Double-entry journals: developing an embedded programme of writing development for first year Early Childhood Studies degree students

Abstract

In recent years students have been entering higher education (HE) with a diverse range of writing experiences, especially where they come through nontraditional or vocational routes that require different kinds of writing than in many HE courses (Lillis and Turner, 2001). For the past three years a team of researchers at a school of education in a large, urban, post-1992 university has been working on a CETL (Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning) research project which focuses on developing secure writing identities in first-year Early Years students (Ivanic, 1998). Although this is still a work in progress, it is clear from the data so far collected that the project provides suggestions for how lecturers can embed writing activities into subject-specific modules. At the same time, the importance of writing development to the whole learning process has been positively highlighted for staff and students alike.

Key words:

• writing development
• student identity
• innovative pedegogy

Introduction

This paper reports on a piece of research that is set in a post-1992 university in the UK with a strong widening participation agenda. The study specifically addresses the question of how students’ writing can be developed in their first year. The strategies for developing students’ learning have featured high on the government’s agenda and form part of a wider ongoing debate about the changing functions of a university in the twenty-first century (Barnett, 2000). Undergraduate writing has, over the past 20 years in particular, been increasingly seen as a problem in higher education (HE). Concerns about students’ inability to write at what is deemed an appropriate level surface regularly, not only through informal discussion between lecturers, but more formally and publicly through educational research and commentary (Lamb, 1992, Bennet, Dunne and Carre, 2000; Ganobcsik-Williams, 2006) and press articles (Owen, 2003; Smithers, 2003; Wilce, 2006). They also feature in government policy documents such as the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (DES/DfES, 1997) and the more recent white paper, The future of higher education (2003), which called for a much greater emphasis on the development of ‘communication skills’, including writing.

Writing development in the research setting

For the past four years, a small research team, based in the School of Education at the University of Wolverhampton has been focusing on developing the writing of first-year students on a modular programme comprising Early Years, Inclusive Education and Education Studies pathways. Many of the students on the programme are qualified and experienced practitioners who have entered HE because early years workforce development initiatives have encouraged them to study for a degree (DfES, 2005). Others have worked either in a voluntary capacity, in placement or in part-time employment prior to coming to university, and many continue to work while completing their degrees. For this reason, their entry into HE often represents a shift from the utilisation of largely practical knowledge in the workplace to a primarily theoretical knowledge base operating in academia. This shift may account for the fact that many of our students experience anxiety and difficulty around writing, especially in the first year. Another contributory factor to students’ lack of confidence about writing may be due to the non-traditional or vocational routes taken by a large majority of students before coming to university. These alternative routes often require different kinds of writing from those expected in HE such as portfolios and observations (Lillis and Turner, 2001).

Semi-structured discussions with lecturers in the research domain revealed that nearly all felt that many students did not fully understand what was expected of them when producing written assignments, especially in their first year. While many felt that some students struggled with technical issues such as grammar, spelling, punctuation and referencing, there was a more widespread perception that first-year students’ writing, across the range, did not synthesise course reading effectively and/or express a clear understanding of concepts and theories.

Earlier research by the project team found that the research domain’s previous stand-alone module, which delivered study skills and writing development to students, was not ideal. Indeed, student evaluations indicated they many had difficulty in transferring what they had learned to wider writing and study contexts (Allen and Clarke, 2007). There was also evidence from staff development events that this separation of subject-specific content and writing development tended to preclude lecturers from exploring writing development as part of their modules.

This study forms part of a wider movement which seeks to encourage lecturers and students to discuss and reflect upon the kinds of writing first-year students are likely to read and produce in HE (Thornton and Coppard, 2006). The action research we used reflected our belief that writing development support needs to be proactive, not only for those students obviously needing support, but to all students as an integral part of the first-year curriculum and learning experience.

Traditional models of support for writing development in HE

There are two broad models used widely in HE to develop students’ writing. The first is an acculturation model, which does not seek to teach writing as such. This approach operates on the basis that students absorb, through a process comparable to osmosis, appropriate writing practices through exposure to subject-based practices and modes of knowledge. Ganobcsik-Williams (2006) suggests that this model is more common in traditional, research-intensive universities. Within this model there is very little direct teaching of writing development, as the assumption is that technical skills, such as spelling and punctuation, have already been taught and assessed via prior educational qualifications. A lack of explicitness about expectations around undergraduate writing leads to what Lillis refers to as an ‘institutional practice of mystery’, which can lead to confusion and misunderstandings between lecturers and students about written assignments (Lillis, 2001: 53).

