The development and validation of the student engagement scale in an Ethiopian university context

This paper is positioned to make a sound contribution to knowledge of higher education (HE) quality through its study of student engagement in a large university in Ethiopia. We establish that the assessment of student engagement is a valid facet in determining HE quality, contributing holistically alongside quality assurance and university rankings. The authors present an example of this through reporting on a statistical analysis of an adjustment of the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement survey and its administration in the Ethiopian university. The results of factor analysis illustrate empirical support for the nine-factor engagement scale and a number of associated factors related to student demographics and university experience. The results of the multi-validation approach provide specific guidelines to universities using this approach to evaluate the validity and reliability of this construct. The paper provides a supporting tool that can be used by other universities to assist in the evaluation of students’ engagement with their undergraduate programmes.     

Academic perceptions of higher education assessment processes in neoliberal academia

Neoliberal higher education reforms in relation to quality assurance, managerialist practices, accountability and performativity are receiving increasing attention and criticism. In this article, I will address student assessment as part of the technologies that increasingly govern academics and their work in universities. I will draw on Foucault’s theories of governmentality and subjectification, and discourse analysis that have framed the research conducted with 16 academics in one university in the UK. While academics in the study expressed frustration with neoliberal reforms in general, and assessment policies in particular, they tended not to demonstrate overt resistance within their university systems. The reasons for this will be questioned and analysed in relation to a neoliberal mode of government where power relations shaping academic subjectivities are diffuse and pervasive. I will discuss the ways in which academics understand and act within these power relations, and I will also demonstrate a variety of covert practices that academics tend to apply when coping with the neoliberal technologies of government such as assessment.     

Interpretations of formative assessment in the teaching of English at two Chinese universities: a sociocultural perspective

Formative assessment is increasingly being implemented through policy initiatives in Chinese educational contexts. As an approach to assessment, formative assessment derives many of its key principles from Western contexts, notably through the work of scholars in the UK, the USA and Australia. The question for this paper is the ways that formative assessment has been interpreted in the teaching of College English in Chinese Higher Education. The paper reports on a research study that utilised a sociocultural perspective on learning and assessment to analyse how two Chinese universities – an urban-based Key University and a regional-based Non-Key University – interpreted and enacted a China Ministry of Education policy on formative assessment in College English teaching. Of particular interest for the research were the ways in which the sociocultural conditions of the Chinese context mediated understanding of Western principles and led to their adaptation. The findings from the two universities identified some consistency in localised interpretations of formative assessment which included emphases on process and student participation. The differences related to the specific sociocultural conditions contextualising each university including geographical location, socioeconomic status, and teacher and student roles, expectations and beliefs about English. The findings illustrate the sociocultural tensions in interpreting, adapting and enacting formative assessment in Chinese College English classes and the consequent challenges to and questions about retaining the spirit of formative assessment as it was originally conceptualised.     

How universities can enhance student mental wellbeing: the student perspective

ABSTRACT

The growing prevalence and severity of mental health difficulties across university student populations is a critical issue for universities and their wider communities. Yet little is known about student perspectives on the stressors in university environments and the steps that universities could take to better support student mental wellbeing. This article reports on a study that collected and analyzed 2776 student responses to the question: What can be done to improve student wellbeing? Students made diverse recommendations that fell into seven categories: Academic teachers and teaching practices; student services and support; environment, culture and communication; course design; program administration; assessment; and student society activities. The findings from our study offer important insight to university educators and administrators about the role they can play in better supporting student wellbeing and preventing the high rates of psychological distress. We argue that the process of seeking and acting on students’ suggestions fosters students’ sense of inclusion and empowerment, and this is critical given that the goal of improving student mental wellbeing can only be achieved through an effective partnership between students and institutional actors.     

Communicative Action for Reforming University Education: Comments from a Sri Lankan Case Study

There is an urgent need for a new wave of learning that will transform university education through communicative action. Open discourse, by concentrating on values, feelings, fears, and hopes, enables a trusting basis for critical and problem-and-solution discussions. Dominated by an instrumental type of rationality, the existing dominant paradigm of university education is becoming progressively coercive and destructive of student and collegial life-worlds. Communicative action, through open discourse between universities, governments, and business, could lead to increasing transnational openness. Can developed countries play a role in this process without dominating and destroying university life-worlds in developing countries?     

The Court Is Now in Session: Professor Discourse on Student Attrition

This article presents the results of a discourse analysis of semi-structured interviews with professors from nine Russian universities. This analysis focuses on narratives of student attrition and its causes and reveals the generally accusatory nature of the professor discourse. All the narratives can be integrated and described in terms of the metaphor of the trial. In its most obvious form, the accusation that students are to blame for attrition is developed as a type of discourse that can be called prosecutorial, but it can also be developed in speeches resembling those made by defense attorneys and judges. These three types of discourse build figurative barriers between the university and professors, on the one hand, and students, on the other hand. These barriers encourage professors to feel uninvolved in student attrition. Not one of the three discourse types articulates the university's mission or problematizes the principles and goals of its activities. We suggest that the “bad student” discourse reflects some real problems associated with the massification of education and inevitable changes to the student body. An analysis of the professor discourse allows us to hypothesize that their response to these changes is limited to stating the problems and disassociating themselves from them. The construction of figurative barriers may result in professors' self-distancing not only from students, but also from the changes affecting the education system. Such self-distancing complicates the process of adapting to these changes and makes it difficult to control.     

