Recognition of prior learning (RPL) policy in Australian higher education: the dynamics of position-taking

The Bourdieuian concept of ‘position-taking’ is applied in this analysis of recognition of prior learning (RPL) policy and practice in Australian higher education. Data from institutional documents and participant interviews indicate that, within RPL policy, the universities selectively employ prevailing discourses of ‘quality’ and ‘equity’ to reinforce or potentially improve their reputation and symbolic power in the field of higher education. There is no common consensus about either equity or quality across the sector, as each university interprets the two concepts for its own benefit. The evidence suggests that, despite rhetoric in government policy implying that both are equally important, quality is a far stronger discourse and policy imperative than equity in RPL policy and practice. Also, RPL policies and practices provide an insight into how the key policy priorities of equity and quality are addressed by universities, when applied to a specific educational process or practice.     

中国高水平大学人才培养质量投入的公平性趋向研究--以1999-2010年教育部属“985高校”为例

高水平大学人才培养的质量投入公平性关乎我国建设“世界一流大学”、“高等教育强国”的战略实现。结合变异系数、基尼系数、泰尔指数对1999-2010年我国高水平大学人才培养质量投入进行分析,结果显示：与科研投入相比,人才培养质量投入的区域间公平性水平相对较低且差距逐年扩大;与“第一梯队”高校相比较,“第二梯队”、“第三梯队”高校的质量投入公平性水平有所下降并出现分化;与质量成本相比,生均质量成本投入的公平性水平变化幅度较大,反映出一些地区的高水平大学在“规模经济”向“质量经济”转型过程中存在人才培养质量投入“掉队”的情况。     

政策悖论框架下学位论文抽检政策的效能分析

学位论文抽检政策是基于结果导向的问责制度而产生的质量保障手段,分析其效能可以为政策进一步完善与有效实施提供启示。检视J省2016-2019年学术型硕士学位论文抽检数据和相关政策文本,发现抽检政策实施和强化后,学位论文质量持续提升,然而不同类型院校和不同学科呈现出差异化政策回应,其中教学型大学和教学研究型大学的论文质量提升最快,文学和艺术学的论文质量提升较快,法学、经济学、教育学论文质量改善较慢,且政策强化后,各类院校和学科对政策的再次回应也呈现出差异。差异化效能反映出三组关键政策要素的博弈以及其中产生的相悖结果:公平与效率的政策价值博弈、简约与精细的政策规则博弈、外在激励与内在动力的政策措施博弈。忽视这三组博弈会抑制政策发挥应有的效能。为提高效能,抽检政策需处理好潜在的要素相悖问题,更好地平衡公平与效率的价值目标,适度细化规则,增强政策实施的内在动力。     

Racism,Equity, and Quality of Education for International Students in South Korean Higher Education Institutes

This study aims to understand equity issues of international students’ learning in Korean higher education institutions by engaging with the issue of racism and identifies how international students in Korea reshape their learning trajectory and how we could provide equitable and quality education for international students. Espousing a qualitative case study design, six students from different background were interviewed to examine features of perceived institutional racism based on their learning experience in Korea. Major findings showed that internationalization has not been fulfilled in terms of engaging with international students although Korean government and higher education institutions have developed relevant policy to attract international students. This study indicates that Korean universities need to reconstruct their social, cultural, and institutional systems to embrace equity, diversity and inclusiveness to empower international students’ capacity.     

Understanding research strategies to improve ERA performance in Australian universities: circumventing secrecy to achieve success

ABSTRACT

Many Australian universities have prioritised improving discipline performance on the national research assessment – Excellence for Research in Australia. However, a culture of secrecy pervades Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA). There are no specified criteria for the assignment of ratings on a 5-point scale ranging from ‘well above world standard’ (5) to ‘well below world standard’ (1). No rationale is provided to institutions for their discipline ratings and university staff on the ERA panels sign confidentiality agreements. However, what is available to universities are the research strategies that each university documents to improve its ERA performance in its Mission-based Compact, a government funding agreement. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the similarities and differences in the research strategies that universities with different performance profiles employ. Following an analysis of the strategies, substantial commonality was identified in strategy use. However, what was different was how universities employed these strategies and the associated contexts.     

Brand equity of academics: demystifying the process

The current study endeavours to find out whether there is a relationship between university academics’ competence and their customer-based brand equity from the perspective of students. It also seeks to investigate the mechanism of the proposed relationship through trust, likability, and commitment. Data were collected from 384 postgraduate students in Malaysian universities using a structured questionnaire. Results of analysis using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) revealed there is a significant relationship (total effect) between academics’ competence and customer-based brand equity. We found that the path from competence to brand equity goes through trust, likability, and commitment. Given the growing popularity of higher education in the new millennium and important role of academics in leading students to success, findings of the present study can enhance our understanding of academics’ branding and universities’ overall image. The implications and contributions of the study to university administrators and academics are discussed.     

