Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 159)
MONDAY 23 MARCH 2009
MS CARLY
ROWLEY, MR
TOM DUTTON,
MR ADAM
HODGSON, MR
JOEL MARTIN,
MR GEMMA
JEROME AND
MR EDWARD
NUSSEY
Q140 Graham Stringer: Edward?
Mr Nussey: When I applied to university,
I have got older brothers and they were on the old scheme, and
the fact that the costs had gone up did not really come to me
that it would be an issue. I just accepted it and went into education
and I think it will only hit home when I have to pay it off. In
my situation where I am going into another course with potentially
another four years, whether it is because I am better informed
about the financial burden that it is going to put me in, or just
the fact that it is another four years, the decision that I have
made about which course I will go to has for the majority been
based on finances. I have chosen a four-year course because the
NHS will pay for tuition fees later in that course whereas the
same scheme is not run in a five-year course and there is also
the obvious extra year of fees that you have to pay.
Q141 Graham Stringer: Just going
back to the beginning, if it had been £6,000 rather than
£3,000 would that have affected your choice?
Mr Nussey: If I was well informed
about it I think it would have, but I think if you are going to
pay more for your education students will expect more input into
decisions that the university makes, whether it is this consumer
view I do not know, but you are still putting in a lot of your
money, and even though it is not affecting you right now, in the
future when you have to pay it back, it is going to affect you
considerably.
Q142 Mr Marsden: I was about to say
that one of the issues around seeing yourself as a consumer is
that you might want, all of you, to get more bang for your buck
from some of your lecturers and teachers, but we will come on
to that. Can I ask a quick question, not to everybody but to anybody
who feels that they want to comment on it. In the previous session
we touched on the issue of part-time students and we also touched
on the issue of mature students. Obviously all of you here, with
the exception of Gemma, are first-time students and you are all
full-time students. The question I have got is a question that
was raised in the previous session about the invisibility of part-time
students. I am just interested in terms of the people that you
mix with, your fellow students on courses, or even students you
know socially, how much mixing is there with part-time students
or with mature students? If there is, is there anything particularly
beneficial you get out of that? Does anyone want to come in on
that?
Mr Nussey: There are a number
of mature students within the Department of Biology at the University
of Liverpool, but the contact with them is reduced because of
the number of under-graduate students. From my experience, the
contact that I have had with them has been beneficial because
they bring a new dimension to the course and how you approach
learning. On the part-time students, I am heavily involved in
sport within the university and in that context mature students
and part-time students who have made commitments toward sport
have benefited everyone in the club, no question, because it just
brings a wealth of experience and knowledge about several areas
that help the university.
Q143 Mr Marsden: Interesting. Carly?
Ms Rowley: I think there is a
high number of mature students at our university as a general
sort of thing and particularly in the arts it has been really
nice because with some being older it brings a sense of maturity
and responsibility and really getting everything out of it. Sometimes
going from my tutor in the writing centre you see the youngest
students coming in and sometimes they are still in that school
kind of mind, and it takes a little bit to get into the momentum
of university. I think those that are coming back into education
after a number of years are really making it for themselves and
I have had really great experiences with mature students. I am
in a band with one of them and he is highly intellectual and well
read, and I do not think he could have got all that breadth of
experience if he had not taken a little bit of time out first.
Q144 Mr Marsden: Interesting. Can
I just stick with you for a moment, Carly, because one of the
points that has been made to us, as you may have heard, is about
the strong link between academics and lecturers engaged in research
and the quality of the teaching. What I want to ask you all briefly
is, first of all, you do not have to name names but just the span
of them, are the majority of your lecturers involved in research?
If they are, does that affect positively or negatively your teaching
experience?
Ms Rowley: In both of my areas,
literature and music, research is a key area. I am looking into
doing a PhD next in the works of Anthony Burgess and I get to
be tutored by the head of the Foundation who is a forerunner in
that sort of research. My dissertation tutor is on the board of
trustees of that Foundation. All of my tutors seem to be in really
key areas of research that need more doing and they will support
the students who want to go into these new areas also. I think
it has had an effect on how many bursaries they can give for masters
as well as on how well they do in the research.
Q145 Mr Marsden: Okay, Tom, what
about philosophy and English, are your tutors involved in research?
Mr Dutton: I know one tutor who
definitely is, and I imagine they all are to an extent. I know
that one of my philosophy tutors, Patrice Haynes, has so much
work to do that she finds that she has very little time. She is
a really, really good tutor but I think she struggles to do the
research on top of her other commitments.
Q146 Mr Marsden: So that is an issue
where your tutor is, as it were, giving time to her students that
otherwise would have to come off her research. Again, do you know
of examples where it works the other way round where research
people are just not around for a certain period of time?
Mr Dutton: I think generally the
main people doing research do not teach as much. I think they
are either separate or maybe only do a bit of research.
Q147 Mr Marsden: Obviously it varies
from discipline to discipline but, Adam, what is your experience?
Mr Hodgson: In my first two years
we were taught by PhD students on a couple of modules. This year
we have had one tutor who has been involved in research and this
has had a really bad impact on our teaching. It means that he
has cancelled lectures because he has had to travel to other universities.
