Research team Dr Clare Milsom Dr Martyn Stewart Professor Sue Thompson Dr Wayne Turnbull

1. he Forgotten Year? Tackling the Sophomore Slump What some staff say: “ When as a new member of staff you come along you get all the courses nobody wants and they all seem to be second year courses They become very confident about their rights , what they can expect demand from staff and are more confident to challenge staff on procedures and what is expected. I found teaching second year students more challenging. It is easy to fall off the radar in year 2. It’s not that the support isn’t necessarily here we are just not paying much attention to year 2. We assume that they Know what they are doing and that they will get on. “ What some students say: “ First year you go to every lecture and really trying. Second year you sort of decide this tutorial isn’t really important so I don’t have to go to it. I sort of dipped the first half of my second year. 40% Over of students in LJMU experience a dip in performance in their 2nd year based on 3 years of data. By the second year I had only just sort of grasped it – understanding of university life and then just decided to experience it . So probably the less important academic stuff went out of the window a bit for me in the second year. I think I probably spent most of all my second year partying to be honest and playing sport and working and towards the end of the year panicked and hadn’t really done much work The highest number of enquiries to the student union advice centre are from the second years. Over half of the lowest performing modules are at level 5 “ Institutional initiatives funded through the project A tripartite approach to tackling the sophomore slump in the School of Law Simon Brooman (Law) Comparative analysis of student engagement and their perceptions in Levels 5 and 6 Phil Carey (Health) Exploring assessment in the context of undergraduate second year experience Dr David McIlroy NTF (Psychology) Evaluating and developing a student-centred research project spanning Levels 5, 6 and beyond Jon Moorhouse (Art and Design) Developing a criminal justice community enhancing the second year experience Esther Ragonese (Law) ‘It’s so much harder than last year’ – the student experience of assessment and feedback at Level 5 Dr Jenny Van Hoff (Humanities and Social Science) Themes Induction Assessment Summer Break Student Support Mentoring Research team Dr Clare Milsom Dr Martyn Stewart Professor Sue Thompson Dr Wayne Turnbull Professor MantzYorke Margaret Williams Dr Elena Zaitseva Placement student: Peter Jago (Zoology programme) If you have an example of effective practice or any interesting data in relation to the second year student learning experience that you would like to share please get in touch with Elena , Clare or Martyn or visit out website www.secondyearexperience.ljmu.ac.uk www.secondyearexperience.ljmu.ac.uk +44 (0151) 231 8679 secondyearexperience@ljmu.ac.uk