The Mature Student’s Study Guide is straightforward and does exactly what it says on the tin: it’s designed to help people returning to education – whether it’s after a gap of 5 years or 50. The advice is fairy basic, but covers everything: the idea is to use the Study Guide as a starting point before referring to other books to tackle any problem areas. It is designed for both attending a college or university and distance learning, although the content applies more to degree courses.

The next four chapters are slightly more useful, but pretty much irrelevant to me. They are: “Getting The Most out of Lectures and Seminars”, “Developing Your Group Work Skills”, “Mastering Open and Distance Learning Techniques” and “Making The Most of Information and Communications Technology”. Again, these are more useful to those returning to education after a longer gap, especially if you’re not used to computers. There is a good level of detail within these chapters – the chapter on group work even tells you how to deal with disruptive people, (although I’m sure most mature students would have come across their fair share of disruptive colleagues, acquaintances and family members and will thus be able to cope).

At times, the Study Guide seems to explain too much and comes off as patronizing – you’d think it would credit mature students with some common sense at least – but I suppose it’s better to over-explain than to under-explain. However, this approach does make it more accessible to people who have absolutely no idea how to go about studying and makes it an appropriate book for most mature students. You can always skip through the sections that spell everything out in painstaking detail.

Nothing is written about the author, Dr. Catherine Dawson, and I had trouble finding anything other than reviews when I googled her, but Amazon says: “Dr Catherine Dawson has been a researcher specialising in educational research and a tutor working with adult learners for over fifteen years. She is passionate about enabling and supporting adults getting back into education, which is why she has written Returning to Education; Practical Research Methods and now this valuable handbook for adult learners” (written in reference to another of her books). Other reviews on the net suggest that she’s well-respected and her books are recommended. My only criticism of her writing (apart from over-explaining, which is excusable) is that it’s not very motivating; this book is information only.