System transition in Japanese short‐term higher education: what future for the Japanese junior college in crisis?

The uniquely Japanese institution of the tanki daigaku (two‐year university) known as ‘junior college’ in English was seen as Japan's answer to increasing participation in higher education. Initially established on a provisional basis in 1950, becoming permanent in 1965, they were the higher education institution (HEI) of choice of almost 500,000 students a year at their peak in 1995. Demographic changes after 1992 brought about a buyers' market for higher education with institutions in aggressive competition for students, a battle in which the tanki daigaku seems destined to be defeated. This paper examines the options available to junior colleges in crisis and in so doing identifies a number of features of a virtually universal system of higher education which raise issues for other advanced societies grappling with massification and commodification in their own higher education systems. The paper reviews the literature in this area, as well as drawing on a year of participant observation as an associate professor from 2000–2001.     

Examining proximal and distal influences on the part-time student experience through an ecological systems theory

This conceptual paper contributes to the literature base on promoting equality of opportunity for students in higher education through seeking to broaden understanding of the influences on part-time study in the United Kingdom (UK). These students constitute a significant proportion of the total student population in the UK with research highlighting particular issues they encounter in their learning experience. An analysis of these issues suggests multiple sources of influence within a complex higher education landscape. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory is drawn upon as a lens through which to examine proximal and distal influences on part-time students and their study experiences in higher education and to propose a research design to facilitate future participation. The paper has significance for educators and researchers concerned with developing understanding of the multilayered influences on participation in higher education in a rapidly changing educational landscape in order to ensure equality of opportunity for all students.     

Academic oral presentation self-efficacy: a cross-sectional interdisciplinary comparative study

Despite the significant role of oral presentation in the academic context, many university students evade opportunities for participation due to low self-efficacy. The present study has been conducted to compare oral presentation self-efficacy of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners with undergraduates and postgraduates of Non-EFL majors, and to investigate the relationship of this construct with their teaching and prior academic oral presentation experiences as two modes of Bandura’s [(1995). Exercise of personal and collective efficacy in changing societies. In A. Bandura (Ed.), Self-efficacy in changing societies (pp. 1–45). New York: Cambridge University Press] mastery experience. Extracting the oral presentation sub-skills from the literature, an oral presentation self-efficacy questionnaire with 38 five-Likert scale items was constructed. A two-way between-group ANOVA was run on the responses of a total 48 postgraduates (25 EFL and 23 Non-EFL) and 63 undergraduates (28 EFL and 35 Non-EFL) selected randomly from two of the universities in Iran. The results indicated no difference between EFL and Non-EFL students, whether at undergraduate or postgraduate level, in terms of their oral presentation self-efficacy. Spearman’s correlation coefficient, however, showed a strong positive correlation between the two modes of mastery experience and oral presentation self-efficacy (r?=?.44, n?=?111, P?r?=?.42, n?=?111, P?相似文献   

‘A second chance at learning but it’s not quite higher education’: experience of a foundation degree

This paper reports on the findings of a recent small scale study into the experiences of mature students of a foundation degree (FD) in health and social care. This was an exploratory study that evaluated one particular FD health and social care programme in order to gain an insight into some of the issues involved in delivering higher education through further education settings, and how mature students ‘make sense’ of themselves as learners on FD programmes. This paper examines the responses of the student interviews which depict them as making sense of themselves as ‘second chance learners’ on an educational programme that is ‘not quite higher education’. Discussion of these themes in terms of Bourdieu’s notions of habitus, field and capital will be offered alongside Weick’s model of sensemaking.     

Isolated learners: young mature-age students,university culture,and desire for academic sociality

The differentiated experiences of young mature-age students are under-researched and often unacknowledged in higher education literature and university policy. This article contends that, due to their age (early 20s to early 30s), many younger mature-age students feel ‘out of the loop’ and ‘alienated’ from university culture. The sample is drawn from a large first-year subject and analyses students’ written ethnographic reflections on their identities as students within university culture. Using interpretive theory and NVivo coding software to analyse the written assignments, the experience of isolation amongst the young mature-age demographic was a prominent and unanticipated finding. Students in this age range want academic-based sociality but do not identify as either school leaver or ‘mature-age’. They feel like isolated learners. We argue young mature-age students’ experiences of social isolation pose a significant barrier to full participation, negatively impacting their identities as students and their university transition. In Australia and internationally, governments and universities have increased their enrolments of young mature-age students, but their capacity to structure learning environments to suit them are limited without greater knowledge of their diverse experiences. Taking a cultural, socially situated view of learning allows insights into students’ experiences and suggests opportunities for understanding and supporting them.     