The second approach to writing support is the deficit model. Unlike the acculturation model, this approach is overtly about teaching students who are perceived to be unable or not ready to produce writing for HE to an appropriate standard (Gonobcsik-Williams, 2006). The deficit model is most commonly found in HE colleges and post-1992 universities and perhaps reflects lower expectations about students’ writing upon entry to university. Delivering the deficit or ‘bolt-on’ model usually takes the form of discrete modules and/or additional institutional provision. Stand-alone compulsory writing or study skills modules are often sold to students as ‘preparatory’ or ‘introductory’, suggesting that they will be expected to write in ways unfamiliar to them. In both bolt-on modules and the kinds of institutional support typically offered through learning centres, the content and advice on offer is generic and delivered by study skills or writing specialists who usually do not have any detailed subject-specific knowledge.

Lea and Street (1998) advocate a move away from this kind of deficit model of student writing because it ‘is based on the underlying principle that knowledge is transferred rather than mediated or constructed through writing practices’ (Lea and Street, 1998: 170). Similarly, Wingate (2006) argues that separate study skills courses are ineffective and that learning how to write academically cannot be detached from subject knowledge and the process of learning. The research team, working within this approach, was determined to relocate its writing development strategy away from a generic, skills-based model, which could not accommodate any subject-specific values and expectations, towards the concept that writing can only be understood in terms of its context and purpose (Lea and Street, 2006).

New Literacy Studies

The main theoretical approach used in this project draws on the New Literacy Studies (NLS) movement (Ivanic, 1998; Street, 1995). NLS does not treat literacy as one self-evident set of skills that allows people to engage in reading and writing. Rather, it argues that people use many literacies (different kinds of reading and writing) in their everyday lives and that these literacies are shaped by their context and purpose. For our sample population of first-year students, we argue that writing is shaped in its broadest sense by institutional expectations and values about what constitutes learning within subject specialism at university level. Its purpose is primarily driven by the need to assess that knowledge transfer has taken place within a module. In this sense, the students’ written assignments evidence the learning outcomes of the module.

We wanted to encourage lecturers to discuss and share their understanding, expectations and possible uncertainties around writing explicitly with their students as part of their subject-specific teaching. This sharing of experience is an acknowledgment that tutors are also often struggling with their writing and is an important part of the ‘situated learning’ model outlined by Lave and Wenger (1992). Lillis (2001) highlights the important function of lecturers’ expectations of students’ writing. These expectations relate not only to technical accuracy in areas such as sentence structure and the correct use of punctuation but also, as pointed out earlier, to students’ abilities to structure an argument, make connections between different concepts and engage critically with subject-specific literature.

Street (2001: 11) advocates that literacy practices can be defined as ‘particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing in cultural contexts’. Lea and Street’s model of ‘academic socialisation’ argues for a move away from the acquisition of technical skills via immersion in academic practices to the development of student writing as a more questioning and open practice (Lea and Street, 1998). This approach draws on previous research spanning almost two decades, which showed how students developed writing identities by recording their thoughts about writing activities and using writing as a tool for learning by linking the use of texts to writing tasks and group discussions (Tynjala, 1998; Grief, Meyer and Burgess, 2007).

According to Lillis (2001) student writers desire the opportunity for dialogue with lecturers where they are ‘real participants’ in determining the construction and interpretation of texts, thus encouraging greater personal influence in their own meaning making. This model of pedagogy ‘represents an attempt to actively scaffold student writers into a writing practice, rather than assume that they will somehow “pick it up”’ (Lillis, 2001: 158). This reflects Ivanic’s insistence that writing development for undergraduates happens through the negotiation of personal, social and cultural identities and an awareness of the institutional meanings of academic writing (Ivanic, 1998). Similarly, Bearne and Marsh (2007: 135) identify the need in HE for ‘transformative pedagogic practices’, which include an ‘openness to other people’s perspectives’, ‘jointly constructed activities’ and ‘taking account of student identities as members of particular and differing cultural groups’.

