Crossing the ‘bridges’ and navigating the ‘learning gaps’: Chinese students learning across two systems in a transnational higher education programme

ABSTRACT

Chinese universities are actively pursuing cross-border collaborations in the form of transnational higher education programmes. Our study captures the experiences of Chinese students to illuminate how they navigate their learning journeys in a China-Australia articulation programme. To communicate the complexity of learning in modern transnational higher education programmes, we employed activity theory as the theoretical framework to explore cross-cultural contradictions shaping students’ experiences of learning. Assessment, programme rules, teaching strategies, and class and campus settings created contradictions that students had to negotiate as in-between learning spaces. We argue that cross-system contradictions play important roles in transnational higher education programmes. Therefore, instead of seeking to eliminate these contradictions or smooth cross-educational differences, these contradictions should be leveraged as learning opportunities to enrich transnational higher education programmes.     

Field Practice in La Mixteca: Transnational Teacher Education in the Service of Mexican Indigenous Students in U.S. Schools

Initial research has documented the ill treatment suffered by Mexican indigenous students in U.S. schools. Using a framework of transnational teacher education, we examined the impact of field practice in an indigenous area of Mexico on teacher candidates. Candidates showed growth in new understandings, such as their role as bilingual teachers in terms of validating students’ cultures and their sense of global interconnectedness with transnational students and communities. Applied classroom projects several months after field practice showed a similar impact, beginning to make the case that transnational field practice can also positively influence the academic performance of the candidates’ future students.     

Framing education policies and transitions of Roma students in Europe

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to identify the contexts and conditions that allow for successful education transitions and opportunities for the Roma minority in Europe. Thus far, transnational and national policies have failed to ensure Roma inclusion and education equality, even though some progress is visible. Using a combination of policy analysis and interviews with NGO and European Union actors, University academics and Roma students, the article examines the key contexts that frame education policies and create the necessary conditions for education transitions. It identifies the problems and challenges within the contemporary EU education policy frameworks and highlights the tensions between political rhetoric and policy commitments that are visible at national, transnational, and local levels. In addition, through a focus on individual student experiences, the article captures the lived reality of Roma students who have managed their education transitions with success.     

The early graduation gambit of Japanese high-school sojourners in the US: organizing educational paths across borders

While there is a growing presence of trans-Pacific migrant students in the US, relatively little attention has been given to the diversity among them in terms of their everyday experiences and future educational trajectories shaped by different patterns of transnational mobilities and practices. This paper addresses the distinctive educational experiences and needs of transnational Japanese students, temporarily enrolled in US schools accompanying their parents on business appointments from transnational corporations. This institutional ethnographic study examines the strategies that these sojourner students use to negotiate the institutional demands of US high-school life and the way to promote access to tertiary education in Japan. The findings show that, although corporate transnationalism restricts Japanese sojourners' geographical mobility, they still actively construct their futures through the high-stakes strategy of graduating a year early from US high schools. I call this early graduation scheme a gambit because the sojourners sacrifice beneficial opportunities and even risk their graduation itself in the hope of securing a positional advantage upon their return to their home country. The early graduation gambit is analysed through a lens of transnationalism.     

现代远程教育中关于学习者特征分析的新构想

本文针对现代远程教育中教学设计问题的一个方面——学习者特征分析问题进行探讨。旨在建构主义学习理论的基础上提出在现代远程教育中，充分借鉴传统班级授课制中关于学习者特征分析的经验，让学习者参加到教学设计中来，自己主动对自己的特征进行分析。论文从对学习者知识基础分析和对学习者学习风格的分析两个层次上引导学生对自身情况进行分析和选择学习方式。     

中国现代远程教育政策编码与分析

现代远程教育试点以来,中国政府颁布了一系列政策来保障现代远程教育的质量和发展,政策成为中国现代远程教育发展的主导性因素和重要动力,推动现代远程教育的发展与变革。然而现代远程教育质量却一直备受社会质疑,政府有关部门的努力并没有达到理想的效果。运用政策编码研究方法,从政策制订本身来探寻问题是一个新的视角。通过“亚洲地区高等远程教育质量保证模式、标准和关键绩效指标”项目研究得出的现代远程教育质量要素,对1999年到2011年间的80条核心政策进行编码,分析已有政策的主要着力点和疏忽的地方：已有政策较多地关注信息与宣传、机构政策与监管、课程设计与开发等机构层面的要素;对与学生学习环节息息相关的学生支持、教与学环节提及不多;教师支持和对社会的贡献较少被提及;教与学、研究、结果与成果在2000年和2001年受到较多关注,然后关注度持续下降;对评估与评价的关注度一直不高。基于编码结果分析,对今后的现代远程教育政策制订需要有较大的调整。     

A comparison between national and transnational students’ access of online learning support materials and experience of technical difficulties on a fully online distance learning master of public health programme

Online distance learning (ODL) is now recognised as a mainstream teaching method for undergraduate and postgraduate students around the world. However, differences in learner characteristics such as help-seeking behaviour between transnational students and home students may impact on student attainment. 64 students undertaking an online master of public health programme in the UK completed a survey which explored students’ access of learner support resources, their experience of technical difficulties, demographic characteristics and learner characteristics. We collected data on the geographic region in which students were currently living and their geographical region of origin. Students whose region of origin was outside the UK/EU accessed a greater number of support resources than students based within the UK/EU and students whose region of residence was outside the UK/EU experienced a greater number of technical difficulties than students from within the UK/EU. Thus transnational students access more support resources than home students despite having to overcome more technical difficulties in order to do so. The classification of students based on fee-paying status was unable to detect these differences and may not be appropriate for ODL courses.     

