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THE MODULE &
PROGRAMME
DEVELOPMENT
handbook
a practical guide to linking
levels, learning outcomes &
assessment
jennifer moon
KOGAN PAGE

First published in 2002
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,
or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing
of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance
with the terms and licences issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning
reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the
undermentioned addresses:
Kogan Page Limited
120 Pentonville Road
London N1 9JN
UK
Stylus Publishing Inc.
22883 Quicksilver Drive
Sterling VA 20166–2012
USA
© Jennifer Moon, 2002
The right of Jennifer Moon to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-203-41719-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-44245-8 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0 7494 3745 6 (Print Edition)

Contents
Preface viii
1 Introduction: developing an outcomes basis
for module development
1
Introduction 1
The development of the ideas of programme
structure
1
The situation now 9
General introduction to the book 12
Some notes on the use of words 13
2 A map of module development 15
Introduction 15
3 Levels and level descriptors 19
Introduction 19
The background to levels in higher education 21
Level descriptors 24
The relative standard of level descriptors 25
The types of level descriptors, and some
examples
26
Theoretical and practical issues in the use of level
descriptors
32
4 Some uses of level descriptors 40
Introduction 40

Some uses of level descriptors 42
Concluding comment 49
5 Writing and using aims and learning
outcomes
50
Introduction 50
The ideas behind learning outcomes 51
Definition and examples of learning outcomes 56
Learning outcomes, aims and objectives 61
Writing learning outcomes 64
Learning outcomes and their location at minimum/
threshold standard
71
Learning outcomes and assessment: some further
points
75
Learning outcomes in vocational programmes 76
Using desirable or aspirational learning outcomes 76
6 Writing and using assessment criteria 78
Introduction 78
The place of assessment criteria in current higher
education
80
Definitions of assessment criteria 83
Writing assessment criteria 84
More generalized forms of assessment criteria 94
The vocabulary of assessment criteria and
learning outcomes: a tale of dubious
interpretation
104
7 Assessment methods and teaching strategy 106
Introduction 106
The wider role of assessment 108
Some ideas that underpin the development of
assessment methods
110
iv

Assessment drives learning: the implications for
assessment and teaching strategy
114
8 Specific techniques and methods in
assessment
120
Introduction 120
Peer and self assessment 120
Developing assessment criteria with students for
tutor, self or peer assessment
123
Assessing students in groups 124
Assessing processes in academic work: oral
presentations
126
Assessing processes in academic work: reflective
writing or learning journals
128
9 The sum of the parts: some considerations
on working at programme level
133
Introduction 133
Programme specifications: an overview 134
Pulling the description of programmes together in
programme specifications: writing educational
aims, programme outcomes and teaching,
learning and assessment sections
136
Multidisciplinary and modular programmes 144
Conclusion 148
10 A summary of module development for
reference and staff development purposes
149
Introduction to this chapter 149
Programmes, modules, courses, teaching and
learning
149
A sequence for consideration of module
development and for staff development purposes
150
Levels and level descriptors 151
v

Aims and learning outcomes 154
Assessment criteria 156
Assessment methods and teaching strategies 158
Appendix 1 SEEC level descriptors (revised version) 160
Notes on the use of the descriptors 160
HE level 1 161
HE level 2 162
HE level 3 164
Master’s level 165
Taught doctorate 167
Appendix 2 Quality Assurance Agency Qualifications
Framework qualification descriptors
170
General C (Certificate) descriptors 170
General I (Intermediate) descriptors 171
General H (Honours) descriptors 171
General M (Master’s) descriptors 173
General D (Doctoral) descriptors 174
Appendix 3 Differences in implied level between SEEC
credit level descriptors and QAA QF
qualification descriptors
175
SEEC level 1/QAA Certificate level (C) 175
SEEC level 2/QAA Intermediate level (I) 176
SEEC level 3/QAA Honours level (H) 176
Postgraduate levels: SEEC/QAA descriptors at
SEEC Master’s and taught doctorate and QAA M
and D
177
Conclusion 178
vi

Appendix 4 An exercise to facilitate development of
‘depth’ assessment criteria in reflective
writing
179
Introduction 179
The presentation 179
Features of the accounts that are indicative of
different levels of reflection
183
Glossary 186
References 187
Index 191
vii

Preface
This book concerns the design and development of education. Its focus
is higher education, though much of it can apply to other areas of
education. Primarily the book describes the design of modules that
make up programmes.
The manner and methods of viewing education in terms of the
outcomes of learning rather than the curriculum content or the actions
of teachers have emerged strongly in the past ten years. We can assume,
after all, that it is the learning that is done by learners that is the
important result in educational activity. Over recent years there has been
much work that has supported the development of an ‘outcome-focus’.
As with many new developments in education, the work has been
tortuous, with many hearts and minds to persuade, and many avenues
with dead ends. Undoubtedly we are still following some dead-end
avenues.
The current state of play in higher education with regard to module
development reflects exactly this. We have situations in which there is a
distance to go to catch up with patterns of describing programmes that are
well established. At the same time, we have other situations in which,
maybe, the patterns have gone into extremes in the detail of describing
learning, that will prove to be unfunctional or even deleterious to higher
education. This is because of the time and effort that they involve for
staff and sometimes students, and because they stress the form of detail
about learning that can only be realized in factual and surface
approaches to learning. These things will resolve themselves in the
course of time and the spreading of information, as, perhaps, we are en
route to the next change.
The spirit of this book is the provision of information about a state of
development in which we are now. In considering the linking of levels,

learning outcomes and assessment criteria, the tuning of appropriate
assessment methods and the work of teaching, we are in a stage of
development. In this we recognize that there are probably no ‘right
ways’ and ‘wrong ways’, but efforts to improve on what is present.
More to the point, the book attempts to inform about present thinking
and to explain the logic that underpins that thinking. The information is
supported by a substantial number of examples.
About this edition
There are two versions of this handbook, this bound paperback and an
A4 loose-leaf ringbound edition. This bound version is intended as a
personal copy of the book, to be used by individuals as part of their own
work or development. The ringbound version is intended primarily as an
‘institutional’ edition. Unlike this paperback, the ringbound edition is
fully photocopiable and will be of particular interest to staff developers
and those running short courses and workshops.
The main content of the two editions is identical, apart from the
material in Chapter 10. In this edition it consists of a summary of key
points. In the ringbound edition, Chapter 10 comprises photocopy
masters of handouts, resources and an OHP transparency, which can be
used by those working with groups, or who may need to distribute the
key issues of module and programme development within their
institution.
Further details of either version of The Module and Programme
Development Handbook can be obtained from Kogan Page (see back
cover for contact details).
ix

1
Introduction: developing an outcomes
basis for module development
Introduction
The introductory chapter to a book has various purposes: this chapter
has three. The first purpose is to ease the reader’s pathway into the
subject matter. To achieve this, the chapter provides an overview of the
developments that are described throughout the book: broadly what the
information is, where it is and the approach taken to it. The second
purpose is to set the context of the developments which are described,
and this discussion is integrated with material designed to fulfil the third
purpose. The third purpose is based on the premise that we construct
our own knowledge and that our understandings and progression in
further learning are based on that personal knowledge. On this basis, the
structure of a writer’s understandings is very relevant to the material that
appears in a book.
The development of the ideas of programme
structure
Following from the paragraph above, writing even an informative book
of this sort is a personal journey plotted out across changes: in this case
in higher education, new personal roles and the resultant confrontations
with new ideas, conflicts and situations. If those particular new roles
had not generated new problems to solve, the material of this book
would either not have been written, or it would probably have looked
different. The start of this book is a reflection on my passage over
around nine years in the context of higher education and professional
development.

This history is relatively expansive because it is more than a building
of ideas. It also deals with doubts and scepticisms that have beset what
can be perceived as the mechanical paperwork that necessarily
accompanies the more exciting activities of teaching and processes of
learning. The account represents the interweaving of several areas of
concern in educational development, among which are:
• the quality of an individual learner’s experience;
• the relationship of individual learning experiences to what we
understand of the processes of teaching, learning and assessment;
• the context of the developments—and in particular, the vision and
excitement of lifelong learning developments;
• and the need and, indeed pressure, somehow to cope with the
implications of all of this in a vastly expanding field of education—
with the expansion occurring very rapidly.
Threading its way through these areas of concern has been a wavering,
forming and transforming philosophy of education that endeavours to
account for two poles of a continuum. At one end there is personal
interest in developing precision in the management of learning, and at
the other end there is interest in what might be called the higher
processes of higher education learning. Mixed in, too, are developing
thoughts about the nature of useful knowledge and the kinds of learning
that best generate that knowledge.
The real history of the book probably begins long before any thing I
can recollect of my own education, but in terms of my own education,
the first important factor was my selection of science options at school.
Science was in my family, as family members had worked in
engineering and medicine. Art, music and the humanities were not. I
remembering not expecting to be good at English or history or
geography—and I lived up to my expectations. Interestingly I did like
poetry and writing stories, but then, that was not school English: it was
just what interested me at home. Interest led me astray within school
learning too, as I suffered early knocks in my experiences with the
examination system. I was too intrigued with the content of my learning,
and not interested enough in how I needed to shape that learning in order
to squeeze it effectively through GCEs (as they were then) and later A
levels. I did not fail, but I did not do as well as my level of interest and
thinking should have allowed. I strongly identify with more recent
research on approaches to learning—I took a deep approach to learning
2 THE MODULE AND PROGRAMME DEVELOPMENT HANDBOOK

and was not sufficiently strategic (Marton, Hounsell and Entwistle,
1997).
However, I did get to university to study zoology. It was an
anatomical and descriptive version of the subject which neither
particularly sparked my interest, nor furnished me with the
opportunities to use my mind in the way to which it was best suited.
Nor did my interest spark from the mandatory bits of chemistry in the
course, which were never actually related to the zoology that we
covered. They were isolated areas of learning that remained isolated.
The chemistry was near physics and the zoology was very descriptive
and dry, and their relationship was a theoretical one rather than a real
and meaningful one at that academic level. Had I studied these subjects
at a later stage, I might have been capable of making the appropriate
links. In the undergraduate first year, I could not. Maybe ancillary
subjects should sometimes come later in a programme, when students
are better able to integrate the information—not as is usually the case,
early on.
Things changed, however, in the third year of my degree. I studied
the new zoological areas of ecology and animal behaviour, and they
posed new hurdles of a different kind. They represented a shift from the
supposed objectivity of hard science to situations of theory building and
of a new kind of uncertainty. Whole rats did not always run mazes in
the expected manner—certainly not with the certainty with which the
muscles of frogs twitched when a specific amount of electrical current
was applied to them. Nor was there any certainty as to the presence or
absence of a particular species in a given habitat in which all the
conditions were supposedly ‘right’ for that species. I had been exposed
suddenly to a new structure of knowledge, which to me then, with a
pure science background, seemed like a strange and disorienting new
world with new rules. I can recall being totally bemused by ethological
models of dripping taps. What was a model? Why play with models and
not the real thing? I felt disturbed and unnerved, but had no theoretical
basis on which to base a conversation about my feelings with a tutor. I
do recall, however, finding the biology of the sewage works very
interesting. It was nicely down to earth and comfortably real. These
experiences fed into my current thinking about multidisciplinary
programmes and diverse disciplinary experiences within programmes
that are seen as integrated and ‘single honours’ (see Chapter 9).
INTRODUCTION: DEVELOPING AN OUTCOMES BASIS FOR MODULE DEVELOPMENT 3

I recall too that I remained non-strategic when it came to assessment.
I was not good at keeping to the point of the question, did not revise the
‘right’ things, and in particular, got carried away by interesting ideas
that did not accord with the interests of the lecturers who set the
examination questions. I remember a night or two before finals, I became
engrossed by a new-found theory of the flight of birds. Unfortunately for
my results, a question on the flight of birds in the exam gave me an
opportunity to expound these ideas, which did not find favour with the
examiner.
At a later stage I did a Master’s degree in education and began to find
the kinds of learning and knowledge development that suited my mind.
I left behind the sciences, and in the humanities found deliberation,
reflection, argument and forms of uncertainty that felt stimulating.
Maybe my level of maturity or of reflective thinking ability was
significant (see Chapter 7). A time of particular stimulation and
advancement in my quality of thinking was when I studied philosophy
of education with a liberal-minded and excellent teacher. Because I
studied it as an extra module, I did not feel that the expectations of high
achievement weighed on my efforts. I wandered around the ideas that
were presented, exploring my own ability to think freely about such
words and ideas as learning and teaching, and the nature of education
and training. It was a time when I realized that I could think effectively,
that I could reach conclusions, and that they could be acceptable even if
they were unconventional. They were acceptable even under
examination conditions because, even though I did not ‘know’ much
about the formal philosophies of education, I could philosophize. At
that point in my education, I gained confidence in my ability to develop
theory that might be new.
Another learning experience at a much later stage has fed into my
thinking about the quality of learning that should be expected at
Master’s level. I undertook a Master’s degree in health education. The
student group came from a broad diversity of backgrounds. Some of the
students had been working on district health promotion teams for years,
and others, like me, were completely new to the subject. As happens in
many Master’s courses, we all studied the same programme. The
programme consisted of modules that included, among other subjects, a
bit of sociology, an introduction to education, and an introduction to
psychology: in particular the psychology of learning, to which I will
return.

