The recontextualisation of ‘quality’ in Australian higher education

In the education policy arena, the notion of ‘quality'as a mechanism for increasing accountability to stakeholders has risen to prominence in the 1990s, as part of the micro‐economic reform agenda of many national governments. This study analyses the way in which policy makers in Australian higher education have recontextualised the notions of quality adopted in other countries to reconstruct a uniquely Australian version. Further, the study analyses how this recontextualisation continues from the ministerial level, through the Higher Education Council (HEC), and then the Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (CQAHE), to the site of intended policy effect ‐‐ individual universities. A theoretical framework, in part offered by Stephen Ball's policy trajectory studies, is employed to examine the negotiation, resistance and even transformation of the original ministerial quality policy of 1991. A central contention is that the operation of the subsequent 3‐year cycle of quality reviews between 1993 and 1995 provides an example par excellence of a government strategy of ‘steering at a distance’.     

The modelling of ‘dissonant’ study orchestration in higher education

Attention is drawn in the present study to atypical patterns of contextualised learning engagement that are often difficult to interpret because, at face value, they exhibit varying degrees of conceptual dissonance. Against a summary of the practical and methodological problems associated with researching the phenomenon of ‘dissonance’, a review is presented of how it may manifest itself in differing contexts, and with what implied or observed associated effects. The empirical question of how ‘dissonance’ may be interpreted and modelled is addressed and it is argued that, in general, the phenomenon can be naturally accommodated within an interference observed model of student learning by virtue of violations of defined ‘conceptual boundaries’ within the model at an individual, or subgroup, response level. An example of an observed interference model of student learning in the form of a common factor model is introduced and is then further used to illustrate how such conceptual violations may occur in practice.     

The changing status of higher education in the ‘moronic inferno’

Getting a good and relevant education is difficult enough to achieve within a context where social and economic needs are constantly unsettled by political policy. The public funding of the education sector has become a contested arena irrespective of a government’s ideology. Recent graduates from various disciplines from Town Planning to Philosophy report in university destination surveys that they have only found employment in areas unrelated to their academic training – for instance, in supermarkets, restaurants and other low-level service industries. How has it happened that the universalisation of mass higher education has contributed to a disconnect between the individual’s social aspirations and their economic status? What happened to the tacit promise that an extended period of intellectual development would prepare the individual for a life of valuable social contribution and financial security? Part of the answer lies in the success of higher education itself. Its popularity has changed its transformative capacity and allowed operational efficiencies to overrule academic quality. The university, ideally seen as a repository of intellectual intuition, has been remade into yet another modern corporation concerned with the bottom line and financial security. Why has it been necessary to remake the university in the image of the department store, supermarket or bank, and how has it been achieved without more critique?     

The effectiveness of early identification of ‘at risk’ students in higher education institutions

The application of formative assessment principles in higher education has become increasingly important in South Africa. In this case study the researcher assesses the effectiveness of the application of an early warning system to the higher-education environment in a high failure rate subject. This method is applied according to recommended feedback guidelines for formative assessment and self-regulated learning. Over the period of three years the collected data indicates that the subject affected the outcomes of the students significantly. Students who were at the highest risk of failure benefited the most from the application of an early warning system and corresponding tutorial classes to the subject, which is in line with other formative assessment findings. The students participating in the ‘at risk’ list achieved a summative grade on average 8% higher than the class average grade without the implementation of the early warning system and accompanying tutorial classes.     

Differently Academic? Constructions of ‘academic’ in higher education

This article draws on my research, in which I have interviewed a group of students over the course of their degrees. The women are all taking women's studies combined with a range of other subjects in a ‘new’ university with campuses in inner London and on its outskirts. This article considers the women's perceptions of both women's studies and their second subjects as "academic", as well as how they think both the university and the wider world value the academic nature of their various subjects. It asks whether subjects are only valued as "academic" if they focus on the writings of men, and are considered "objective", abstract and theoretical. Do students need to be seen to be "thinking like a man" in order to value their subjects and have them valued by others, or are there ways to be "differently academic"? It concludes by suggesting some alternative ways for institutions of higher education to consider the meaning of "academic" in higher education.     

