A holistic approach to international students, institutional habitus and academic literacies in an Irish third level institution

This qualitative study examines the interplay between academic staff and international students with regard to developing academic literacies at university. Higher education has traditionally responded to increasing student diversity with the expectation that students will conform to institutional norms or habitus. In this context international students arrive with cultural capital which may not fit such norms, and would benefit from developing their academic literacy, as indeed would home students given an increasingly diverse student body in Irish higher education. Findings reveal a gap between academics expectations and international students’ capabilities. Academic staff remained within the remit of the research in contrast to the 22 international students who were interviewed. They did not separate the totality of their campus experience from academic literacy practices. These ranged from uncertainty around writing in another language to a mismatch between diversity management in class and students’ own expectations. International students found difficulty to making friends on campus which could benefit their integration into the academic literacy practices of their respective disciplines. Findings point towards a whole institution response to student diversity which transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.     

Factors associated with student plagiarism in a post‐1992 university

A model intended to explain the incidence of plagiarism among undergraduates in the Business Studies department of a post‐1992 university was constructed and tested on a sample of 249 students completing Business Studies units at a post‐1992 university in Greater London. It was hypothesised that the occurrence of plagiarism could be predicted via three attitudinal considerations (individual perceptions of the ethicality of the practice, fear of penalties if caught and fear of failing a degree); two personal traits (goal orientation and academic integration), and three situational factors (financial, current grades achieved, and how strictly lecturing staff enforced anti‐plagiarism rules). Proposals concerning possible inter‐relations and interactions among these variables were also formulated and assessed.     

Understanding the real barriers to technology-enhanced innovation in higher education

Background: Academic staff have a key role to play in the innovation efforts of universities aiming to exploit the potential of web-based learning technologies. Although learning technologies are an important building block of educational innovation, the eLearning adoption rate of European academic staff appears disappointing. The majority of curricula in European universities are stalled in the traditional pedagogical model of knowledge transmission, which continues to dominate teaching and learning.

Purpose: This conceptual paper explores underlying structural and cultural barriers to technology-enhanced innovation in higher education.

Sources of evidence: Starting from the underdeveloped state of eLearning in European universities, the paper challenges arguments that visible barriers such as technical issues, budget constraints or lack of interest in technology amongst academic staff represent the actual reasons for the slow advancement of learning technologies in university curricula.

Main argument: The paper argues that the lack of faculty interest and engagement for eLearning are visible symptoms for deeply rooted causes, which hinder current innovation efforts of universities. It explores theoretical viewpoints for structural peculiarities of universities, motivational and habitual traits of academic staff, and long-standing cultural values in the academic community in an attempt to understand their impact on technology-enhanced innovation in higher education.

Conclusions: The real dilemma for eLearning innovation is caused by macro-level influence factors that even committed universities can hardly overcome at institutional level. University leaders have to take the underlying innovation barriers into account when they try to engage academic staff for the use of learning technologies. With a realistic view on existing limitations, institutional eLearning adoption efforts have to be tailored to serve real learning needs and motivations of academic staff; and they have to consider specific goals and contexts within different universities.     

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 University Essay Writing Experience: A pathway for academic integration during transition

The purpose of this paper is to explore ways in which students' experiences during the writing process can contribute to their academic integration. Students ( n = 46) were surveyed on their experiences before, during and after completion of their first major writing assignment. They were also interviewed in focus groups. Data indicate that students perceived several factors that may potentially inhibit their academic integration—some within the broader university context and others pertaining to completion of the written assignment. Findings suggest that interactions with staff and peers during the assignment writing process can provide significant opportunities for integration, provided these interactions are supportive. The study has implications for those who plan, support and deliver first year university courses, particularly those courses involving academic writing assignments.     

Differing perspectives of non-native speaker students’ linguistic experiences on higher degree courses

We report a small-scale study investigating the perceptions of postgraduate students who are non-native speakers of English and those of academic staff with regard to those students. Previous research has focused only on the former and identified a number of linguistic and cultural challenges these students face in adapting to Anglophone institution environments. A sample of 43 students in one department at a Russell Group university were surveyed and a sub-sample interviewed. Six members of academic staff were interviewed and some observed in their teaching. Findings suggest that, despite the high linguistic admission requirements set by the university, this group of students faced a range of difficulties in all four language skills but particularly in skills needed for oral interaction in seminars. Students and staff provided differing accounts of the source of these difficulties and students expressed a desire for better integration with native speaker students. There were also differing accounts regarding the amount of linguistic support students should receive, particularly with regard to proofreading written work. The study suggests a need for further research of this comparative kind potentially leading to recommendations for additional support for students and staff development.     

