Ben - 
1. here are some articles that I've found useful to underpin a similar
review of learning development here at Brighton (and they also offer a
useful overview of some of the other recent literature). All are
available electronically assuming you have institutional subscriptions -
here are the links to the abstracts (but you may need to cut and paste
the URLs into your browser as they're so long):

Tamsin Haggis  'Pedagogies for diversity: retaining critical challenge
amidst fears of 'dumbing down'' Studies in Higher Education Volume 31,
Number 5 , October 2006
http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(qndi2g55inx42p3xoaxcwg55)/app/hom
e/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,1,8;journal,3,94;linking
publicationresults,1:104673,1

Ursula Wingate, 'Doing away with 'study skills'' Teaching in Higher
Education Volume 11, Number 4 October 2006 
http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(wqn0bkzdiwjktvfxuallxu45)/app/hom
e/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,5,10;journal,1,28;linkin
gpublicationresults,1:104676,1

Lowe , H. & Cook, A. 'Mind the Gap: are students prepared for higher
education?' Journal of Further and Higher Education, Vol. 27, No. 1,
2003 
http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(tuh2wu45ojriahnrz0ubvgfr)/app/hom
e/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,5,9;journal,16,26;linkin
gpublicationresults,1:104618,1

 
2. "Writing Matters: the Royal Literary Fund Report on Student Writing
in Higher Education" is also full of useful material and recommendations
from a slightly different standpoint to that of most HE researchers.
Available at http://www.rlf.org.uk/fellowshipscheme/research.cfm

3. We found it helpful to ask students: 
"What advice about studying would you give to new students?"  and 
"What advice would you give the University to improve the quality of
learning support?" ( although most of us/LDHEN community prefer to talk
about learning development, students still tend to use the language of
support and study skills!)   

4. I also used the first section of the RLF report as a student exercise
in analysing the construction of a piece of writing . As well as being
well constrcuted it provided a useful starting point for discussion
because of the authors' stress on the fact that almost all students need
some targeted advice to understand what is expected of writing in HE and
to develop confidence in their own writing - so it's not a question of
dumbing down or needing remedial help!   

Good luck with the peer mentoring - I'm hoping to do something similar.
There are several successful schemes at Universities represented on this
list - not doubt you'll hear from them here!

Best wishes
Pauline
---------------
Pauline Ridley
Learning Area Co-ordinator (Visual Practices)
Learnhigher CETL
Centre for Learning and Teaching
Room 113, Mayfield House, Falmer
University of Brighton
Brighton BN1 9PH
01273-643406
Email [log in to unmask]
Visit the CLT website at
http://staffcentral.brighton.ac.uk/clt




-----Original Message-----


>>> Ben Yudkin <[log in to unmask]> 13/02/2007 10:39 >>>
Dear Colleagues, An appeal for suggestions of background literature
regarding student experiences of learning support (and confusion in the
absence of learning support). Oxford University has just appointed, for
the first time, a Learning Development Adviser (yours truly). I'm
working with a few interested academics to suggest ways of enhancing
student learning; but before that, I'd like to get an insight into what
students think of the existing provision, such as it is, and where they
think it could be improved. Part of the intention is to discover what
the common difficulties are (e.g. "I don't know what to do with reading
lists") and to find out whether there are insights that students reach
by accident late in their careers that it might be possible to teach
them much earlier (e.g. "Oh, so *that's* what a cogent argument in
History looks like"). My remit is to try to embed discipline-specific
provision and to expand it through the development of e.g. formalised
peer support -- I don't have resources for things like remedial English
or Maths teaching, useful as that would be. In the first instance, I'm
hoping to do some semi-structured interviews with a handful of students
to try to get some insight into existing provision and areas that need
improvement. I'd like some kind of evidence- based rationale for the
questions I ask, and am trying to find literature that suggests
appropriate areas to concentrate on. If anybody has any suggestions of
existing studies, or indeed suggestions for interview questions that I
may not have considered, I'd be delighted to hear from them. With many
thanks, Ben