远程教育学生能力水平和人格结构分析

对成绩相对较好的远程教育学生的智力和创造力进行测试,并用大五人格量表对他们的人格进行测量,让大家了解远程教育学生的实际水平和各人格层面的数值,知道远程学习的学生真正缺的是什么,以便从事远程教育的教师和相关人员能够对症下药,提高远程教学的效果。     

Critical thinking in distance education: Developing critical communities in an audio teleconference context

Distance education has long been associated with independent study and delivery of prepackaged learning materials. These characteristics effectively deny distance education students the opportunity to participate in communities of inquiry and, perhaps, opportunities to develop their critical thinking skills. This paper reviews the theoretical impact of socially situated learning, critical thinking and their implications for distance education. It then presents the results from a study of learners' perception while enrolled in two different models of audio teleconferenced, university courses. The study reports quantitative results from a mail survey of these students and the qualitative results from interviews and classroom observations. The impact of the instructional design used by the delivering institution resulted in two distinct models of audio teleconference delivery with significant qualitative and quantitative differences in student perception. The paper concludes that learning communities, which support the development of critical thinking skills, can be created at a distance and that they provide a mechanism for improving the quality of higher level distance education.     

Understanding Turkish students’ preferences for distance education depending on financial circumstances: A large-scale CHAID analysis

In the past, distance education was used as a method to meet the educational needs of citizens with limited options to attend an institution of higher education. Nowadays, it has become irreplaceable in higher education thanks to developments in instructional technology. But the question of why students choose distance education is still important. The purpose of this study was to determine Turkish students’ reasons for choosing distance education and to investigate how these reasons differ depending on their financial circumstances. The author used a Chi squared Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) analysis to determine 18,856 Turkish students’ reasons for choosing distance education. Results of the research revealed that Turkish students chose distance education not because of geographical limitations, family-related problems or economic difficulties, but for such reasons as already being engaged in their profession, increasing their knowledge, and seeking promotion to a better position.     

Potencial De La Educación a Distancia Para Reducir Brechas De Aprendizaje En Educación Superior: Una Mirada Al Caso Colombiano

ABSTRACT

One of the main needs of Latin America, besides education coverage, is to reduce learning gaps in higher education. In order to respond to such need, many strategies have been designed, worldwide, to impact the demand and provision of higher education programs. Among these strategies we can find grants and scholarships, financial aids, and others. Many have been the options that have been proposed to raise the provision of higher education programs, such as offering technology-supported education modalities like blended-learning, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and distance and online education. This paper aims to explore the potential of the provision of distance education programs to close learning gaps in Colombia’s higher education. In order to do so, we present an estimatation of the effects that students and programs characteristics can have on the results of the test “Saber PRO” (a Colombian standardized test that measures the level of competences developed by students in different higher education programs). This estimation was done applying a mixed model (Hierarchical Linear Modeling-HLM) based on the information of 451,358 students who were assessed in their last phase of their university major. Data were collected from 2016 to 2018.

The econometrics estimations show that controlling individuals’ backgrounds and the characteristics of different academic programs, the variables that were highly associated with the reduction of learning gaps among individuals registered in distance programs compared to face-to-face programs are the students’ age and their cognitive backgrounds (grades in standardized tests taken before their undergraduate studies). The results show that we could expect distance education to become an efficient mechanism to contribute to the reduction of learning gaps in higher education. The quantitative findings suggest a series of research questions that invite to reflect about the potential of distance education in medium-income countries.     

How Administrators Can Influence Student University Selection Criteria

Five main stages generally make up the decision-making processes of transnational students as they select a university. These stages involve problem recognition, search behaviour, evaluative criteria, and purchase and post-purchase evaluation. This article investigates the decision-making processes of international students, particularly selection criteria, relative to attending an overseas university. The study upon which it is based revealed that while many variables such as course offerings, facilities, distance, and fees are important, the major force behind selection criteria is word-of-mouth communication. The research, undertaken with approximately 400 students enrolled in Southeast Asian programmes offered by an Australian university in Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, and with transnational students studying in Australia, is described. Strategy options are suggested by which business faculties can take advantage of word-of-mouth communication to enhance transnational offerings.     

Field independence in higher education and the case of distance learning

It has been postulated that student autonomy in distance education could be operationalized in terms of the cognitive style of field independence. While distance learning students often obtain high scores on field independence, this is also true of campus-based students. Field independence is not positively related to students’ course evaluations, their preference for independent learning, their course completion in distance education, nor their level of autonomy. Consequently, field independence is not useful for understanding experiences or attainment in distance education.     