Apart from the fact that I had studied these subjects in considerably
greater depth before, as had others on the course, these introductory bits
and pieces did not add up to anything much in the direction of health
education. Nor were they much like Master’s level. Little in that
programme was actually challenging enough to fit into a level 2
programme. I maintained those views when, a year or so later, I was in a
position of teaching and marking essays on the same programme.
Much of my subsequent university learning has been in the context of
research. In research there are greater opportunities to follow up areas
of interest and to make judgements in relation to the evidence and
personal directions of thinking. There were what I would now perceive
as difficulties in the supervision. For example, in my MEd I had my
first real encounter with the topic of student learning. I studied reading
for learning from texts (Moon, 1975). The subject matter was pretty
incomprehensible for the social psychologist who was my tutor, and she
tried to turn it towards her own interests. She failed to persuade me to
follow her lead on this, and (by my judgement of the time, and also by
my judgement today) gave me a very low mark. In fact I realize that I was
working on material that has become very relevant in more recent
times, with the wealth of research on approaches to learning (eg
Marton, Hounsell and Entwistle, 1997).
In work situations, I worked variously in higher education, adult
education and in health education and professional development. I was
asked to look at the postgraduate health education Diplomas and
Master’s degrees across the UK. Coming from a long period outside
higher education, I was shocked to find the apparent variations in the
standard in programmes that led to the same awards. The standards
were reflected in the apparent amount of contact between staff and
students, the amount of assessment and the required lengths of
dissertations (Moon and England, 1994).
At the same time I worked on short courses in health education
(Moon, 1995a). This is where I first came across the notion of credit.
These courses were often credit rated by universities, and this
theoretically meant that successful participants could use the credit
towards advanced standing in another higher education programme.
Nurses, who were often the participants, were among the earliest
professionals to use credit in this way, although in reality the
importance of credit rating for most short courses was as a mark of
quality rather than a key to progression.

It was my minimal expertise in the ideas of credit that enabled me to
move into my next job, working for a higher education-funded unit that
supported one of the major DfEE-funded credit development initiatives
of the mid-1990s. The Higher Education Credit Initiative Wales
(HECIW) facilitated the development and adoption of credit systems in
Wales. It paralleled major projects in other parts of Britain, including
the SEEC project in southern England (Southern England Credit
Accumulation and Transfer Consortium). These projects followed work
done by Robertson (1994) on credit accumulation and transfer systems
(CATS), though in the structures that they advocated, they conflicted
with the manner in which Robertson had conceived of the
developments.
The credit development projects worked on the programme structures
that enabled learners to earn credit for learning achieved at one
institution, and use the credit towards another programme in another
institution. A strong agenda for this in Wales was based on forging
better links between higher and further education, in order to facilitate
the widening of access to students who had previously never
contemplated higher education. It was interesting to note how the
existence of this agenda then seemed to alienate the more traditional
universities, which are now under government and funding council
pressure to widen access to their programmes.
The Welsh situation was then slightly atypical. At the time, the
broader argument for credit was mainly on the basis of the portability of
credit, although students have not greatly increased their mobility
between institutions in these six or so years. However, many (but not
all) institutions have tended to adopt the structures that support credit
for other reasons. It can be a little difficult to see exactly why some of
the more traditional universities did adopt the notion of credit, although
certainly it allows more flexible provision and an easy movement into
the principles of lifelong learning. In fact, one could say that the
principles of credit accumulation and transfer are the basic
underpinnings of most lifelong learning initiatives.
The main structures for credit are levels and level descriptors,
learning outcomes and assessment criteria. Later chapters in this book
will provide more details on the origins and evolutions of these
elements of programmes from their early days in credit projects—but
there is more in my personal story.

During the duration of this project, I developed a range of knowledge
about programme structures and an experience of working across
universities, but I also carried some scepticism. I had spent two years
propounding the benefits of credit and the values of outcome-based
learning described by learning outcomes. I had sat through many
sessions, trying to help lecturers who had been selected to attend them
to see the benefits of specifying expected learning, instead of talking
about teaching and curriculum coverage. I had spent hours in meetings
which were often fractious and uneasy, trying to agree the format and
wordings for level descriptors with multidisciplinary teams. Later I
spent many difficult days in a series of workshops at different
universities, trying to help senior and staff development staff to write
learning outcomes, with the idea that they would cascade this through
their institutions. Endlessly I had to reassure unbelieving participants
that this was not the thin end of the National Vocational Qualifications
wedge—the back door, which would transform university subject
matter into NVQs. Some saw the project as the advance guard of the
NVQ lobby, particularly as we were funded by the DfEE.
Now, seven years later, workshops similar to these run nationally and
attract large numbers of participants. Then, however, there was simply
no time to stop and think about the meaning of describing programmes
in this way. I felt uneasy. We were on the outside of institutions, outside
teaching and learning situations, and we had no real contact with
students; and yet we were telling higher education staff that they should
adopt these ways of working. In one sense I liked the clarity,
transparency and precision that the credit system espoused, but on the
other hand I had doubts about how we were really affecting learning and
the student experience of higher education.
As happens with project work so often, the project came to an end
and job seeking began again. I moved into educational development at a
traditional university which had been diffident about the credit
developments. This gave me time to think about programme structures,
teaching and learning and the experience of students. I also spent time
talking with academics and even ran the odd workshop on writing
learning outcomes, because like other traditional universities, this one
was now recognizing the need to work in this direction.
Perhaps the main stimulant for my thinking was the process of
collecting together all my formally written material, summarizing it and
writing an overview as part of a PhD by portfolio.

This activity in turn led to my writing a book on reflection in learning
and professional development. As I thought about this collection of
material, I began to recall the sense of conflict I had felt earlier, but the
nature of it was becoming clearer. I found that in talking about learning
outcomes I was propounding what many considered to be a convergent
and prescribed, perhaps even a narrow view of higher education. But at
the same time I was writing about the higher qualities of higher
education learning: reflection and broader thinking and exploration of
learning. How could I be holding—or even promoting— two opposing
views of higher education at the same time?
The resolution to this considerable crisis came with my realization of
the importance of one thing that I had been saying for a long time: that
learning outcomes should be treated as threshold statements. They
should not describe the performance of the average or typical student, as
so many people in workshops seemed to assume. If learning outcomes
describe what a learner must do in order to pass the module, there is
plenty of opportunity to promote the higher qualities of higher education
learning. Chapter 5 provides more detail on this thinking.
Recognizing that I could be interested in precision and conversion in
learning as well as the higher qualities of learning was a considerable
relief, and helped me greatly in running workshops. I could now feel
comfortable with the efforts to describe what learners must do to pass,
while at the same time realizing that in describing this I was not
opposing the greater development of the learner’s potential. These
realizations also helped me to see how the process of grading can be
viewed as a means of providing an incentive for the learner to achieve
more than the threshold requirements.
The story continues. I run many workshops in a new educational
development post, and running workshops is an important way to learn.
People ask questions which force my reasoning into new areas. In turn I
have gone back to my written handouts and papers and revised them
over and over again in order to encompass the reasoning, and
sometimes, particularly in the last year or two, to accommodate to
change and new influences. In recent times, there have been a number
of changes in the formats of well used level descriptors (see Chapter 3),
in the arrival of the subject benchmarking material (see Chapters 5 and
9), programme specification, and most recently in the arrival of the
Quality Assurance Agency Qualifications Framework (QF) (see
Chapter 3).

It is interesting to reflect on how the questions at workshops have
changed over the years. The workshops on the subject matter of this
book have never been easy to run. The idea that learning should be
described at all can generate quite amazing angst. I would find it
upsetting to realize that people saw me as anti-learning or as a hard
administrator, when actually I was writing books promoting the
development of more thoughtful student learning processes than many
lecturers would consider. In the early days of workshops on programme
structure (level descriptors and learning outcomes), as I have said above,
there was much concern combined with misinformation, about NVQs
and the fear that the government wanted to implement such systems to
replace the traditional higher education curriculum. At the same time,
there were still lecturers who would say, ‘I don’t want to think in
advance about what I am going to teach. I will decide what to teach
when I get in with the class.’ The same lecturers would also say that
they would decide on assessment when it came to the end of the term or
semester, and that they did not need to discuss levels or standards
because they would know a good or bad piece of work when they saw
it.
By the late 1990s we were moving on from that line of thinking.
People began to realize that focusing on the quality of learning that
could and should be achieved made more sense than the old focus on
teaching and curriculum. They realized that higher education was about
the promoting of learning and not teaching. With the greater acceptance
of learning outcomes, the part of the workshop that I then began to find
difficult was the point at which I indicated that learning outcomes
should be written at threshold standard. This is the new area of
contention. It was hard to convince participants that learning outcomes
are not written for the average or typical student, but to define those
who pass and fail to pass the module. However, having reconciled my
own views on the matter, I could argue with much greater confidence.
The situation now
Recently, as there has been more general acceptance of the outcomes-
based approach, the questions at workshops have focused more on the
technicalities of using learning outcomes and level descriptors, and on
their role in assessment. People will ask about how many learning
outcomes must be passed in a module (see Chapter 5), and what sort of

assessment criteria to write (see Chapter 6). I find myself more and
more needing to explain that describing learning in terms of level
descriptors or learning outcomes is a form of word-play; that describing
learning is a slippery occupation, and that words skid around in their
meanings. We are doing our best to be clearer about something that has
been very unclear. We have not arrived at a point where learning can be
described with great precision, nor are we ever likely to get there, but
we are doing our best to improve, and improvement is a process and not
an end-point.
It is also important to stress that there are no right answers to
describing learning or to describing the structure of programmes. The
elements of programme structure and the manner in which they are
linked that are discussed in this book are not ‘right’, but are those that
are largely in use at the present. They are accompanied by justifications
which seem appropriately to match current views of teaching and
learning. However, they can be superseded. We can probably still do
better. Because improvement is a process, we can openly admit that
some parts of the process are still undergoing development.
Level descriptors and learning outcomes are now in use relatively
commonly, and use itself has led to modification and improvement.
However, there seem still to be weak links in some aspects of
programme structure, mainly those that concern assessment criteria and
their expression in assessment tasks. As I explain in Chapter 6, there is
still much misunderstanding about what constitutes an assessment
criterion, and the ways in which such criteria can be used. Further
thinking about assessment criteria inevitably brings one to another
difficult issue: how specific should we be in telling students what they
need to do in order to pass or get a particular grade in an assessment
task? There can be no blanket answer to questions like this. Decisions
as to the specificity of descriptions of learning, beyond a certain level of
clarity, should rightly be a joint concern of those who are experts in that
area of knowledge and educationists who understand the educational
issues. Ideally at least these understandings would be present in one
person who can explain and guide others.
Modification in patterns of programme structure is not just a matter
of further tuning of what is there already. Modification is also a
response to new influences. A little over a year ago, for example, a talk
about levels and level descriptors was simple. There were few options
and few matters for choice. Now in a workshop there is much more to

explain, and more choice to be made about what set of descriptors to
use for what purpose. One influence has been the arrival of the
Qualifications Framework, with its set of associated qualification
descriptors. In addition, there have been changes agreed in the most
widely used credit consortium descriptors: the SEEC descriptors (see
Chapter 3).
The influences that affect level descriptors are specific. There are
other influences which affect modules, programmes and the pattern of
provision of institutions in more general terms. Examples of these are
the initiatives that encourage the learning of skills by students; the
practical developments that can be placed under the umbrella term of
lifelong learning; deliberations about the nature of multidisciplinary
programmes (see Chapter 9); the development of foundation degrees;
the actual and expected changes in the external review of provision by
the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA); and the influence of student fees.
The advent of the charging of student fees is a pervasive, but powerful
influence. Its influence is not only negative. It certainly presses higher
education into more meticulous administrative procedures, but it also
makes it more reasonable for students to expect an appropriate
experience in higher education, and therefore forces greater
accountability. It is one of the factors that drive the development of
greater transparency in the processes of assessment. Teaching staff are
required to be more clear about the assessment criteria on which they
have based judgements of pass and fail or grading.
Student fees and the general financial situation of students influence
higher education in other ways that may be relevant to this book. Most
students do part-time work. This tends to mean that many are actually
part-time students. Having less time and energy for study puts pressure
on students to become more strategic, more often learning only what
they have to learn—and guided by their expectations of assessment in
their choices about what modules to study. These factors raise a number
of issues about the clarity of provision and the transparency of
processes of assessment.
Some institutions capitalize on students’ part-time work as a source
for learning employability and other learning skills in setting up work
experience modules (Watton, Collings and Moon, 2002—in
preparation). Typically in these modules, students undertake various
tasks that facilitate their learning from their part-time work. Such
modules are unique, and they have demanded and continue to demand

