Evidencing student success and career outcomes among business and creative industries graduates

ABSTRACT

The teaching performance of higher education institutions is increasingly gauged by graduate employment outcomes. Measuring outcomes in full-time employment terms does not capture the complexities of underemployment, the rise of portfolio careers, the constraints of the labour market and graduate motivations for working arrangements that can allow greater flexibility and work-life balance. This study explores the career outcomes of Business and Creative Industries graduates using both traditional measures (full-time employment outcomes) and a suite of broader measures that examine career satisfaction, perceived employability, perceived career success, underemployment, and graduate motivations for seeking new roles. Findings confirm disciplinary differences in graduate experience, and raise some broad concerns about the quality of graduate employment, particularly given the lack of improvement in outcomes over time since course completion. Findings suggest graduates are optimistic about their career futures, despite unmet expectations – particularly on income.     

Factors influencing the college choice decisions of graduate students

This paper examines the relative influence of factors affecting the college choice decisions of graduate students. It is based on a 1986 survey of 2,834 admitted students at a major research university, to which 38 percent of the sample responded. Factor analysis of ratings of importance of 31 college characteristics yielded dimensions upon which student decisions are based. These results were used to build five scales of importance and preference, which were then tested with other variables in a regression model in which the dependent variable was the decision to enroll or not to enroll at the surveying institution. The following were found to influence decisions: residency status, quality and other academic environment characteristics, work-related concerns, spouse considerations, financial aid, and the campus social environment.A paper presented at the Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, New Orleans, May 29–June 1, 1994.     

Encoding of the unconditioned stimulus in Pavlovian conditioning

Three experiments, using rats, demonstrated the encoding of a food unconditioned stimulus (US) in a simple Pavlovian conditioning paradigm. In all three studies, one stimulus was used to signal the delivery of pellets and a different stimulus was used to signal the delivery of sucrose. In Experiment 1, postconditioning devaluation of one of the food USs selectively reduced the frequency of conditioned magazine-directed behavior during the stimulus trained with that US. In Experiment 2, transfer of the stimuli to instrumental responses resulted in selective depression of the response trained with a different outcome. In Experiment 3, acquisition of stimulus-outcome learning was impaired by unsignaled intertrial presentations of the same outcome but not of a different outcome. These results indicate that a detailed representation of the outcome is encoded in the normal course of Pavlovian conditioning.     

A Nation In Pain

“越洋专递”栏目甫一亮相,反响热烈。我们陆续收到了南京、太原、合肥等地同学的来信,孩子们和他们的父母通过各种方式表达了结交异国笔友的美好愿望。经过认真挑选,来自山西省太原市五中的李楠成为第一位幸运儿,本刊下期将刊登她的个性档案及写给美国小姑娘Demi的信。我们已和美国加州John Glenn中学取得联系,美国学生对此也很重视,不仅信中附有照片,有的还寄来可爱的小礼物。有兴趣的同学可填写笔友登记表,我们将针对你的情况,按照你的要求为你推荐笔友,并不定期地登载互通的信件及笔友通讯录。来信可附近照。在适当的时候。本刊将举办中美学生互访和夏令营活动,进一步缩短东西方的距离。本刊将为你搭起一座七彩桥,帮助你了解异域文化,结识异国笔友,和同龄人互相学习,携手共进。     

Beyond media stickiness and cognitive imprinting: Rethinking creativity in cooperative work &; learning with ICTs

This paper attempts to build a bridge between the fields of Computer Supported Cooperative Work and learning in online communities. A framework for group interactions is presented contrasting creative interactions such as collaboration with other but still valuable interaction types. Evaluative tools are proposed capable of identifying particular learning processes associated with various interactive activities. Each field has independently developed notions of inertia in the behaviour of users of these technologies. The notion of media stickiness is examined and related to that of imprinting in learning communities. However, dynamic and creative tracks can also be discerned and the argument is made that true collaboration requires attention to learning processes. Various suggestions are made of value to both fields and further research identified.     

Enhancement of pigeons’ conditional discrimination performance by expectancies of reinforcement and nonreinforcement

Prior work has shown that when the separate correct responses of a conditional discrimination are followed by different reinforcing outcomes, performance is enhanced relative to that obtained under the conventional, single-reinforcer procedure. Four experiments with pigeons yielded the analogous finding when the different outcomes were reinforcement and explicit nonreinforcement. Controls indicated that the results could not be attributed to the effects of intermittent reinforcement, to possible differences in cue duration, or to a variety of potential sources of conditioned reinforcement. An interpretation in terms of expectancy learning is proposed.     

Action research: a methodology for transformative learning for a professor and his students in an engineering classroom

ABSTRACT

An engineering professor of a first-year thermodynamics course and a PhD student with a focus in engineering education in a large research university in Canada participated in an ethnographic action research study with the intention of increasing active learning in the classroom to enhance student engagement and learning. Unexpected findings included transformative changes to the professor’s epistemology of teaching and learning. Through the action research cycle of planning, implementing, observing, and critically reflecting, modifications were made to the instructional strategies and the learning environment that created a micro engineering community of practice where both students and teaching assistants engaged in deep learning and legitimate peripheral participation on the trajectory to ‘becoming engineers’. Qualitative interview data from the professor, three students, and three teaching assistants are analysed through approaches to learning research and situated learning theory. Engaging in action research had profound repercussions in this case. The authors make the argument for action research as a catalyst for transformative learning required for teachers to engage students in the twenty-first century classroom.     

University research in flux: Policy debate in Australia

After a brief golden age Australian university research faces a difficult future. Two notions, utility and concentration, have become the catchwords of the emerging policy initiatives. Both have tended to be interpreted narrowly and simplistically, utility as having immediate technological applications that will bring economic benefits, and concentration to argue for breaking the teaching-research nexus, reducing the research workforce and thus achieving cost savings. As proposed, both initiatives require more centralised control of research policy and funding. Despite the outstanding record of Australia's universities in research and the absence of evidence to support the benefits claimed for the new initiatives, the pressure for change is gaining momentum. The problems facing Australian universities have much in common with those in other Western countries, although unique solutions must be sought for every setting. This paper argues that, in Australia, the adoption of the easy solution of increased concentration, short-term utility, and centralised control, is likely to compromise the established excellence and diversity in basic research, and to lead to an overall reduction in the scale of university research. Before any changes are instigated, there is a pressing need for a broad-ranging review based on widespread participation in a debate about needs and priorities, and rigorous research into the performance of the existing system and the potential benefits of the changes proposed.     

Education and poverty reduction in Tanzania

This paper reviews research on the returns to education in Tanzania, both financial and non-financial, and considers whether these returns translate into poverty reduction. It looks at reasons why achievement of high primary enrolment rates in the past did not lead to the realisation of the associated developmental outcomes, considering factors both within and beyond the education system. Achieving mass access at the expense of quality appears to have had a negative impact on equality. The poverty reduction potential of current programmes to develop the primary and secondary education systems are discussed in the light of past experience.