There was a deliberate attempt on the part of this project to provide an alternative to what Lee and Street call the ‘study skills perspective’ (Lea and Street, 1998). We wanted to encourage a learning experience that empowered students to begin to make some choices over how they approached any given writing task. The project’s emphasis was on Lea and Street’s (1998) more radical ‘academic and socialisation perspective’, which is developmental in nature and focuses on how students can be helped to familiarise themselves with writing for academic purposes required for their degrees.

Double-entry journals

In an attempt to create an ‘academic socialisation approach,’ a series of interventions was devised to support the sample group of students’ writing. These interventions were designed to be embedded across the first year of study in core modules for first-year students. In planning these initiatives, it was envisaged that students would participate in at least four different activities over their first year in order to develop their writing. These included double-entry journals, peer assessment, essay marking, free writing and recursive feedback.

The focus of this paper is the use of double-entry journals (DEJs). These were intended to help restructure writing as an ongoing process of practice, feedback and discussion for staff and students within the HE discourse. Each intervention provided lecturers with situated possibilities for expressing and discussing the purpose of any written assignment. On a practical level, they also allowed lecturers to scaffold students’ responses to their written assignments before they handed in their first piece of assessed work.

The DEJ is essentially divided into two columns (see figure 1).

Figure 1 Example of double-entry journal

In the first column, students are given or can choose an extract from a given text which they have been asked to discuss, paraphrase or challenge. In the second column, students respond according to the task they have been set. For example, the student could use the first column to identify a number of key quotes from a journal article and the second column to write, in their own words, what they understand each quote to mean. DEJs can be used in a number of different ways depending on what the tutor and students want to concentrate on. For example, they can be used to help students focus on particular concepts or vocabulary from a given source. Alternatively, they can be used to encourage students to justify an opinion using a range of different sources or to explore how they understand or respond to a text they have been asked to read.

Tutors can use DEJs to help determine the level of their students’ thinking and understanding. DEJs can also be used to try to move students to a higher level of critical thinking by giving them a time and a framework for reflecting on material they have read. By ‘chunking’ the process of integrating material and new understanding into smaller, manageable activities within a module, DEJs can help students to produce writing for specific academic purposes. Primarily, in this project, the interventions, such as writing DEJs, acted to scaffold and support students as they progressed through the subject learning of each core module.

DEJs required students to process information, integrate knowledge and think creatively. Their use provided students with the opportunity to pursue and develop their understanding of designated reading materials within the context of any core module’s wider aims and goals. For this reason, DEJs were often used in seminars or out-of-class activities to extend ideas and issues introduced in a related lecture. In this way, the research built on a pedagogic model which encouraged both the lecturers and students taking part to process and consolidate new ways of learning. The ultimate aim of all the interventions was to introduce innovative practice in order to improve student development as academic writers, (McNiff, Whitehead and Lomax, 2003).

Methodology

A participatory action research approach suited this project as the subject was problem-focused: we wanted to develop first-year students’ academic writing skills. It was context-specific: it only involved students in the first year of their degree. And it looked to the future: we wanted any change resulting from the project to feed into subsequent iterations of the modules.

McNiff and Whitehead, (2002) make the point that action researchers are always researching themselves and their practice instead of researching the practice of others, as more traditional researchers do. Action research projects, like the one under discussion here, challenge the classic subject/object dichotomy of more positivist approaches. We do not share the epistemological premise that requires the researcher to distance themselves from the subjects or activities under scrutiny. Rather, we felt the research would be pointless unless it was shared by those affected by the writing development interventions. For this reason, it was crucial to promote a collaborative research relationship which actively involved students and staff in any change process resulting from the research (Hart and Bond, 1995). We wanted any change to be very firmly located within an ongoing cyclical process, where research, action and evaluation were interwoven into the pedagogy of the modules, not set aside as part of a separate research project. Like so many participatory action research projects, this study started by concentrating on minor changes to pedagogic practice in the research setting, which participating individuals could manage and control. However, the long-term aim is that such small changes may eventually lead to more extensive patterns of change around our curriculum design and delivery.

Although we recognise that there is no standard sequential process in action research, our research design was based on spirals or cycles concerned with looking, thinking and acting (Stringer, 2007), which determined each stage of the research activity. To structure the research we employed an action research spiral which consisted of the following:

• identify and analyse a problem (LOOK)

• develop intervention(s) to improve the situation (THINK)

• implement the intervention(s) (ACT)

• observe the effects of the intervention (LOOK)

• reflect on these effects (THINK)

• repeat the cycle for further improvement (ACT).