considerable thought about how to make best use of them and of their
outcomes alongside conventional learning—and in particular, how to
describe them in terms of levels and learning outcomes.
General introduction to the book
The section above will have indicated that this book represents a
pulling-together of much material. There are plenty of publications on
which it is based, but the ideas have often not been focused in one
place. It could be said that the common idea in the book is the
development of programmes—indeed the title reflects this—but in fact
most of the book is about the development of modules that make up
programmes, recognizing the need for linked and logical thinking in
programme development. We think about logical structure in what we
teach. We have always done that. In the past we have considered
considerably less what students learn or how they are to be assessed.
We may also see procedures such as programme evaluation and quality
assessment as distant and distinct from the real act of teaching—or is it
the real act of learning that is relevant here?
Is it learning or teaching that we are dealing with here? The book
actually deals with the development of what might be best termed
‘blocks of learning’. Words such as ‘programme’, ‘course’, and
particularly ‘curriculum development’ or ‘design’ tend to imply a block
of teaching. A characteristic of the new ways of looking at higher
education is that it focuses on the learning that results from the
programme, and generally not on the teaching element implied 3by
‘programme’. However there is a shortage of specific terminology, and
with the proviso that the focus is mainly on learning and not on
teaching, in this book the term ‘programme’ is used to describe the
processes that lead to a qualification in higher education. A programme
is usually made up of modules, although sometimes the word ‘unit’ is
used to mean something similar. The word ‘module’ is more learning-
orientated, since it seems to be acceptable to include a module that has
no teaching content, with perhaps a learning contract to provide the
orientation. Sometimes in the book the term ‘course’ is used to mean
something like a short programme, but complete in itself and without a
modular structure.
The primary intention of this book is to provide a straightforward and
systematic guide to the process of developing modules, and as a
consequence programmes, and to the manner of use of the various

elements in the process. Among the elements are levels, level
descriptors, learning outcomes, aims and objectives, assessment criteria,
assessment methods and associated teaching strategies. These elements
of module or course development are drawn together in a ‘map of module
or course development’ that is described in the next chapter. Not only
does this map describe the basic links between the elements of a block
of learning, but it also provides a logical sequence for the chapters in
the book.
The last but one chapter is about programmes themselves. Though it
addresses the new requirements for the writing of programme
specification, and also issues in multidisciplinary programmes, the
chapter considers the way in which modules relate to programmes.
The last chapter actually adds nothing new to the book. It represents a
collection of the main ideas expressed in the previous chapters. The
points are indexed into the chapters so that the chapter can act as an
elaborated summary of the important points. It also provides a resource
to support staff development around the topics covered here.
Some notes on the use of words
Some of the words used, and the ways in which they are used, need to
be introduced at this point.
• The words ‘student’ and ‘learner’ are used interchangeably.
• The gender of a subject is always a difficult issue. Among the
options are to use the male gender throughout, with the conventional
assumption that this includes the female; to use the cumbersome or
unsayable ‘he or she’ or ‘s/he’ or to pluralize the gender; or to use
‘they’ as a false singular. The latter is grammatically incorrect. As I
have done in my other books, I use the feminine gender throughout
this book. It is 100 per cent correct at least 50 per cent of the time.
• Another word issue that is relevant in several places in this book is
the clear separation of the activities of ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’.
Teaching and learning are different activities undertaken at a given
time by different actors in the educational situation—and yet there is
confusion or ‘fudging’ of the words with the use of the terms
‘learning and teaching’ very frequently. It is particularly important to
be clear about what is teaching and what is learning in the context of
this book.

• To help with the inevitable sets of letters and acronyms that beset
higher education and society in general, there is a glossary at the end
of the book (page 188).

2
A map of module development
Introduction
This short chapter introduces a basic map with two purposes. It is a map
of module development, and the sequence of it provides a logical
sequence for discussion of the elements of module development within
the first part of this book. While these few pages scarcely constitute a
chapter, presenting the map here allows us to head the subsequent
chapters with titles that indicate exactly the nature of their content.
The map of module or course development is shown in Figure 2.1.
The map applies to the structures of modules and of short courses, or to
any block of learning that has a set of learning outcomes that are
assessed at the end of the block. That will often not apply to a whole
programme defined as in Chapter 1. It can apply to modules as they are
usually defined in higher education, or it could apply to a course.
In following the sequence of the model, we will be making a
distinction between the processes of the basic development of the
module (from now on, letting ‘module’ account for ‘course’ as well)
and grading. The implication of this is that the map is concerned with
student achievement at threshold, and for the moment it does not take
account of the addition of a grading system above the threshold. It is
simpler to view grading as a process that is added on to basic
development,
In reality, the actual sequence of the map may rarely be followed in
the design process of a module, as there is a tendency to start with
curriculum, staff experiences or interests, and practical issues such as
the availability of the particular expertise. The map can be considered
an ideal sequence, and as such it provides a rationale for the links
between level, learning outcomes, assessment criteria, assessment and

teaching methodologies. It has a particularly important role as a tool for
checking the whole design for consistency once the initial development
is completed.
The figure of the map is repeated in each of the subsequent chapters
in this book when an element of module development is more
comprehensively introduced. Now, however, we briefly introduce the
terms and the sequence that links them.
• Level descriptors are descriptions of what a learner is expected to
achieve at the end of a level of study. Levels are hierarchical stages
that represent increasingly challenging learning to a learner. The term
‘level’ is now used instead of ‘years of study’, since a student on a
part-time programme may study for six years to reach the same
qualification as that achieved by another full-time student in three
years (see Chapters 3 and 4).
Figure 2.1 Basic map of module development

• Aims indicate the general direction or orientation of a module, in
terms of its content and sometimes its context within a programme.
An aim tends to be written in terms of the teaching intentions or the
management of the learning (see Chapter 5)
• Learning outcomes are statements of what a learner is expected to
know, understand or be able to do at the end of a module and of how
that learning will be demonstrated. Unlike aims, they are couched in
terms of what the learner is expected to learn (see Chapter 5).
• Assessment criteria are statements that indicate, in a more detailed
manner than the learning outcome, the quality of performance that
will show that the learner has reached a particular standard that is
reflected in the learning outcome (see Chapters 6 and 8).
• The assessment method is often confused with assessment criteria.
It is the task that is undertaken by learners that is the subject of
assessment. It provides the context for assessment criteria (see
Chapters 7 and 8).
• A teaching strategy, in terms of this map, is the support that needs
to be given to learners to enable them to achieve the learning
outcomes. Learning can, of course, be achieved without the
involvement of teaching (see Chapters 7 and 8).
Level descriptors and module aims guide the writing of learning
outcomes. A set of level descriptors may act directly as a guide for the
writing of learning outcomes, or the level descriptors may be translated
into descriptors for the discipline or programme. In either case, the level
descriptors ensure that the outcome statement is clearly related to a
particular level, and they provide an indication of agreed achievements.
Learning outcomes are derived from consideration of level descriptors
and aims. Learners must show that they can achieve the learning
outcomes to gain credit for the module. Aims provide a rationale or a
direction for the module.
Learning outcomes imply the assessment criteria. Assessment criteria
may be developed from the learning outcome or from the assessment
method or task, but in either case they should relate to the learning
outcome. There are many reasons for developing assessment tasks, and
these will affect the manner in which an assessment task is designed.
However, the central purpose of the task with which we are concerned
is to test that the learning outcomes have been achieved. A teaching
strategy, on this model, is seen as being designed in relation to
assessment processes, providing the support necessary to enable the
A MAP OF MODULE DEVELOPMENT 17

students to be successful in attaining the threshold indicated in
assessment criteria. We also acknowledge the importance of the
interrelationship between assessment methods and teaching strategies in
covering both topics in the same chapter.
The map is not just for development processes. It also guides the
programme developer in checking on the coherence and consistency of
the elements within the programme. This means going through it
perhaps several times, ensuring that each part that is linked to another
part by lines is clearly linked in terms of the structure of the module.
Perhaps the most significant linkage is that between learning outcomes
and assessment criteria.
Any element in the cycle of development can be changed, except the
agreed level descriptors which are fixed.

3
Levels and level descriptors
Introduction
In a recent survey of higher education institutions in England, Wales
and Northern Ireland, 76 per cent of the 92 HEIs that responded claimed
to be using level descriptors (Johnson and Walsh, 2000). Sets of level
descriptors are used at many points in the development of higher
educational provision. They are used to match whole programmes to
national expectations in the National Qualifications Framework (see
below), to compare provision within an institution, to compare modules
within a programme, and at the stage of writing appropriate learning
outcomes for modules. As well as being discussed in this chapter, these
and other uses of level descriptors are explored in Chapter 4.
The major initial work on detailed level descriptors in the UK
originated in two Department of Education and Employment credit
development projects in the early to mid-1990s. The projects involved
many higher education institutions in the south of England that were
members of the SEEC consortium, and all of the Welsh institutions
(HECIW). Between the two projects, around 50 higher education
institutions were represented. In these initial developments, level
descriptors provided a structure for the use of credit in higher
education. Other forms of level descriptors have been produced in recent
years, many of them based on the original SEEC/HECIW descriptors.
In 2001 the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) issued the
Qualifications Framework (QAA, 2001a). The Framework describes the
level of qualifications that are offered in higher education and therefore
represents another set of descriptors. The latter, however, are
qualification descriptors, describing the expected outcomes of those
achieving particular qualifications at the specified levels. Apart from the

conceptual difference, these QAA descriptors are brief and may be less
useful than the more detailed SEEC descriptors for some of the
applications of level descriptors that are described later. For example,
because of their relative brevity, they would not provide the same
degree of guidance for the writing of learning outcomes. The Quality
Assurance Agency indicated that the sets of level descriptors developed
by other agencies are acceptable to reviewers in the process of
programme review (QAA, 2000a).
This chapter takes a broad view of levels and level descriptors,
considering their origins and the differences between the various types
of descriptors that are available. As was indicated in Chapter 2, I repeat
the basic map in order to maintain a view of the sequence of discussion
used in this book. The role of levels is to provide a structure for
educational provision, and the role of the descriptors is to provide an
Figure 3.1 Basic map of module development

agreed and relatively standardized statement of what learners are
expected to achieve at each level.
Examples of several sets of level descriptors are given in the
Appendices. The text of this chapter provides information about
the bases on which these were designed, and the purposes for which
they are intended. (See Appendix 1, SEEC level descriptors, and
Appendix 2, Quality Assurance Agency Qualifications Framework
qualification descriptors.)
The background to levels in higher education
The structure of a programme in higher education used to be described
in terms of years: thus we would talk of a student in her first, second or
third (or perhaps fourth) year of an undergraduate programme.
Generally the reference to a year of study conveyed the complexity of
teaching, and the demands of learning and assessment that the learner
experienced, so that the level of both was higher in year 3 than in year 1,
for example. While the patterns of higher education were in their
traditional form, this system was adequate. For example, there were
relatively few students—well under 10 percent of the relevant
population age group—and nearly all were full time. Those students did
not tend to change programmes, and teaching and learning were meant
to be integrated and not modular (see Chapter 1).
Under these circumstances, there was an assumption that everyone
agreed what a second year student’s work looked like. The assumption
was probably reasonable. When the matter of expectations of student
achievement was in dispute, there was reliance on the interactions
between teaching staff and external examiners to sort it out. How new
lecturers ‘absorbed’ expectations of student achievement was an
interesting issue—and it still is.
Evidence of this approach to levels is demonstrated in the Council for
National Academic Awards Handbook (CNAA, 1991), in which level 2
achievement is described simply as ‘Work equivalent to the standard
required for the fulfilment of the general aims of the second year of a
full-time degree’. Such a self-referenced approach does not facilitate the
maintenance of an agreed concept of standards.
In recent years many things have changed. Student numbers have
risen and there are more staff and fewer opportunities for them to
discuss expectations of student work. Particularly important in the
LEVELS AND LEVEL DESCRIPTORS 21

development of levels was a series of changes that could be associated
with the development of credit accumulation and transfer systems
(CATS). This system implied that learning should be made more
‘portable’, so that a learner could gain credit for learning that had been
achieved, and potentially use that credit as part of an award in another
institution or another situation.
Partly as a result of the orientation of higher education towards a credit
system, many programmes were redeveloped into a series of modules
(‘modularization’). A modularized and credit-based system, along with
the political pressures to widen access to higher education and to view it
in the context of lifelong learning, brought about an increase in part-
time study and developments associated with the accreditation of short
courses such as those in professional development. Further
developments that make higher education more flexible and better
adapted to the needs of a modern economy are the adoption of methods
of accrediting learning that has resulted from prior experience (APEL/
APL) and learning in work-based situations (‘work-based learning’).
These changes required a move away from the traditional description
of learning in terms of the year of study in an undergraduate programme
to a system that could be applied more widely. The existence of part-time
programmes meant that the demands of learning could no longer be
described realistically in terms of the year, as a student might be taking
six years to reach an honours degree. Similarly APEL and the
accreditation of work-based learning or short courses have made it
important to be able to recognize where a body of learning ‘fits’ into the
patterns of institution-based higher education. The ‘fit’ will relate to the
content of the learning and its level. These ideas are expressed as
learning outcomes associated with a specific level.
We may have moved away from talking of the complexity of study in
terms of the year of study. However we have generally retained the
notion that in England and Wales there are three years of study in most
undergraduate programmes towards a Bachelor’s honours degree. This
has been the principal undergraduate provision in England, Wales and
Northern Ireland. Thus in these countries, most systems of levels utilize
three levels of undergraduate education which lead to an honours
degree, and this will still apply even if there are, in total, four years (or
more) of undergraduate study. In Scotland many undergraduate
programmes take four years to reach honours degree level, and in order

