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Designing an Inclusive Game-Based Framework for Enhancing Chinese Students’ Teamwork in UK Engineering Programmes
Full text linkWith the internationalisation of higher education, the number of international students (mainly Chinese) in UK universities—particularly in one-year postgraduate taught (PGT) engineering programmes—has increased significantly. At the same time, engineering education has shifted towards project- and problem-based approaches, making teamwork a critical competence for students’ academic and professional success. However, many Chinese PGT students have limited prior exposure to teamwork training during their undergraduate studies and little relevant work experience, resulting in weak teamwork skills. On the other hand, UK educators also lack a comprehensive understanding of these students’ teamwork learning behaviours, leaving a gap in the development of relevant inclusive teaching practices.
This study is an action research project employing a mixed-methods design, aiming to achieve two primary objectives: (i) to explore Chinese students’ teamwork learning behaviours and challenges in UK engineering courses; and (ii) to design and evaluate pedagogical interventions to enhance their teamwork learning experiences. Data collection included classroom observations, questionnaires, exploratory cognitive (working memory) tests, and semi-structured interviews. Based on the findings, a game-based teamwork workshop was developed to support PGT students in understanding team roles and enhancing collaboration competencies through interactive learning activities.
The workshop was implemented at two UK universities with 145 engineering PGT students. Post-workshop surveys revealed that 88% of participants expressed interest in continuing to engage in such teaching activities, and 74% self-reported an improvement in their understanding of teamwork via self and peer evaluation. Overall, the study demonstrates that integrating game-based practice design can enhance interaction, engagement, and teamwork awareness among students in cross-cultural teams, providing a practical and inclusive pedagogical model to support international students’ learning in UK engineering programmes
Microfluidic integration of radiation detectors for on-chip spectroscopy in liquid isotope identification for nuclear applications
No full textNavigating the Post-Brexit Agricultural Transition in England: Farmer Decision-making and the Evolution of the 'Good Farmer' Concept
Full text linkAs countries worldwide embark on their own ‘green transitions’ towards more sustainable farming solutions, active involvement and engagement from farmers are crucial for a successful transition. This involves understanding how farmers respond to these changes and adopt new practices to support these transitions. This thesis focuses on investigating farmer behaviour and decision-making during the post-Brexit agricultural transition, spanning from 2021 to 2024. It analyses the significant changes in agricultural policy and financial incentive structures that have impacted England, particularly the shift from EU payments under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to the establishment of Defra’s Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes. This thesis focuses on the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), a dimension of the Environmental Land Management schemes, and examines its impact on farmer decision-making and behaviour during the post-Brexit period.
Changes in farmer behaviour are critically evaluated using the concept of the 'good farmer,'. The thesis assesses the extent to which the concept is fit for the purpose of describing and understanding farmer decision-making in post-Brexit England. By comparing two cases–of farmers who have engaged with the new agri-environmental schemes and those who have opted out –the thesis evaluates the barriers to participation and how farmer decisions reflect broader shifts in farming culture and practice. The research enhances understanding of farmer behaviour during periods of policy transition and develops the 'good farmer' concept. In doing so the research addresses a notable gap in the existing literature by proposing an updated conceptualisation of the ‘good farmer’–one that better reflects the modern realities and pressures shaping today’s agricultural sector. It establishes a novel approach to conceptualise farmer behaviour - the ‘good farmer spectrum’ –which can better account for the multiple archetypes of the ‘good farmer’ who have, through the post-Brexit transition, been shaped and motivated by differing levels and forms of social, cultural, and economic capital
The Origins of Animal Traction in Britain
No full textAnimal traction is a key technological advancement that drove socio-economic transformations in prehistoric societies. However, its emergence in Britain has remained poorly understood, primarily due to the limited preservation of physical evidence and the absence of iconography associated with animal traction. While previous research has identified biometric differences between modern draught and non-draught cattle, these findings have yet to be systematically applied to archaeological assemblages. This thesis investigates the origins of animal traction in Britain in two stages. The first stage establishes a new biometric method for identifying draught cattle from archaeological sites by analysing over 150 modern non-draught cattle alongside a comparative sample of draught cattle, focusing on metapodials, first and second phalanges. The second stage implements a large-scale analysis integrating four osteological methods: biometry, Pathological Index, entheseal changes, and kill-off pattern in 22 British archaeological sites. The convergent results from all methodological approaches indicate that the earliest substantial evidence for cattle traction in Britain emerged during the Middle to Late Bronze Age. This timing coincides with a period of profound social transformation marked by agricultural intensification and the development of more complex hierarchical social structures during the latter half of the second millennium BC. Animal traction was, however, not universally adopted, but a strategic technological adaptation initially limited to specific communities. The adoption of animal traction not only enhanced agricultural productivity by enabling the cultivation of larger areas but also likely accelerated social stratification by creating unequal access to productive resources and agricultural surplus. Animal traction represents a pivotal technological development in British Later Bronze Age societies, reshaping agricultural practices and economic structures
On Form: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Double Works of Art
No full textThis interdisciplinary thesis examines the double works of art of the major Victorian artist and writer Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82).
The intermedial form amalgamates picture and word—typically an oil painting and a sonnet, with the latter often inscribed on the picture frame of the former—to create a visual-verbal composite. Deploying close reading and a combined art historical and literary methodology, I explore the ways in which the pictorial and textual elements elaborate on a shared subject, illuminate one another, and facilitate a unified aesthetic experience for the viewer-reader.
