Project Leader: Dr Alex Jeffries, Biology & Biochemistry

This project, which was awarded funding by the Teaching Development Fund (TDF) Seed, aims to improve student academic performance, lifelong learning, good thinking, and intellectual character through an introduction to Intellectual Virtues (IV) followed by ongoing self-assessment and peer mentoring of these attributes. For an overview of IV see; https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-virtue/ The concepts of IV will be presented to a volunteer cohort of students after an initial self-assessment questionnaire. Students will then be encouraged to identify personal instances of and opportunities for IV during a semester using weekly journaling. Two peer-discussion events, incentivised with free catering, will be held half-way through and at the end of semester 1.

An end of semester self-assessment questionnaire will be administered to assess post-intervention changes. A final end-of-year questionnaire and opportunity to provide reflective feedback will be sought. Lastly, students will be invited to video record their impressions for use as a peer-mentoring resource with future cohorts. The questionnaires and feedback will provide qualitative self-reported data on the effectiveness of IV to improve academic performance. It is also hoped that the IV framework and self-awareness experience will positively impact the long-lasting intellectual character of students and that they will more fully adopt a “growth mindset" with ensuing positive impacts on wellbeing.