Title: “I feel like a grown-up person”: first year undergraduates’ experiences of inquiry and research. Professor Philippa Levy, Academic Director, CILASS, University of Sheffield. How do students experience inquiry and research in their first undergraduate year? What role does this experience play in the construction and evolution of their identities and intellectual development as learners? What can we learn from their experiences to inform the development of inquiry-based approaches to educational practice? This seminar will explore these questions through a presentation of some of the findings of a longitudinal, qualitative study of undergraduate students’ experiences of inquiry as they progress through arts and social sciences degree programmes at the University of Sheffield.

1. “ I feel like a grown-up person”: first-year undergraduates’ experiences of inquiry and research CILASS First Mondays Seminar Series, 17 th November 2008 Philippa Levy Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences www.shef.ac.uk/cilass

8. Research on intellectual development absolute knowing transitional knowing independent knowing contextual knowing (self-authorship) Baxter-Magolda (1992)

9. Students’ conceptions of, and approaches to inquiry shared, cross-disciplinary ‘research perspective’ disciplinary differences individual differences (tutors) students’ epistemological beliefs and experiences of learning

21. Producing discovery-responsive Students pursue new questions, problems, scenarios or lines of inquiry, as formulated by tutors, in interaction with the knowledge-base of the discipline (“how can I answer this question?”) EXPLORING AND ACQUIRING EXISTING DISCIPLINARY KNOWLEDGE PARTICIPATING IN BUILDING DISCIPLINARY KNOWLEDGE Identifying information-responsive Students explore the knowledge-base of the discipline in response to questions, problems, scenarios or lines of inquiry formulated by staff (“what is the existing answer to this question?”) STAFF-LED STUDENT-LED Authoring discovery-active Students pursue their own new (or new to them) questions, problems, scenarios or lines of inquiry - in interaction with the knowledge-base of the discipline (“how can I answer my question?”) Pursuing information-active Students explore the knowledge-base of the discipline by pursuing questions, problems, scenarios or lines of inquiry they themselves have formulated (“what is the existing answer to my question?”)