Marking and moderation in the UK: false assumptions and wasted resources

This article challenges a number of assumptions underlying marking of student work in British universities. It argues that, in developing rigorous moderation procedures, we have created a huge burden for markers which adds little to accuracy and reliability but creates additional work for staff, constrains assessment choices and slows down feedback to students. In this under‐researched area of higher education, the article will explore whether there are other ways to provide confidence in marking and grading. These might divert this energy into productive activities with useful outcomes for students and learning.     

Would you like service with that?

Australia’s higher education policy settings have signalled a shift towards marketisation. As a consequence, Australian universities have become increasingly competitive, and as they seek to compete for students in higher education markets, they begin to resemble commercial organisations. This article examines the challenges confronting the leadership team at one of Australia’s fastest growing universities, Australian Catholic University. Specifically, it seeks to address the development of systems to better service future students in an environment where the University is not aware or accepting of the need for change.     

The impact of peer mentoring on levels of student wellbeing,integration and retention: a controlled comparative evaluation of residential students in UK higher education

Peer mentoring is becoming increasingly popular in UK higher education, however, there remains little good quality, theoretically driven and evaluative research. The current study aims to bridge the gap between theory, practice and evaluation by providing a controlled evaluation of a peer mentoring scheme within UK universities. 109 first year undergraduates from two matched universities completed questionnaires at two time points: during the first week of university and again 10 weeks later. Results focused on direct, mediating and moderating effects of mentoring on levels of wellbeing, integration and retention. Peer mentored individuals showed higher levels of integration to university. Four times as many non-peer mentored students had seriously considered leaving university compared to peer mentored students. Integration partially mediated the relationship between mentoring and intention to stay at university. Moderating effects analyses indicate that mentoring may buffer the effect of the transition to University. Results are discussed in relation to Tinto’s theory of student retention, the benefits and practicalities of peer mentoring within UK universities and the methodological limitations within this study.     

Learning to Teach Offshore: Pre-Departure training for lecturers in transnational programs

The internationalisation of higher education in Australia over the past two decades has brought about dramatic changes in Australian universities. Growing numbers of international students have enrolled in Australian universities and the number of students studying offshore has also increased dramatically. While considerable material has been published on the ramifications of the increased numbers of onshore international students studying at Australian universities, there is relatively little published research on the specific challenges facing academics participating in offshore programs. The aim of this project was to examine the current pre-departure cross-cultural training taking place in the business faculties of three Australian universities in order to gain a better understanding of the adequacy of the support given to Australian academics teaching offshore. Twenty staff involved in offshore education were interviewed as part of this project, including academics with considerable offshore teaching experience, senior academic managers and cross-cultural trainers. While these institutions engage in little formal preparation for offshore teaching, a great deal of informal mentoring and briefing is taking place. We consider the implications of the new quality assurance framework for Australian universities, which requires that institutions be able to demonstrate the ways in which they ensure the quality of teaching and learning. Under this new system, universities are bound by the Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee's guidelines for the provision of education to international students. It appears that Australian universities will need to establish more formal mechanisms to ensure that offshore staff are adequately prepared for offshore teaching posts.     

Teaching and Learning in the University: New Directions for Australian Higher Education

The purpose of this paper is to outline recent changes to higher education in Australia and assess the implications of those changes for teaching and learning in universities. Three main changes have been identified:
1. The meta-policy context that has transformed a binary system of higher education into a unified national system of universities. This has given rise to the concept of the comprehensive university accompanied by an economic rationalist approach to the funding of higher education. Issues identified are the relativities to be accorded to teaching and research in the new universities and the push for more efficient modes of teaching.
2. Institutional changes that have influenced the traditional character of universities. These changes include the politicisation of Vice-Chancellors whose peak body is now recognised by the government as the single voice of the university sector, the changing student composition of universities as a result of government policies relating to overseas students and students who have been traditionally underpresented in universities and the introduction of academic staff appraisal. An assessment is made of this broad range of changes on teaching and learning.
3. Changing conceptions of teaching are discussed with a particular emphasis on the work of Shulman and its implications for teaching in the university.     

‘Empty signifiers’ and ‘dreamy ideals’: perceptions of the ‘international university’ among higher education students and staff at a British university

This paper reports on a mixed-methods case study investigating how higher education staff and students understand, experience and envision the ‘international university’. As it is becoming clear that international student mobility is not in itself a panacea for universities seeking to internationalise, ‘internationalisation at home’ and ‘global citizenship’ are increasingly permeating university policy documents and mission statements. However, little is known about how students and staff on the ground perceive and experience these concepts. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected at one British university through focus groups (N = 19) and through an online survey (n = 148). Findings revealed a conventional mobility-focused understanding of the international university among students and staff, and a great deal of cynicism as regards ‘internationalisation at home’ and ‘global citizenship’. We discuss implications for practice and a research agenda.     

