Silk purse or sow’s ear: A psychological perspective on recent developments in higher education

In this paper, a psychological perspective is presented on the effects of recent changes in higher education. Some of these changes have been damaging. For example, modularisation and semesterisation seem to have led students to adopt more surface approaches to their learning, and subject reviews have created a great deal of extra work with only limited benefits. Other changes seem to have been largely beneficial, for example the increased participation in higher education and the higher representation of females and mature students. The Research Assessment Exercise, despite its critics, seems on balance to have been beneficial. Other changes, such as the move towards continuous assessment, have brought both benefits and disadvantages. It is too soon to determine the effects of introducing student fees, though the evidence suggests that higher education in general has little effect on student motivation. The paper ends with a plea for further psychological research on higher education.