University Strategy in an Age of Uncertainty: The Effect of Higher Education Funding on Old and New Universities

This paper explores the effects of changes in funding arrangements, and particularly in tuition fees, on universities and their strategic responses to these changes. Using data from interviews with senior managers in four universities, it finds the most prestigious, pre‐1992, university largely unaffected by tuition fees and the others responding to changes in application patterns and intake. However, the effects of tuition fees on university strategy are not easily separated from other changes in the funding of Higher Education, and universities’ strategies were strongly influenced by the need to reduce costs and to generate income. A second major concern of all four universities was quality, both of inputs such as students and staff and of outputs, in degree results and ratings in employability, research, teaching and other activities. Marketing was assuming a position of increasing importance, with universities striving to develop a ‘brand’ to attract students, staff and funding.     

Country of origin and country of service delivery effects in transnational higher education: a comparison of international branch campuses from developed and developing nations

Over the last decade, international branch campuses have been established by universities from developing countries as well as developed countries. Little research has been conducted into students’ perceptions of branch campuses from different countries, or how universities from different countries compete in the increasingly competitive market. A framework incorporating the concepts of country of origin and country of service delivery is adopted to assess how potential undergraduate students in Malaysia perceive the home and international branch campuses of universities from the United Kingdom (UK) and India, which are used to represent universities from developed and developing nations. It was found that for a university from a developing nation, students perceived the image, reputation, quality and brand equity of its home campus more positively than its international branch campus. The results suggest that although all universities must devise and implement strategies that enhance the image and reputation of their international branch campuses, institutions from developing countries should seek niche markets where they do not have to compete directly with prestigious universities from developed countries.     

中美高校人才培养质量成本的分层比较——试论“后大众化”时代教育财政理念的变革原点

从"质量发生"的视角来看,与高校人才培养质量紧密相关的"教学支出"、"学生支出"、"教育科研支出"和"学术支持支出"四项成本,被界定为高校人才培养的质量成本。按照"合格质量"、"良好质量"和"一流质量"的人才培养质量基准,对中美近年来的高校人才培养质量成本分层比较发现:与美国高校人才培养质量成本的"层次鲜明"不同,我国高校在人才培养质量成本方面更多体现出"科研至上"、"物质为先"的发展倾向;"后大众化"时代的我国高等教育财政理念和实践需要从"物质"向"人本"的原点转变。     

Discursive constructions of equity in Australian higher education: Imagined worlds and the case of people seeking asylum

There is a strong rationale for people seeking asylum and refugees given temporary protection to be key beneficiaries of Australian higher education equity practices. However, despite the extreme precarity they face, this group remains among the most educationally disadvantaged populations in Australia. Here, we use critical discourse analysis to examine the publicly available statements of 38 Australian universities to identify discursive representations of equity practices and connections, with our analytic gaze focused through the lens of people seeking asylum. Using a three-part analytic heuristic examining ‘statements’, ‘practices’ and ‘connections’, we offer a critical discourse analysis of how each public university expresses its commitment to the equity agenda in powerful stakeholder-facing documents—such as annual reports, strategic plans and media releases—and we compare this analysis against institutional stated practices with regard to people seeking asylum. In identifying misalignments between equity statements and stated practices, we suggest that institutional equity narratives articulate ‘imagined worlds’, in which all marginalised groups can access higher education. We argue that now is the time to move beyond these ‘imagined worlds’, to enact stated commitments to universal education, by instituting real and effective practices to facilitate equitable access to Australian higher education for people seeking asylum.     

美国高校学生资助体系研究

美国高校学生资助体系主要由联邦政府、州政府、高校和社会团体四部分组成,包括奖学金、助学金、贷款及工读等资助形式。已经获得资助的学生须根据资助政策的要求认真学习,并接受学校的考核,未能达到相关标准的学生可能会被取消资助资格。该体系对推进教育公平、提升教育质量具有重要作用。     

Interpreting and using student ratings data: Guidance for faculty serving as administrators and on evaluation committees

This article is about the accurate interpretation of student ratings data and the appropriate use of that data to evaluate faculty. Its aim is to make recommendations for use and interpretation based on more than 80 years of student ratings research. As more colleges and universities use student ratings data to guide personnel decisions, it is critical that administrators and faculty evaluators have access to research-based information about their use and interpretation.The article begins with an overview of common views and misconceptions about student ratings, followed by clarification of what student ratings are and are not. Next are two sections that provide advice for two audiences—administrators and faculty evaluators—to help them accurately, responsibly, and appropriately use and interpret student ratings data. A list of administrator questions is followed by a list of advice for faculty responsible for evaluating other faculty members’ records.     