to take account of this different tradition, four undergraduate Scottish
levels are usually present in level descriptors.
In terms of postgraduate education, different patterns of levels have
been used in different systems. Until recently, the level descriptors in
most general use relied on one level for all postgraduate provision
(often called ‘level M’). This level applied mainly to Master’s
programmes. However, with the increase in taught doctorates, it became
important to recognize that Master’s degrees did not represent the
highest level of learning, and current descriptors now tend to split
postgraduate provision into Master’s and taught doctorate levels.
Because most systems of level descriptors are concerned with learning
that has been prescribed in a teaching/learning situation, level
descriptors tend not to refer to research degrees (for example, PhDs).
The QAA descriptors, however, are qualification descriptors and
therefore do relate to research programmes (see below). It is the
endpoint of the qualification that is at issue.
Levels are generally arranged in a hierarchy, so that a higher level is
seen as more complex in terms of learning than a lower level, and there
is an assumption that levels higher in the hierarchy subsume the
learning from lower levels. Thus someone entering a programme at
Master’s level would be expected to have attained learning described
below Master’s level. She would be expected to have attained an
honours degree, or to demonstrate the achievement of learning
equivalent to that standard. Generally numerical labels have been used
for levels, but the new system of levels in the QAA Qualifications
Framework introduces a series of letters. These are still arranged in a
hierarchy (see below). To confuse matters there are several systems of
numbering of levels in operation at present, as will also be seen below.
While some systems relate numbering only to higher education, starting
at level 1 for the first level of undergraduate education, others take into
account previous learning (eg post-16 or lower). Table 3.1 (page 33)
demonstrates some of the different systems in operation.
In terms of definition, a level is an indication of the standard of
difficulty of the work that a student will need to be able to undertake in
order to be deemed to have achieved the credit for the learning. One
formal definition is the following:
A level is an indicator of relative demand; complexity; depth of
study and learner autonomy.

(Gosling and Moon, 2001)
In the case of the QAA qualification descriptors, the levels relate to the
standard of difficulty of the work that the learner will have
demonstrated in order to gain the qualification. This is somewhat
difficult conceptually, particularly when there are several qualifications
at a level. For example at the second higher education level
(intermediate level) there are foundation degrees, higher national
diplomas, undergraduate diplomas in higher education and ordinary
degrees.
The new development of foundation degrees exemplifies the further
and productive exploitation of the use of credit and levels in the
building of degrees. The degrees represent a qualification at the second
level of the Qualifications Framework. Not only is accredited work
experience included in all foundation degrees, but also the credit that
students require to achieve the qualification is allocated in different
ways in different models that are offered.
Level descriptors
The achievement of learning to be expected at each different level in a
system is spelled out in level descriptors. A definition of level
descriptors indicates that:
level descriptors are generic statements describing the
characteristics and context of learning expected at each level
against which learning outcomes and assessment criteria can be
reviewed in order to develop modules and assign credit at the
appropriate level.
(Gosling and Moon, 2001)
There is no one agreed manner in which to describe learning, so in
different sets of descriptors, different specific aspects of learning tend to
be described. Sometimes this is because there is emphasis on different
forms of learning. For example, in the level descriptors used by the
University for Industry, there is more concern for the learning relevant
to work places (Jackson, 1999). Most descriptors, however, focus on
some or all of the following:
• complexity of knowledge and understanding;

• standard of cognitive skills such as analysis, synthesis and so on;
• other skills, variably termed key or transferable skills;
• and some distinguish more practical skills (eg using information
technology).
Sometimes there is a statement about the level of responsibility that a
learner at a particular level might take in a work or professional
situation, or in terms of personal management. Often embedded among
the descriptors there will also be a reference to the autonomy of the
learner as a learner and/or the amount of guidance required for the
learner as a learner. We add these, therefore to the list:
• the expected responsibility of the learner;
• the autonomy or independence of the learner;
• guidance required by the learner.
The relative standard of level descriptors
A characteristic that represents another variation between the different
sets of level descriptors is the standard of student learning within any
level to which they refer. While the descriptors given as examples in
this book (see Appendices 1 and 2) describe learning that has been
achieved at a level in higher education, the description might be cast at
different standards within the level. It could be cast in terms of
aspiration (what it is hoped the brightest students will achieve); in terms
of the expectation of the typical student; or it could indicate what
students must achieve in order to have reached the standard implied by
the level. While this difference may appear to be fundamental, the
reality is that such precision of wording to describe any form of learning
is very difficult to achieve for generic descriptors. It becomes easier if
level descriptors are translated into the discourse of discipline or
programme or module.
Given the difficulty of attaining the precision to describe levels at
threshold, the SEEC descriptors are described as providing ‘guidance’
as to expected achievement. In terms of relating level descriptors to
standards, this system is appropriate so long as learning outcomes,
which relate modules to level descriptors, are written at threshold, or in
terms of what the learners must do to pass the module.

The types of level descriptors, and some examples
We have indicated earlier not only that there are different sets of level
descriptors in use in the UK, but also that they differ conceptually. In
presenting some examples of sets of level descriptors, this section also
addresses the distinction between the two main types of descriptors:
credit level descriptors and qualification descriptors.
Credit level descriptors
Detailed generic level descriptors that have been designed for use in
more than one institution have been available for around six years in
Britain, originating in the work of the credit development projects of the
mid-1990s. The main initiative at that time resulted in a set of
descriptors developed jointly between two DfEE-funded credit
development projects, SEEC and HECIW. The development process
involved background research on descriptors that had already been
developed elsewhere, in particular, New Zealand (Methven, 1994).
Work on other courses was particularly helpful too (eg Richards, 1992;
NHSTD, 1994; Bement and Lyons, 1994). There was also a
consideration of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (Bloom,
1956) and similar tools. These resources generally provided ideas for
appropriate vocabulary for the description of cognitive skills. Bloom,
for example, brought into wide use such words as ‘synthesis’, ‘analysis’
and ‘evaluation’.
In the project work there were also many meetings of academics from
different disciplines from the member institutions. An example of the
tasks of the meetings is to seek to agree a common set of words for the
process of analysis as undertaken by students in any discipline, at the
different levels in undergraduate and the (then) one level of
postgraduate education. This is an interesting task when diverse groups
of academics such as medical educators, English and mathematics
lecturers are attempting to agree words that describe their understanding
of (say) analysis within the context of their disciplines. Considerable
learning took place within the meetings, apart from the seeking of the
intended outcomes of level descriptors. The process took several
months and the descriptors were approved in 1996 after final
consultations within the separate projects (Moon, 1995b; SEEC, 1996;
HECIW, 1996).

It is important to recognize that there were dissenting voices in the
process. There were some who felt that it is not possible to use a
common vocabulary for all disciplines. Others felt that the
generic descriptors that resulted from the development work represented
‘all things to all people’, and lost the essential complexities of student
learning (eg Winter, 1993; Winter, 1994; Winter, 1994a). There is good
reason for sympathy with such views, but as we have suggested before,
in a world in which communication between teachers is increasingly
difficult, where student numbers are high and in which demands for
transparency are growing, we have improved our ability to describe and
account for learning. There may yet be much learning to do or even new
systems of describing learning to embrace.
The SEEC/HECIW descriptors were launched in 1996 (SEEC, 1996;
HECIW, 1996) with associated guidelines, the spirit of which is
included in the text of the chapters on level descriptors. They used three
undergraduate higher education levels, and at postgraduate stage they
worked at that time with one level (level M). Subsequently both
consortia have adopted two postgraduate levels (Master’s and taught
doctorate).
In 2000, SEEC consulted its member institutions on the adoption of a
new version of the level descriptors that had been developed by Anglia
Polytechnic University (APU). These descriptors used most of the
wording of the original SEEC/HECIW descriptors, but redeveloped
them in a new format both for easier use and to accord with headings
suggested in the Dearing Report (NCIHE, 1997). These headings
emphasized the skills element in higher education learning. There were
also minor word changes to bring greater accord with the vocabulary of
the QAA qualification descriptors. Further modifications have produced
a more usable labelling system within the descriptors, so that the
increasing sophistication of learning can be followed clearly through the
different levels. It is important to recognize progression in the standard
of learning through the levels. There was agreement to adopt the revised
descriptors (which are the version shown in Appendix 1).
Later processes of development of level descriptors had the
advantage of being able to refer to the successes and failures of earlier
efforts. Thus the original SEEC/HECIW descriptors have contributed to
most subsequent developments in the UK, including the Qualifications
Framework descriptors.

The Northern Ireland Credit Accumulation and Transfer System
(NICATS) descriptors also made use of the SEEC/HECIW descriptors
in their development. Usefully, the NICATS descriptors were developed
in two versions: a brief version and a more detailed version (NICATS,
1998). These acknowledged the different uses of descriptors, for
example in administration and in educational and staff development. It
was also considered to be useful that the NICATS descriptors used nine
levels which started with post-16 provision as level 1. The incorporation
of levels below higher education levels facilitates the development of a
‘seamless’ educational progression from below further education entry
(entry level), through further education levels (1–3), then into five
higher education levels (three undergraduate levels and two
postgraduate levels). It was for this reason that the brief descriptors from
Northern Ireland were adopted in a later DfEE project, when the several
credit development agencies across the UK were working towards the
development of a common UK credit framework (InCCA, 1998).
A set of somewhat different general descriptors was developed by the
Qualifications and Curriculum Agency (QCA, www) to provide general
descriptions for National Vocational Qualifications levels. These are
sometimes used in higher education for vocational subject areas. They
start prior to GCSE level and progress to level 5. Levels 4 and 5 are
generally agreed to be relevant to higher education, representing the
competence achieved in undergraduate and postgraduate levels
respectively.
As indicated earlier The University for Industry has also developed a
set of level descriptors (Jackson, 1999). Similarly to the NICATS
descriptors, these run from entry level through levels 1 to 8, with levels
4 to 8 (inclusive) representing the higher education levels. Unlike the
other descriptors, these have been designed specifically for use of
learners in the context of work. The descriptors relate to the kind of
learning relevant to work situations (eg including descriptors of
complexity and responsibility of the subject matter, and innovation and
originality in the approach of learners).
We have suggested that it is appropriate to term the descriptors above
as credit level descriptors for reasons that will be explained below. We
now come to consideration of the QAA qualification descriptors, which
differ conceptually from the credit level descriptors, although in
practice they may well be used in many similar ways and for similar
purposes to the credit level descriptors.

QAA National Qualifications Framework
qualification descriptors
For some time, the QAA has been working on the presentation of a
Qualifications Framework. A qualification framework was required in
order to make sense of the variety of higher education awards available
at different levels—and to reduce the disparity between some of them in
different institutions. In particular it was felt that the provision of higher
education was no longer comprehensible to employers. From a survey
reported in the NQF paper, there was evidence that employers taking on
those with higher education qualifications often did not understand
what had been studied and the meaning of the qualification that had
been attained.
The final version of the Qualifications Framework for England,
Wales and Northern Ireland was made available early in 2001 (QAA,
2001a). In order to locate the qualifications described at in higher
education, the framework presents a set of qualification descriptors and
a brief indication of what the typical student should be able to do as a
result of working to that level. While the QAA has indicated that
subject reviewers should be content for institutions to continue to use
the descriptors already in use (QAA, 2000b), there is some confusion as
to the role of the new descriptors and how they relate to the credit
descriptors already in use.
The QAA qualification descriptors ‘exemplify the outcomes of the
main qualification at each level and demonstrate the nature of change
between levels’ (QAA, 2001a: 5). The descriptors are presented in two
parts at each level. The first part is worded as ‘a statement of outcomes,
achievement of which a student should be able to demonstrate for the
award of the qualification’ (p 5). This implies that the standard of these
descriptors is at threshold. The second part is a statement of ‘the wider
abilities that the typical student should be expected to have developed’
(p 5), and the reference to the ‘typical student’ suggests that this part of
the descriptors is designed to act more like a guide to standards, as do
the SEEC credit level descriptors.
The first part of the qualification descriptors is intended for an
audience of those who design, approve and review academic
programmes, and the second part is for a wider audience of those not
directly associated with higher education, such as employers.