论合并高校校园精神文化的再造

2003年后,我国高校进入后合并时期。后合并时期高校校园文化难免存在排异和冲突。作为校园文化的最高层面和主体部分———校园精神文化的冲突是造成高校不能实质性融合的主要症结所在。校园精神文化和谐形象整合应坚持"以人为本"的原则;综合考虑制约合并高校精神文化整合的社会文化和民族文化及地区文化、合并高校的传统和性质、员工的素质、决策者的追求等主要因素;在价值观上,坚持为教师创造机会、为学生创造价值的价值主张,在理念上,要以创新为导向,把创新作为大学发展的出发点和归宿,管理制度上,要建立一整套新的规章制度。     

The Students' Role in French Academic Deliberative Democracy

Since 1968, according to the French higher education law, elected students must participate in the different academic boards in every university. As trustees, they must formulate opinions about the institutional policy. Moreover, they must deliberate on equal terms with teachers. According to a common discourse, this democratic activity is still considered as a nonsense because of some students’ structural weaknesses: very low turnout at the elections of their representatives, very high absenteeism rate of these miselected representatives and incapacity to formulate responsible and pragmatic proposals. This students’ uselessness in the academic participatory governance process would come from a post‐modernist air du temps: youth apathy, individualism, democratic societies’ crisis . . . In accordance with the scientific questioning about the contemporary processes of political communication, I propose an alternative set of explanations focused on the spirit and practices which rule French academic boards. I assume that the development and improvement of student participation are also limited by endogenous factors that are closely linked with the functioning of the academic boards. I propose an ethnographic analysis of a French university board. I compare the elected students’ absenteeism to the others members’ (teachers, staff members and guests) attendance rates. Then I study the cultural patterns which structure the interactions. Discursive freedom would be the sine qua non condition of academic autonomy and the structural explanation of weak student participation by teachers.     

大学功能的内在逻辑探究

大学功能的发展绝非由单一功能走向多元功能的线性过程,而是有其内在逻辑可资遵循。在大学视域中,教学、学术研究、传承文化与服务社会等概念蕴含着丰富的内容,存在着较大的解释和理解空间。如果不在一个逻辑框架下进行解读就会造成对这些概念理解上的歧义、偏差与泛化,最终误读了"大学"。学术性教学与学术研究是大学之"体",传承文化与服务社会是大学之"用",体用不二、有机融合,是大学功能延伸的内在逻辑。大学应专注于提高学术性教学与学术研究的品质,通过学术性教学与学术研究培养具有高深学问、品德高尚和批判精神的专业人才,同时实现文化的传承与创新、选择与批判,以服务社会的发展。     

Research cultures in English and Scottish university education departments: An exploratory study of academic staff perceptions

The paper reports the findings of a small‐scale qualitative investigation into academic staff perceptions of research cultures across 10 English and Scottish university education departments. The study sheds light on four interrelated issues: the nature of research cultures, perceived facilitators, perceived constraints and the emotional landscape of working within a research environment. The findings indicate that perceptions vary according to staff academic and scientific capital, largely determined by career background and the type of university institution in which they work. While there is evidence of a culture of performativity and intensification, there is also evidence of widespread commitment to (and enjoyment of) educational research, especially where its value is broadly conceived to include outputs of applied research (including action research) as well as basic and strategic research. It is concluded that a broader policy conception of what constitutes value in research, coupled with a deeper understanding of the complex social and emotional factors that impact on academic well‐being, will be important to building both commitment and long‐term research capacity.     

Performance Appraisal System Impact on University Academic Staff Job Satisfaction and Productivity

The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) introduced a performance appraisal system (PAS) designed to improve performance indicators across the board in Public Service including academic/faculty staff at the University of Zimbabwe as part of a nation wide strategy. The Public service is a body responsible for all civil workers including academic staff, whose responsibility is to lecture to students, provide university to the community and conduct research activities. The objective of the study was to evaluate the impact of five years of PAS on productivity and job satisfaction of academic staff. A random sample of academic staff was studied using questionnaires and interviews. Job satisfaction and some indices of productivity decreased by half following introduction of PAS. A possible contributory factor for the decline in job satisfaction was that PAS was introduced without adequate preparation and when the socio‐cultural environment was not conducive to its implementation. This study underpins the importance of community ownership of interventions targeted at performance management improvement prior to their implementation.     

