Non‐traditional students in Australian higher education: Persistent inequities and the new ideology of ‘student choice’

Abstract

Despite the expansion of access to Australian higher education in the past decade, the participation shares of rural and isolated people and people from lower socio‐economic backgrounds have altered little and remain unacceptably low. This paper reports findings from two national studies at the Centre for the Study of Higher Education that have examined student choices about higher education, especially the inhibiting factors still present for non‐traditional students. The discussion focuses on the dilemmas and challenges for Australian universities in balancing the adoption of entrepreneurial approaches to student recruitment with an unfinished equity agenda. The paper raises questions about the new ideology of individual choice influencing university policy and whether or not this can be reconciled with social equity objectives.     

Engineering work integrated learning placements: the influence of capitals on students’ access

ABSTRACT

Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is embraced in Australian higher education (HE) and is a feature of most Australian HE ‘entry to profession’ engineering education programs accredited by Engineers Australia. Accreditation guidelines articulate the need for curriculum-integrated engagement with professional practice (EPP) and encourage EPP in a separate workplace environment, e.g. WIL. This article reports on the analysis of semi-structured interviews with staff and student engineers from four Australian HE institutions with mandatory engineering WIL. Framed by a Bourdieusian theoretical perspective, the influence of capitals on student access to engineering WIL placements was investigated. The research found that students’ capitals influenced access to engineering WIL placements. Policy and educational practice recommendations are made.     

Pathways and Partnerships: Widening access to higher education

In response to a Scottish Office call for a briefing paper on widening access to higher education the authors conducted a 'snapshot' study of the field including not only desk-based research but a questionnaire survey and interviews with approximately 70 practitioners in the field of access across the UK. The survey asked the opinions of practitioners on the areas of their greatest concern in the field of widening access to include marginal socioeconomic groups. This article gives an account of the concerns expressed in this survey and finds that the primary concerns fall under six headings: pre-entry guidance, qualifications frameworks and transfers, structural barriers and flexibility, attitudinal barriers, student finance and institutional finance. Solutions were also sought in relation to policy and practice in Scotland and included suggestions for more emphasis on partnerships, better communication between institutions and the community, and a shared system of financial support for institutions and for students alike.     

Changing lives: improving care leaver access to higher education

ABSTRACT

Australian and international research documents the limited access of young people transitioning from out-of-home care (OOHC) to further and higher education. This paper examines the processes, outcomes, and key findings of the Raising Expectations project, a collaborative university and industry approach to promote higher education among care leavers at two Australian universities. That approach was informed by the co-authors' previous research, including interviews with enrolled care-leaver students. The paper highlights the relevance of that research in the design and implementation of Raising Expectations. Our findings reiterate the importance of policy and practice reforms informed by rigorous research, particularly involving the voices and agency of care leavers. We outline strategies adopted by the participating universities resulting in a fourfold increase in enrolments, growth in school outreach activities, and significantly improved retention rates. The paper also highlights barriers to higher education access and success, through care-leaver student interviews and policy analysis. These interviews revealed the need for better university outreach and information to prospective care-leaver students, improved support for enrolled care-leaver students, and better capturing of data by universities and governments. The paper also highlights policy barriers to the greater expansion of care-leavers at university, especially in the absence of extended state care.     

Access constraints experienced by physically disabled students at a South African higher education institution

Abstract

Current developments in government law and policies have created the hope that people living with a disability will enjoy the same rights and privileges as the non-disabled. Unfortunately, only 2.8% of disabled persons have access to higher education. The aim of this study was to determine if a group of students, living with a physical disability, experienced constraints with regard to access to a South African higher education institution. This study, following a two-phase sequential mixed method approach, consisted of a questionnaire survey, a focus group discussion, and individual interviews. It was found that students living with a physical disability experienced constraints relating to the accessibility of the relevant higher education institution. Since access constraints affect the lives of students living with a disability, it is necessary to provide guidelines to universities on how to address these challenges.     