The conceptual difference between credit level
descriptors and qualification descriptors
While there is a conceptual difference in intended uses for these two
sets of descriptors, it is likely that many practitioners will not recognize
the distinction in theory or practice. The SEEC credit descriptors
provide guidance as to what a learner is expected to achieve at the end of
a level in higher education. In this context ‘level’ is defined in
accordance with the usual credit volume for a year equivalent of study.
For undergraduates this is 120 credits, and for postgraduates the volume
is 180 credits. The difference between the numbers of undergraduate
and postgraduate credits is explained by the notion that postgraduates
undergo a longer period of study in a year than do undergraduates.
There is a tendency to assume in the SEEC descriptors that the level
of study is largely made up of modules that are at that identified level.
Such an assumption becomes a little difficult in some of the new
qualifications, where the final ‘level’ of the award may be made up of
modules of different levels (see below). For this reason, the
qualification descriptors might not be seen to be appropriate to use for
consideration of the level of modules or units, but equally, credit
descriptors do tend to assume that a level implies that most study is at
that level (Moon, 2001a).
There is, therefore, a different theoretical basis for the QF
qualification descriptors and the several versions of credit descriptors,
and the different bases are particularly evident when qualifications may
be made up of modules from different (credit) levels at the stage of the
award (see earlier). For example, the ordinary degree is at level I
(intermediate level) in the qualifications framework, but may contain a
substantial volume of credits at level 3. In many institutions a
successful learner may have had to achieve a number of credits at level
3. Institutions will need to consider what to do about the ordinary
degree in terms of its level and credit make-up, since it has been a
useful ‘fall-back’ position for students who do not properly complete an
honours degree at level H.
In a converse situation, the learner on a Master’s programme in some
institutions may have achieved some of the 180 credits for the award at
level 3. In both cases, the Qualifications Framework theoretically takes
account of the make-up of the qualification by making no actual
reference to credit and talking only in terms of the outcome of the
qualification, however it is achieved. There has been considerable

concern about the apparent ‘unhitching’ of credit from qualifications,
because it is felt that a few words about an outcome of a qualification do
not provide sufficient quality assurance for the standard of the
qualification. Conventions about the credit structure of a qualification
act as much greater assurance that the learner has, in total, studied for
sufficient time and at sufficiently high levels to have achieved the
qualification.*
Another issue that is clarified by using some reference to credit in
qualifications descriptors is characterizing the differences between the
several qualifications that can terminate at a particular level in the
framework. It is difficult to see how the statement that the QAA
descriptors ‘exemplify the outcomes of the main qualification at each
level’ (QAA, 2001a:5), can coexist with that describing ‘outcomes that
cover the great majority of existing qualifications’. This confusion
exists particularly at the second—or the intermediate—level, which is,
as we have seen, the awarding level for a range of qualifications that
will require to be seen as substantially different in order to continue in
coexistence in a meaningful manner. QAA appears to recognize this
anomaly in the suggestion that benchmark statements may be developed
to provide ‘additional qualification descriptors’.
‘Additional qualification descriptors’ may be exemplified in the case
of the new intermediate level foundation degree. This degree is
characterized by its direct and overt relevance to a vocation (eg Art and
Design or Tourism), by the inclusion of associated work experience and
by the (essential) identification of progression routes beyond the
foundation degree to an honours degree by further study of modules at
level 3. Interestingly, though the end-point of the foundation degree is a
qualification at intermediate level, it may be made up of different
patterns of credit structures.
We indicate in this section that in terms of actual level implied by
descriptors, there are some apparent differences between the SEEC credit
descriptors and the QAA qualification descriptors. Because it is possible
that the two sets of descriptors may be used together, some notes on a
comparison between the two sets of levels are included in Appendix 3.
* Since this book was first written, the credit consortia of England, Wales and
Northern Ireland have developed credit guidelines to support the National
Qualifications Framework.

In summary
It is perhaps ironic that the various attempts to produce agreements
about the various structures in higher education learning over the last
eight or so years have resulted in a current state that is diverse rather
than unified. This partly demonstrates the efforts on the part of higher
education to respond to initiatives and agendas such as widening access
and lifelong learning. Aspects of the diversity do support what is meant
to be a more diverse higher education; however, in some ways the
diversity is apt to produce confusion where the attempt was to simplify.
Table 3.1 is an attempt to provide an indication of various systems of
level descriptors, showing the different terms used for ‘level’, the
different numbers of levels utilized and an approximate comparison.
Most of the systems have not undergone formal comparison. (Note:
there is no specific agreement about these equivalences—they are
represented as an indication only.)
Where we make reference to levels in the subsequent text, we will
adopt the system of the SEEC credit level descriptors: levels 1, 2, 3,
Master’s and taught doctorate.
Theoretical and practical issues in the use of level
descriptors
Theoretical issues
Dividing the issues in the use of level descriptors into those of a
theoretical and those of a practical nature is a matter of convenience and
organization. Level descriptors are only of interest for their practical
meaning for the functioning of higher education, and hence the theory is
only of interest for its practical implications.
The use of level descriptors along with learning
outcomes puts the focus on learning
The fact, for example, that level descriptors are described in terms of
learning represents a subtle, but highly significant change in the view of
higher education. No longer is the focus on a concern with the
complexity of input (teaching), but it is on the complexity of output: what
the student can do as a result of study at a particular level. This represents
a recognition that teaching and learning are different—if usually linked

—activities. It recognizes that talking only of the curriculum or the
teaching that a student is expected to have experienced is not a reliable
measure of standards achieved in general or in terms of the individual
student. Much of the earlier educational writing considers the
improvement of learning by putting the focus on instruction techniques
or the environment of learning, but not on the learning activities of the
learner herself (Moon, 2001b).
The use of a system of level descriptors creates
transparency in higher education
Along with learning outcomes (see Chapter 5), the use of level
descriptors helps to make higher education practice more explicit and
more transparent. The actual precision in the thinking is not necessarily
new, and the work on elucidating level descriptors may have often have
done no more than to put on paper the sorts of idea that were always in
the minds of the more concerned teachers. Anyone who has ever
engaged in the kind of conversation that compared the work of one year
group of students with that of another has thought in terms of levels and
the related expectations of achievement. However, expression of them
now on paper allows discussion of them, disagreement, agreement or
modification as necessary.
What does become apparent in putting level descriptors on paper,
however, is the sheer difficulty of making words describe the subtlety
of our expectations of student work. There is still the ‘I know good
work when I see it’ feeling around. Words are blunt instruments, and
the construction of level descriptors is a matter of doing the best
possible job in describing the outcomes of the learning process. The
concept of learning is slippery, complex and multidimensional.
Similarly, words that we use to describe learning can be equally slippery
and complex. Level descriptors should, therefore, be regarded not
rigidly but as developmental (we may be able to improve on what has
been developed) and in the nature of guides rather than dictates.
However, it is worth noting that the ‘bluntness’ of level descriptors in
their generic form can be improved considerably by ‘translating’ them
into the discourse of a discipline or a programme (see Chapter 4).

Table 3.1 A comparison of some different systems of level descriptors in the
UK. The table makes broad generalizations and represents no specific agreements
about equivalence

Greater transparency reveals discrepancies
We suggested above that the use of level descriptors is an endeavour to
make higher education more transparent. When a system becomes more
transparent, it is not unusual that inconsistencies are unearthed. When we
did not use any measure that allowed us to make comparisons
(institution with institution, programme with programme and so on), we
could pretend that there were no inconsistencies. Subjectivity is implicit
in a system in which, for example, external examiners for a programme
are generally chosen by those working on the programme. Blunt as
level descriptors may be, it is possible to use them as a tool to
demonstrate that the expectations of achievements of learners on one
programme are less than, more than or similar to those on another
programme.
In addition to demonstrating anomalies in standards, the introduction
of a levels structure creates other difficult questions. For example, the
Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE)* is postgraduate in terms
of when a student studies for it. However, the actual demands of the
learning involved—which we might therefore assume to be at Master’s
level—may not match the Master’s level descriptors. One way of
dealing with the situation is to distinguish, therefore, between
programmes that are postgraduate in time and those that are
postgraduate in level, and to recognize that new learning does not
require to be pitched at or above the level at which learning has already
been achieved. It is reasonable to learn more at the same level or at a
lower level. Issues such as this are addressed in the Qualifications
Framework, but as we have shown earlier, because of the lack of
reference to credit, there remain problems in describing the nature of
qualifications in what might be considered sufficient detail to ensure
reasonable comparability across the institutions.
Another form of discrepancy revealed by attention to level is the
anomaly of modules offered at two different levels. It has been quite
usual, for example, for students at level 2 to be offered the same
modules with the same learning outcomes, and assessment at level 2 or
level 3. In such cases the level of award of the credit has depended on
the level of the student and not on the level of difficulty of the module
reflected in the learning outcomes (see Chapter 5). Use of a levels
system requires modules, their learning outcomes and assessment criteria
to be identified with one level depending on the learning challenge of the
learning.

Similarly ab initio learning can pose a problem within a system of
levels. Within a Master’s programme, for example, a student might
study a completely new language (for example, classical languages in a
theology Master’s). The issue is whether a completely new subject can
addressed directly at Master’s level. As with some of the situations
above, there are ways around this. One is to argue that Master’s level
learners will achieve the learning outcomes more proficiently and
rapidly because they can function at Master’s level and thus label the
studies as Master’s level. Another method is to allow for a certain
number of credits to be studied at a lower level than the level of a
qualification: so at Master’s level it may be appropriate for 30 credits to
be achieved at lower than Master’s level.
There are more subtle anomalies that arise as a result of using an
agreed system of levels. For example, we tend to talk about a module or
a short course being at a certain level when the learning outcomes in that
module generally match that reflected in a set of level descriptors. We
might use the same descriptors also to talk about a qualification being
awarded at the same level when the programme is completed at that
level. Thus a short course (eg of two weeks’ duration) might be at level
3, while an honours degree student’s achievement is matched against
the same level descriptors when she has spent 20 weeks studying at that
level. This kind of anomaly is again an argument for viewing level
descriptors as ‘guides to achievement’ rather than specifying that they
represent threshold standard for attainment at the end of a level. This
parallels the conceptual difficulty that the QAA qualification descriptors
confront, when a number of different qualifications are completed
within one level (see earlier).
Issues that concern articulation
The decision to adopt any one system of level descriptors with a certain
number of levels may pose a set of problems that concern the
connection of that system with others where students transfer to or from
institutions. One example relates to Scotland and other countries which
work on systems of four undergraduate levels. Another concerns the
relationship of further education levels to higher education. I have
indicated that level descriptors such as NICATS descriptors (from
* This is now to become the Professional Certificate in Education.

Northern Ireland) include further education levels in the same system,
thereby avoiding the problem. The metaphor of a ‘seamless system’ has
been applied in these situations.
Articulation between the different systems of levels that are available
is another concern. I have suggested that there are conceptual
differences between QAA qualification level descriptors and credit
level descriptors. Institutions will feel the need to pay some heed to the
qualification level descriptors because they represent the ‘language’ of
any quality review procedures and they are the descriptors that the
reviewers will use. However, such descriptors are not necessarily the
best option, in terms of format and detail, to use to underpin programme
design or to facilitate the writing of learning outcomes, and there may
be a wish to use two systems for their different qualities. However, then
the equivalence becomes relevant. The choice of a system of level
descriptors will be considered in the next section.
Practical issues
Choosing a set of level descriptors
The basis on which a decision is made as to which set of level
descriptors to use in an institution will depend to some extent upon
local circumstances and the nature of the provision. However, there are
some general considerations. The first is, as we have said, that, while
QAA indicated that it was content for institutions to choose their own
set of level descriptors, QAA reviewers are likely to relate
qualifications in an institution to the Qualifications Framework
qualification descriptors.
Beyond the function of QAA reviews, however, there are different
ways in which level descriptors may be used in higher education, and
these require different degrees of detail in the descriptors. For some
purposes, such as administration and validation, relatively brief
descriptors are adequate and do not generate confusion. The descriptors
are required as brief reference points. For other purposes in educational
development, such as the writing of learning outcomes, and enabling
new lecturers to understand the level of the learning that they should be
expecting of learners, more detail is desirable. In addition, with the
initiatives in skills development in HE it can be useful to work with

level descriptors that make reference to skills and to their development
within programmes.
The QF descriptors are relatively brief and do not refer to skills.
While they might satisfy administrative purposes, they do not provide
the detail that is useful in educational or staff development. On the basis
of these points, a compromise would seem to be to adopt the QF
descriptors, and to endorse the use of more detailed descriptors for the
purposes of staff and educational development. It is important for staff
to feel confident in using either set of descriptors, while recognizing
their different functions.
In terms of the more detailed descriptors for general areas of higher
education provision, the SEEC credit level descriptors adequately fulfil
requirements. They are formatted in a helpful manner. They have the
same levels structure as the QAA descriptors, and they make reference
to skills. Usefully also, the categorization of the descriptors relates to
common systems for writing learning outcomes (in terms of knowledge/
understanding, cognitive skills and other key or transferable skills). If,
however, two sets of level descriptors are used in order to fulfil
satisfactorily the different purposes for level descriptors, it is important
to consider the comparability of the two sets. Appendix 3 provides a
comparison between the SEEC credit level descriptors and QF
qualification descriptors. This comparison suggests that there is
reasonable compatibility between these descriptors.
Related to the choice of level descriptors is the choice of terminology
to be used for level descriptors. The fact that qualification descriptors
are conceptually different from credit level descriptors makes the use of
one terminology more complex (see below). The set of terms probably
most regularly in use in higher education institutions comprises HE 1,
2, 3, Masters and taught doctorate levels, and it is appropriate to begin
also to use the qualification levels terminology for whole qualifications.
Different views of descriptors
The next chapter will indicate a range of uses for level descriptors, but
it is important to be aware that people can perceive descriptors in
different ways. This difference of opinion has become evident from
discussion with representatives from various institutions. There is one
view in higher education that credit level descriptors make a statement
about qualities that should be present in higher education programmes,

and there is another view that the descriptors indicate what could be
present. On the basis of the first view, some of the uses of descriptors in
the next chapter that suggest the customizing of level descriptors may
not be appropriate. This book is written on the basis of a common-sense
interpretation of the second view, that the descriptors indicate that
where qualities are present, they are provided at the level indicated. In
fact, most of the descriptors in SEEC credit level descriptors are present
in most higher education provision.