Outsourcing academic development in higher education: staff perceptions of an international program

Increasingly, higher education support services are being outsourced. Our case study was of a program from a global, USA-based, non-profit organisation. From in-depth interviews, we investigated staff perceptions of academic development workshops and the efficacy of outsourcing to a transnational tertiary-support program. We found that interviewees valued the academic development. They believed greater consideration should be given to cultural differences between exporting and importing countries; to evidence-based assessment of, and institutional leadership support for, the program; and to discipline-based and tertiary-level skills. Our preliminary findings may inform university management about improved approaches to outsourcing academic development to international commercial providers.     

Protecting academic freedom in changing times: the role of Heads of Departments

In changing times for higher education that are dominated by a neoliberal ideology, we set out to uncover how Heads of Departments (HoDs) perceive their role with respect to supporting their staff and their academic freedom. Freedom to pursue academic research is seen as key to the generation of new knowledge yet it is potentially constrained by funding regimes and university accountability systems. As HoDs operate at the interface between university systems and individual academic projects, how they perceive their role can have a profound influence on the working environment of their departmental staff. The research study is located in two successful departments in a research intensive university in England. The study shows that the HoDs were not captured by the neoliberal discourse and aimed to protect their staff so they could ‘get on with their work’. In so doing they interpreted university demands to the best advantage of their departments but were not active in challenging university driven changes, thus raising questions about the effects of accommodating to change, so risking incremental change, and of how less successful departments might be able to protect their staff and their academic freedom.     

Cultural diversity and the imagined community of the global academy

Transnational academic mobility and the ongoing push towards “internationalization” together raise challenges for the cultural climate of today's universities. This paper explores these issues from the perspective of supervisors of research degrees in an Australian university in which “internationalization” and “academic mobility” apply to supervisors as much as to students. The concepts of the imagined community and cosmopolitanism are employed to interpret a series of one-on-one and group interviews conducted with international academic staff, conversations which reported surprisingly untroubled negotiation of cultural difference. Using the insights provided by the concepts of “imagined community” and “cosmopolitanism”, we investigate the mechanisms mobilized by these supervisors in apparently backgrounding cultural diversity in the workplace, and consider the implications of the academic subjectivities they perform.     

International engineering students—avoiding plagiarism through understanding the Western academic context of scholarship

Despite the best attempts of academic staff to teach students the mechanics of citation, the rules of referencing continue to be broken, particularly by those new to Western university systems (either first-year undergraduate students or international students from different cultural backgrounds). In late 2003, 16 postgraduate international engineering students failed an assignment as a result of plagiarism. In response, collaboration between the lecturers and the learning support staff over three years yielded significant improvements in academic scholarship. The improvement in performance was achieved by making cross-cultural assumptions about academic scholarship in the Western context explicit, while putting in place additional workshops for students. Instead of focusing on policy, remediation and punishment, staff worked to foster an understanding of critical scholarship in the Western academic context. The approach also demonstrated the benefits of partnership between engineering faculty and learning support staff.     

The effect of change and transformation on academic staff and job satisfaction: A case of a South African University

No institution of higher education in the world can make valid claims that it is immune to the effects of change and transformation. An array of trends such as the massification of higher education, widened access, response to new demands of technology, globalisation, internationalisation, increased accountability, the use of new modes of delivery and materials, as well as dwindling higher education resources, are placing enormous pressure on staff (Green and Hayward, Transforming Higher Education. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1997). Not only are traditional academic roles changing, but – in certain instances – working conditions have become unfavourable and unsupportive of staff’s efforts to pursue the mission of higher education. The article presents the outcome of a case study that was undertaken in a historically White Afrikaans university to investigate the implications of change and transformation on academic staff. Although the case study was conducted within a localised boundary of space and time of one institution, the authors are of the opinion that enough evidence exists that, given the dominating ruling culture of the apartheid’s regime, to which no university in South Africa was immune, it is most likely that other institutions will relate with the findings of the research. The study was emancipatory in that it sought to inform the university management about how transformation was affecting academics and their job satisfaction and to establish which strategies the University had in place or hoped to put in place to make the environment favourable for change. Academics were also involved in making recommendations on how the areas of dissatisfaction could best be addressed.     