The ‘art’ of creative teaching: implications for higher education

Richard Florida's The rise of the creative class (2002) delivered a strong wake-up call to higher education institutions worldwide. By linking creativity to technological innovation and economic prosperity, Florida argued that universities and colleges should nurture creativity in their students. But for many years, the higher education enterprise has been criticised for dampening creativity rather than fostering it. This paper explores the subversive nature of creativity, the value of creative teaching and proposes a number of strategies higher education should consider if they hope to graduate the future leaders of twenty-first century society.     

The ‘spirit of education’ in Indonesian Pesantren

This paper employs Foucauldian theory to consider Islamic boarding school experiences in Indonesia. For some pupils ‘the spirit of education’ – a dimension of pleasure – comes to be highly valued, creating a lifelong passion for the pursuit of knowledge. Two school principals (both pesantren [Islamic boarding school] graduates themselves) articulated strong commitment to the ‘spirit of education’. Yet their respective boarding schools were very poor, not only by western standards but compared with Indonesian public schools, and conditions were austere. The embodiment of pesantren discourse as high academic achievement is illustrated by the example of Khadija – a young female pesantren graduate now studying at doctoral level in the United Kingdom. Explaining the embodied production of the ‘spirit of education’ demands looking at charismatic pedagogy, strict rules, austere conditions and sparse provision of learning resources as regimes of truth and power–knowledge relations that inhere in pesantren as lived experiences of pupils.     

Is higher education in really ‘internationalising’?

It is a widely accepted maxim that, like business generally, higher education is globalising. For many countries, higher education is now an important export sector, with university campuses attracting international students from around the world. Licensing production, in the form of franchising degree provision to international partners, is beginning to mutate into foreign direct investment as many universities set up campuses in other countries. While there are clearly parallels between the globalisation of business and higher education, this paper examines the supply- and demand-side drivers within the university sector. It argues that an alignment of special factors, rather than an inexorable trend towards commercialisation, has caused the recent internationalisation of higher education and concludes that current trends are unsustainable in the medium-term.

In search of the feeling of ‘belonging’ in higher education: undergraduate students transition into higher education

ABSTRACT

Previous research that evaluated first year students’ transition into university found that the values of ‘being, belonging and becoming’ were important in particular within the first few months and within the first year of university. From our previous work, we reported that three things matter to students: the academic staff they work with, the nature of their academic study and the feeling of belonging. This paper provides a further illumination to our work by reporting on the qualitative data collected in the same study. The study included 530 students from five cohorts over a five-year period. As part of the Student Experience Evaluation instrument, open-ended questions probed students about their early experiences of belonging and transition into university. This original research uses rich data to illuminate the scales and items from previous quantitative data analysis to explore ‘belonging’, triangulated with research from the field. This paper is timely due to increased emphasis placed on learning and teaching with the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework. Student satisfaction is not a simplistic measure and this study articulates the complexity of student belonging in Higher Education.     

The identification of a value-based pedagogical pattern promoting ‘development of the person’ in higher education

The promotion of student development through engagement with a course of study in higher education (HE) is an area in need of urgent research. This study of college-based HE identified that teachers working with development in mind possessed a nexus of core values which were expressed in practice through an integrated pedagogical pattern (i) the development of trust, (ii) developing roles, relationships and a sense of community (iii) active confrontation and challenge and (iv) using pedagogical time and space. A naturalistic, ethnographic methodology and case study approach was used to answer the question ‘what is going on here?’ in contexts where ‘development of the person’ was a key aim. A sociocultural perspective on learning and development was adopted which supported an integrated approach to research design, analysis and interpretation.     