4
Some uses of level descriptors
Introduction
This chapter will indicate a range of uses for level descriptors. All of the
different uses contribute ultimately to ensuring that a module, course or
a full programme presents learners with an appropriate level of challenge
in their learning. This challenge should accord with the levels system in
higher education described in earlier chapters. The uses usually apply
most directly to the development of modules. Sometimes, however, they
also apply to fully developed courses that require to be credit rated at a
particular level. The credit rating of a course means that the course is
worth a certain volume of academic credit at a given level.
We discussed in the previous chapter the different forms of level
descriptors, and in particular the existence of credit level descriptors and
the qualification level descriptors that relate to the Qualifications
Framework. Since the diversity of uses of level descriptors is largely
represented in the realm of educational development, a set of credit level
descriptors will be more appropriate for most of the uses discussed
below than the qualification level descriptors.
The following are some general guidelines that will support their use.
• Level descriptors should be seen as helpful guides rather than
dictates.
• They are generic and may contain sections that are not appropriate to
a particular programme. It is reasonable in these circumstances to
ignore or remove such sections. For example, psychomotor skills in
the older SEEC/HECIW descriptors were not appropriate to all
programmes (see previous chapter). It would be unlikely that more
than one or two sections would require to be removed.

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CHAPTER XXIV
CAPTAIN DINGFIELD'S STRATEGY
The officer at the head of the approaching force, wounded in the
head and arm, could be no other than Captain Dingfield; but there
was no one present who knew anything about the brief action in
which the commander of the Texan force had been defeated, and
from which he had made a very hasty retreat. Major Lyon had sent
Captain Gordon with half his company in pursuit of the fleeing
enemy; the passage of both the pursuers and the pursued across
the east road had been reported by the scouts at the cross-roads.
Deck had not been able to force his way into the thickest of the
fight; and, being near the side of the road, he was the first to
discover the approach of the second detachment of the enemy. The
action was in progress in a broad, open space in the road, where the
trees had been cut off from the land; and the ground occupied was
partly in this field. He could readily determine that Belthorpe had
chosen this place for the action because it presented more open
space.
Doubtless his scouts had reported to him the approach of the first
section of the enemy, and he had concealed his force in the grove to
which Deck had retreated to observe the movements of both parties
in the conflict. But he thought the lieutenant had made a mistake in
delaying his attack until the detachment of the enemy had advanced
too far, and he had thrown his men upon the rear instead of the
flank.
The lieutenant had less than fifty men, and the enemy fought with
desperate courage and determination. But his men were fresh; for
they had been moving leisurely about in quest of the foe, and had
been resting a short time in the grove, while the Rangers had ridden

a long distance. The arrival of the rest of their company would throw
all the advantage, both in position and numbers, over to the side of
the enemy; and Deck saw in an instant that the battle would be lost
if it continued under these unfavorable circumstances.
"Lieutenant!" he shouted, flourishing his sabre to attract attention,
when he had approached as near as he could to the officer.
Tom Belthorpe was using his sabre vigorously, and he had just
smote to the ground a trooper, when he heard the voice of Deck. He
had not seen him before, and was not aware of his presence. He
concluded on the instant that the son of the major was the bearer of
an order from his father; and he knew the young man well enough
to understand that he would not call him at such a time on an
unimportant matter, and he rode towards him.
"What is it, Deck?" he demanded, full of the excitement of the
conflict.
"Yon are flanked and outnumbered!" shouted Deck; though in the
noise and fury of the action no one but the lieutenant heard or
noticed his call. "There is another detachment of the Rangers
coming up the road. You are beaten if you don't get out of it!"
"I don't understand you, Deck," replied the officer, glancing at his
men still engaged in the furious strife.
"There is a force of the enemy of at least fifty men coming up the
road, and in three minutes more they will fall upon your rear!"
repeated Deck, speaking as clearly as though he had been reading
his piece in school.
"Where do they come from?" demanded Tom, as he looked back in
the direction indicated by the sabre of his friend, and they were the
best of friends.
"I don't know anything at all about it," answered Deck impatiently.

The fresh troopers of the lieutenant's command were driving the
enemy before them by the vigorous fighting they had put into the
attack, and they were somewhat superior in numbers. By the time
Deck had given his warning the enemy had been forced back to the
point where the wagon had emerged from the fields and woods. The
lieutenant was obviously very unwilling to give an order to retreat
when victory was almost within his grasp. It was the first action in
which he had been engaged, and his pride as a soldier was
implicated.
Tom looked again at the approaching re-enforcement of the enemy;
and then very reluctantly he summoned the bugler, and ordered him
to sound the call, "To the rear." It was given in the quickest of time;
and the faces of the troopers indicated their astonishment and
chagrin at the nature of the call, when victory was only a question of
minutes.
The men fell back; but the enemy were not disposed to follow them,
and perhaps believed they had gained a victory. They were facing
down the road, and they could not help seeing that a re-
enforcement for their side was approaching. The lieutenant in
command reformed his men, but he did not order them to charge
upon their retiring foe.
"I don't understand this business, Deck," said Tom Belthorpe, when
he realized that the officer in command of the enemy did not intend
to pursue him.
"I don't understand anything beyond what I can see with my own
eyes," replied Deck. "I have just come over this region in a wagon,
and I advise you to retreat towards the railroad, if you will excuse
me for saying so."
The lieutenant gave the order for his men to retire in the direction
indicated, and the officer and Deck followed them.
"We were within two minutes of a victory, Deck," said Lieutenant
Belthorpe, still panting with the exertion he had put forth in the

combat.
"But you would have lost it, and had the tables turned on you two
minutes later," replied Deck.
"What next?" asked the officer, who, in his inability to understand
the situation, was perplexed and baffled. "I don't feel like running
away just as we were whipping those Texans."
"But it is easier to run away before you have been whipped yourself
than it would be afterwards. I should judge that the force
approaching is the other half of the Rangers' company. There they
come," added Deck, as the furious riders seen in the distance halted
in the road near where the bridge-burners had proposed to camp for
the night.
Without consulting his friend and companion in regard to the
expediency of doing so, the lieutenant gave the order for his platoon
to halt at the moment when they had encircled one of the knolls so
common in that region. He and Deck were in the rear; and though
the men could not see the road, it was in full view from the position
occupied by the officer.
"I am not feeling like doing any more running away just yet," said
Tom, who was quite willing to forget that he was a lieutenant in the
presence of Private Deck Lyon.
"They have halted, and there is no occasion to run away just yet;
but it is best to take the bull by the horns before he gores you,"
added the private. "I think we had better rest under that big tree,
and keep out of sight till you get a better idea of this thing,
Lieutenant."
The suggestion was adopted, and they rode to a position under the
tree where they could see without being seen.
"They have come together, and they don't seem to know where they
are any better than we do," said the lieutenant. "I should say they
had had a hard ride by the looks of their horses;" and the officer had

looked at the reunited company through a small opera-glass he
carried in his pocket, though the distance was hardly more than five
hundred feet.
"Hold on a minute, Tom!" exclaimed Deck, as he slid from his horse,
and fastened him to a branch.
"What are you going to do now, Deck?" demanded the lieutenant.
"I am going up there to find out what is going on," replied the
private, as he detached his sabre, and fastened it to his saddle.
"But you will be picked up," suggested Tom.
"If I am I will let you know; but I am determined to get posted, so
that I can give you reliable information," answered Deck. "But I obey
your orders; and, if you tell me not to go, of course I shall not."
"Do as you think best, Deck," replied the lieutenant, who found it
difficult to realize that he was the military superior of his friend.
Deck waited for nothing more. His carbine was still slung at his back;
but he had provided that the clang of his sabre as he walked should
not betray him. He had looked the ground over before that day, and
knew where he was locally, though he was ignorant of the positions
of the several bodies of troopers other than those before his eyes.
He was on the border of the grove, consisting of large trees, rather
far apart. He got behind the trunk of one of these, and then picked
his way from one to another, till he was within thirty feet of the
officers in command of the company.
The lieutenant of the platoon which had done the fighting had
ridden away from his command a short distance; and when Deck
first saw him he was peering into the region between the railroad
and the road, doubtless anxious to ascertain what had become of
the force with which he had just been engaged. The man with his
head tied up and his arm in a sling called upon a sergeant to
rearrange the bandage on his head; and he had just completed his
task when Deck reached the shelter of the tree he had selected. The

wounded officer, for such his uniform and shoulder-straps indicated
that he was, appeared to be ready for business.
"Where is Lieutenant Redway?" he demanded very impatiently.
"There he comes, Captain Dingfield," replied the sergeant at his
side.
The lieutenant hurried up his jaded steed, and saluted his captain.
"I thought I saw a fight going on here," continued the commander
of the company, though Deck had never heard his name before.
"So there was, Captain Dingfield; and a very sharp one at that,"
replied Lieutenant Redway. "But we defeated the enemy, whipped
them out of their boots, and they fled like a flock of frightened
sheep down that opening;" and the reporter of this information
pointed in the direction in which Tom's command had retired.
"If the Father of Lies, who is always swinging his caudal appendage
over the world in search of the biggest liars, should come here for
one, where could Captain Dingfield hide you, Lieutenant Redway?"
said Deck to himself; for it would not have been prudent to say it
out loud.
"Why didn't you follow them up?" demanded the captain, with some
indignation in his tones and manner.
"Because you were in sight with the rest of the company; and I
deemed it my duty to wait for orders, especially as you had sent me
directions to hurry forward the bridge brigade," replied the
lieutenant.
"But I am closely pursued by a force in the rear; and it cannot be far
behind me by this time. How large was the detachment you fought,
Redway?" asked the captain, looking behind him at the road, as
though he believed his pursuers were close at hand.
"About the size of my command; fifty men, I should say."

"You ought to have wiped them out; and you have made a mess of it
by not doing so," added the captain.
The two officers had withdrawn from the immediate vicinity of their
men, and chosen a place within twenty feet of Deck's tree, so that
he could hear them very distinctly. The conversation was exceedingly
interesting to him, especially the fact in regard to the pursuing force.
"I acted upon my best judgment."
"I had a rough fight in the road, on my way to the bridge, and I
have hardly forty men left, while the Yankees will have a full
company when the detachment behind me comes up," added the
captain, who was evidently in a contemplative mood. "The force you
whipped must be at no great distance from this road."
"I think they will keep on running for the next three miles," said
Redway. "I went up the road to look for them, but I could see
nothing of them."
"But we shall be outnumbered if we let the two parts of this
company come together. I have found that they fight like Texans. If
we meet the whole of them together, we shall be whipped, as
Makepeace was. There is only one thing to do. Form the whole
company in column by fours, and we must go back and beat our
pursuers, before they get as far as this," said Captain Dingfield,
suddenly becoming very animated and energetic.
Deck concluded that the time had come for him to leave his retreat;
and he felt that he had not lost his time in carrying out the plan he
had suggested. But it would be safer for him to retreat in five
minutes more than at that moment. He looked on while the Rangers
formed, and saw them march on their present mission. He had not a
very high opinion of the strategy of Captain Dingfield; and if his
subordinate officer had given him correct information, perhaps he
would have adopted a different course.

The Rangers could no longer see him, and he broke into a run as
soon as they had gone. He found everything as he had left it, and he
proceeded to report his intelligence to Lieutenant Belthorpe.

CHAPTER XXV
SUNDRY FLANK MOVEMENTS ARRANGED
Captain Dingfield, with the portion of his company with which he had
attacked Major Lyon near the cross-roads, where he had been badly
beaten at the first assault, had fled across the country, and was
continuing his flight along the hill road. Doubtless he did not intend
to fight a battle at the point mentioned, but had made the attack
immediately after the explosion on the bridge to occupy the
attention of the force there until his men had completed the
destruction of the structure.
He appeared to have discovered that the squadron of cavalry he had
encountered was not so easily annihilated as he had believed they
would be by his invincible Rangers. On the contrary, he found his
troop in a difficult situation, with a superior force near him.
Doubtless he had read in what manner Napoleon I. defeated an
army of superior numbers by taking it when divided into two parts,
delivering battle to each in turn.
Captain Gordon, with half his company, had been sent in pursuit of
him, but had been somewhat delayed in his movements. Captain
Dingfield had united the two portions of his company after the
skirmish of one of them with Lieutenant Belthorpe, who was
believed to have retreated to the railroad.
Deck Lyon had listened to the interview between the captain and
lieutenant of the Rangers, and fully understood their plan. As soon
as the company had departed on their mission to annihilate the
detachment of Captain Gordon, he hastened back to the big tree
where he had left Lieutenant Belthorpe. Tom had just crossed
swords with the enemy for the first time, and had fought like a lion;

but he was nervous in regard to the situation. He had no superior
officer near him, and he felt the responsibility of his position.
"Well, Deck, what next?" he asked, before the young soldier could
get within talking distance of him.
"There is work for you," replied Deck; and though he knew precisely
what ought to be done, he was very careful not to suggest anything.
He did not wish to overstep the line of his duty as a private, though
he and the lieutenant were on the most intimate and familiar terms
of friendship. He hurried his steps; and in as few words as possible
he related all he had seen and heard.
"Then, Captain Dingfield has gone out with his whole company to
intercept Gordon?" said the officer.
"Precisely so; and I don't know what force Captain Gordon has with
him," added Deck. "The Rangers believe your command has
retreated to the railroad, and are well out of the way."
"We will convince them to the contrary very soon," said Tom with
energy, and darted off at the best speed of his horse for the knoll
where he had left his men.
Deck restored his sabre to its place, and mounted his horse. He was
ready to return to the ranks; but Tom called him, and he took his
place at the side of his friend. The lieutenant asked him a great
many questions; for the troop could not move at their best speed on
account of the trees and bushes.
"I suppose we have nothing to do but follow and pitch in when we
find the enemy," said Tom, when they came out on the hill road.
"We can't see anything of Dingfield's company yet."
"He has not got over the top of that hill we see ahead, and is in the
valley this side. Neither of us has been over this road, and we know
nothing at all about it," replied Deck, careful not to wound the pride
of his officer.

