Exploring the role of pedagogy in supporting successful student transitions
While transition work often emphasises guidance and academic skills, pedagogy - the learning and teaching approaches that shape students’ day‑to‑day experience - remains comparatively under‑examined.
This project brought together five institutions - Dumfries and Galloway College, New College Lanarkshire, University of Abertay, University of the West of Scotland and Dundee and Angus College - to investigate how pedagogical alignment between FE and HE can improve student transition experiences and outcomes.
Drawing on cross‑sector workshops and a practitioner enquiry phase, findings indicate strong benefits for engagement and confidence when peer learning, debate, and structured short activities are used.
Key Findings
- Active, student-centred pedagogies (e.g., enquiry/discovery, debate, peer teaching, structured group discussion) were consistently associated with higher engagement and perceived learning value than didactic formats.
- Students reported increased confidence when activities were short, structured, and clearly signposted.
- Practical ‘teaching card’ activities showed substantial promise in supporting active learning approaches and supported student engagement and understanding.
- Transition skills requiring explicit definition and intentional intervention include:
- Evaluation and analysis
- Academic writing
- Confidence to participate
- Clarity of expectations.
- Persistent issues include inconsistent academic terminology which affects staff and student preparation activities.
Limitations include low response rates, instrument constraints, and contextual variability. Recommendations focus on clarifying learning intentions, scaffolding academic practices, building shared language across FE/HE, and embedding a ‘Teach Less, Learn More’ approach through prototypes (teaching cards), practitioner communities, and formative analytics.
Students articulating from FE to HE encounter substantive shifts in expectations concerning independent learning, assessment practices, contact time, and staff–student relationships (e.g., Christie et al., 2013; 2016). These shifts may produce transition shock (Tett et al., 2017), affecting confidence, engagement, and early success. While both parts of the sector have increasingly adopted student-centred approaches (Mayne et al., 2015), variation in pedagogical practice persists across and within institutions, contributing to discontinuities in the learner experience.
The project addresses this gap by foregrounding pedagogy as a lever for transition success. It examines how active, enquiry-driven, and discovery-oriented approaches - aligned across the sector - can cultivate independence, motivation, and transferable skills for HE success. In doing so, the project positions educators as co-creators and change agents, emphasising professional dialogue and cross-sector collaboration.
Project aims
- To evaluate commonalities and differences in FE and HE pedagogy relevant to transition.
- To engage students in surfacing challenges and informing pedagogical design.
- To test and refine practical teaching approaches that strengthen FE → HE alignment.
- To provide evidence informed recommendations and resources for further sector development.
- The literature on transition underscores the complex, ongoing, and non-linear nature of adjustment to HE, involving academic, social, and identity dimensions (Robertson & Cunningham, 2023; Morgan, 2012; Taylor & Harris Evans, 2018). Students often confront a hidden curriculum of norms and expectations (Sambell & McDowell, 1998; Hinchcliffe, 2020). Within this terrain, Transition Pedagogy (Kift, 2015) advocates a whole-of-institution, curriculum-integrated approach that scaffolds learning, assessment, and belonging from the outset.
- Across models, student-centred pedagogy and the creation of Third Space learning environments (Gutierrez, 1997) are recurrent themes, integrating diverse experiences and bridging institutional cultures. For articulating students, structured active learning supports identity formation as autonomous learners, builds belonging, and cultivates academic practices aligned with HE expectations (Young et al., 1997; Lasonen, 1996; Meharg et al., 2017; Breeze et al., 2020). This project situates itself within these traditions, adding a cross-sector practice-oriented contribution.
Design Overview
Design: Mixed-methods practitioner enquiry across two phases:
- Phase 1: Collaborative Exploration
- Cross-sector workshops with FE and HE practitioners and students.
- Outputs: four thematic domains (Active Learning, Independent Learning, Academic Practices, Learning Environment) and prototype teaching cards.
- Phase 2: Practitioner Enquiry (Pilot)
- Classroom trials of teaching cards.
- Output: student ratings (engagement, understanding), practitioner logs, qualitative feedback.
- Project participant evaluation.
Data Sources
- Workshops (practitioner and student informed): issue mapping, theme generation, practical strategy design.
- Classroom trials: activity-specific ratings (Engagement, Understanding), practitioner logs, student comments.
- Participant Evaluation: Participant evaluation of impact and potential of the project.
Ethics and Quality
Participation was voluntary and anonymised at the reporting level. As an exploratory pilot, instruments were pragmatic and context specific; findings are indicative, not definitive.
