2 (A)
Week 5 - seminar 2 (B)
Week 6 - Reading week
The seminars will be run by paid seminar leaders (PhD students / GTA’s). Students
would submit their final essays in Week 7 which would then be marked by the
seminar leaders using feedback sheets. If funding is successful then further
sessions would be developed in weeks 8, 9 and 10 for seminar leaders to discuss the
feedback in more detail with students. Although the study skills course is not credit
rated, seminar attendance would be monitored and non-attenders followed up.
We will be looking to appoint experienced GTAs to act as seminar leaders for these
sessions. In addition to the central STDU training course that GTAs are required to
complete, the School will provide a briefing for all seminar leaders. This will cover the
requirements and expectations for the task of facilitating the seminars and
marking/providing feedback on the essays. Supporting documentation will also be
provided. The co-ordinator (member of academic staff) will be responsible for
monitoring the quality of marking/feedback provided by GTAs, using MBS’s usual
quality assurance procedures (e.g., ensuring consistency across markers).
The request for retention funding is to support the 'practice essay' seminars and fund
GTAs to facilitate the sessions and provide feedback on the essays.
It is envisaged that this course will not require input from the Faculty Sabbatical
Intern.
In light of the current undergraduate review of education it is difficult to interpret how
funds for this will be supported after the 2008/09 academic year, as we are currently
looking at different short term models of programme delivery (particularly across all of
our first year programmes) that would potentially embed this non-credit rated course
into the curriculum. Once these models have been worked through at both School
and Faculty level we will have a better idea of the resource implications on our
change agenda.
It is imperative, however that we deliver this Study Skills course to all of our 1st year
students in 2008/09 in the format highlighted above as this allows them time and
practice to understand what is required of them as they go through the transition from
further to higher education. Having this element to all of our programmes underpins
a key element of our retention strategy in ensuring we are enhancing the student
experience and supporting our students effectively.
Evaluation on impact of the above project
Due to the timings of receiving retention statistics for 2008/09, it is currently too early
to evaluate the impact of the above project on the retention rates of MBS
undergraduate first year students moving into their second year. However, the
following can be reported.
Over 300 students submitted a formative essay in autumn 2008 as part of the above
non credit rated Study Skills course. Each essay was marked by a GTA, who also
provided written comments / feedback individually to every student using the
attached pro-forma mark sheet, and used the latter weeks of semester 1 to give this
feedback to the students.
Verbal feedback on the Study Skills course was also requested from student
representatives within the November programme committees and both the course
and opportunity to undertake a formative essay received positive comment as being
worthwhile and of value to new students.
The overall conclusion from both the Undergraduate Director and Study Skills course
coordinator is that the formative essay in semester 1, and the opportunity for early
individual feedback to be given to our students, is vital in preparing students for first
year summative assessment which is currently very focused on essay writing through
either coursework or examination. This initiative has therefore been developed
further for the next academic year in light of our implementation of the
recommendations of the undergraduate review and the personalised learning
agenda.
As a result of this, the Study Skills sessions will not continue in the above format from
2009/10 onwards. A new first year course BMAN10780 Business & Management
Skills has been developed as a core course for all MBS undergraduate students (with
the exception of the new BSc in Accounting which will follow another model) that will
incorporate the study skills sessions into the early lectures in semester 1 as well as
providing a forum for the wider discussion of these in fortnightly Academic Advisor
sessions. The formative assessment element has also been incorporated into this
new course and in semester 1 students will draft an essay which will be read by the
Academic Advisor. Individual feedback on this piece of work will then be given by the
Academic Advisor to each of their 15 students. All Academic Advisors are MBS
faculty.
Maths Revision Sessions
In addition to the resource requested above, a small amount of the requested funding
(approximately £500) would resource maths revisions sessions for undergraduate
students at the end of semester 1 and semester 2.
This is to support students as they head towards the examination period with the
Quantitative Methods for Business and Management course that is taken in both
semester 1 and semester 2 (semester 1 only for BSc MAIS / AMAIS students).
Quantitative Methods for Business and Management is taken by approximately 400
first year students on the following MBS undergraduate degree programmes:
BSc Management / Management specialism
BSc International Management
BSc International Management with American Business
BSc Management and Information Systems
BSc Accounting Management and Information Systems
Historically, students without A’ level maths have struggled on both of these courses,
and it was recognised a number of years ago that it would be of benefit for the
students to have maths surgeries / revision sessions. Differing models of this have
been delivered within undergraduate services over the last three academic years,
and following a review after each session, it has been agreed for the next academic
year that revision sessions for the students are more effective than early maths
surgeries.
Again, it is envisaged that this course will not require input from the Faculty
Sabbatical Intern and MBS undergraduate services is committed to continuing with
these sessions as long as there is demand from the students to deliver them.
Evaluation on impact of the above project
As highlighted above, it is currently too early to evaluate the impact of the above
project on the retention rates of MBS undergraduate first year students moving into
their second year. However, the following can be reported.
After the first few early weeks of semester 1 it became apparent, through academic
colleagues feedback, that there was a requirement for this cohort of first year
students to have maths surgeries available to them throughout the course of each
semester rather than revision only sessions. In light of this, the strategy for delivering
maths surgeries changed and in 2008/09 they were delivered for 1 hour per week
from week 5 in each semester.
There was attendance each week from students requiring this additional support and
a year on year evaluation of results has been undertaken to assess the impact that
these sessions have had across both courses. In addition to this, second year
student representatives will be asked at the first programme committee meetings of
2009/10 to elicit feedback from those students who took advantage of the maths
surgeries in 2008/09.
Analysis of results:
2007/08 (Maths revision sessions only)
Semester 1: BMAN10018 Quantitative Methods – 6.8% of students received an
overall mark of 39 or less.
Semester 2: BMAN10019/BMAN11020 Quantitative Methods – 29.07% of students
received an overall mark of 39 or less
2008/09 (1 hourly Maths Surgeries from week 5 onwards in both semesters)
Semester 1: BMAN10018 Quantitative Methods for Business & Management 1 –
10.39% of students received an overall mark of 39 or less
Semester 2: BMAN10732 Quantitative Methods for Business & Management 2 –
14.59% of students received an overall mark of 39 or less
It should be noted that first year students are streamed on Quantitative Methods and
allocated into seminar groups depending on whether they have post GCSE maths or
not. Prior to 2008/09, the semester 2 course was also streamed and the two groups
of students (X & Y) took separate courses. This was reviewed and amended from
08/09 onwards. The streaming remains across all seminars in semester 1 and 2,
however the semester 2 course is no longer streamed and all students attend the
same course / lectures in semester 2.
The above change will have had an impact on the year on year difference in
semester 2 results, however a conclusion can also be made that although the maths
surgeries did not seem to have an impact on improving the number of students
passing this course in semester 1, it may (alongside the course amendment) have
had an impact on the longer term improvement of semester 2 marks with fewer
students failing.
In addition to the above analysis of overall marks, students on Quantitative Methods
have weekly exercises to complete which tie in with their seminars. Presently, we
have no mechanism for identifying whether the surgeries assisted students in
working through these exercises, and this will be something followed up in the
feedback requested through Programme Committees in 2009/10.
It is anticipated that there will be requirement in the next academic year for maths
surgeries to help students with both Quantitative Methods courses, as there has
been over the last 4 academic years. Nominal undergraduate budget has been
planned to cover this, however cannot be committed to until student numbers are
confirmed.