From High School to Higher Degrees: Teaching and Supporting Learning for Students entering Postgraduate Professional Study without Undergraduate Degrees.

Purpose – This paper reports research into motives and concerns of non-graduate students accessing a two-year, part-time, professional, post-graduate programme via recognition of prior learning, and tutor efforts to engage them and support learning and achievement. Design/methodology/approach – Five secondary sources provided data on 72 students. Research instruments were; a background questionnaire, student performance profiles, mock exam participation data, an online survey on the student-centred approach to delivery, and a generic module evaluation survey. Findings - Regardless of prior academic exposure, most students were driven by extrinsic career related motives, most worried about work and family pressures as potential barriers to academic achievement, but few worried about individual ability to meet academic standards. Graduates out performed non-graduates and were more likely to engage in formative assessment. Efforts of tutors to implement student-centred learning were well received and engagement in formative assessment and feedback activity impacted positively on performance. Research limitations – Research relied on secondary data and was limited to students on two cohorts. Therefore there are limits to what might be extrapolated from the data. Practical implications - Tutors should recognise the gap between graduate and non-graduate performance and whilst making active interventions to close the gap, be more explicit with non-graduates about the demands of post-graduate study. Originality/value – Relatively little research is available on the experiences and achievement of non-graduates accessing post-graduate study via RPL. Keywords - Non-graduates; post-graduate study; recognition of prior learning (RPL); student-centred learning (SCL); barriers and enablers to learning. Paper type – working paper