The role of social capital in students’ perceptions of progress in higher education

This paper aims to analyse the effects of students’ social relationships at university on students’ success. Specifically, whether a student with heterogeneous relationships obtains better academic results than a student whose relationships are mostly with classmates. Further, the research examines whether students’ social relationships make up for their parents’ lack of human capital. A survey was answered by a sample of 867 students from universities in the metropolitan region of Barcelona. The findings suggest that the effects of social relationships are not always positive. The benefits of social networks at university interact with the type of degree studied, the student’s dedication to studies, and the student’s social class. Perceptions of progress for each category of students is different: It is more positive for those with frequent heterogeneous relations, who do not work or do so for a few hours, and for those who are enrolled in “hard” science courses.     

‘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.     

The Coalition’s higher education reforms in England

Abstract

The Coalition Government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in office from 2010 until 2015 sharply increased the maximum tuition fees for UK and EU undergraduates at English universities to £9,000. Although this is often portrayed as a radical change, it is argued that the reform was an evolution rather than a revolution. Common pessimistic predictions, such as the claim there would be a big fall in the number of full-time students, were wrong. However, the policymaking behind the increase in the fee cap was rushed, and this contributed to shortcomings such as a decline in part-time students. The article considers a series of political mistakes made by the Liberal Democrats, including making the abolition of tuition fees a key part of their election strategy in 2010 when the party’s leaders lacked faith in the policy. The article also notes that critics of the Coalition’s higher education reforms were largely ineffectual because they lacked a strong intellectual case or a clear alternative and fixated on fees to the exclusion of other important issues. The piece ends by asserting that the Coalition’s plan to remove student number controls was a change of overlooked importance.     

The role of goal orientations in students’ perceptions of classroom assessment in higher education

Students’ perception of assessment methods plays a significant role in determining their effort towards learning and their assessment tasks. Similar to the role of goal orientation in predicting students’ classroom learning, this study aims to examine how students’ goal orientations influence their perception of classroom assessments. Using a qualitative research design, the data was collected from 41 students enrolled in master’s degree programme at a public university in northern Malaysia, using reflection notes and semi-structured interviews. Data was analysed using a typological approach to inductively develop the categories. The findings demonstrated that perception of mastery goal oriented students considerably contrasted with those with performance goal orientation. The distinctions in perception is discussed under four categories: assessment as a process or product, preferences for modes, reasons for effort and feeling and emotions. The implications of the findings are discussed for higher education practitioners.     

Student perceptions of themselves as ‘consumers’ of higher education

This article first offers a survey of what has become an area of increasing interest in higher education: the rise of the so-called ‘student-consumer’. This has been linked in part to the marketisation of higher education and the increased personal financial contributions individual students make towards their higher education. Drawing upon a qualitative study with students across seven different UK higher education institutions, the article shows that while there is evidence of growing identification with a consumer-orientated approach, this does not fundamentally capture their perspectives and relationships to higher education. The article shows the degree of variability in attitude and approaches towards consumerism of higher education and how students still perceive higher education in ways that do not conform to the ideal student-consumer approach. The implications for university relations and how policy-makers and institutions themselves approach the issue are discussed.     

The value of non‐participation in higher education

The paper seeks to link the structural and the institutional to learning outcomes in order to articulate a research agenda capable of evaluating the impact of consumerism on learning and teaching in higher education. Consumerist mechanisms are situated in the context of quasi‐market and new managerial regulatory frameworks and concepts developed by Pierre Bourdieu are drawn on to establish a theoretical model of the uneven impact of consumerism across different types of universities. Empirical studies, conducted in a variety of national settings, are outlined to confirm the plausibility of the model. The possible interactions between first, changes in academic identity, teaching and the curriculum; and secondly, on student identities and their impact on teaching and assessment and their consequent learning outcomes, are outlined. Some important questions about the consequences for the labour market are also raised. The paper hypothesizes that attempts to restructure pedagogical cultures and identities to comply with consumerist frameworks may unintentionally deter innovation, promote passive and instrumental attitudes to learning, threaten academic standards and further entrench academic privilege. The paper concludes by outlining key areas that require investigation in order to address some of the problems posed by consumerism in a mass higher education system.     