An examination of the values and perceptions of parents and teachers in relation to parental involvement in school policy formation

Abstract

In the last decade access initiatives have been designed to facilitate greater access and participation for people from marginalised groups who have traditionally been excluded from higher education. In common with international trends, young people with disabilities in Ireland have been included in this process. However, people with disabilities remain under‐represented in higher education. This study explored the quality of access to higher education for young people with disabilities through existing access routes. Both the young people and the professionals (career guidance teachers) agreed that access routes lack transparency. There was a dearth of professional knowledge about the options available to young people with disabilities leaving school. This lack of professional knowledge combined with the opaqueness of access routes forced the young people to rely on parental support and/or disability agencies for information and guidance. It can be concluded that goodwill and compassion are no substitute for an informed system that ensures equitable access for young people with disabilities to higher education.     

Student self-reported use of standards-based grading resources and feedback

ABSTRACT

Standards-based grading (SBG) tightly links student assessment to course learning objectives, providing students with meaningful feedback. A well-designed SBG system should ease first-year engineering (FYE) students’ transition to tertiary education by setting clear expectations and enabling self-monitoring of learning progress. However, when students fail to access and use resources and feedback to guide their learning, the effort to construct an SBG system is not commensurate with the student learning benefits. FYE students in a course using SBG self-reported their access to and use of SBG resources and feedback to guide their work on assignments and prepare for exams. Access and use was low at the start or the semester but improved mid-semester around exam time. In a subsequent semester, strategies were employed to increase students’ engagement with the SBG system. Students’ access and use was significantly higher in the beginning of the semester. Insights on students’ engagement related to course management decisions are offered.     

Mature students’ journey into higher education in the UK: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

ABSTRACT

This article reports on issues of diversity in the context of widening participation in global higher education (HE). Mature students represent a third of the HE student population in Australia, Canada, UK and the USA. More research is needed to understand factors that can facilitate or hinder access to HE for this group. The aim of this study was to examine factors that a small group of mature students perceived influenced them as they made the decision to take up HE. Six undergraduate students at a British university who were on track to finish their studies took part in semi-structured interviews. All participants were white and from families with no previous experience of HE. Mean age was 42.7 years (range 35–51), and 50% were female. The interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Through using phenomenological analysis to analyse perceptions of changing motivation and goals during the decision-making process to take up HE, a detailed understanding of the complexity of these change processes was obtained. The analysis offers evidence that mature students experience far-reaching personal and social changes related to their decision to enter HE and adds a novel understanding of these identity-changes. This new insight is of fundamental importance to the field because the novel understanding of mature students’ meaning-making could be used to tailor interventions to facilitate access to HE for mature students.     

Innovating science teaching with a transformative learning model

Abstract

This exploratory study aimed to describe the impact of the ‘Science in Family project’, as a transformative learning model for science teachers trying to improve student’s attitudes toward STEM subjects. This study took place in a public elementary school in Monterrey, Mexico, which has been developing this project for more than thirteen years with students from 4th, 5th and 6th grade. We used participant observation and interviews with four families whose children are students of this elementary school, and with one family whose sons were students of this school some years ago. Results showed that there is a relationship between positive attitudes towards science in students who were exposed to transformative learning models of teaching. Two of the participants took steps to follow science related careers. This study helps to illuminate the extent to which teacher education models influence students’ attitudes and how positive attitudes to science are influenced by the use of learning by doing projects.     

Marketing of Further and Higher Education: an equal opportunities perspective

abstract

College and universities are wanting to recruit more students from a wider base giving them access to further and higher education. This requires institutions to market their courses effectively to prospective consumers. In educational terms the consumer is the student. This article explores the links between marketing models and the ways that colleges and universities have addressed the issue of equality of opportunity and wider access.     

Secondary school students who drop out of school in rural Pakistan: The perspectives of fathers

ABSTRACT

Background: The problem of students dropping out of school is one of the barriers to improving educational outcomes in poor and developing countries.