Filling up silences—first in family students,capital and university talk in the home

Internationally, research has indicated that returning to education for older learners provides the means for growth and change, for some students this can translate into a sense of ‘empowerment’ and control in their personal lives. However, what is not so well researched is how having a significant ‘other’ present within the university landscape impacts the household and other family members. Exploring how this return to education influences others provides a basis for institutional approaches to engaging with and supporting the lifelong learning of family members, ultimately assisting in the access and participation of current and future generations. This article draws on research conducted with first in family students to explore how their participation in the higher education environment led to conversations in the family around learning. Drawing upon theories of social and cultural capital, this article reflects upon the flow of capitals between home and university.     

‘The balancing act’ – Irish part-time undergraduate students in higher education

While the numbers of part-time students has increased in higher education in Ireland, little is known about these students or about how they balance their study and other commitments. Drawing on a larger study on Irish students’ experiences in higher education, this article attempts to address this gap in research and reports on Irish part-time undergraduate students’ socio-demographic and institutional characteristics. It further explores the balance between part-time students’ academic study and their life situations. The article proposes some recommendations with regard to policy concerning part-time students, particularly in the area of financial support available to part-time learners. It also calls for expanding opportunities for participation in part-time study in the light of changing demography and provision of resources to facilitate students’ participation in higher education. Although the findings of this article broadly agree with those of international studies, more research is needed into the experiences of part-time students in higher education.     

“I ‘feel’ like I am at university even though I am online.” Exploring how students narrate their engagement with higher education institutions in an online learning environment

This article outlines a collaborative study between higher education institutions in Australia, which qualitatively explored the online learning experience for undergraduate and postgraduate students. The project adopted a narrative inquiry approach and encouraged students to story their experiences of this virtual environment, providing a snapshot of how learning is experienced by those undertaking online studies. The study explores what impacted upon students’ engagement in this environment and how different facets of their learning experience made a qualitative difference to how individuals enacted engagement. Drawing upon Sharon Pittaway’s engagement framework, the article seeks to foreground student voice as the learners define their engagement in learning, the strategies they employed to assist this process and how engagement was enacted at an individual level. The students’ reflections presented in this article can be used to inform teaching and learning strategies designed to improve engagement in the online environment within the higher education sector.     

Teacher and student responses to interdisciplinary aspects of sustainability education: what do we really know?

That the value of interdisciplinarity in sustainability education is largely taken for granted reflects widely held views about the inherent complexity and uncertainty of sustainability issues and the need for holistic responses to them. Although there is an extensive literature on interdisciplinarity, there has been relatively little investigation of the ways in which teachers and learners deal with and respond to this central aspect of sustainability education. This paper presents data from two case studies of masters course in sustainability education, one in an English university and one in a Chinese university, and examines some of the contextual factors that support or limit their attempts to go beyond the bounded ways of thinking associated with more traditional academic disciplines. While some learners respond enthusiastically to interdisciplinarity, others experience forms of ‘cognitive dissonance’. Interdisciplinarity requires individual teachers to operate as members of teams and to find ways of promoting dialogue between different perspectives, discourses and methods of approaching problems. The key to interdisciplinarity is an open attitude, a willingness to learn and an ability to engage with different ways of thinking about issues we face in common.     

Finnish adult students’ perspectives on short-cycle study programmes: motives and evaluations

ABSTRACT

We investigated how students in Finland perceive short-cycle higher education programmes. In line with the European trend, Finland has piloted short-cycle study programmes in order to attract adult students into higher education. We found that the students were mainly satisfied with their studies, and that their orientations to studies and learning were extrinsic in nature. The strengths of the programme were perceived as related to the flexibility of the studies, the variety of teaching methods, and the extensive contents of the studies. The main challenges were associated with difficulties in using information and communications technology (ICT) within the studies, and issues with time management. The study sheds light on how more open higher education structures and study processes can promote participation in higher education among adult students.     

