FASSTEST

FASS Centre for Scholarship and Innovation logo

FASSTEST brings together colleagues from across the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, providing a mechanism for professional development through practice-based scholarship within a mentored community.

Much of our work is organised on a project basis with project management aimed at the delivery of new educational outcomes and scholarship outcomes. FASSTEST supports a rolling portfolio of approximately 40 active scholarship projects under a number of themes which include:

  • Online and blended tuition
  • Assessment
  • Employability/careers
  • Equality, diversity and inclusion
  • Mental health and wellbeing
  • Multisensory/multimodal learning

If you are interested in learning more about a particular project or connecting with a project team, please contact us at FASS-Scholarship@open.ac.uk. 

Projects

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42 results found

Dyspraxia (Developmental Coordination Disorder): Understanding Students’ Requirements

Project leader(s):  Jo Horne Rhiannon Edwards Angela Eyre

Students with a Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD), such as dyslexia and/or dyspraxia (Developmental Coordination Disorder; DCD), are more likely to leave Higher Education without completing their course and with poorer grades than their typically developing peers (Sumner et al., 2021).

Developing Academic Integrity in Postgraduate Students

Project leader(s):  Sue Nieland Paige Cuffe

This project will explore the development of postgraduate students’ understanding and practice of academic integrity, that is of good academic conduct, focusing particularly on the module Principles of Social and Psychological Inquiry.

Exploring Students’ Experiences of Full Time and Flexible Study Intensity on English and Creative Writing Qualifications

Project leader(s):  Hannah Lavery Natalie Lewis Clare Spencer Derek Neale Liz Ford

There is data suggesting that a significant success rate gap exists between students studying on our English and Creative Writing undergraduate degrees at full-time and part-time intensity.

Integrating OUAnalyse into DE100 to Aid Retention and Progression

Project leader(s):  Cathy Schofield Tracey Elder

OUAnalyse predicts on a weekly basis whether, or not, a student will submit their next assignment.

Exploring and Testing Anti-Racism and Decolonising Pedagogy in Online-Forum Learning

Project leader(s):  Alessandra Marino Gunjan Sondhi Karl A. Hack Suki Haider

The purpose of the project is to create spaces to test what an anti-racist pedagogy entails in the context of decolonization.

Embedding Inclusivity in Economics Curriculum Development

Project leader(s):  Kevin Deane Susan Newman Lorena Lombardozzi Francis Garikayi

The discipline of Economics in the UK has a significant diversity and inclusivity problem. Women, black students, and students from working class backgrounds are under-represented in higher education and academia.

Academic Conduct Matters: Assessing the Impact of Academic and Disciplinary Interventions on Student’s Retention, Progression, and Completion

Project leader(s):  Encarnacion Trinidad-Barrantes

This project is primarily concerned with investigating historic data (2011-2020) on referrals for poor academic practice in order to determine: 

A Comparison of OU’s Politics, Philosophy and Economics (Q45) Structure and Curriculum with Those of Other Post-1986 PPE Degrees

Project leader(s):  Alan Shipman

This project aims to investigate how other UK providers of Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) degrees have addressed the challenges of the three-way combination, through their structuring of the three disciplines, curriculum choices within them, and other aspects of design and delivery

Dyslexia: Perceived Barriers and Facilitators to Success at Postgraduate Study

Project leader(s):  Rhiannon Edwards Jo Horne

The Higher Education Statistics Agency’s (HESA) statistics indicate that the proportion of UK postgraduate (PG) students who identify as having a disability (10%) is significantly lower than that of undergraduate (UG) students (15%).

Does Wi-Fi/Data Connectivity Disadvantage OU Students?

Project leader(s):  Sonja Rewhorn Vicky Johnson

Since March 2020 many of us have had to move to working from home using our home internet whether as Wi-Fi or data.  As well as work shifting to online, The Open University also moved all its tuition seminars online.