Using case studies, I demonstrate that Rossetti’s picture-poem composites are engaged in a prismatic and sustained dialogue, where each medium enriches and challenges the other, as the elucidatory affluences of one art form are brought to bear on the other in service of their joint imaginative venture. As part of this aesthetic criticism, I also explicate the double works’ formal plasticity and trace how the form manifests as both a tangible imagetext object and an intangible metaphysical ideal.
My first chapter positions the double work form in its theoretical landscape, illuminating the concepts that underpin the painting-poetry relationship. My second chapter considers Sibylla Palmifera (1866–70) in dialogue with absence, presence, and ideal beauty. My third chapter addresses Lady Lilith (1866–68, altered 1872–73) and the aesthetics of failure. My fourth chapter pursues unity and division in The Blessed Damozel (1871–78). My fifth chapter explores picture-word entanglement in Proserpine (1871–82). My final chapter reads The House of Life: A Sonnet-Sequence (1881) as a sustained consideration of the reconfiguration and re-encounter of form.
This project contributes to the fields of Victorian poetry, British art history, nineteenth-century literary and visual culture, and aesthetics
Investigating human disease ADGRG6 mutations in Zebrafish: Disease modelling and discovery of a novel dominant mutant allele
No full textTeaching British Imperial History to Children in English Secondary Schools, c.1965-1995
Full text linkThe following thesis examines the ways in which the history of empire was taught in late twentieth century English secondary schools. In the immediate post-war years, imperial history occupied a stable but supporting role in the national narrative. From the 1960s onwards, developments in and beyond the classroom pushed imperial history further towards the margins of school curricula. However, the influence of imperial(ist) ideological frameworks persisted. I argue that resistance and contestation created moments of slippage where more radical histories of British imperialism can be glimpsed. Even in the absence of conscious rebellion, the individual subjectivity of schoolchildren meant that the education given was rarely the education received. As such, this thesis views education as a process, rather than a product. While I draw upon teaching materials destined for use in twentieth century classrooms, I also tackle the harder-to-access areas of teaching practice and its reception.
Overall, my work makes three key interventions. It demonstrates the impact of a national culture of ‘postcolonial melancholia’ on teaching and learning in mid-to late-twentieth century Britain. Secondly, it helps to reconceptualise education as a multidirectional process: not only the teacher, but also students, their families, and their communities are demonstrated to be significant actors. This is emphasis is most prominent in my third chapter. Third, it serves as a powerful reminder that what history we choose to teach matters to students, especially those who are downwardly racialised
Exploring the boundaries of networks in the study of resistance against Ralstonia solanacearum
Full text linkSolanum dulcamara displays partial resistance to the devastating bacterial pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum, with S. dulcamara plants showing delayed or no symptoms (Sebastià, et al, 2021). This trait, as well as studies identifying that their root exudates can transfer resistance to Solanum lycopersicum, a susceptible crop, makes S. dulcamara a key plant for understanding resistance to R. solanacearum (Franco Ortega, in press). The following study aims to develop from this finding by exploring the boundaries of network analysis, to broaden our understanding of plant defence against R. solanacearum.
A co-expression network compared how gene expression in S. lycopersicum and S. dulcamara responds to R. solanacearum inoculation at five time points post inoculation. This highlighted genes linked to the immune response which differ in expression between S. dulcamara and S. lycopersicum: Solyc10G001528, Solyc10G000984, Solyc05G001746, Solyc08G000580, Solyc11G001222, and Solyc01G003106. This stretched the capabilities of network analysis to incorporate both cross species and time series data, allowing for the identification of Differentially Expressed Genes (DEGs) related to immunity. Further work is required to mimic S. dulcamara’s expression of these genes in S. lycopersicum to assess whether their function regarding immunity can be transferred to reduce disease.
Additionally, a co-abundance network assessed the influence 2,6-dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,6-DHBA) - a metabolite extracted from S. dulcamara root exudates - has on the surrounding microbial communities and to both R. solanacearum infection and abundance. This work highlighted six taxa of interest that were influential in the network, and their links to disease have been theorised. However, further research into their roles in the specific interactions between 2,6-DHBA and R. solanacearum is required.
This broad study of resistance to R. solanacearum has shed light on a multitude of potential resistance mechanisms that S. dulcamara has evolved, hopefully contributing to a more sustainable quantitative approach to resistance in S. lycopersicum
'Self, that ever intrusive guest’: constructed authoring selves in the historical romance, 1760s–1830s
No full textThe focus of this study is the intersection between the art of fiction, historiography and the projection of an authoring self in historical romances first published in the period from the 1760s to 1830s. The rise of the modern romance in the eighteenth century is intimately bound with emerging philosophies of history writing and the Gothic aesthetic: authors of such fictions engage with ethical questions about the narrativising of history, the agency of the author of fiction and its confusion with that of the historian (and vice versa), and the design and purpose of different species of history writing.
In the works scrutinised by this study, authors project designed selves via narrative frames, whether those are Gothic ‘found manuscript’ frame narratives, where the story’s origins are discovered to the reader, or more conventional-seeming introductions and prefaces. Within framing structures authors manipulate and project multi-faceted identities, engage with the historiographical debate, and challenge the idea that there is a distinct boundary between historical fact and fiction.
The Romantic concept of the author of fiction as an artist figure, whose motives, intent and processes are central to the understanding of a work of art, permeates philosophies of fiction and history in the period. Through metaphors connected with architecture, construction, visual rendering and the arranging of the audience’s aesthetic experience, philosophers and authors of the period ruminate on the role of the author as a ‘maker’ of text. The preoccupation with crafting, assembling, framing and editing is reflected in the ways in which historical romances are constructed. It also draws attention to the nature of the narratives as a collection of parts that can be dismantled, allowing for the possibility of the deconstruction of history and the authoring self that makes it
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