If they don't know what they don't know, who will tell them? Making the most of student learning support in tertiary education

A study conducted recently at Victoria University of Technology (VUT) examined the provision of learning support across the Higher Education sector of the university. The study confirmed that despite evidence of good practice in particular areas, learning support needs are not being consistently met across the University as a whole. The perception of academic staff interviewed was that many students were inadequately prepared for academic study, and that with some exceptions, learning support was characterised by a lack of systematic involvement of Faculty staff, and by dependence on the goodwill of individual members of staff for its provision. Most striking, perhaps, was the low priority apparently given by students and some staff to language, literacy and communications skills, despite ample evidence from employers on the importance of good communication skills in the workplace. Students may need to be made more aware by the teaching practices of Faculty staff of the strong links between good communication skills and future employment.

In documenting good practice in the Higher Ed sector, the researchers found that learning support was most successful when it was strongly linked to academic tasks, or embedded in some form within the course content. Staff interviewed reported a number of ways in which this could be achieved without entirely rewriting course syllabi or further overloading academic staff.

As universities struggle to accommodate the competing pressures of financial cutbacks and competitive excellence, the provision of student learning support may come to occupy a more strategic position than it currently does. More broad based research is needed to investigate the assertion that learning support leads to improved performance and higher retention rates, in order to inform the debate about types and level of provision. This paper will argue that learning support, whether in the area of academic or communication skills, literacy or numeracy, can only be effective if it is seen as an integral part of learning and teaching by all the stakeholders: educational administrators, academic staff and students.