Internationalising a learning environment instrument for evaluating transnational online university courses

This article describes the adaptation and validation of the Constructivist OnLine Learning Environment Survey (COLLES) for use in the transnational higher education context. As higher education becomes a more global phenomenon, ‘borderless’ education, either online or by distance education, is becoming a reality and there is a need for remote evaluation of course delivery and student learning. Curtin University of Technology is managing supported online delivery of Business Studies Degree and Diploma courses to four partner institutions of the African Virtual University, an initiative based in Nairobi, Kenya. Evaluation of students’ learning has included an online survey about the provision of resources and the quality of the learning environment in the various computer-based classrooms. Embedded in this instrument has been the adapted COLLES, providing a concomitant opportunity to test the properties and usefulness of the learning environment instrument. Problematic issues surrounding adaptation of the instrument have included the consequences of modifying the wording and establishing or confirming the meaning of the latent constructs in partially online courses and for transnational students. The process of establishing the validity and reliability of the scales is discussed.     

Developing identities in the workplace: students’ experiences of distance early childhood teacher education

In Aotearoa New Zealand, many early childhood teachers gain their teaching qualification via distance study while working in an early childhood centre. Early childhood teachers work in a team environment, and it is important to understand more about how distance students negotiate changes in their workplace practice as their professional knowledge develops. This article draws on a study that explores students’ experiences of distance teacher education as a process of changing participation in the workplace. Distance study supported increasingly confident participation as students saw more meaning in their daily work. The students’ identities and their workplace cultures and practices influenced what students paid attention to and the decisions they made when negotiating changes within their teams. Their experiences suggest that strengthening students’ relational agency at work is a useful focus for distance early childhood teacher education programmes.     

Coloniality of knowledge,hybridisation, and indigenous survival: exploring transnational higher education development in Africa from the 1920s to the 1960s

This historical multi-case study uses the concepts of coloniality of knowledge, critical hybridity, and indigeneity in examining higher education development in Africa through the efforts of Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, two educational reformers and former international students in the USA. We develop a framework for examining how transnational interactions between the Global North and the Global South shape higher education development. Implications are presented for the importance of flexible theoretical understandings of transnational higher education interactions as well as higher education practices in international student and scholar exchange and other transnational higher education engagement.     

The “How” and “What” of learning physics

Recent research on student learning in higher education has increasingly focussed on experiential aspects of how students approach their studies and what they learn from their studies. In this paper we describe the results of a study using phenomenographic research techniques, which focusses on student learning in a first year university physics course. The study, using interviews with sixteen volunteer students from the course, shows that only those students who actively sought to change their conceptions of the subject matter did so, while those who sought only to reproduce that subject matter did not.     

Implications of distance education on children with disabilities

Once the COVID-19 was announced as a pandemic by the World Health Organization at the beginning of 2020, almost all countries around the world shifted from traditional face to face education to distance education to prevent the spread of the virus. Türkiye implemented distance education practices through a web-based platform named education information network (EBA) and EBA TV channels. However, the rapid shift from traditional face to face education to distance education was challenging especially for students with disabilities, their parents and teachers because these students needed individualised education and some services which were impossible to implement remotely. The purpose of this study was to explore (a) the challenges that teachers and students faced during distance education; (b) the implications of distance education on students with disabilities. Further, this study explored opinions of special education teachers regarding how to make distance education more effective for students with disabilities. A semi-structured interview was conducted with 12 special education teachers. Findings demonstrated that distance education through EBA was neither sufficient nor convenient for most students with disabilities. Limitations of this study and suggestions for future research were discussed.     

British degrees made in Hong Kong: an enquiry into the role of space and place in transnational education

The fundamental logic of transnational education programmes is a one-to-one transfer of institutional capital across space and an unimportance of place. This article interrogates these presumptions and argues that space and place play an important role in transnational education. Drawing on research that examines the experiences of students and graduates of British degree programmes offered in Hong Kong, we conclude that institutional capital does not always travel wholly and smoothly due to a combination of policy-related, social, cultural and economic factors. Our findings also underline the importance of place in students’ experiences, which are not sufficiently recognised by the providers. This, in turn, affects the ability of students to cultivate institutional and other forms of social capital, with implications for subsequent employment opportunities and social mobility.     

Changes in the Singapore University Student Demand since the Currency Crash

The purpose of this article is to detail what has happened to demand for overseas university education by Singaporeans since the economic crisis of 1997. Briefly stated, the demand for education has risen dramatically over the past year in Singapore, but fear of future economic conditions has caused prospective students to switch their target preferences. As most prospective students feel that they cannot afford to enrol in higher education course programmes in Europe and in North America, they are switching their allegiances to higher education systems and programmes in Australia and New Zealand. The real winners in the new market‐place are the international education institutions that have set up operations in Singapore. Schools that have a history of transnational offerings in Singapore have experienced large increases in enrolments, up to 300 per cent in some areas over the past year. These increases have been achieved without the sacrifice of any teaching quality.