高等学校教育公平问题探讨

随着我国高等教育大众化时期的到来,高等教育公平问题日渐成为社会的热点话题。人们更多地将目光聚焦于高等教育的外部公平,而忽视了内部公平。高校要科学地理解教育公平的内涵,走出认识误区,认真落实学校内部教育公平,以促进学生和谐发展和高等教育质量持续提高。     

The activation,appropriation and practices of student-equity policy in Australian higher education

Current national reforms in Australian higher education have prioritised efforts to reduce educational disadvantage within a vernacular expression of neoliberal education policy. Student-equity policy in universities is enmeshed in a set of competitive student recruitment relations. This raises practice-based tensions as universities strive to meet specific institutional targets for low-socio-economic status (SES) and Indigenous student participation, whilst broadening participation more generally within the sector. This paper seeks empirically to trace the activation and appropriation of federal policy through two sites of higher education policy practices: a state government-sponsored equity practitioner body and two differently positioned universities, Dawson and McIllwraith, as they engage with low-SES schools. Working together Dorothy Smith’s insights into the textually mediated activation of local practices, Levinson and colleagues’ concept of the local appropriation of authorised policy, and Bourdieu’s notion of the contested field, we demonstrate that the generation of state level and institutionally specific policies for student-equity practices not only articulates to federal policy, but also appropriates the ruling relations of mandated policy. Further, the scope of these creative local appropriations is organised within a hierarchical academic field through which particular institutional imperatives, as well as the needs of low-SES students, are negotiated. The analysis demonstrates the vernacularisation of policy in the national rearticulation of global discourses, in appropriation at the level of the state body and in the practices of equity workers.     

美国第三方评估机构“好学校”的高中学校综合性评价及其启示

作为一种在线学校评估方式,综合性评价是美国近年来出现的一种对高中学校进行评价的新方式,由全美非营利性第三方评估机构"好学校"(Great Schools)于2017年最先推出。其基本理念是:学生增值是衡量一所学校更准确的指标,应为家长提供学校的质量和优势方面的信息以及反映家长认为有意义的东西。评估由学生进步(学术进步)评定、大学准备评定、平等性评定、考试成绩评定等四大"主题评定"构成。其特点包括评价的内容强调针对性、评价的重点突出"为学生增值"和为弱势群体服务、评价过程与结果强调透明性与动态性、评价方法追求持续改进性,对深化新时代我国高中学校评价改革具有启发意义。     

Tertiary institutions and human rights obligations

One question arising in the context of universities as corporate entities is the reason why being an ‘entity’ is important. One relevant consideration is whether it is necessary or sensible that a ‘community of scholars’ has the status of a ‘corporation of scholars’ because that ensures that the community abides by various obligations, including those based on considerations of equity and rights. This article examines universities as legal entities in light of the human rights framework, with a focus on the right to tertiary education to illustrate the more general question of rights. It does so by setting out, first, the use of legal personhood for corporations generally and universities particularly. Secondly, it notes that the modern international regime for the protection of human rights commenced with the idea that its obligations should rest on all elements of society, including corporations. Thirdly, it point out that the developed regime has a focus on the obligations of states to secure rights, including through ensuring remedies against corporate and other private actors. Finally, the main part of the article examines the substance of the right to education and suggests that its realisation is most likely if there are obligations on universities, which they can adopt themselves.     

Does the relationship between student ratings of course easiness and course quality vary across schools? The role of school academic rankings

Student ratings of teaching effectiveness are widely used to make judgments of faculty teaching performance. Research, however, has found that such ratings may not be accurate indicators of teaching performance because they are contaminated by course easiness. Using student ratings of 9855 professors employed at 79 different colleges and universities, the author hypothesized and found that the relationship between perceived course easiness and perceived course quality was moderated by school academic rankings. More specifically, easiness ratings were more strongly correlated with quality ratings among low‐ranked schools than among high‐ranked schools. Furthermore, the easiness–quality relationship was slightly stronger among public schools than among private schools. The article concludes by discussing the practical implications of these findings.     

中日韩三国开放大学比较研究——中国开放大学面临的挑战及发展的方向

中日韩三国开放大学发展历史各异,但均已成为各国构建终身教育体系的基石。三国开放大学在办学理念、组织架构、人才培养、教育信息化等方面各具特色,符合各自的办学定位。整体看,中国开放大学比较注重服务基层和推进教育公平,日韩开放大学比较注重办学质量、学术水平等的提升。对于中国开放大学发展而言,还要正确认知合法地位、办学质量、学习服务支持体系以及国际交流、资源共享等方面的挑战,明确其未来发展方向。     

A Comparison of Four Types of Spelling Tests for Diagnostic Purposes

Data from 484 students out of a Hawaiian high school graduating class of 643 were used in a study of post-high school destinations. of these 643 students, 360 were found to have selected academic destinations. They were going either to universities, a regional 2-year branch of the state university, 4-year colleges, junior colleges, or technical schools. A factor analysis of ten variables consisting of teachers’ ratings of school related behavior, verbal (V) and quantitative (Q) School and College Abilities Tests (SCAT) scores, and rank in graduating class (R) revealed two factors: “g” a general intellective factor (SCAT Q and V) and school skills (teachers’ ratings and R). In general the institutions of high academic quality attracted students who were significantly higher on the variables of both factors. Variation from this pattern of choice was discussed in terms of ego self-direction and social control as it affected mobility away from the island location.