To assess or not to assess holistic competencies – Student perspectives in Hong Kong

Despite the importance of holistic competencies, universities have not yet been able to successfully embrace holistic competencies (HC) as part of students’ assessment in their curricula. HC are often part of a hidden curriculum – they tend to be assessed together with academic knowledge, and not assessed explicitly. Based in Hong Kong, this research developed a questionnaire to study university students' perceptions of the formal assessment of HC and how students’ perceptions could be bound to the sociocultural context. Through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), two dimensions of perceptions were derived from the responses of 300 respondents: (a) students’ acceptance of formal HC assessment, and (b) their preference for quantitative scoring in the formal assessment of holistic competencies. Findings reveal that students’ perceptions of formal HC assessment were generally considered positive. However, the majority of students appeared to favour pass/fail grading compared to quantitative assessment. As assessment drives learning, this study reinforces the need for universities to incorporate students’ perspectives in policies regarding HC assessment and highlights the role of culture in influencing student perceptions.     

生源减缩背景下高考学生专业志愿选报研究——基于两所高校的调查

通过对一所重点大学和一所地方普通本科高校部分学生选报高考志愿情况的调查发现：高校要顺利渡过生源减缩时代,需要进一步认识高考志愿填报信息供给对于生源竞争的积极作用;由于就业前景是考生选择专业时最为关注的因素,如何依据就业市场需求提高人才培养质量,则应成为渡过生源减缩时代的根本法宝;报考重点院校和地方普通本科高校的学生关注重点存在差异,两类高校在专业结构调整和人才培养模式改革方面应有不同策略,方可更好地应对日益严峻的生源竞争。     

A good student subject: a Foucauldian discourse analysis of an adolescent writer negotiating subject positions

In this article, we draw on the work of Michel Foucault to analyze one student’s subject development in an expository writing classroom. James, the participant, was embarking on the project of becoming a good student, as he understood it, after struggling and leaving school previously. Drawing on interviews, classroom observations and written artifacts, we use Foucauldian concepts and discourse analysis, along with one James Gee’s discourse analysis tools – the identities building tool – to conduct a microanalysis of James’s efforts to objectify himself as a good student subject. The data show how James acquiesced to the truths and practices of the regime of school, including how he mobilized truths of the regime through a process we call masked confession. That is, he negotiated his good student subject position by masking or silencing other subject positions. James’s masked confession was his way of negotiating the realm of ‘multiple truths,’ or multiple subject positions.     

A present absence: undergraduate course outlines and the development of student creativity across disciplines

While recent scholarship has suggested that colleges and universities have an obligation to help cultivate students’ creativity, existing evidence suggests that this priority is infrequently and imperfectly realized in practice. In order to further examine the potential prevalence of this gap, the present study conducted a qualitative analysis of all publicly available undergraduate course outlines from one Canadian university for the 2013–2014 academic year. Using a modified version of an existing analytical tool, we scrutinized syllabi from across academic disciplines for explicit and implicit references to student creativity, understanding these texts as significant locations at which meanings about teaching and learning are enacted. Based on this analysis, we argue that creativity occupies a relatively circumscribed position in many ways – particularly in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics disciplines, but may nonetheless be fostered through the deployment of relevant activities. Implications for the development of student creativity are considered.     

Expanding higher education: institutional responses in Australia from the post-war era to the 1970s

The history of universities in the twentieth century is, at least from the perspective of growth, a massive success. Australian higher education is no exception. Prior to the Second World War, Australia had six universities and approximately 10,500 students. Now there are in excess of one million students attending 39 institutions. In each phase of student expansion, governments have sought to make universities accessible to new segments of the community, a pattern that informs contemporary social inclusion initiatives. This paper focuses on two successive periods – the 1940s/1950s and the 1960s/1970s – during which university participation expanded. Comparing two universities which were at that time very different from one another – the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales – I consider the ways both universities approached admissions to understand what each institution hoped to achieve in attracting students beyond the traditional elite. This helps move beyond government strategy and rhetoric to consider what universities believed was at stake as they enabled new students to enter their communities.     

Student Participation in Higher Education Institutions in Turkey

After the 2001 meeting of the European Ministers of Education held in Prague, higher education institutions in Turkey took serious actions in order to implement the goals of the Bologna Declaration (1999). Arrangements made for the democratization of universities and student participation in the decision‐making process formed one of the predominant actions. The formal point of these arrangements – aimed at student involvement in the university governance process via Student Councils and their representatives, was prescribed by law and forced universities to comply with the process. The present research provides information about the legal arrangements in higher education institutions concerning student involvement in the university decision‐making process and the obstacles met within the course of application. In addition, it presents the findings of an empirical study related to student representation and involvement in governance through the agency of the Student Councils.     