Perception of democracy in computer-mediated communication: participation,responsibility, collaboration,and reflection

We present a case study to analyze how higher education students attending a Spanish University (N = 100) democratize the virtual classroom by assuming responsibility for their learning and that of the other members of the class; participate actively in social, cognitive, and teaching issues; and collaborate by creating a learning community and reflecting individually and as a group. Our mixed methodology includes the following: (1) content analysis with a categorization system adapted from the community of inquiry approach and (2) two questionnaires on students' perception of the democratic elements in the virtual classroom. The results show that the students assume democratic principles of responsibility, critique, participation, and collaboration. We observe the role that the teachers play in facilitating democratization of the classroom through flexible design of instruction, promotion of social relationships, and orientation of the debate toward the learning objectives. This investigation shows the implementation of democratic principles in the virtual classroom.     

Investigating the experiences of foundation degree students progressing to an honours degree: an integrated approach

Progression from a foundation degree to an honours degree has become an increasingly popular pathway through higher education. The route creates dual institution scenarios in which students can progress from a further education institution to a higher education institution. This paper reports on research into the academic and social integration of progression students into a higher education institution to complete their honours degree. It highlights the ways in which progression students face many first year issues whilst completing the final stage of their higher education studies and possible ways of addressing these issues. The evidence presented here suggests an explicit need to recognise not only the academic and social issues of progression, but also how these relate to the wider physical and cultural changes experienced. It also suggests that these issues are often overlooked by research which focuses almost exclusively on variables affecting the retention and attrition of traditional first year students.     

Utopianism,transindividuation, and foreign language education in the Japanese university

Abstract

This article examines the current state of foreign language education in Japanese universities as illustrative of the troubling conditions facing the liberal arts (i.e. the transformative arts) in a globalized neoliberal milieu. The utopian ideal in education has always insinuated, at the least, a pedagogy that inspires personal agency, creative investment, challenge to power and social change. This imagining of incalculable futures, however, has been undermined by the seemingly inevitable and confluent forces of a networked world, represented most forcefully by the socioeconomic reductionism of neoliberal globalism. In the context of contemporary Japanese higher education, these forces are joined by Japan’s uniquely ambivalent relationship with the ‘outside’ world, and manifested in the rigid conceptualizations that motivate deeply problematic government and institutional initiatives for the ‘globalization’ of higher education. Within the frame of Bernard Stiegler’s work on transindividuation (psychosocial transformation), this article critiques these influential practices as fundamentally antithetical to the challenge of engaging Japanese learners of foreign languages in sustainable ‘economies of contribution’—economies which foster critical engagement and which open paths to transindividuation. The article concludes by arguing for a radical reimagining of the landscape of foreign language pedagogy in Japan and for a repositioning of learners from ‘short-circuited’ semiotic consumers to ‘long-circuited’ semiosic participants.     

Accessions: researching,designing higher education

This brief viewpoint piece depicts educational (dis)engagements apparent in researching and (re)designing higher education in and through Accessions. Accessions, a collaborative research-design project, probed at how cultures, climates and conditions of higher education may be reproducing or reshaping social inequalities and divisions. Here, questions are asked about how these might be challenged within and potentially beyond the specific locale of one university campus. This research-design project hopes to enable a critical perspective on issues of ‘participation’, ‘impact’, ‘engagement’ and ‘internationalisation’, where regulations and measures may be resisted and disrupted.     

The decision-making and changing behavioural dynamics of potential higher education students: the impacts of increasing tuition fees in England

Recent changes in the English tuition fee policies have spurred a debate on the impacts on student choices for higher education. Expectations range from a sharp decrease in participation in higher education to relatively little change in student demand. We surveyed 1549 year 12 sixth-form students from four institutions spread geographically across England. We have broadened the approach to the study of student choice by not only considering the impact of going to higher education or not, but have included in our choice scenarios the consideration of looking for cheaper higher education alternatives and of looking for higher education abroad. This brings our study from a focus on widening participation and access into the realm of the dynamics of increasing choice in a globalised world. The data suggest that financial issues are key influencers. We conclude that the English higher education system may be confronted with significant changes in student choice patterns, given the study’s finding that students show high levels of anxiety and consequently consider a much broader range of study options: within or outside higher education; in publicly funded or for-profit institutions; and in the UK or elsewhere.     