Purpose: This small scale, in-depth study sought to explore the phenomenon of students who drop out from secondary education, through the perspectives of fathers of such students in a rural district of Pakistan.

Method: Primary data were collected through detailed, individual interviews with 14 fathers whose sons had dropped out from secondary education. The study adopted a framework involving push and pull factors to analyse qualitatively the processes and examine the reasons for dropping out that prevailed inside and outside school.

Findings: The analysis suggested that, from the perspectives of the fathers, family poverty, poor academic performance and issues relating to teachers’ engagement with teaching at school were main factors involved in a student dropping out of school.

Conclusions: The findings from this small scale, detailed analysis of data draw attention to the issues arising from a tension in mainstream teachers’ educational roles in and beyond the school. It further highlights the need for greater investment in secondary education, in order to help to reduce rates of student drop out in the remote rural areas of Pakistan.     

Student-initiated Facebook sites: nurturing personal learning environments or a place for the disenfranchised?

ABSTRACT

Facebook is social media that is ubiquitously used in higher education contexts by both staff and students. It provides a platform for student networking and expression. The authors illuminate how pre-service teachers in an Australian university, undertaking undergraduate units, use Facebook as a student-initiated social media community. Although an increasing number of research studies have investigated student use of social media in higher education, this is an under-theorised area. In particular, little has been written about the student-initiated use of Facebook as a commentary on the activities running simultaneously to formal online learning programmes in universities. Data drawn from 15 semi-structured interviews support an investigation into student Facebook use. Findings highlight that student-driven Facebook sites have a range of purposes and offer ever-present access to a relational community online, although this can sometimes be problematic. When emotional support is not forthcoming from academics or there is disenfranchisement in formal learning spaces, membership in student-initiated learning communities can afford immediacy, informality, influence and shared emotional connections.     

Perceptions of student engagement in the flipped classroom: a case study

ABSTRACT

One of the blended learning strategies that researchers and educators commonly use in higher education is Flipped Classroom. The purpose of this case study was to explore how both professors and students perceive student engagement in flipped classrooms. Three college professors who implemented flipped classrooms and their 14 students participated in the study. Three individual faculty interviews and three student focus group interviewers were conducted. Five components of the utilization-focused evaluation model were used in the data coding. The findings revealed both positive and negative opinions depending on how they implemented the flipped classroom including the engagement of students and the environment. Faculty participants who fully implemented the flipped model had positive opinions about the implementation and student engagement, finding the model helped increase student performance and grades. In addition, the majority of student participants liked the challenges offered by the flipped classroom, which increased their engagement.     

‘On the outside I’m smiling but inside I’m crying’: communication successes and challenges for undergraduate academic writing

Abstract

Student difficulties with the transition to writing in higher education are well documented whether from a ‘study skills’, an ‘academic socialisation’ or an ‘academic literacies’ perspective. In order to more closely examine the challenges faced by students from widening participation backgrounds and diverse routes into undergraduate study, this project focuses on first-year undergraduate experiences of developing academic literacies on an Education Studies programme at one university in England. It highlights the impact of different support and guidance within and beyond their degree programme where attempts to embed academic literacy development are part of subject modules. The paper reports the findings generated using a mixed methods interpretive approach. Questionnaires were collected at the beginning (n = 48) and end of the students’ first year (n = 44), and interviews and visual data collection methods (n =19) were used at the mid-point of the academic year. Key findings highlight students’ expectations of achievement on entry to university and the influence of the emotional journey of students as they begin to make progress as academic writers. Identifying, selecting and applying academic reading were an enduring concern whilst some students struggled with the digital literacy implicit in undergraduate work. Importantly, some strategies developed to support student transition to academic writing in higher education may have unintended consequences as they progress through the first year.     

