The past,present and future of widening participation research

The provisions of the Higher Education Act (2004) have renewed interest in widening participation research. Therefore, this paper explores the development of this scholarly field, primarily in the United Kingdom, by examining major trends in the study of higher education. Political debates related to higher education, the prevailing structure of the sector and predominant sociological perspectives have largely shaped the empirical and theoretical concerns of widening participation research. These delimiting factors have resulted in incomplete accounts of the barriers to higher education, which do not fully explore the relationship between students’ social characteristics, learning experiences and university careers. Furthermore, contemporary research runs the risk of reinventing the wheel and replicating the mistakes of the past, since there has been a collective act of forgetfulness with respect to earlier contributions. In contrast, this paper provides guidelines to facilitate a holistic agenda for future widening participation research.     

Learning Styles and Strategies of Postgraduate Students

Research by Pask has suggested that matching and mismatching teaching strategies with learners'preferred learning strategies may have considerable effects of learning. The study reported here sought to explore the extent to which a group of experienced and successful learners, such as postgraduate students, might be expected to be versatile learners, in the sense of being able to learn equally well from holist and serialist learning materials. Eighty-three postgraduate students completed two questionnaires designed to assess learning styles. Twenty-six students also took two tests designed to assess their competence in learning from materials designed to suit holist and serialist learning strategies. Only two out of 26 students scored equally well on the tests of holist and serialist competence. The study also examines the extent to which holist and serialist competence may be predicted by relatively'quick and easy'questionnaire instruments. In 19 out of 23 cases such competence could be predicted from responses to a number of items from one of the questionnaires. Implications for further research are discussed.