Teaching social work students against the grain: negotiating the constraints and possibilities

Students who have followed routes to Western universities other than the ‘traditional’ one – that is, an uninterrupted path from school to university – face greater challenges to their democratic participation in higher education than their ‘traditional’ counterparts. Until recently, universities have predominantly expected students with diverse entry points to assimilate into existing curricula and academic modes of operating. Such expectation, when combined with reductionist managerial accountability, has largely marginalised non-traditional students. This paper reports on a project which aimed to reverse this marginalisation in an Australian Bachelor of Social Work degree. It is argued that students from diverse linguistic, cultural and educational backgrounds, having greater challenges in negotiating privileged academic and discipline literacies, are better served pedagogically by curriculum design that resonates with their lifeworlds and makes tacit assumptions in university literacies explicit. Using practitioner action research in a partnership between a social work and an academic language and learning academic, pedagogies that utilised students’ literacy practices as assets for learning were enacted over two research cycles. The possibilities and constraints that emerged to support student learning and more equitable participation were examined. The findings suggest that it is possible, even under current preoccupations with measurements and budget constraints, to signal key points of negotiation for pedagogic change to respond more inclusively and equitably to contemporary university students.     

Navigating the discursive tensions of the public university: the case of a South African student

As public universities seek to be locally responsive and compete internationally, tensions arise between expansion and equity, and between discourses of neoliberalism and social justice. This article focuses on how students navigate these tensions, and the implications for how they can act, interact and be. Norman Fairclough’s three-level view of the social and language, and his method of critical discourse analysis are used to analyse longitudinal interviews with an undergraduate science student. This student is, on account of his home and schooling, considered ‘historically marginalised’ at an historically-white, English-medium South African university. The results show how the student navigates multiple positionings that draw on notions of class, language, independence, progress, choice, care, and so on. It is argued that while universities should support students to navigate some of these tensions, there is a need to re-imagine structuring discourses related to the ‘normal’, ‘independent’ university student.     

Formative assessment: missing in action in both research-intensive and teaching focused universities?

In this study, we analysed survey data from 386 third year undergraduate students on 14 programmes within three UK universities. The universities are characterised as teaching-focused or research-intensive: a ‘plate-glass’ and ‘red-brick’ research-intensive; and a ‘new’ teaching-intensive university. We used the Assessment Experience Questionnaire Version 4.0 (AEQ 4.0), designed to understand students’ perceptions of programme assessment environments. The AEQ contains scales constructed from theories about assessment, feedback and deep learning. We performed exploratory factor analysis on AEQ 4.0 and identified five salient domains: how students learn; quality of feedback; internalisation of standards; student effort; and formative assessment. These domains were compared across the three universities. Formative assessment was the weakest domain in all three university assessment environments, followed closely by students’ internalising standards. Students at the new teaching-focused university had significantly higher scores on scales about deep learning, student effort and the quality of feedback than students in the two research-intensives. Findings show that theories about the virtue of formative assessment have yet to play out in practice; and that the teaching-focused university seemed to be encouraging deeper approaches to learning through its feedback and assessment tasks.     

高校学生管理法治化思考

依法行政、依法治校,实现教育法治化,是高校学生管理的必然趋势.高校在学生管理中必须以尊重和保护学生的权益为核心,依法建章,保证各项校规校纪的科学性和合法性.建立合法的处罚程序,完善救济制度.进一步培养和增强管理人员的法律意识,提高依法管理水平,实现学生管理的法治化.     

高等学校学生处分正当性论纲

高等学校学生处分由于涉及到学生受教育权的剥夺与限制、涉及到学生名誉的损害,对其正当性的置疑已经成为当前社会关注的焦点和学界讨论的热点。在正确认识高等学校学生处分的概念与特征的基础上,以目的、实体与程序三个维度为视角,合理剖析高等学校学生处分的正当性,对高等学校学生处分运行机制的合理建构有着重要的意义。目的正当是高等学校学生处分正当性之前提,实体正当是高等学校学生处分正当性之基础,程序正当是高等学校学生处分正当性之保障。而三者的有机统一构成高等学校学生处分正当性的根源。     

Student participation in whole-class discourse: individual conditions and consequences for student learning in primary and secondary school

Students’ participation in whole-class discourse is an important feature of classroom learning. Within socio-cultural research, two explanations for this connection can be emphasised: students’ engagement and teacher-student verbal interaction. We suggest a video-based coding scheme that can be specifically connected with each theoretical strand by distinguishing between student-guided and teacher-guided participation. The aim is to explore the conditions (student characteristics) and consequences (student learning) of both types of classroom participation. The results of two video studies with standardised pre- and post-assessments – one in secondary school mathematics (932 students, 40 classes) and one in primary school science (681 students, 35 classes) – emphasise both the relevance of students’ prior knowledge for participation in whole-class discourse and the role of student-guided participation in learning.