news

Campus - 03.04.2023

Duolingo English Test can predict international students’ first year academic performance
International university students' scores on the Duolingo English Test (DET) used as proof of English language proficiency can predict students' first year academic performance, finds a study led by UCL researchers. Students arriving with higher DET scores are more likely to achieve better grades in their first year at university than students with lower DET scores.

Campus - Linguistics / Literature - 14.02.2022

Virgil has the edge on Shakespeare in helping students to love literature
Students who study Virgil's Aeneid at school find it significantly more engaging than other 'high-prestige' literature, even though they only learn tiny fragments of the text, research suggests. Ultimately, if this is high-level poetry that students actually like, perhaps we ought to be finding ways to give them the chance to do it Frances Foster The finding comes from a limited study with three groups of 15 and 16-year-old state school students taking Latin GCSE, and raises the possibility that there may be a case for expanding ancient literature's use in the wider curriculum.

Campus - 17.01.2022

University of Glasgow research brings us closer to Robert Burns the man than ever before
His words and poetry are known around the world. Yet more than 250 years after his death, Robert Burns, the man, continues to remain a bit of an enigma to the public. Now academics at the University of Glasgow's Centre for Robert Burns Studies are revealing new insights into the man behind some of the world's greatest known poems and songs.

Environment - Campus - 02.12.2021

First report published on UCL and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
UCL has published its first report setting out how the university is addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Developed by the UCL Sustainable Development Goals Initiative (SDGI), the report showcases a selection of the hundreds of ways UCL's staff and student communities are supporting the SDGs across their research, teaching and extra-curricular activities, as well as how the university operates.

Campus - 11.11.2021

Students who self-identify as multilingual perform better at GCSE | University of Cambridge
Young people who consider themselves 'multilingual' tend to perform better across a wide range of subjects at school, regardless of whether they are actually fluent in another language, new research shows. If pupils were encouraged to see themselves as active and capable language learners, it could have a really positive impact on their wider progress at school.

Politics - Campus - 18.08.2021

Greater scientific expertise needed in Parliament to improve decision-making
A new academic study finds that an over-representation of MPs with social sciences backgrounds limits debate on STEM topics. Last updated on Wednesday 1 September 2021 Political parties need to put more effort into recruiting candidates with scientific backgrounds in order to increase 'cognitive diversity' among MPs, say the authors of a new academic study.

Pedagogy - Campus - 28.05.2021

Extra classroom time may do little to help pupils recover lost learning after COVID-19
Adding extra classroom time to the school day may only result in marginal gains for pupils who have lost learning during the COVID pandemic, a study says. Simply keeping all students in school for longer, in order to do more maths or more English, probably won't improve results much Vaughan Connolly The University of Cambridge analysis used five years of Government data, collected from more than 2,800 schools in England, to estimate the likely impact of additional classroom instruction on academic progress, as measured at GCSE.

Social Sciences - Campus - 20.05.2021

Physical activity may help to close the wealth gap in school attainment by improving self-control
Guaranteeing every child the opportunity to participate in certain types of physical activity could support their academic attainment and help to close the achievement gap between wealthy and less-advantaged pupils, new research indicates. In the context of COVID in particular, there may be a real temptation to encourage schools to maximise classroom time to stop children falling behind.

Campus - Psychology - 02.04.2021

Hand signals improve video meeting success
Using a simple set of hand signals can improve the experience of online meetings, make groups feel closer to each other and that they are learning and communicating better, finds a new study by UCL researchers. The research team trained students to use a set of signals in seminars, such as waving to take a turn to speak, and raising a hand to show empathy, and found evidence that they improved the experience of video meetings during lockdown.

Social Sciences - Campus - 21.09.2020

Homicides near schools affect students’ educational outcomes says new study
Homicides near schools negatively impact on the educational attainment of children, a new study in the Journal of Labor Economics reports. During this unique study, researchers from the University of Birmingham and University of Surrey investigated if exposure to homicides had an impact on the educational outcomes of children in schools close by.

Campus - Health - 14.09.2020

Stopping the spread of coronavirus in universities
As universities prepare to welcome students back, infectious disease modelling experts at the University of Bristol have conducted a rapid review and developed a new epidemic model which contributed to evidence considered by SAGE to assess the effectiveness of different interventions that could stop the spread of Sars-CoV-2 in a university setting.