'From Competence to Excellence': A systems view of staff development for part-time tutors at-a-distance

The practices of part-time teachers in higher education are often different and sometimes divorced from the activities of their full-time colleagues. This is particularly true in the UK Open University where course design and production are the domain of full-time academics, and student learning is traditionally supported by part-time teachers. Higher education in the UK is increasingly responding to quality agendas that demand evidence of competence in teaching together with coherent learning and assessment strategies for students. Such demands can have positive benefits for learning across an institution, but introduce particular challenges wherever universities rely on part-time tutors to supplement full-time academics' work; they present even more difficulties where the tutors are geographically dispersed. One idea emerging from a 3-year research project in the Open University draws on theories of activity and practice to suggest that, even in a distance-learning context, staff development for part-time teachers should be embedded in conversations with the academic practices of full-time staff. Such connections would enhance the coherence of student learning in line with quality agendas.     

Feedback from the coal-face: how the lived experience of women casual academics can inform human resources and academic development policy and practice

Abstract

Casual academics form the backbone of learning and teaching practice in higher education in many developed countries and in many respects can be considered the norm around which academic policy and practice might be formed. Yet a narrative inquiry into the lived experience of women casual academics within Australian universities reveals that recruitment and management of casual teaching staff is generally ad hoc, and although they are committed to and enjoy teaching, casual academics rarely engage in professional and career development. Consequently, recommendations to contemporise recruitment and professional development policy for casual academics are made.     

PDP implementation at English universities: what are the issues?

Personal development planing (PDP) is now a nationally required part of undergraduate and postgraduate education in the United Kingdom. Little is known about how universities in general are implementing personal development plans, nor how engaged students will become in compiling a set of records of their learning and progress, which they themselves make and keep. The aim of this article was to discover how higher education institutions were approaching PDP, to gather primary and secondary data on the implementation of PDP across the sector, and to identify good practice. Telephone interviews were carried out with a snowball sample of academics from a range of English universities, both pre and post 1992 institutions. The findings fell into two categories: those relating to process and those relating to the more complex conceptual elements of PDP implementation. The process findings indicated that a wide variety of approaches is being taken, that there is heavy reliance on computer‐based tools and that support for staff and the nurturing of internal champions was a significant part of successful implementation. Good practice within the conceptual aspects of PDP would include a clear vision of where responsibility lies for PDP within a university, a shared understanding of the purpose of PDP and the promotion of a culture which engages both students and staff. Overall, the research showed that implementing personal development planning is a continuing learning process for universities in England.     

Chinese students' assessment and learning experiences in a transnational higher education programme

Abstract

Chinese universities are increasingly entering into transnational higher education partnerships with institutions in primarily English-speaking countries. With this increase in programmes, there is a growing body of research investigating both policy and practice. Our study contributes insight into how students in a China–Australia programme experienced assessment drawing on theorisations of sustainable assessment. We present findings from interviews with 10 Chinese students who shared stories and reflections of their experiences of assessment and learning that reveal the complex ways students negotiated qualitatively different assessment experiences, while displaying sophisticated levels of agency, between Chinese and Australian universities. In making sense of the interviews in relation to sustainable assessment, we evoke notions of cultural ignorance to illuminate aspects of a cross-cultural ignorance in teaching and learning practices. In doing so, we argue that conversations about cultural ignorance combined with principles of sustainable assessment can create space to support partners to better plan and coordinate for meaningful assessment and learning experiences for students in cross-cultural articulation programmes.     

University Leaders’ Strategies in the Global Environment: A Comparative Study of Universitas Indonesia and the Australian National University

In a global environment in which global, national and local nodes relate freely within common networks, all research universities must pursue strategies for building global capacity and facilitating cross-border staff and student movement and research collaboration. The study compares readings of the global environment, global and international activities and relationships, and global capacity and strategy, in two leading national universities, one in a middle level developing country (Indonesia) and the other in a middle level developed country (Australia). The main tool of investigation was interviews with parallel groups of institutional leaders and leaders of academic units and research centres, in conjunction with study of the national and local contexts. It was apparent that in both cases, while global elements are increasingly important in university strategy, mission and identity, resource capacity remains highly dependant on national government and students. This belies the romantic myth of the ‘stand-alone’ corporate university in the global marketplace. The two cases also differ in some respects. While both universities are peak national institutions, and each respects the other, the Australian university is more strongly placed in the global environment and practical dealings between them are asymmetrical. The study helps to illuminate the dynamics of global stratification and hierarchy between developed and developing nations and institutions in higher education.     

