Seven university lecturers were interviewed about the progress of one of their courses each week during one semester. The interview invited them to reflect on their planning and monitoring concerns as the course proceeded. Interviews were transcribed and content analysed using an emergent category system. Three topics recurred throughout the interviews: communication with students, ongoing course planning activities, and processes in class. The distribution of material in the other nine categories tended to be more idiosyncratic. This article provides a descriptive account of how and what these teachers thought, as a group, about the progress of a course, and it identifies the major issues on which their attention was focussed. The results are discussed in terms of how the teaching role of academics is primarily concerned with the communication of theoretical material to students. It is suggested that the debriefing interview technique is a useful tool for gathering data which can throw light on the educational beliefs and principles that underlie the practice of university teaching

In 1974 the University of New South Wales established a procedure for the admission of unmatriculated applicants of over 25 years old. The novel selection procedure employed is described and its effectiveness evaluated. Extensive interview and questionnaire data are reported relating to student motivation, expectations, adjustment problems and responses to the experience of advanced study. The academic performance of successive entry cohorts is shown to be consistently superior to that of students entering direct from school. The implications of the data for more liberal admission policies are then considered.

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