Limitations (Methodological)
- Low and variable response rates; potential non-response bias.
- Instrument validity/reliability not yet established.
- Non-controlled settings; sociocultural and pedagogical variables vary.
- Implementation mediated by staff capacity/readiness (time, workload, PL needs) significantly impacted timescales and output of the project.
Workshop Themes
- Active Learning: Students prefer practical, interactive approaches over passive instruction.
- Independent Learning: FE students need structured support and intentional pedagogies to develop autonomy in readiness for transition.
- Academic Practices and Terminology: Clarity on writing, research and terminology is essential and should be developed across institutions.
- Community and Belonging: Pedagogies which foster community and belonging need to be developed, shared and embedded across settings.
- ‘Teach Less, Learn More’: Defines an effective bridge between FE and HE to guide design of pedagogies but will require institutional ‘buy-in’.
Pedagogy Pilots
- Developed teaching cards reported encouraging scores from learners across setting of high engagement and development of understanding.
- Preferred activities based on student and staff feedback were: debate-based sessions; peer teaching; structured independence using digital technologies.
- Challenges included: time to develop, share and embed practices; identification of the right transition groups of learners; digital access to shared resources across institutions; time to participate regularly in any Community of Practice (COP).
Participant Evaluation
- Participants identified key value aspects which included cross-sector collaboration, embedding student voice into pedagogical enhancement, and the value in development of pedagogical tools to support development of practice.
- Participants cited opportunities for wider sector impact through greater focus on explicit expectations on transitions pedagogy, active learning and tertiary alignment around the themes identified through the project.
- Integration of professional learning including development and structured use of ‘teaching cards’.
- Staff want better alignment to transition pedagogy embedded within institutional teaching and learning strategies.
- Enablers and constraints include: protected time for collaboration and development; access to share centrally supported resources; strategic institutional leadership to align and co-design transition practices.
Pedagogical Alignment and Transition
Clarity, Structure, and Cognitive Load
Consistent with student and staff feedback, clarity practices - articulating Learning Intentions, Success Criteria, and providing at least one Worked Example - reduce ambiguity and cognitive load, enabling students to invest effort in analytical and evaluative tasks. Short, structured activities (time-boxed, with roles and checkpoints) appear to improve participation and transfer, especially during early weeks of transition.
Belonging and Peer-Led Learning
Collaborative structures (debate protocols, triads, teach-backs) contribute to belonging and confidence, offering opportunities to rehearse disciplinary language and expectations. For quieter learners, alternative participation routes (solo-then-share, silent discussion, low-stimulation options, digital contributions) help ensure equitable engagement.
Language, Terminology, and the Hidden Curriculum
Variation in terminology across sectors and programmes fuels uncertainty about standards and expectations - the hidden curriculum effect. A shared FE-HE glossary and aligned assessment language are practical steps to reduce ‘noise’ and support progression.
Tertiary Collaborative Enquiry
Participants identified clear positive benefits from the project which suggests opportunities for further development. Challenges include: suitable and accessible digital spaces; genuine time to develop and share practice, particularly reflections on implementation and impact; workload pressures; and institutional priorities that inhibit collaboration. Senior leadership ‘buy in’ would be essential for scaled ongoing collaboration.
- Publish and iterate prototype teaching cards with variants for quiet‑learner pathways and time‑scaled sessions through existing tertiary partnerships.
- Participants identified opportunity to develop a digital resource (website or app) to support access, engagement and collaboration for the sector.
- Institutions should develop shared micro‑frameworks for pedagogical practices which are consistently shared with students e.g. Learning Intentions, Success Criteria, and one Worked Example (plus timeboxing and roles).
- Establish a shared FE/HE glossary of academic terminology and expectations to reduce volatility and student confusion. These could be piloted on local collaborations before being scaled.
- Build practitioner communities of practice with scheduled cross‑sector observation, solo‑then‑share workflows, and round‑robin peer teaching.
- As suggested by Mackie (2024) the tertiary sector should encapsulate a programme of continuing professional development (CPD) to support staff with information about the importance of articulation pedagogies for the students. This would provide suggestions as to how they can adapt their teaching practice in small but important ways to support articulating students to have a successful transition.
- Support development of FE Practitioners through development into Advance HE Fellowship through pedagogy development.
- Opportunity to develop a deeper multiyear study across existing tertiary partnership arrangements to develop, test and evaluative longitudinal impact on learner retention and outcomes.