Guidelines for Assessment for Phd Students SPLD

Graduate School Forum

Guidelines for Assessment of PhD Students with Specific Learning Difficulties

1.  The attached guidelines have been developed through consultation between the College’s Educational Support Office, Phil McGeevor, and Susan Johnson and Valerie Soar from Senate House. They are intended to develop examiners awareness of the difficulties experienced by students with Specific Learning Difficulties within their thesis and viva, the support available to these students and to provide practical advice on what they can do to support students who have Specific Learning Difficulties.

2.  The proposal is for the Staff section to be distributed to every PhD supervisor and the Student section to be sent to all prospective PhD students who have disclosed they have a Specific Learning Difficulty.

3.  The Graduate School is asked to approve the attached guidelines. They need to go to the College’s Learning and Teaching Quality Committee on 10th March 2005 and then on to the University of London Research Degrees Committee on 3rd May 2005.

Staff Guidelines – PhD students with specific learning difficulties

Background

Many people know that students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD), such as dyslexia or dyspraxia, often have difficulties with reading and writing. Royal Holloway has a document to advise markers of written work by students with SpLD (‘Assessment and Marking Guidelines; Specific Learning Difficulties’[1]).

However, the lesser-known difficulties for such students are their oral fluency, word retrieval and memory; all of which are exacerbated by stress. They may not perform to the best of their abilities or express the depth and breadth of their knowledge when ‘put on the spot’ during an oral examination, such as a PhD viva voce.

The guidelines below aim to increase the supervisor’s awareness of the difficulties and support available and give supervisors recommendations on how to alleviate the students’ difficulties by providing an environment for them to fulfil their potential.

Awareness

·  Students will have registered with Educational Support Office (ESO)

·  Disability-related funding is available to students with SpLD via their PhD funding body and College (e.g. Disabled Students’ Allowance for specialist SpLD software and equipment and specialist SpLD tutorials)

·  Bedford Library has specialist SpLD software for students without their own

·  Training and advice on supporting PhD students with SpLD can be sought from the ESO

·  If an extension to deadline is required, the College Registrar will notify the student’s funding body; to ensure the College does not get financially penalised for extension and to ensure continuation of Disabled Students’ Allowance funding

·  Supervisors and external/internal examiners need to appreciate that even though there should be no spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes, there could nonetheless be evidence of 'awkwardness in phrasing' within the PhD thesis. They are requested to approach this situation sympathetically.

Good Practice (beneficial for all PhD students, but in particular, those with SpLD)

·  Careful guidance to be given when choosing and initially planning research area

·  Regular supervision

·  Larger work goals broken down into smaller targets

·  Realistic deadlines agreed in advance

·  Recording points discussed during supervisory sessions

·  Mock viva in dept

Recommendations for Viva

·  Supervisor to alert external marker of student’s SpLD and associated possible difficulties

·  Adopt an especially supportive and sensitive approach to viva

·  Sufficient table space to be able to organise materials

·  Open-ended time limit for viva; allowing plenty of time to find a section, understand the question, reread the text and formulate a considered response

·  Clear & concise phrasing of questions and instructions and extra clarification of questions if needed

·  Examiners remain silent whilst the student finds information or composes a response

·  Allow use of a range of presentation formats (e.g. bullet points, graphics)

·  Allow the student to make brief notes on questions to avoid memory overload

·  Allowance for poor fluency (e.g. word finding, rambling, speed, coherence of response)

·  Rest breaks for fatigue or attention issues

·  Allow use of laptop for easy access to sections

·  Allow use of coloured overlays to read text

Student Guidelines – PhD students with specific learning difficulties

Background

The guidelines below aim to increase your awareness of the support available and offer recommendations on how to alleviate the possible difficulties in your thesis and viva voce.

Awareness

·  Disability-related funding is available via your PhD funding body and College (e.g. Disabled Students’ Allowance for specialist SpLD software and equipment and specialist SpLD tutorials)

·  Bedford Library has specialist SpLD software for students without their own

·  Training and advice is available for staff supporting PhD students with SpLD via Educational Support Office and your supervisor should have awareness of SpLD difficulties

·  If an extension to thesis deadline is required, your funding body will be notified via the College Registrar; to ensure the College does not get financially penalised for extension and to ensure continuation of your Disabled Students’ Allowance funding

·  Your supervisor should ’flag’ your work to alert the external marker to your SpLD

Recommendations for Thesis

·  Larger work goals broken down into smaller targets

·  Realistic deadlines agreed in advance

·  Recording points discussed during supervisory sessions

Recommendations for Viva

·  Colour-coding of sections in thesis for ease of referencing during viva

·  Sufficient table space to be able to organise materials

·  Examiners try to remain silent whilst you find information or compose a response

·  Make brief notes on questions to avoid memory overload

·  Mock viva in dept

·  Possible rest breaks for fatigue or attention issues

·  Use laptop for easy access to sections

·  Use coloured overlays to read text

·  Possible use of a range of presentation formats (e.g. bullet points, graphics)

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[1] http://www.rhul.ac.uk/educational-development/centre/all_staff/docs/spld_marking_guidelines.pdf