Academic skills auditing helps inform the refinement of two first year science subjects to improve student success at university and beyond

There is growing evidence that students are coming to University from increasingly diverse backgrounds and need academic literacy support throughout their study programs in order to succeed at University and in their careers. We describe a skills audit of two first year classes, Botany and Microbiology and the subsequent directed changes within those subjects to further refine embedding of academic skills into the subject’s content. In Botany the skills audit identified that students did poorly in short answer questions in the exam. Tutorials were devised for on campus students that involved formative assessments. Questions and answers were provided for distance education students with ongoing feedback for answers e mailed to lecturers. In the follow-on Microbiology subject, mathematical skills were embedded in the subject with subject-specific tasks, for example, bacterial dilutions. The skills development project is informed by a number of key principles and research in the area.