In our first semester we have probably had around half of our
lectures cancelled because of it. We worked with him and the Department
to try and get those lectures rearranged, so we have had a lot
more lectures in the second semester, although that in itself
is problematic for students who are working round their studies,
for example, like myself.
Q148 Mr Marsden: Was that something
that just happened straight off? You went in and he said, "Terribly
sorry, but I have got to do X, Y and Z," I would have thought—and
I am not trying to put anyone on the spot—if that was something
that was pre-planned that should have been the responsibility
of the faculty and/or him to make those rearrangements beforehand.
Mr Hodgson: He is the only lecturer
who can teach this module at this university, so that makes problems.
Mr Marsden: So that is the problem, he
was not easy to replace.
Q149 Graham Stringer: Was there any
noticeable difference in the quality of teaching when PhD students
were taking you than if it was lecturers?
Mr Hodgson: In the first year
we actually talked to our personal tutors and asked if we could
get one of the doctorate tutors changed because we thought he
was a really bad teacher, but the other two doctorate tutors we
have had have been amazing and they have been at the same level
of quality as the full-time staff.
Mr Martin: Each of my module leaders
is involved in research to a certain extent. In one instance I
have managed to secure an under-graduate research studentship
with one of my module leaders, which is quite good.
Q150 Mr Marsden: You have benefited
directly from that?
Mr Martin: Yes, but most notably
my primatology module leader has his own research site in Costa
Rica and he is to and from there regularly, but not once has it
impacted on the lectures. He has always delivered the full two
hours every week and he is always giving us reading to complete
for the next week, and even in some cases back-up plans in case
he cannot make it, but he has never actually done that.
Q151 Mr Marsden: Gemma?
Ms Jerome: In terms of this tension
between research and teaching, as has been indicated in the previous
panel, the University of Liverpool definitely in the view of some
people has a prejudicial research focus. In terms of civic design,
there is not necessarily that tension there. Most of the lecturers
are engaged in research and usually at some kind of excelling
level.
Q152 Mr Marsden: Sorry to interrupt
you, is there a link between the research that they are doing
and what you are being taught by them? Do they come along and
say, "We are talking about X this week but I would like also
to tell you here about my latest research on this which fits directly
in"?
Ms Jerome: Sometimes but not always.
There is not necessarily a rule there. What I have noticed just
anecdotally is a particular lecturer I can think of who is very
much engaged in the research, and I have found that quite often
they are unable to bring that level of knowledge down to an under-graduate
level to enable us to engage with it. They are so focused and
I think the majority of their working week is in that research.
Q153 Mr Marsden: It is this middle
ground we were talking about earlier between teaching, research
and scholarship, which is supposed to be about disseminating research
whether it is their own or somebody else's?
Ms Jerome: Definitely.
Q154 Mr Marsden: Edward?
Mr Nussey: I think research within
my course has had a very beneficial effect. Starting from a very
broad base in the first year the most interesting parts of that
course were the bits where the lecturer would say, "In my
lab over the road we are doing this," and then they teach
us about it. It is becoming more important now that we are coming
into third year and honours and people are looking at potentially
going into research jobs within the university and elsewhere,
that lecturers who are lecturing on their specific subject and
specialist subject are the ones that are the most passionate about
their courses. I am amazed by the number of students that are
considering further education, PhDs and masters. I think the reason
for that is because we have got the world-class researchers in
our department. Although I think teaching is a very important
side of it, research has improved the teaching in the faculty,
yes.
Q155 Mr Marsden: Finally, just to
keep with you on that, this debate about whether you are a learner
or a consumer, in terms of a balance between teaching and research
from what you are saying that does not seem to be particularly
relevant, does it?
Mr Nussey: I do not quite follow.
Q156 Mr Marsden: In the sense that
if you are getting the best of both worlds, which is what you
are indicating in terms of the research feeding into teaching,
then presumably you are getting value both from the consumer point
of view but also from a learner point of view in terms of you
are getting the top people involved but equally at the same time
you are getting the learning out of it as well?
Mr Nussey: Yes I think so.
Q157 Chairman: Could I just finally
put one or two very, very quick points to you. We have heard a
lot during this inquiry about plagiarism, of using other people's
work and passing it off as your own. Do you feel, Gemma, that
is a big issue at Liverpool?
Mr Martin: I think it is more
inflated than it actually is a real problem. There were a few
quite humorous examples where work has been handed in and it had
actually been plagiarised from that particular tutor so they have
recognised it straightaway. I think there is quite advanced software
now fully rolled out at the University of Liverpool, so it is
quite difficult, and it is at the forefront of students' minds.
I do not think they go about it with relish.
Q158 Chairman: Do you know of any
student who has been disciplined or sent down as a result of plagiarism?
Ms Jerome: I do not know anyone.
Mr Nussey: I know students who
have been marked down for plagiarism. As Gemma said, there is
a system called Turn It In and everything that we have to submit
and will be marked has to be submitted through this as a way of
the lecturers knowing how much.
Q159 Chairman: But your lab work
is not, is it?
Mr Nussey: That will go through
it.
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