Exploring barriers and solutions to academic writing: Perspectives from students,higher education and further education tutors

Staff and student perceptions of what constitutes good academic writing in both further and higher education often differ. This is reflected in written assignments which frequently fall below the expected standard. In seeking to develop the writing skills of students and propose potential solutions to writing difficulties, a study was conducted in a university and a nearby further education college in the north west of England to explore barriers and solutions to AW difficulties. This paper reports the findings generated using unmoderated focus groups with second-year university health studies students (n=70) and moderated focus groups with further education college teachers (n=3) and health studies lecturers in a university (n=6).

Findings indicated that staff and students’ perceptions of what constitutes AW differed. The barriers to academic writing that were identified included lack of time and confidence; lack of extended writing at FE level; lack of reading and understanding of academic texts or journals; referencing; and academic jargon.     

Implementing transfer and articulation: A case study of community colleges and state universities

This study examined the cultural aspects of a transfer articulation policy between public community colleges and state universities enacted by a newly consolidated state governing board for higher education in a northeastern state. A qualitative multisite case study design explored how key stakeholders, faculty, administrators and staff viewed the transfer policy from their unique perspectives. Tierney’s (2008) cultural analysis of governance was used to examine the effectiveness of communication and decision-making on the part of the board. The study also applied Handel’s (2011) theory of a transfer affirming culture along with Jain, Herrera, Bernal, and Solorzano’s (2011) research on the requisite services for pretransfer and posttransfer success of nontraditional students. The use of several theoretical frameworks provides “a more powerful lens than when using only one in helping to interpret and understand culture” (Kezar &; Eckel, 2002, p. 440). The study was guided by the following question: How do community college and state university faculty, administrators and staff perceive the Transfer Mobility Policy in relation to their campus cultures? The findings identified difficulties with community college curricula and student transfer advising as well as a cultural gap between the community colleges and the state university. They underscored the politics that surrounds higher education governance reform and resultant clash between political and academic cultures. This study may help policy makers promote statewide transfer and articulation initiatives and be instructive for faculty, administrators, and staff as they seek to improve the success of students who transfer from community colleges to four-year colleges and universities.     

The history of UTAUT model and its impact on ICT acceptance and usage by academicians

This paper started with the review of the history of technology acceptance model from TRA to UTAUT. The expected contribution is to bring to lime light the current development stage of the technology acceptance model. Based on this, the paper examined the impact of UTAUT model on ICT acceptance and usage in HEIs. The UTAUT model theory was verified using regressions analysis to understand the behavioral intention of the ADSU academic staffs’ acceptance and use of ICT in their workplace. The research objective is to measure the most influential factors for the acceptance and usage of ICT by ADSU academic staff and to identify the barriers. Two null hypotheses were stated: (1) the academic staff of ADSU rejects acceptance and usage of ICT in their workplace. (2) UTAUT does not predict the successful acceptance of ICT by the academic staff of the Adamawa State University. In summary, our findings shows that the four constructs of UTAUT have significant positive influence and impact on the behavioral intention to accept and use ICT by the ADSU academic staff. This shows that university academic staff will intend to use ICT that they believe will improve their job performance and are easy to use. The facilitating conditions such as appropriate hardware, software, training and support should be in place by the management. In the Adamawa State University, EE and SI are found to be the most influential predictors of academic staff acceptance of ICT and use among the four constructs of UTAUT. The greatest barriers are time and technical support for staff. Knowledge gained from the study is beneficial to both the university academic staff and the Nigerian ICT policy makers.     

论大学组织的分化与整合

由于规模的扩大和学科的分化,大学组织已成为高度异质化的组织。在大学组织的整合过程中,科层、文化和市场三种机制都发挥一定的作用。但是,大学是学术机构,等级权威和规章制度等科层机制的手段不能构成大学组织整合的主要基础;市场机制的外部刺激对大学组织成员也只有有限的作用;在大学组织整合中发挥主要作用的是文化机制,即组织共同的价值、信念和目标。大学是个松散耦合系统,认识大学组织的这种特征,对于改进大学组织的管理具有重要意义。