Abstract
Undergraduate intake into the School of Environmental Sciences, Ulster comprises students studying honours degree programmes in environmental science, geography and marine science, and students following a two-year non-honours Associate Bachelors degree (ABD) in environmental studies. Longitudinal induction sees first year students interacting with studies advisers and senior student tutors in small group activities. The main aim of the SST workshops is to help level four students prepare for their end-of-semester, three hour long, modular examinations. This case study outlines the organisation and rationale for this peer-mentoring scheme and determines its impact (in quantitative and qualitative terms) upon first year examination performance. Results reveal a positive cause and effect relationship between workshop participation and subsequent success. It is argued that Higher Education faculty suffering from student progression problems traceable to weaknesses in examination performance could benefit from adopting this locally controlled, low cost, small-scale, peer-mentoring model.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 105-114 |
| Journal | Perspectives on Practice and Pedagogy |
| Volume | 2 |
| Publication status | Published (in print/issue) - Sept 2011 |
Bibliographical note
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Keywords
- Examination assessment
- first-years
- peer-mentoring
- senior student tutors
- studies advice
