Peter Williams

University of Hull · School of Education

New technologies and the knowledge economy are destabilising graduate professions, with artificial intelligence and the analysis of ‘big data’ making significant impacts on formerly-secure jobs. Blockchain technology, offering automated secure credentialling of undergraduate students’ activities and achievements, may significantly erode existing sy...

Assessment in higher education has focused on the performance of individual students. This focus has been a practical as well as an epistemic one: methods of assessment are constrained by the technology of the day, and in the past they required the completion by individuals under controlled conditions of set-piece academic exercises. Recent advance...

Recent years have seen unprecedented growth in the size, diversity and academic orientation of undergraduate student populations. There is evidence that the use of innovative pedagogies using information and communications technology has the potential to address such student diversity by offering opportunities for a more personalised student learni...

Developments in globalisation and new technologies are making significant impacts in higher education. Universities in a global market are increasingly concerned to reorient their degree programmes to meet the vocational needs of the Knowledge Economy. A growing adoption of technology enhanced learning, through blended and networked learning, has t...

Many quality assurance systems rely on high-stakes assessment for course certification. Such methods are not as objective as they might appear; they can have detrimental effects on student motivation and may lack relevance to the needs of degree courses increasingly oriented to vocational utility. Alternative assessment methods can show greater for...

Developments in globalisation and new technologies are making significant impacts in higher education. Universities in a global market are increasingly concerned to reorient their degree programmes to meet the vocational needs of the Knowledge Economy. A growing adoption of technology enhanced learning, through blended and networked learning, has t...

Handwritten, closed-book examinations have traditionally dominated high-stakes assessment in Higher Education, but their validity and fairness have received surprisingly little scrutiny. The evidence that does exist indicates poor reliability and validity, and a bias favouring some students at the expense of others. Universities now cater for stude...

Blended learning seems to entail a relatively innocuous set of techniques, but closer examination reveals some of these carry implicit assumptions-of constructivist philosophy, peer collaboration, and situative learning-which may make their export to other countries and national cultures problematic. They also provide a route to the Internet: a sto...

Economic factors are driving significant change in higher education. There is increasing responsiveness to market demand for vocational courses and a growing appreciation of the importance of procedural (tacit) knowledge to service the needs of the Knowledge Economy; the skills in demand are information analysis, collaborative working and ‘just‐in‐...

A cultural gap is widening in English secondary schools: between a twentieth-century ethos of institutional provision and the twenty-first century expectations and digital lifestyles of school students. Perhaps disaffected by traditional teaching methods and the competitive target culture of schools, many students have turned to social networking t...

The future of Western universities as public institutions is the subject of extensive continuing debate, underpinned by the issue of what constitutes valid knowledge. Where in the past only propositional knowledge codified by academics was considered valid, in the new economy enabled by information and communications technology, the procedural know...

The term eLearning enjoys wide currency, but is loosely employed. A lack of clarity as to its nature accompanies a lack of understanding as to its applications and appropriate use. These are important issues, as political, educational and commercial policy-makers need an informed frame of reference from which to make decisions regarding the employm...

This paper reviews significant events of the last 25 years in schools and teacher education in England and looks ahead to the next 25 years. Various scenarios for the future are examined and the potential is considered for new forms of teachers' initial education and continuing professional development using information and communications technolog...

In England and Wales initial teacher education (ITE) is becoming more school‐based. This study considers some implications for information technology (IT) in the primary school years (4–11). The results of a survey of primary school teaching practice placements are examined and the outcomes are related to other recent findings. The pattern which em...