Humanising Writing centre Practice: Peer tutor Reflections at a University of Technology

Abstract

Traditionally, universities of technology (UoTs) have focussed on education to prepare students for the workplace. The Durban University of Technology (DUT) is currently undergoing a pedagogical transformation with the inclusion of a general education curriculum that aims to prepare students for an increasingly complex globalised work environment. This critical paradigm shift in curriculum design foregrounds new ways of teaching, thinking and learning based broadly on humanistic principles. Writing centres in universities are positioned to sustain a teaching and learning environment in which students grow as critical citizens. This article reports on research that explored – through the thematic analysis of tutor reflections – how a humanising pedagogy underpins a responsive writing centre practice within the changing South African context. Thematic analysis of the tutors’ reflections revealed their self-awareness of the significance of communities of practice in their work. These communities of practice could be seen to cultivate a humanising pedagogy within writing centre work, which might contribute to the aesthetic, socio-political and cultural environments in which students live and work.     

Can a systematic assessment moderation process assure the quality and integrity of assessment practice while supporting the professional development of casual academics?

There has been a threefold increase in the employment of casual academics in Australian universities within the last 20 years, to the extent that most teaching and marking is now undertaken by casual academics, also known as sessional staff. Yet, casualised teaching and assessment has been considered a risk to student engagement and success, and casual academics report a lack of professional development and increased feelings of marginalisation within the academy. Concurrently, the quality assurance of teaching and assessment in higher education has become a central focus of the government-funded regulatory organisation, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). Situated within this context, we report on an assessment moderation process that could support casual academics’ contextualised professional development, generate a sense of connectedness and collegiality and fulfil the requirements of TEQSA. Such processes may ensure that workforce growth in the higher education system supports a robust quality assurance and regulatory framework.     

Investigating epistemological beliefs in vocational education for child care workers: New ways of thinking about learning and training

Epistemological beliefs (beliefs about knowing and knowledge) have provided interesting insights into effective teaching and learning in higher education over the last 30 years. However, to date, little research has taken place in regard to teaching and learning in the technical and further education (TAFE) context in Australia. Seventeen 1^st and 2^nd year child care students studying for a Diploma in Children's Services were interviewed about the nature of their epistemological beliefs. The findings revealed new ways of thinking about evaluativistic beliefs, described as “practical evaluativism”. These beliefs may have implications for the way in which students evaluate theory and practice for implementation in their own child care practice.     

Emerging education hubs: the case of Singapore

In anticipation of a globalising post-Fordist political economy, countries and universities are increasingly pursuing strategic transnational education and research alliances. This article analyses the Global Schoolhouse, a key education policy platform that aims to transform Singapore into a knowledge and innovation hub by establishing networks and collaborations with foreign universities. Two Global Schoolhouse initiatives are examined—the alliance between Singapore and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and the institutional restructuring aimed at re-modelling the National University of Singapore into a ‘leading global university centred in Asia’. We outline some of the complexities and unanticipated outcomes which emerge when nations and their education institutions seek to globalise.     

Foster Children of Economics

Abstract

A case study is presented of a professional development program for environmental education in Australia that applies the principles of participatory research and critical reflection. These two principles are embodied in the concept of reflective practice. Reflective practice involves using ethical and contextual considerations in professional decisionmaking rather than making such decisions on the basis of habit, intuition, impulse, and tradition. The education of “reflective practitioners” of this type is the goal of the Master of Environmental Education program at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. After an introduction to the program and the concept of reflective practice, a case study of the experiences of students in one of the subjects of that program is presented. The case study revealed that students derived a number of benefits from developing their reflective practice skills, including heightened political awareness, a strong sense of influences and limitations of social context on their ideas and environmental education practices, increased self-confidence, and a desire to continue in a reflective practice group. The case study also revealed some of the concerns of the students and staff, especially in the areas of assessment, the fear of personal disclosure, and the need for structured peer support.     

研究型大学国际化发展的实践与探索

国际化是研究型大学发展的必然趋势。文章通过对我国研究型大学在办学理念、师资队伍、学生、科学研究、课程、合作办学等方面国际化的探索和实践的调研,对研究型大学国际化发展模式进行了归纳总结,对存在的不足进行了分析,并对高校加快国际化进程提出了政策建议。     

Transitioning from a foundation studies program to university: a study of mainland Chinese students

ABSTRACT

Foundations studies programs (FSPs), sometimes termed pathways programs, seek to prepare international students for an undergraduate education. While enrolments in these programs continue to grow in Australia, there has correspondingly been little research exploring how FSP students experience their transition into university life and study. In seeking to fill a gap within the literature, this study investigated this issue by focusing on international students from mainland China. 23 FSP alumni were interviewed and asked to describe their expectations and experiences of secondary schooling in China, and their subsequent FSP and university studies in Australia. The analysis revealed that the most salient feature of participants’ transition into their Australian undergraduate courses was their emphasis on interpersonal relationships and social interactions. In particular, interviewees emphasised the importance of social exchanges with local peers and teaching staff, and their general disappointment or frustration with these interactions. While this study echoes previous investigations relating to international students’ (lack of positive) intercultural interactions within HE settings, it more importantly challenges the notion that FSPs can be assumed to adequately prepare international students for the nature of these relationships at university. Recommendations regarding FSP practices and policies are posed at the end of this article.