Unlocking student learning: the impact of Teaching and Learning Enhancement Initiatives (TLEIs) on first-year university students

2006–2008
Dr Kogi Naidoo, Massey University

Project aim

The aim of the project is to increase students’ learning and success in targeted large first year classes through the development and implementation of teaching and learning enhancement initiatives (TLEIs) that make a difference to student learning and success.
  

Project plan

Over three years this study will empirically identify a range of academic development strategies and approaches that directly enhance student success and learning outcomes. All university teams of academic developers and teachers will have the autonomy to negotiate the nature and type of TLEIs that will be trialled, implemented and evaluated. The institutional case approach will ensure that at least eight different courses (including accounting, finance, management, marketing, economics, chemistry, physics, computer science, mathematics (Calculus), biology, law, and psychology). Good practice, experience, materials, and resources will also be shared across university academic development units and mainstream departments.
  

Partnerships involved

The project involves all eight New Zealand universities reflecting partnerships in research, teaching and learning on a number of levels (e.g., teachers with each other and with academic developers, both institutionally and across institutions). Teachers are both practitioners, in their roles as teachers, and researchers, in their roles of researching their own practice. The project focuses on academic developers working collaboratively in a (national research team) with teaching teams (institutionally) on TLEIs to enhance student experience and success.
  

Expected outcomes

The following are some of the key expected outcomes. By the end of the project the research team will have:

• investigated the academic development provision for teaching targeted, large first-year classes at eight New Zealand universities
• examined the role of academic development relating to the real or perceived barriers to change in terms of teaching development at the individual, departmental and institutional levels
• gained valuable insights into the teachers’ experiences of academic support (in particular, to teach first-year courses)
• gauged the impact of academic development interventions/TLEIs on student learning
• gathered data to direct and guide future academic support for effective teaching to enhance first-year student success
• disseminated findings (through seminars, workshops, conferences, publications, and discipline professional bodies)
• developed comprehensive institutional case studies, to be used as examples of good practice and/or benchmarking
• developed generic models to guide academic development practice to enhance the teaching of other courses, adapted to different institutional, course, and other contexts
• developed good practice processes for the improvement of other courses and for use more widely in the tertiary sector.

Back to 2005 Projects

For more information email us or contact us at: PO Box 3237, Wellington, New Zealand.