This study examines the growth in term-time employment and its impact upon academic attainment among full-time undergraduates at Northumbria University. The study utilises data from three large-scale surveys carried out in each Spring Term between 1999 and2001. The growth in term-time employment coincides with change in the funding arrangements for students in higher education. This study shows that students in employment are drawn disproportionately from less well-off backgrounds. Many students see employment in term time as a means of keeping borrowing down; they also indicate employment as having a negative impact on their studies. The study investigates the impact on the attainment of students by broad subject group. For three of the seven subject groups investigated (including the largest) the adverse impact of employment on attainment was found to be substantial and statistically significant (the difference in performance between employed and non-employed students in the three groups most affected was more than three percentage points). In contemplating new funding arrangements for students in higher education, the Government should be concerned about the efficiency (loss of attainment) as well as the equity/fairness consequences of the arrangements

A key principle of working in collaboration with patient research partners (patients contributing to research projects as team members, rather than as participants) is that they should be equal partners with researchers and health professionals. This presents a challenge in doctoral research, where students are expected to own their research decisions. Consequently, efforts are required to ensure that patient partners’ involvements are not tokenistic. This case study brings together the reflections of a recently completed doctoral student and a patient partner, who was part of the doctoral supervisory team. It discusses the role that the patient partner took during the doctorate and the activities in which he was involved. Both the researcher and the patient partner reflect on their expectations and experiences of collaboration. These reflections include factors that facilitated good working practices, the process of building rapport, and the benefits each got out of their collaboration. The interactions exploring ‘the dance of academia’ (the processes that were formally part of the PhD process or the aspects of academic work that were not directly related to completing the research) required recognition. Open, ongoing communication and practical considerations to support the patient partner were key to establishing a strong working relationship, and to determining what a meaningful contribution looked like at each stage of the process. Working with a patient partner as a doctoral student adds value to the doctoral process, and it is a vital opportunity to develop good practice as a researcher.

Recent increases in class size in higher education have focused more attention on the nature of the face-to-face learning experience. This chapter examines how a keypad technology facilitates active learning in the lecture hall using a number of pedagogically proven approaches. We survey 219 first-year business studies students tackling introductory economics, and find that the technology enhances learning in lectures because, among other things, it improves concentration, provides instantaneous and more effective student feedback, and allows students to make comparisons on how well they fare relative to their peers. Interestingly, we find less statistical support for the benefits of using the technology to allow students to respond anonymously, and explore some reasons for this result. Finally, we demonstrate our use of the tool to engage in teaching the Prisoner’s Dilemma game. This forms part of the emerging knowledge on how to teach classroom experiments using keypad technology.

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