Researching Young People's Lives provides an overview of some of the key methodological challenges facing youth researchers and an introduction to the broad repertoire of methods used in youth-orientated research.

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PurposeThis discussion paper supports the new development of Apprenticeships at Level 8 of the UK’s Framework for Higher Education Qualifications (QAA, 2014). This exciting development, one that employers and universities had been waiting for paves the way for, apprenticeships, sold as the ladder of opportunity, to go all the way to the top.Design/methodology/approachHere, we explore in brief the emergence of the new apprenticeship landscape and the importance of the addition of this new highest of levels.FindingsImportantly, however, we make the case that such progress needs to be met with an equally progressive approach to the design of the new doctoral pathway.Research limitations/implicationsWe sketch out a possible shell for the assessment of a Doctoral Apprenticeship, one that allows for flexible occupationally relevant inputs to create an applicable role-based and academically rigourous whole.Originality/valueThe importance of such a design is discussed within the context of the potential for impact in three priority areas: social justice, broadening the talent pool and ensuring the relevance and sustainability of the doctoral award.

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Regardless of the institution or discipline, the UK's National Student Survey (NSS)has consistently highlighted that the level of student satisfaction about the feedback they receive is notably lower than for other aspects of their learning experience. This study explored how students understand concepts and practices rated through NSS questions evaluating feedback practices in higher education. Drawing on questionnaires completed by first, third and fourth year Chemical Engineering students, the study calls into particular question the reliability of NSS data on promptness of feedback. In conclusion, it calls for greater attention to be paid at institutional level to the identification and management of students' perceptions and expectations of the process, content and outcomes of feedback.

As a statement of fact, the Higher Education (HE) sector gathers data. Commonly these data are metrical in format, used in some way to report on some aspect of performativity, whether within the institution or beyond its bounds. This paper does not seek to dispute the need for measurement, but it does argue the limitations of metric-based proxies alone if we are to truly understand the space of the university and how it operates in the interests of students, staff, employers, government and all other stakeholders. Our interest in the limitation of metrics in the HE context inspired a study funded by QAA (Scotland). The study focused on capturing, evidencing and affirming intangible elements of HE that are not easily counted or quantified, but form key aspects of an institution’s identity, culture and ethos, described by us as intangible assets. This brief paper provides an overview of our study and its outcomes to date. In presenting our progress and conceptual framework, we are inviting reflection, constructive comment and further dialogue in respect of the model itself, and its helpfulness in re-prioritising qualitative data in our assessment of our assets in higher education.