美国针对处境不利学生群体的大学预备计划及其特征

为了帮助弱势学生群体顺利升入大学,增加他们接受高等教育的机会,美国联邦政府制定了一系列专门针对这类学生群体的大学预备计划,并取得了显著的成效.其中备受关注且得到普遍认可的是TRIO计划和GEARUP计划.这两项计划虽然在具体内容上存在些许差异,但他们也具有一些共同的特征和原则,如充足的财政支持、完善的信息渠道、重视家长参与、开展早期干预活动,并借助于政府、学校、大学和社会组织的力量共同增加处境不利学生群体的高等教育入学机会.     

The evolution of student identity: A case of caveat emptor

Engaging students has been seen as the key to promoting their achievement in higher education institutions. However, there is an important stage prior to this: the development of a positive student identity which influences students’ motivation to engage. As the student body has evolved from full-time, on-campus students entering university straight from school to embrace adult, part-time and online learners who are also in employment, the transition to a student identity has become less transparent. To encourage part-time students undertaking an undergraduate degree in Social and Health Care Management to engage with each other, the course team piloted peer assessment within the programme for a year. This paper informs the debate by providing insight into the students’ approach to learning and attainment. It is argued that the culture of compliance and the technocratic approach to task completion increasingly required within the social care and learning sector is antithetical to deep learning. For students to make the transition they need to commit to a student identity in which participation in reflection and critical debate are valued. The challenge is for universities to enable this by addressing the barriers and stimulating a positive identity for non-traditional students.     

Students selling sex: marketisation,higher education and consumption

Robust academic research on the topic of students involved in the sex industry is in its infancy, yet the relationship appears consistent and permanent. This paper draws on findings from the largest study into the stripping industry in the United Kingdom to explore the relationships between students, sex work and consumption. To make sense of the relationship between students and participation in the sex industry, a deeper understanding of other social and cultural processes is needed. In this discussion we argue that the following points are relevant and interlinked: changes to the nature of sexual commerce and sexual consumption as they become part of the marketplace; changes in social attitudes and the rise of ‘respectability’ in sexual commerce; the ‘pleasure dynamic’ amongst students; and changes in the higher education structure that place students as consumers as well as financially fragile. We set out a future research agenda given that this relationship is set to grow as the individual bares the cost of higher education.     

English language learners’ participation in the discourse of a multilingual science classroom

Recent science-education reforms have targeted students’ ability to ‘talk science’, especially in science classrooms. Prior research has shown that participation in scientific discourse in class is one of the most challenging scientific-literacy tasks, and particularly complex for English language learners (ELLs) at the upper elementary level. The present study explores this issue in a fourth-grade science classroom in the United States in which students from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds were studying together. Specifically, it analyzes the case of a focal Asian-background ELL who encountered challenges in her attempts to respond to the teacher’s questions and participate in the classroom academic discourse on earth science. Our analysis indicated that this ELL was unaware of the teacher’s expectations regarding the intertextual connections and academic language required to successfully accomplish science tasks. The ELL’s unexpected responses exposed a complex set of academic and social issues – notably, gaps between the teacher’s, students’, and ELL’s own expectations about language participation – that could have contributed to her supposed behavioural problems.     

The pedagogical balancing act: teaching reflection in higher education

Despite the common use of the term reflection in higher education assessment tasks, learners are not often taught how to communicate their disciplinary knowledge through reflection. This paper argues that students can and should be taught how to reflect in deep and transformative ways. It highlights the reflexive pedagogical balancing act of attending to different levels of reflection as a way to stimulate focused, thoughtful and reasoned reflections that show evidence of new ways of thinking and doing. The paper uses data from a current project to illustrate the effects of focusing on particular levels of reflection in the pedagogical strategies used, and argues that while the goal of academic or professional reflection is generally to move students to the highest level of reflection to transform their learning/practice, unless higher education teachers attend to every level of reflection, there are specific, observable gaps in the reflections that students produce.