With regard to the first ‘looking’ stage of the above cycle, we collected and analysed evidence of this group of students’ academic writing at the start of their first year to allow common problems to be identified. Their lecturers were also interviewed to elicit their opinions on what writing development they felt was needed for the core module they were teaching and how best it might be delivered (French and Clarke: publication pending). Using this data from lecturers and students, we created what Kemmis and McTaggart (1998) call a ‘reconnaissance’ about our area of interest: writing development in a group of first-year students.

The next ‘thinking’ stage required us to theorise our pedagogic practices around writing development. Essentially we settled on a situated, student-centred pedagogy concerned with the development of students’ writing identities. Drawing on the ‘acting’ stages of our research spiral, we then developed a range of interventions, including double-entry journals, to use with the sample student group. Upon completion of each intervention we reported back to staff the data we had collected from students regarding the usefulness of that intervention for further discussion and reflection.

Dissemination of the feedback from students was achieved via staff/module team development sessions, research workshops and a poster presentation at our School of Education conference 2008 (see figure 2).

Figure 2 Double-entry journals conference poster 2008

We worked with eight fellow module lecturers to deliver both subject-specific content and embedded writing development activities. In this respect the project helped us to realise the transformative potential of action research. The double-entry journal activities were carried out as part of our everyday practice because one of the main reasons for undertaking the research was to improve our understanding of what we were trying to get the students to learn and how we went about teaching them (Mejia, 2001). In our role as insider researcher-practitioners, we enjoyed an in-depth knowledge of the students we taught, the curriculum they were following and the written assessment tasks that they would ultimately undertake. We were therefore able to tailor the development of our writing interventions to our students’ learning needs. This last step was particularly challenging considering the increasing diversity of students on our programme. While there may be conflicts of interest related to the triple role of lecturer, colleague and researcher — for example, the issue of students’ or colleagues’ willingness to give honest answers — we believe that the advantages of this kind of action research outweigh any potential drawbacks, as participatory action research is reliant on authentic participation in the social practice that is being researched. This echoes Lewin, who argued that researchers need to be close to the problems they seek to solve and the subjects they wish to study (Lewin, 1946).

Data collection

In order to collect data about the usefulness of the interventions, throughout the research process students and fellow lecturers were asked for reflective feedback on the use of DEJs and their impact on teaching and learning within the modules. There are many variations on action research, however the idea of reflective feedback is central to all of them (McNiff and Whitehead, 2002). The importance of collecting feedback on learning experiences for research has been highlighted by a number of authors, not least because it enables staff and students to get fully involved (Buchanan, 2000; Gibbs and Simpson, 2004; Yorke, 2001). In addition to formal evaluation instruments and field notes, we also wanted to capture an immediate, qualitative response to the impact of the use of double-entry journals. Immediately after completing an activity with the DEJs, we asked students to write down on a ‘post-it’ their feedback. We asked how useful the activity had been and in what ways they thought it had helped to develop their writing. This process of reflection was enacted each time the students completed any task involving the DEJs. This and our own recorded reflections allowed us to build a record of how students rated the interventions. As we started to collate the students’ responses, we found that they often revealed, in very clear and thoughtful terms, the ways in which they were beginning to understand the processes around their own production of academic writing.

An open questionnaire was also sent to staff directly involved in teaching on the first-year core modules, asking for comments on the use and effectiveness or otherwise of the DEJs. The feedback was used to refine and further promote the use of DEJs across the programmes.

Findings

A breakdown of the 250-plus feedback comments we received on the use of DEJ is presented below. To summarise, we codified the students’ comments under five distinct subheadings: reflective and critical writing skills; analytical skills; knowledge and understanding; reading skills; and general writing skills. The following illustrates the different ways in which students felt the DEJs had been useful.