"Why don't you speak out, Deck, and tell me what you are thinking
about?" said the lieutenant somewhat impatiently. "You keep in your
shell as tight as a Baltimore oyster. You did not hesitate to tell me
what you had in your sconce when we were fighting that
detachment in the road."
"I only intended to give you the information that Dingfield's company
was coming, and would then outnumber you," replied Deck.
"You advised me to retreat, and I did so, for I saw that you were
right."
"But you are my superior officer, and my business consists in
obeying your orders," replied the private with becoming humility.
"None of that, Deck! We will keep up all the forms and ceremonies;
but I want you to be Deck Lyon, while I am Tom Belthorpe, when we
are side by side as we are at this moment. I say all we have to do is
to ride ahead till we find the enemy, and then pitch in. Is that your
idea, Deck?"
"With all due deference, Tom, it is not," replied the private.
"Confound your deference!" exclaimed the lieutenant. "I asked your
advice, and you mumble about forms."
"I will speak as plainly as I know how to speak. If you show yourself
to Captain Dingfield, he will run away if he can. He has been badly
punished to-day, and he can't stand much more of it. When he finds
himself pinched between Captain Gordon and yourself, I don't
believe he will feel like cutting his way out."
"But he outnumbers Gordon just now," Tom objected.
"Of course you will not let Captain Gordon suffer," continued Deck.
"If you will allow me to say it, I will suggest what I should do if I
were in your place."

"Allow you! Confound you, Deck! Didn't I ask you point-blank what
you would do?" demanded Tom.
"We are moving at a dog-trot now, and that is just right. Before we
get to the top of that hill yonder in the road, I should halt, and send
a scout ahead to report on what there is to be seen," said Deck.
"All right! I detail you as the scout," answered the lieutenant very
promptly.
"Then I will leave you. If I raise my cap over my head, hurry up. If I
make no sign, come along leisurely," added Deck, as he urged his
steed to a gallop, and dashed ahead.
Just then he wished he had Ceph; but he had left him hitched near
the bridge when he ascended it to take in the flag, though the horse
he had was not a bad one. How far in the rear of Captain Dingfield's
company Captain Gordon had been he had no means of judging.
Deck reached the summit of the hill over which the road passed. He
reined in his steed, and walked him till his own head was high
enough to see over the crest in front of him.
Captain Dingfield's company was not in sight. Not more than half a
mile ahead of him was another hill, beyond which the enemy had
disappeared. He took off his cap and waved it in the air above his
head. Tom could not help seeing it; and his command were
immediately galloping towards him. Deck did not wait for them, but
ran his own horse till he reached the summit of the second hill. Here
he halted again. There was a third hill, and probably one every mile
or half-mile; for this was the hill road.
Captain Dingfield had not hurried his men, and Deck discovered his
force on the lowest ground between the two hills. He had halted
there, and the men appeared to be watering their horses. Deck was
sorry he had not a field-glass. He fell back a short distance, so that
his horse should not be seen by the enemy, hitched him to a sapling,
and returned to the top of the hill on foot. After examining the
location of the enemy as well as he could, he concluded that a road

crossed that upon which both forces were moving, though he was
not sure.
Returning to his horse, he mounted again, and descended the hill a
few rods. The lieutenant had reached the top of the first hill, and
Deck waved his cap again. As soon as Tom reached the spot where
the private was, he halted his command. He hastily informed his
officer that the enemy were at the foot of the hill on the other side.
"I must not lose sight of them for long," said Deck. "I will go ahead
again, and make the same signal for you to advance."
"But you expect there will be a fight, don't you, Deck?" asked the
lieutenant.
"There will be if Captain Dingfield don't run away by a road I believe
extends through the valley. I think the captain of the Rangers is
waiting for Captain Gordon to come upon him in this place. I will
keep a lookout for our men," replied Deck, as he rode up the hill
again.
The private was a very enthusiastic soldier; and he thought it would
be a capital idea to bag the Rangers, and make prisoners of the
whole company. It would be a feather in Tom Belthorpe's cap, and
he would have been glad to place it there. He hitched his horse
again, and then climbed a tree. Some of the hills in the vicinity were
cultivated, and some were not. From his elevated perch he
discovered a farmhouse on the road, of whose existence he had not
before been confident. He had no doubt of the fact now.
There was a cornfield on the left of the road where he was, but at
some distance from it. Between this tilled land and the hill road was
a considerable extent of wild land, covered with hillocks, and the
whole of it overgrown with small trees and bushes. Near the place
where the platoon had halted, Deck perceived a practicable passage
through the tanglewood; and he went down the tree in a desperate
hurry, to the imminent peril of his limbs, though he reached the
ground in safety.

A glance at the summit of the third hill assured him that Captain
Gordon was not yet in sight. Slinging his carbine, and buckling on his
belt, he hastened to the lieutenant, and, without any unnecessary
manifestations of deference, stated the plan he had brewed in the
top of the tree.
"I should like to see the whole of that company bagged, Tom," said
he, as he led the way to the opening he had seen. "I should like to
see you do it, I am only afraid Dingfield will escape by that road,
and I should like to have you block his way in that direction."
"But if we shut up that road against him, we shall leave the hill road
open to him," replied Tom.
"What are you uns doing
here!"
Deck bit his lip, for he had not thought of this; for he was not a full-
fledged strategist any more than his officer.

"You are right, Tom; and that is the end of my scheme," added
Deck.
"Not a bit of it, Deck. Why not compromise on your idea; send half
our force across the cornfield, and leave the other half to take care
of this road? I like that idea," said Tom with enthusiasm.
"You would have but twenty-five men to hold this road against the
whole of Dingfield's company," said Deck.
"But we don't intend to move till Captain Gordon is here to take a
hand in the game," answered Tom. "You will go with Sergeant
Fronklyn to the cross-road, and I will stay here. As soon as I see the
rest of our company coming down the hill, I will strike the enemy in
the rear, while the captain goes in on the front. You will sail in from
the by-road as soon as you hear the firing, Deck. That is fixed. Now
have deference enough for your officer to hold your tongue, and
obey your orders."
"I am as dumb as a dead horse," replied Deck.
Both of them were laughing; and Deck hastened to a place where he
could see over the crest of the hill, while the lieutenant divided his
force for the two undertakings. In a few moments all was ready, and
Tom joined his friend.
"It is time we were moving," said Deck.
"All is ready for you; and Fronklyn will take counsel of you when
necessary," replied the lieutenant.
"Don't show yourself on the top of the hill, Tom; for that might let
the cat out of the bag," added Deck.
The scout, as Deck considered himself for the present, joined the
detachment detailed for the by-road, and led them into the wild
region, Fronklyn remaining some distance behind him. The enemy
were in a deep hollow, and the guide soon assured himself that the
detachment could be neither seen nor heard by them. The sergeant

advanced in response to his signals. A spur of the hill concealed
them, and they galloped across the field, from which the crop had
been harvested. He guided the force to a point beyond the farmer's
house. Leaving the sergeant and his men where the buildings shut
off the view of the hill road, Deck rode cautiously to the other side of
the house.
"What you uns doin' here?" asked the farmer, showing himself from
behind his barn.
"We are attending to our own business, and it wouldn't be a bad
idea for you to do the same," replied Deck, who did not like the
looks of the man.
"I reckon you uns is Confedrits," he added.
"You are out of your reckoning."
"There's some more on 'em over to the brook. I reckon I'll go over,
and let 'em know you're here," suggested the farmer.
"If you do, you will get a bit of lead through your upper story,"
replied Deck, as he rode on.
He had hardly started his horse before a volley was heard in the
direction of the hill road.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE ENEMY'S BATTLE WITH THE MUD
The sound of the volley did not come from the top of the hill, and
Captain Gordon would not have been so simple as to waste the
powder and balls in the carbines of his men at an impracticable
distance from the object of his attack. Lieutenant Belthorpe must
have seen his force as soon as he reached the top of the hill; and no
doubt he had hurried to join in the attack at the right moment, so
that it could be made in the front and rear at the same time.
But plans do not always work precisely as they are arranged
beforehand. Deck turned his steed as soon as he heard the volley,
and hastened back to notify the sergeant; but Fronklyn had heard
the discharge, and marched on the instant. For a non-commissioned
officer, he was decidedly a man of parts, though he had not been in
a fight till that day.
"Hurry up, Sergeant! I think we shall have warm work over on the
hill road as soon as we can reach it. They are firing lively now on
both hills," said Deck, as he took his place by the side of the officer.
"We are all ready for it; and the men were as mad as a bull in a
swarm of hornets as the recall was sounded back there a while ago,
when they were licking the enemy out of his boots," replied
Fronklyn.
"They are likely to get enough of it now," added Deck, as they
galloped forward at the best speed they could get out of the horses.
But the firing suddenly ceased, and there was a noise ahead other
than the sounds of battle, which attracted the attention of Deck and
the sergeant. It was the clang of sabres and the rattle of

accoutrements, and the sounds came from a less distance than to
the hill road.
"What does this mean?" asked Deck, as he reined in his horse. "Halt
your men here!" he added, as he obtained a full view ahead.
Fronklyn promptly accepted the suggestion, and gave the order; but
he did not understand the reason for making it. The cross-road
extended through the wild region over which the detachment had
passed farther up the hill. In this part of it the surface was more
irregular than above; on the left was a meadow, through which
flowed the brook that crossed the main road. Just ahead of the force
the road wound through a narrow pass, between lofty pinnacles of
rock.
From a point in the road Deck had obtained a glance across the
meadow at the cross-road near the main highway. There he saw the
Rangers retreating vigorously, and coming directly towards him. He
could not quite understand this change in the programme, as laid
down by Lieutenant Belthorpe and himself. But it did not take him
long to explain the situation to his own satisfaction, whether
correctly or not.
Captain Gordon's men had made the attack with a volley from the
carbines. As soon as Tom Belthorpe heard the report, he dashed
down the hill to have a finger in the pie; for his men were eager for
the affray. Captain Dingfield had seen them coming, and probably
mistook the force for a much larger one, and ordered a retreat by
the cross-road. Doubtless he had chosen to await the attack of
Captain Gordon in this locality on account of this convenient outlet.
The enemy had not waited for a charge, and neither of the
detachments from the two hills had reached the brook.
Deck hurriedly stated the situation to Sergeant Fronklyn. Then he
pointed out the narrow pass in the road, which would conceal the
men for a few moments. He advised him to advance to it, and then
fall upon the head of the column as it entered the narrow passage.