The use of ‘Ethos indicators’ in tertiary education in Japan

Japanese universities’ total capacity to accommodate new entrants will reach 100% before 2009. Partly to attract students as ‘courted customers’ (Kitamura 1997 Kitamura, K. 1997. Policy issues in Japanese higher education. Higher Education, 34: 141–150.  [Google Scholar], 147), and, with a growing trend towards university accountability and assessment to meet the needs of homogeneously skilled students with diverse study backgrounds, administration of Student Evaluation of Teaching surveys (SETs) has become mandatory. This is problematic, however, as the effects of different ‘dominant cultures’ (McKeachie 1997 McKeachie, W. 1997. Student ratings: the validity of use. American Psychologist, 52(11): 1218–1225. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar], 1221) may influence students’ attitudes towards evaluation. If ratings reflect how learners feel as well as the way they think (Kulik 2001 Kulik, J. 2001. “Student ratings: validity, utility, and controversy”. In The student ratings debate: are they valid? How can we best use them?, Edited by: Theall, M., Abrami, P. and Mets, L. 9–25. San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass.  [Google Scholar]; Kerridge & Mathews 1998 Kerridge, J. and Mathews, B. 1998. Student ratings of courses in HE: further challenges and opportunities. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 23(1): 71–83. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar]), evaluation results may be influenced by the environment around them on the day of the administration. This questionable discriminant validity of SETs suggests the need to consider additional evaluative measures that address the potential effects of the school environment or ‘ethos’ or culture. This paper examines the dominant culture in a tertiary establishment in Western Japan through an adaptation of an ‘ethos indicators’ questionnaire (MacBeath & McGlynn 2002 MacBeath, J. and McGlynn, A. 2002. Self evaluation: what’s in it for schools?, London: RoutledgeFarmer.  [Google Scholar]). Tentative suggestions are offered for how this tool could be adapted for use in tertiary education in Japan and beyond as a counterweight to SETs. Adding another perspective to evaluation is a way to understand the effectiveness of the learning environment for student learning.     

‘The problem of Trinity College Dublin’: a historical perspective on rationalisation in higher education in Ireland

This paper offers a historical perspective on government policies for the rationalisation of higher education (HE) in Ireland through a critical re-appraisal of the initiative for ‘merger’ of Trinity College and University College Dublin. The initiative launched by Donogh O'Malley in 1967 was the first significant attempt by an Irish government to transform the institutional architecture of HE. This study sheds new light on the rationale for merger. A key motivation for the merger was to overcome ‘the problem of Trinity College Dublin’: policy-makers sought to integrate Trinity College, long regarded as a Protestant ‘enclave’ in a predominantly Catholic society, within the Irish HE system. O'Malley's initiative sought to bring Trinity College Dublin (TCD) firmly under the control of the state and transcend traditional religious divisions, by circumventing the ‘ban’ on the attendance of Catholics at TCD imposed by the Catholic bishops. This paper also explores the emergence of proactive, interventionist approaches by Irish ministers and officials to policy formulation and implementation in HE.     

The moral dimension in Chilean higher education’s expansion

Chilean higher education has expanded greatly in recent decades, primarily through drawing on the private contributions of students and families, and an increased number and variety of institutions. In the context of attempts to address criticism that the sector is not free, public or high-quality enough, this article examines the association between education and its moral and ethical dimensions, and their separate yet complementary consideration alongside economic development, through the two centuries of the Chilean state’s existence. Since the beginning of the current decade, discontent with the framing and performance of higher education as a whole has grown. The overview traces this process not as fresh crisis, but part of a social question pondered repeatedly in the past and supported with varying success through educational and political initiatives. This historical (and historiographic) approach illuminates the limits of conceiving of higher education as either an economic good or as a human right, and an overlooked need to support its benefits through policy. Not simply an interpenetration with economic thinking, but also a lack of sufficient appreciation of Chile’s fundamental and singular character, present as challenges in understanding expanded access’s function and its prospective contribution to growing debates around ethics and inequality.