The Analysis of a Discussion and Seminar Group

Abstract

This article examines the case for the sandwich degree as the flagship for undergraduate business education in the UK and uses a range of available evidence to show that the history of the practical implementation of the concept is such as to undermine its credibility. The theoretical benefits of the sandwich year are not delivered in practice, especially for students. The costs to students and to the public purse appear to outweigh the alleged benefits. The article uses existing published sources to cast doubt on the wisdom of pursuing the sandwich concept but concludes that available evidence is sketchy and inconclusive and that further research is planned at Bolton Business School to identify the impact of the business studies graduate on the labour market and alternative models for the development of business and personal competences.     

Training Technical and Professional Communication Educators for Online Internship Courses

ABSTRACT

This article explores how to train educators to teach online internship courses. The article introduces an online internship course focused on workplace communication available to students across the university. Approaches to training educators to teach this course include requiring educators to immerse themselves in experiential learning situations, leveraging innovative uses of contemporary technologies for communication, and reflecting on online teaching processes.     

Ongoing inequality in a 'knowledge economy': Perceptions and actions

The concept of the 'knowledge economy' is increasingly used to underpin education policy in developed countries. In Australia, it has been applied to post-compulsory education policy, with efforts to increase retention in senior secondary education and reform of vocational education in the senior years. The article draws on two research projects with senior secondary schools. Many students (and their teachers and parents) perceived qualifications not so much as providing the knowledge considered necessary by government policy for the contemporary economy, but rather as a 'screen' used by employers to sort and select. Knowledge of opportunity structures and access to resources, while not only defined by social class, operated to create differential access to available choices in the educational market place. Despite ongoing inequality, the article argues that the hope many students expressed in relation to education can be fulfilled in practice.     

Learning information and communications technology skills and the subject context of the learning

Abstract

There is a growing body of evidence which suggests that information and ccommunications technology (ICT) can support, enhance and extend learning potential. Yet this all presupposes that students are confident and competent users of technology based on assumptions that presume they are conversant with basic applications. This article seeks to explore the tensions of teaching ICT skills in ways that enable students to perceive the benefits and potential of using computers to support their work. It also considers how much direct instruction is needed in order for sufficient competence to be acquired which will subsequently enable students to learn to use other features of the application to maximise these benefits. ICT as a cognitive tool is described and the development and design of ICT resources and lessons are also considered.     

Notes and Case Studies: ‘A Live Case Study’

Abstract

The article describes and analyses some of the problems of running a live case study for undergraduate students at a real work place. The case was concerned with decision making in a business organisation in general and with the selection of an advertising strategy for lager in particular.

A discussion about the preparations needed is followed by an analysis of the costs and benefits derived. Learning strategies are briefly outlined and some issues of joint assessment between academics and industrialists are raised The article concludes with a number of findings which, it is hoped, colleagues planning similar exercises will find useful.     

Reflections on the role of metacognition in student reading and learning at higher education level

Abstract

This article represents a literature review and interpretation pertaining to the role that metacognition is seen to play in student performance. It begins by providing evidence from research reported in the literature which indicates that not all students are able to accurately assess their capabilities, and suggests that this lack is linked to insufficiently developed metacognitive skills (MS). The concept of metacognition, as well as its role in academic learning and reading, is discussed. On the basis of evidence from research reported in the literature, which has shown that explicit teaching of metacognitive strategies can result in improved performance among students, the article concludes by suggesting practical ways in which lecturers can help their students develop key MS.     

Teaching the Self

Abstract

Teaching a business program capstone class presents a double challenge, requiring the educator to integrate different functional areas of business and evaluate student learning. This paper discusses concept maps as an active learning assessment tool in teaching a strategic management capstone course. Concept maps are used to meaningfully depict knowledge and present illustrations of relationships between concepts in a particular course. This study reviews 54 individual and 19 group concept maps collected over three semesters. The analysis affirms that concept maps are a powerful pedagogical tool that requires students to reflect on the knowledge gained during a course.     

A documentary analysis of the support services offered to adult learners with dyslexia in higher education

ABSTRACT

The National Student Survey (NSS) seeks to measure how ‘satisfied’ students are with their programmes of study and educational experience. Ongoing NSS data demonstrates that global satisfaction scores are increasing; however, when this is separated into disabled and non-disabled students, downward satisfaction trends for disabled students are apparent. Around half of these students will have dyslexia. This ‘snapshot’ documentary analysis evaluates the currently publicly available information outlining the support services that are available for students with dyslexia. The survey focuses upon a sample of higher education institutions (HEIs) in England. Findings indicate that there are notable differences in the types and consistency of support offered across the sample institutions. The most frequently used model is that of additional learning support (ALS), where support is provided outside of the usual class contact time. Mentoring provides benefits for students with dyslexia but fewer than half of the institutions surveyed offered this. Subject specialist mentoring is particularly beneficial but there is little evidence of this taking place. There is a level of support in all the institutions that appears to meet the requirements of the Equality Act (2010) but this does not necessarily indicate that dyslexic students are supported in the most effective way.     