Reflective and critical writing skills

With regard to reflective and critical writing skills, there were many instances of students talking reflectively about the process of writing, as the double-entry journal had helped them to:

Identify the difficulties of developing reasoned arguments …

Student A

This was also reflected the feedback from lecturers. One respondent wrote:

By encouraging [students] to explore the real focus or meanings of what they read double-entry journals (DEJs) almost put students in a position to avoid being descriptive or anecdotal … [DEJs] help them to process information rather than reiterate what they read … [they] can give students the opportunities to learn how to use reading to inform their own thinking …

Lecturer A

This included students’ ability to discuss and compare a range of opinions on any given subject:

It [DEJS] is useful in the way that they make you think what exactly the quote is saying and how you can link it to other quotes …

Student B

Analytical skills

Using DEJs across the course in different modules provided students with opportunities to develop analytical skills such as transferring knowledge, understanding different arguments and experimenting with linking different points of view and arguments in their own writing. As several student participants commented:

[DEJs] enable you to look for other quotes that agree/disagree with first point …

Student C

Using double-entry journals is a useful technique to critique as it helps you understand what you are reading and interpret your own meaning …

Student D

[They] helped me to look at things and put them into my own way of thinking and that people interpret quotes in different ways …

Student E

Knowledge and understanding

Knowledge and understanding of the issues and subjects covered by the use of DEJs appeared to be improved. Often student and lecturer classroom discussion and reflection about the activity focused on the importance of challenging theories rather than taking them at face value:

For maybe the first time I was able or allowed to think I could challenge a theorist — who says they are right?

Student F

Overall, lecturers and students felt that DEJs reinforced what had been taught in lectures and this accentuated the importance of research and reading around the subject:

They (DEJs) seem to help students focus on what reading for academic purposes actually is for … I use feedback on DEJs to emphasise to students what reading and referencing in their own work really means in practical terms. For example it isn’t just about bunging some quotes in. They have to incorporate the secondary sources into their own writing, their own thinking …

Lecturer B

Reading skills

As well as engaging students with a wide range of often difficult reading material, DEJs helped students to actively use a range of reading to support their own arguments and to read more critically. After using DEJs, many, like the students below, realised that the act of reading a range of materials was not enough in itself; rather, it is one’s interpretation and understanding of what one has read that is important:

I think the double-entry journal exercise was useful because it got you to think about the quote rather than just looking at the quote and including it in your assignment without actually reading through it …

Student G

From doing double-entry journals I have learned how to actually think about the quotes and analyse them rather than putting it in and leaving it …

Student H

General writing skills

In terms of developing more confidence and competence in their writing, DEJs generally appeared to give students a greater awareness of the role writing plays in articulating and presenting one’s ideas within a written assignment. One student commented:

… doing it made me think what I really understood about the theory. Putting it my own words was hard but helped me understand …

Student I

Many students also mentioned how chunking, or breaking down materials for the DEJs, had helped when it came to organising or structuring their ideas for summative assessments:

Yes it was quite useful as it helped me break down the main points that need to be discussed. It would help in main essay …

Student J

… it gives you a framework for your thoughts and helps you to structure your work …

Student K

It also focused attention on what were the most useful quotes to use in their work:

I think it is helpful because it makes you concentrate on the useful quotes and makes you break the quote down …

Student L

As such, DEJs were often taken up by students as a useful starting point or planning tool for summative assessments, as the following responses identify:

I am having a lot of trouble organising my thoughts about the essays and it will be helpful to use this with every book or journal I read so I can find important things. This might help me organise my thoughts …

Student M

I think this is a good and clear way of looking better at an article or at quotes. It makes you think about it in steps/parts so the thinking will be on a whole other level …

Student N

When commenting on the usefulness of this writing activity, students frequently stated that although the DEJ had been initially challenging, the process of doing it and any subsequent feedback or discussion had been helpful:

Was a little tedious at first, but it’s actually very helpful. It can be really hard to critique an article even though you think you’re going to be fine. When you sit down and try to do it, you think where do I start? So from that point of view it really helped …

Student O

In general, lecturers found the DEJs reasonably straightforward to deliver, although it was felt that the sooner and more often they could be used with students, the more useful and effective they became. In particular, tutors valued the DEJs as a tool for expanding students’ awareness of what was expected of them in terms of reading and writing as undergraduates. The activity raised issues for lecturers, not only about what students read but how they read, highlighting the process-led focus of the DEJ activity:

I am not sure about it how much it helps students to expand reading but it definitely helps them to use their reading purposefully …

Lecturer C

Reported disadvantages of using DEJs revealed that it was important to explain exactly how they worked and to think about when they were introduced to students:

Unless students are familiar with them at an early stage, it can be difficult for students to grasp their usefulness …

Lecturer D

It was also important that enough time was allowed for the activity to be carried out. Several students found the experience ‘rushed’ and the environment ‘too noisy to concentrate’:

… useful but there was not enough time to complete the exercise. I would suggest getting it as an exercise a week before and discuss it in the following week’s class …

Student P

This latter suggestion was subsequently taken up and found to be very successful. However the majority of lecturer views suggested that:

Double-entry journals are useful but very time-consuming but in the long run, useful and effective …

Lecturer E

Although it was very much a minority view, we did have a few responses from students, such as the one below:

Double-entry journals are useful for picking out quotes and keeping them together but I personally don’t find the activity that useful …

Student Q

Clearly it is important to recognise that DEJs, like any learning activity, may not be the best way of working for everyone. The need for a diverse range of learning activities echoed the aims of the project as a whole. These acknowledged from the start that students have different learning preferences. While staff and students became accustomed to the different interventions, it was identified that the use of DEJs could become time-consuming and occasionally, despite support and discussion, some students experienced difficulty in interpreting quotes/information for the task.

Overall, the student and lecturer feedback on DEJs suggested that our students were beginning to understand that when writing for academic purposes they were engaged in a process of making meaning, in order that understanding and knowledge transfer could take place:

I think the double-entry journal exercise was very useful. Although I found it quite hard at first time round, I think as I used them more often and practised with them, they would develop into a very useful tool in my developing academic career …

Student R

DEJs, along with other interventions, helped lecturers introduce, though their subject-specific material, the idea that students’ understanding will often evolve and change as they interact with different sources of information and ideas. The importance of reflection, again aided by the use of DEJs, was crucial to this growing understanding. Finally, DEJs were shown in this study to have encouraged students to experiment with developing their writing before embarking on their all important summative assignment writing.

Conclusions

The use of DEJs was designed to consolidate students’ understanding of the processes that they had engaged in to produce their writing for assignments. Research by Marzano (1988) emphasises the importance of meta-cognition and student learning. By writing about what they are reading, students are encouraged to explore how their reading informs their understanding, thus supporting them to become more effective readers (and students). This project sought to explore whether the use of DEJs could help establish some degree of meta-cognition around the process of producing writing for education purposes, which would support students beyond their first year. The reflective feedback with students seems to suggest that it had begun this process.

The interventionist approach, described in this paper, of embedding study and writing development into subject-specific modules has encouraged lecturers taking part in the project to reposition themselves more as facilitators of writing than writing or study skills experts, alongside their role as subject specialists. Much of the work around DEJs involved lecturers using them to help students discuss and interpret new and challenging information. The emphasis was on lecturers supporting the development of students’ writing in order to move them on towards a more confident and informed criticality. Feedback from the students suggested that DEJs had helped them to regard their lecturers as more than just the arbiters and assessors of their writing. Rather, DEJs had helped lecturers to engage in a much more participatory learning journey with their students, as they provided ongoing feedback on students’ writing either through personal contact or peer review through the module. Arguably this creates an additional workload, which can be especially problematic when working with large student cohorts. However, this project shares the view with other researchers that it is important that students have a record of how their ability to write and their equally important ability to reflect on that writing have been part of their learning process (Prowse, Duncan et al, 2007).

To conclude, the team has only just started to explore staff and student responses to the project’s programme of embedded writing activities. However, the feedback so far has been largely positive. More staff development is planned around writing development, different models of providing support for students’ writing across the School are being explored, and many of the interventions, such as DEJs, are now becoming standard practice, for all years, across the whole degree programme.

Biographies

Amanda French

Amanda French worked in further education and the voluntary sector for nearly 20 years as a lecturer, manager and trainer. She is currently employed as a senior lecturer in Childhood and Family Studies and Education Studies at Wolverhampton University, and is part of a five-year Centre in Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) project which works with teaching staff to develop embedded and blended strategies for the development of first-year students’ writing. Amanda’s PhD research focuses on lecturers’ perceptions of writing and writing development for undergraduates, which reflects her longstanding commitment to innovative and critical pedegogies.

Jenny Worsley

Jenny Worsley is currently employed as a senior lecturer in Childhood and Family Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. Her background is embedded in early years education, primarily as a practitioner, before moving on to teaching in higher education. Jenny is currently undertaking PhD research into the first-year experience of mature part-time students. This is linked to her commitment to the development of new models of learning to enhance participation and access for this group of nontraditional students in higher education.