PhD supervisor – Professor Mark Huxham/Dr Velda McCune

A new studentship under the direction of Professor Mark Huxham, Director of Academic Strategy and Practice at Edinburgh Napier University, will fund the fees and stipend for a PhD student. The studentship is open to both UK/EU students and candidates from outside of the EU.

The research will focus on how feedback to students on their academic work should be viewed and shaped from a holistic, programme-level perspective; how it can form a ‘neural thread’ running through an academic programme. Key research questions will include:

a)    How does the ‘feedback literacy’ of students develop during the course of their studies?

b)    How do staff perceive differences in the type and quality of feedback given at different stages in an academic programme and how do they account for this during programme planning?

c)    What might a plan for feedback designed to emphasise programme coherence and increasing student autonomy and competence look like?

You will work closely with the ASPEN team and will provide core assistance to the university’s programme-focus working group in its implementation of the TESTA (Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment) programme. This initiative is fully supported by the University and it will provide the core means of collecting your research data from across the University. Hence your role will combine academic research with supporting a key strategic initiative.

• You have a strong interest in education and in understanding how to help students learn.
• You have experience of social science data collection, preferably both quantitative and qualitative.
• You will have a good first degree (1st or 2:1), and/or a masters degree, preferably in a relevant field (such as sociology, education, psychology).
• You are highly motivated and organised with the ability to work on your own initiative. You are a good communicator with the ability to effectively organise, co-ordinate and prioritise work activities.