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Teaching Insights: It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it! The impact of exam linguistics on student performance

Teaching and Learning Academy |

Academic Practice Development
Date: Thursday 22 May 2025
Time: 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Location: Student Life Building - Room 3.04
Format: Seminar
Keywords: Academic Staff, Professional Services

Most courses use written exams to assess their students, but perhaps the linguistic quality of the question writing isn’t always the best it could be. Comprehension of a question is essential for a student to display their subject specific ability. It is important then to make our writing as understandable as possible. To try and help with that, a linguistic verification tool will be presented in the seminar. This tool is based on good writing practice and primary research into idea density, which will also be presented.

  • Impact of reduced idea density in lectures

    Lunn AM, Bürkle DM, Ward R, McCloskey AP, Rathbone A, Courtenay A, Mullen R, Manfrin A. Spoken propositional idea density, a measure to help second language English speaking students: A multicentre cohort study. Medical Teacher. 2022 Mar 4;44(3):267-75.

  • Impact of reduced idea density in exams

    The trial protocol is published here

    Lunn A, Manfrin A. Impact of reduced idea density on pharmacy students' attainment in pharmaceutical calculations: A study protocol for a single-blind multicentre randomised controlled trial. International Journal of Educational Research. 2023 Jan 1;117:102108.

Hosted by the Teaching and Learning Academy, this event is part of the Teaching Insights series and will be led by Dr Andrew Lunn, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences.

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