The Effect of Taking Paid Employment During Term-time on Students' Academic Studies

The trend for students to combine work and study has been increasing rapidly over recent years. This has raised the question as to whether the students' studies will be adversely affected by their part-time employment. A survey of 359 students at Manchester Metropolitan University was carried out in March 2000. The results indicate that more students are working compared to survey results from one year earlier. There are adverse effects on study in the form of missed lectures, and students' perceptions are that coursework grades are lower than they would have been had they not been working. Nevertheless, students highlight the benefits of working, which are not only monetary but include the development of skills, greater understanding of the world of business and an increase in confidence, all of which are advantageous to their studies, both at the present time and in the future.     

Navigating the ambiguous policy landscape of student participation

ABSTRACT

Student participation at school is receiving heightened attention through international evidence connecting it to a range of benefits including student learning, engagement, citizenship and wellbeing, as well as to overall school improvement. Yet the notion of student participation remains an ambiguous concept, and one that challenges many deeply entrenched norms of traditional schooling.

Informed by understandings of ‘participation’ linked to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, this article takes the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) as a case study to explore how student participation is currently articulated in educational policy. It reports the findings of an analysis of 142 state and federal government policy-related documents, along with qualitative interview data from nine policy personnel. The findings suggest that students are conceptualised within these policies in contradictory ways, interpretations of participation are diverse yet frequently instrumentalist, and there is little conceptual coherence across the educational policy landscape in NSW in relation to ‘student participation’. The findings are discussed in light of international interest around student participation. The analytical framework used in this analysis is proposed as a possible tool for critically examining the place and purpose of student participation at school, regardless of jurisdiction.

Abbrevations: NSW = the Australian state of New South Wales; UNCRC = United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child; SRC = Student Representative Council     

The perceptual gaps in using a learning management system: Indigenous cultural perspectives

ABSTRACT

Learning management systems (LMS) have been utilised for enhancing the quality of learning and teaching in higher education, yet the cultural needs of Indigenous students are rarely considered. The study reimagines culturally inclusive learning in an LMS by critically reviewing theories of culturally inclusive learning and Indigenous pedagogical values. It explores perceptual gaps between Indigenous cultural needs and the current use of an LMS through analysis of data collected from Indigenous students and academic staff via an online questionnaire (n = 100) and face-to-face interviews (n = 20) at one Australian university. As a result, it articulates and unpacks mythical perceptions of using an LMS. Consequently, there is clear evidence that Indigenous students expect to experience more human-to-human interactions and develop a sense of community through the use of available communication tools, whereas academic staff tend to rely on a binary opposition between pedagogy and culture in which culture is regarded as a subordinate concept to pedagogy.     

The crisis in academic statistics: an exploration

Abstract

At present, statistics as an academic career is not only experiencing an identity crisis, but is also fighting for survival as a vital and vibrant career choice. Good financial benefits, as well as the increasing demand for applied statisticians, have opened up very attractive career opportunities for statistics graduates, while at the same time eroding the viability of pursuing statistics as an academic teaching profession. As a result, the number of students wishing to teach statistics at universities is dwindling, and the number of vacancies in statistics departments at higher education institutions has increased. This article explores some of the reasons for the above, as well as the impact of the crisis on academic statistics. The article considers possible solutions – like opening the discourse on the future of academic statistics, taking students’ experiences seriously, the Africanisation of the curriculum, the effective use of technologies, ongoing research, and adequate financial reward.     

American Education—A Scapegoat

ABSTRACT

An essay's motive or research problem consists of the rhetorical moves illuminating why that essay matters—what puzzling elements of a primary source it resolves, which contradictions in the data it explains, or what gaps in the literature it fills. This article invites college instructors to dedicate some of their classroom time to teaching students how to construct original, motive-driven arguments. More specifically, the article describes the conceptual triangle technique that uses a simple three-point concept map as the first step in active argument building. This technique is simple and flexible enough to be adapted across subject areas, data, and disciplines. The focus on scholarly motive in general and the use of the conceptual triangle in particular can be effective ways to help academic writers at all levels to develop original arguments that matter.     