The officer gave the order to advance, and with it a few ringing
words of encouragement. Fronklyn placed himself at the head of his
men, with Deck near him, and they dashed into the pass at a
breakneck speed. The enemy had not yet reached the narrow defile.
The troopers had their carbines all ready for use, and the sergeant
halted them at a point where they could see the Rangers as they
approached. At the right moment he gave the command to fire, and
the report was the first intimation to Captain Dingfield that an
enemy was in front of him. As soon as the Union soldiers had
discharged their pieces, they were ordered to sling their carbines,
and draw their sabres.
"To the charge! March!" shouted Fronklyn.
The volley had been a surprise to the Rangers, and they were
evidently staggered as some of their saddles were emptied. Captain
Dingfield was not at the front of his company; for the danger was
supposed to be in the rear, and he was as brave a man as ever sat
on a horse. Of course he could form no idea of the strength of the
force in front of him, and he must have realized that he had fallen
into a trap. If he had not been prudent before, he was so now, for
the bugler immediately sounded the recall.
Sergeant Fronklyn did not wait to see what Captain Dingfield would
do, or where he would retreat. He led his men forward, and they
charged furiously upon what had been the right of the column. The
Rangers defended themselves with vigor and determination for a few
minutes, and the accounts of three of them were closed for this
world. The next thing that Deck saw, for he made a business of
knowing all that was going on around him, was a column of cavalry
fleeing across the meadow.
The captain of the Rangers, from his position near the rear, had
evidently found a means of escape. Deck fought with his sabre as
long as there was one of the enemy near him; but as fast as the
Texans could get out of the mêlée they fled to the rear. The pass

was so narrow that the Union troopers, few as there were of them
on the by-road, had not room enough to do themselves justice. But
Fronklyn urged them on, and drove them before him, till he heard
the clashing of arms in front of him.
Both Captain Gordon and Lieutenant Belthorpe dashed into the
narrow road, and followed up the enemy, till the last of them had
taken to the meadow. When the ground was examined later, it was
found that there was only one narrow causeway by which the
descent to the low ground could be made; and the Rangers covered
and defended this pass till all of their number had left the road. It
was in vain that the fresh troopers pressed forward from the hill
road, for the way was blocked against them. In the inability of the
captain and the lieutenant to bring their numbers to bear, the
combat was on equal terms.
The Rangers defended themselves bravely and skilfully. There were
a number of hand-to-hand struggles with which there was no space
for the interference of others. But it looked as though the Texans
had leaped from the frying-pan into the fire; for they had gone out
but a short distance from the by-road before their horses began to
mire; for the ground proved to be very soft. Several of the Texans
were obliged to dismount, and pull their steeds out of the mud.
Captain Gordon had pressed forward, and engaged the rear of the
retreating column; and he was about to order a pursuit, when he
discovered the enemy was sinking in the mire, and that the meadow
was no place for horses. It was located all along the wild region;
and, doubtless, some of those sink-holes and caverns which abound
in this part of the State existed in this section of wild land. But the
captain was not willing to permit the escape of the enemy.
Deck Lyon was reasonable enough to abandon the idea of "bagging
the game;" for the Rangers could now hardly be regarded as an
organized military company. The meadow proved to be nothing but a
quagmire, though the farmer appeared to get the hay from it, as
there were two stacks of it on the field; but he had to take the

occasion when the ground was frozen to obtain his crop. By this time
the Texans were scattered all over the meadow, wandering about in
search of more solid ground.
It would have been easy enough to shoot down the whole of them;
but Captain Gordon was too chivalrous a man to murder the
defenceless fellows. A few of them had crossed the brook, and were
ascending the hill on the other side. A number of them were making
a road of the bottom of the little stream, which seemed to be
composed of sand washed in from the hills.
The first company were at ease all along the by-road, watching the
movements and the struggles of the enemy; and no doubt Captain
Dingfield wished he had fought it out, or surrendered on the hard
ground. The night was coming on; and even if the Texans extricated
themselves from their pitiable condition, they must be so
demoralized that they could do no further mischief till they had
rested and recruited from the effects of their battle with the mud.
"What are them men doin' in there?" asked the farmer, who
wandered as far as the causeway, when it was safe to do so, and
there encountered Deck, whom he had met before.
"They are trying to get out," replied Private Lyon.
"They can't do it!" exclaimed the native, who indulged in much
profane speech. "They'll make a cemetry of the whole medder. It's
nothin' but muck in there till you git to the bottom on't, and that's
where them fellers will go. I had a colt git in there, and all on us
couldn't git him out; and I reckon his carcass is lyin' on the bottom
now. They've sp'ilt my medder," continued the farmer; and he
heaped curses on the unfortunate troopers, who were tearing up the
soft sod at a fearful rate.
The native had picked up the three horses of the troopers who had
been killed in the affray, and they were some compensation for the
damage done him in the meadow, which looked as though it had
been ploughed up.

"Isn't there any way for those men to get out of that quagmire?"
asked Captain Gordon, as he encountered the farmer.
"I don't know o' none," replied the man in a surly tone, "If they was
only Yankees, I'd like it better."
"I like it better as it is," replied the captain.
He knew of no way to extricate the troopers from their plight. It was
the dry season of the year, and probably there was less water and
less mud than in the wet season. The bodies of the horses seemed
to be resting on the sod, with their legs wholly plunged in the soft
soil. The riders had dismounted, and attacked two stacks of hay on
the field, and were placing it in front of their animals. It afforded a
better foundation for them than the oozy turf; and a couple of them
were already standing on their legs.
The darkness was gathering rapidly, and Captain Gordon gave the
order for his men to form in column; and then he marched them out
to the hill road. He was satisfied that the Texans would escape from
their miserable plight, though it might require many hours for them
to accomplish it. They had already begun to build a sort of causeway
of the hay, to connect with the solid one by which they had fled from
the fight. The hay was of a coarse quality, abundantly mixed with
weeds and bushes, and it appeared to be substantial enough to
support the horses.
It was evident to the captain that the entire force of the enemy
could be easily captured as they came off the meadow; but it might
require the whole night to secure them. The first company, now
united, marched to the hill road, and halted in a field which had
been selected before for the camping-ground. The men proceeded
to feed themselves and their horses. A half-dozen scouts were left
on the by-road to watch the mired Texans. They had built a great
fire to afford them light, and continued their labors.
A portion of the field where they had encamped consisted of a grove
of big trees, such as the company had frequently seen. The

baggage-train had been left at the bridge, and the men had no
tents, but they were provided with overcoats and blankets; and thus
protected from the cold of the chill night, it was not accounted a
hardship to sleep on the ground. Sentinels surrounded the camp,
and two scouts had been sent out in each direction on the hill road.
"Scouts coming in from both ways!" shouted the sentinels in the
road; and the word was carried to the guard quarters.
The captain was immediately informed. As Deck happened to be in
the detail for guard duty, he had been stationed in the road, and it
was his voice which first announced the return of the scouts. Captain
Gordon, who had stretched himself under a tree for a nap, hastened
to the road to ascertain the cause of the alarm.
"Where are the scouts, Deck?" he asked, as he confronted the
sentinel in the road.
"They have not got here yet," replied Deck, as he saluted the
captain. "I saw them at the top of the hills, coming in at full speed."
"But there is no enemy in this vicinity, except the Texans in the
quagmire," added the captain.
"I know of none, Captain."
The two scouts came in almost at the same moment, before the
captain and the private could discuss the situation, and reported a
detachment of cavalry approaching from either direction.

CHAPTER XXVII
AT THE CAMP-FIRE NEAR THE ROAD
As Captain Gordon suggested, there was no enemy in the vicinity
with the exception of the Texan Rangers, half buried in the mud. The
approach of cavalry from both directions, and in the darkness, was
rather an alarming announcement; and if the scouts had not been
close by, he would have ordered the long roll, and prepared for
defence. The camp-fires were blazing near the road, and a weird
light was cast upon the scene.
"Well, Beck, what is your news?" demanded the captain, as the
scout saluted him.
"A detachment of cavalry was coming up when I left the top of the
hill," replied the trooper.
"What were they?" demanded the captain impatiently.
"I don't know, Captain; we could not make them out in the
darkness," replied the scout; and he was the one who came from
the south.
"How many were there of them?"
"We looked at them as they came down the hill, and Wilder and I
reckoned there were about fifty of them. They had a wagon train
behind them."
"Very well, Beck. What have you to say, Layder?" asked Captain
Gordon, turning to the scout from the north.
"My report is just about the same as Beck's; though the detachment
comes from the other way. But they didn't have no baggage-train."

"Did you make out how many there were, Layder?"
"We made out about forty of 'em, Captain; we could not see very
well, and there may have been more of 'em."
"Return to your mates, and ascertain, if you can, who and what they
are," added Captain Gordon.
Deck Lyon had something to say, but he did not feel like saying it.
He was perfectly satisfied that there would be no fighting with the
approaching detachments. He had been reasoning over the
situation, and he had formed a decided opinion. He had heard the
train on the railroad, both when it went down and when it returned
about dark; but he knew nothing about the events which had
transpired at the camp by the bridge. The only fact that bothered
him was that the detachment from the south had a baggage-train.
"Well, Deck, what do you make of it?" asked Captain Gordon, as he
halted in front of the sentinel.
"The two detachments are the second company of Riverlawn
Cavalry," replied Deck without any hesitation; for this was the
decided opinion he had reached.
"What makes you think so, Deck?" asked the captain with a smile.
"Except the Texans in the mud, there is no other cavalry in these
parts. That's the first reason. The second is, that Major Lyon sent
half the first company under Lieutenant Belthorpe up the railroad,
and he can have heard nothing from this force since; and he would
naturally get a little anxious about it. The third reason is, that he
sent you and the rest of the first company in pursuit of the Texans.
If you have not sent any messenger to him, I shouldn't wonder if the
major had worried a little about you, Captain," said Deck.
"I sent no messenger to him; I could not spare a single man, for I
was liable to meet the whole company of Texans," added the
captain. "But I think you are right, and the same suggestions came
to my mind."

Half an hour later the same scouts returned to the camp, and
reported that the captain and Deck were correct in their
suppositions. In a quarter of an hour more the second company rode
into the camp. Major Lyon was with the detachment from the south.
The moment he saw Deck, he leaped from his horse as lightly as his
son could have done it, and grasped both of the hands of the
sentinel.
"I am glad to see you again. Dexter!" exclaimed the father. "I have
had a deal of worry over your disappearance, and I was afraid I
should have to send bad news to your mother and your sister."
"No use of worrying about me, father," replied Deck, still holding the
hand of the major. "I have had considerable experience to-day, but I
have worked through it all."
"But what became of you?" asked the anxious father.
"I was captured by the bridge-burners, and I was only sorry that I
could not prevent them from setting the bridge afire. I suppose it
was all burnt up, and your business here is all a failure."
"Not at all, my son; the bridge was hardly damaged at all, and a
train has been over it twice since they tried to burn it. But I will see
you later," added the major, as he pressed the hand of his son again.
Captain Gordon was considerate enough to relieve the sentinel from
duty, and he went with his father to the nearest camp-fire. The
wagons were driven into the field, and a few minutes later the
headquarters tent was pitched. Stools were placed before the fire,
and all the commissioned officers of both companies were sent for. It
looked like a council of war, though the object of the meeting was to
receive the reports of the officers. For the first time since the arrival
of the squadron, the two companies were united.
Captain Gordon, as the senior, was called upon first for his report;
and he recited it at length, ending with the skirmish at the cross-
roads near the camp. Lieutenant Belthorpe described his wanderings

with half the company, including his brief engagement with the
Rangers.
"I feel as though I should be mean if I failed to inform the officers of
the squadron how much service Deck Lyon has rendered to me since
I found him on the road," said Tom. "We are not on parade just now,
and I suppose I may say it."
"Dry up, Tom!" exclaimed Deck, loud enough to be heard by the
speaker, though hardly by the others.
"Not just yet, Lieutenant," interposed the major. "I don't understand
how you happened to meet Dexter in the road; for the last he told
me of himself was that he was taken prisoner by the enemy. I
should like to hear his narrative first, for it may throw some light on
other matters."
Deck was admonished by his father to tell the whole story, without
any omissions; and he related his adventure from the time he had
first seen Brown Kipps. He explained how he had been duped by
that worthy Tennesseean, and in what manner he had been tempted
to shoot his four custodians through the back of the head.
"I hope you didn't do it, Dexter," interposed his father, before he had
come to the sequel of the affair.
"I did not, father; for I feared the deed would haunt me to the last
day of my life, be it long or short," replied Deck. "It looked like cold-
blooded murder to me."
The assembled officers applauded him vigorously with their hands;
and the young soldier was glad to receive this testimonial of his
officers, for to him it seemed to settle the moral question involved in
his action.
"I do not believe in carrying on the war upon peace principles; but I
do believe that soldiers should not become assassins," added the
major.

The officers likewise applauded this sentiment of their commander.
"We are ready to hear you now, Lieutenant Belthorpe, as I know
how Dexter came into your path. It is important to remember that
the bridge-burners, with their wagon and supplies of combustibles,
proceeded to the north by the hill road. Go on, Lieutenant."
Tom Belthorpe described the action with half the Rangers under
Lieutenant Redway, and the interposition of Deck when he
discovered the approach of the other half of the Rangers. He had
retreated rather against his will by Deck's advice.
"I think his advice was good, if he is my son," added the major.
"No doubt of it; you would have been pinched between the two
portions of the Confederate force, and outnumbered nearly two to
one," added Captain Gordon.
"I was quite satisfied in regard to the wisdom of the advice, badly as
we desired to fight out the action, as soon as I had a chance to think
of it," continued Tom. "Then Deck did a very neat piece of spy-work,
which enabled us to follow the enemy without being seen or heard.
The whole of the Rangers had come together, and they
outnumbered Captain Gordon's command. It was Deck's suggestion
to strike across lots, and reach the by-road; but I did not follow it in
full, and divided my force, so that the Texans should not retreat by
the way we came."
"And when you came down the hill with hardly more than twenty
men, the Texans took fright, and retreated up that by-road, where
they were received by Sergeant Fronklyn," added Captain Gordon.
"This caused them to seek a new avenue of escape; and they
plunged into the quagmire, where they are now."
"What you say of Deck leads me to indorse his conduct in the action
on the east road this morning," said Captain Truman, who had said
nothing before; and he proceeded to describe what the young man
had done in that affair.

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The Module And Programme Development Handbook A Practical Guide To Linking Levels Outcomes And Assessment Criteria 1st Edition Jennifer Moon

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