This article feeds into the discussion of transitional issues begun in Volume 2 of Arts and Humanities in Higher Education. It draws on research into A-level students' expectations of university English and how these compare to the experiences of first-year students, university lecturers and A-level teachers. The data presented are drawn from innovative focus group sessions which gave pre-higher education and first-year university students a range of exercises to encourage them to focus on their expectations and experiences of studying English. (...) These data were supplemented with teacher and lecturer interviews. The article concentrates on students' expectations of independent study and the experience of reading. The findings show that there is a mismatch between student expectations and the realities of university study. It is hoped that the outcomes of this research will contribute to a more informed transition from school to university by informing students' expectations before they enter university. (shrink)

The Humanities have much to offer 21st-century Europe, in terms of both method and issues which may complement and correct those of Science and Social Science. These include, for instance, humanities' generation of plural narratives and plural explanations, of attention to singularity and complexity, and to others' sensibilities and ways of knowing. These disciplines provide higher order skills needed to engage and engage with the New Europe — rhetorical and communication skills, networked knowledge sharing, responsive and responsible citizenship. In interdisciplinary (...) partnership with `hard' science research, the Humanities can offer ways of dealing with particularity and imagination, with issues of identity and sensibility, with encountering the other. At the same time, the humanities' own complex interpretative narratives and ability to generate and cope with complexity are vitalizing and enabling in a fearful, complex and supercomplex world. (shrink)

A process that prioritizes cooperative learning and group-management of tasks as a key vehicle of delivery, PBL seems ideally suited to a discipline such as Literary Studies that works so much through discussion and debate, with a relative lack of clear target responses to questions. It might even be argued that the current dominance of tutor-directed models within Literary Studies actually runs counter to the real nature of the subject. A literary text seldom, if ever, has a single issue or (...) problem as its concern, even when a critic or even the author claims that it does. There will always be a diversity of potential response generated among diverse readers. It is arguably in the apprehension of this diversity that the true creativity of the subject lies. A PBL method, in which it is the group itself that defines the learning objectives, tasks and methods of inquiry, seems particularly appropriate. (shrink)