Modernist 16‐19 Business Education in a Postmodern world ‐ critical evidence of business practice and business education in the cultural industries

Abstract

This article examines the continued relevance of the 16‐19 business education curriculum in the UK, stimulated by doubts expressed by Thomas (1996), over its continued relevance. We express a concern that business education needs, but is struggling, to respond to significant societal shifts in consumption and production strategies that do not sit easily within traditional theories of business practice currently underpinning 16‐19 business education. We examine firstly, the extent to which a formal body of knowledge couched in a modernist discourse of facts and objectivity can cope with the changing and fluid developments in much current business practice that is rooted in the cultural and symbolic. Secondly, the extent to which both academic and vocational competences provide the means for students to develop a framework of critical understanding that can respond effectively to rapidly changing business environments.

Findings are based on research conducted jointly by the University of Manchester and the Manchester Institute for Popular Culture at Manchester Metropolitan University. The growth of dynamism of the cultural industries sector ‐ largely micro‐businesses and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) ‐encapsulates forms of business knowledge, business language and business practice which may not immediately fit with the models provided within business education. Results suggest increasingly reflexive forms of consumption being met by similarly reflexive and flexible modes of production.

Our evidence suggests that whilst modernist business knowledge is often the foundation for many 16‐19 business education courses, these programmes of study/training do not usually reflect the activities of SME and micro‐business practitioners in the cultural industries. Given the importance of cultural industries in terms of the production strategies required to meet increasingly reflexive markets, it is suggested that there may be a need to incorporate a postmodern approach to the current content and pedagogy; one that is contextual, cultural and discursive.     

Executing the mentally ill: The criminal justice system and the case of Alvin Ford and the death penalty and racial bias: Overturning supreme court assumptions

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the benefits and detriments of student internships in criminal justice programs that grant a baccalaureate degree. The authors reviewed contemporary literature and studies of internships for liberal arts majors in general and for criminal justice students in particular. Subjects addressed include selection criteria for students' eligibility, orientation of students before the internship, agency selection, the standard of care expected of faculty supervising students, techniques of maintaining the standard of care, benefits to academic departments, students and agencies, and legal liabilities of internships.     

Learning How to Learn in a Technology Course: A Case Study

There is a growing interest in helping students to become better learners, and this article describes how the team designing an Open University distance-learning course set out to create a course that would explicitly attempt to help students acquire the learning characteristics of mature and capable practitioners in the field. The article discusses how the course team went about this task in ways that turned out to be consistent with both experiential and constructivist perspectives of learning. It explains how the learning-to-learn goals of the course were explicitly articulated to students and how the course structure and the assessment policy sought to 'impel' students to acquire and deploy learning skills that would stand them in good stead after graduation. The article ends by reviewing the evidence, available from students' marked assignments and from surveys, of how well students actually did 'learn how to learn'.     

Those Who Say ‘No’ to YTS: Findings from the National Youth Cohort Study

Abstract

This paper discusses the benefits of industrial links to both the business community and initial teacher education and looks at how the industrialist's role has been perceived by writers. A fresh analysis based upon this evidence is set out, the determinants of this role are examined and a model for institutional development is suggested.     

Understanding voices from the margins: social injustice and agency in first-year students’ literacy narratives

Abstract

This article analyses literacy narratives of first-year students at a South African university. It uses excerpts from the literacy narratives to explain how this writing genre serves as an outlet for reconstructing experiences of social injustice and agency. The article discusses how students’ experiences of social injustice and their sense of agency intersect to influence their literacy development from primary school to university. The article contends that, although literacy narratives give lecturers access to students’ pre-university learning experiences and their discomforts with university literacy expectations, they also capture aspects of societal injustices and their responses to these injustices.     

Promoting entrepreneurship among informatics engineering students: insights from a case study

ABSTRACT

Universities seek to promote entrepreneurship through effective education approaches, which need to be in permanent evolution. Nevertheless, the literature in entrepreneurship education lacks empirical evidence. This article discusses relevant issues related to promoting entrepreneurship in the software field, based on the experience of a 15-European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System course. This course seeks to instil in the students the recognition of the need to reconcile technical and business visions, organisational and commercial aspects, most of which have never been addressed previously. A series of semi-structured interviews made it possible to obtain relevant insights about the teaching–learning process underlying this course and its evolution over a seven-year period. Materials related with this course have been analysed, namely guidelines produced by the teachers and deliverables produced by the students. This article discusses the dimensions that were identified as fundamental for promoting entrepreneurship skills in the field of software, namely teamwork, project engagement, and contact with the market.