Planning Technical and Vocational Education and Training: the case of Namibia [1]

ABSTRACT

In 1991, shortly after independence, the government of Namibia established a Presidential Commission on Higher Education. The Commission's report contains almost 200 recommendations covering the whole field of post‐school education. The account presented here concentrates on technical and vocational education, access to higher education and inter‐relationships between the various levels of the educational system. Technical and vocational education at the time of independence was fragmented, inappropriate in a number of ways and not well supported. Fundamental change was necessary. Solutions need to be found around a set of baste principles, including: the need for a coherent system of linked qualifications, the importance of a national training policy enunciated by government, strategies which are responsive to employment requirements and which meet the needs of disadvantaged groups, special access routes for students who have missed out on educational opportunities, adequate provision for pre‐service and in‐service instructor training and teacher education.

     

How does a STEM Access module prepare adult learners to succeed in undergraduate science?

ABSTRACT

This article explores the impact of a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) Access module on the progression of students to undergraduate Science. Drawing on the Widening Participation (WP) literature, this research investigated the experience of adult learners from disadvantaged backgrounds taking their first steps into higher education (HE). A mixed methods institutional case study was conducted, drawing on extensive survey data and interviews with students and tutors. Key findings included: enhanced student understanding of how to use tutor support; improvement in the skills and confidence of students in relation to maths, as a result of an embedded interdisciplinary curriculum; and an uplift in student study skills. This study was undertaken in a distance learning context, addressing issues in entry-level STEM, but the conclusions are applicable to other HE settings.     

What motivates higher education educators to innovate? Exploring competence,autonomy, and relatedness – and connections with wellbeing

ABSTRACT

Background: High quality tertiary teaching is important for maximising the impact of tertiary education for students, employers and society, as well as for institutional reputation and accountability. Varied interpretations exist regarding what counts as ‘innovative’ tertiary teaching.

Purpose: This study sought to explore the deeper drivers of motivations of tertiary educators to initiate and implement teaching innovations.

Method: Drawing from the data from semi-structured interviews from a wider study into innovative teaching in a tertiary education institution in Aotearoa New Zealand, we analysed the rationale of 13 expert tertiary educators for teaching in novel ways. The framework for analysis was based on Self-Determination Theory: data were analysed in relation to three basic psychological needs known to impact on motivation and wellbeing – competence, autonomy and relatedness.

Findings: Our analysis suggests that tertiary educator motivation to innovate in their teaching is related to feelings of all three needs. Findings suggest that innovative pedagogical change was linked to educators’ need for feelings of competence in relation to subject area content, pedagogy and developing student competence. Enhancing autonomy for the educators themselves, or for their students, was also an important factor motivating innovative practice. Developing relatedness between students, between themselves and students, and between students and society were reported as motivations for innovative teaching. Some teaching innovations were motivated by the educator’s desire for greater personal or student wellbeing.

Conclusions Educators’ motivations for being innovative in their tertiary pedagogical practice encompassed content, pedagogical, personal and social dimensions. None reported that their innovation was motivated by institutional policy or expectations. The reported challenges to innovative teaching practice, including institutional structures and processes, lack of access to specific technologies, and the time needed to develop and implement changed practice, indicate that educators must be strongly committed to making change in their practice to sustain the effort required.     

Independent study: Continuing professional development in distance education

Abstract

The Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED) of Costa Rica has admitted over 80,000 students in its seventeen‐year history. However, total enrollment figures are an insufficient measure of the institution's success in achieving its mission of democratizing higher education in Costa Rica. This article examines the issue of student drop‐out in an attempt to determine ways in which UNED can best and most realistically achieve the goal of increased access to higher education.     

Facilitating the learning process in design-based learning practices: an investigation of teachers’ actions in supervising students

Background: In research on design-based learning (DBL), inadequate attention is paid to the role the teacher plays in supervising students in gathering and applying knowledge to design artifacts, systems, and innovative solutions in higher education.

Purpose: In this study, we examine whether teacher actions we previously identified in the DBL literature as important in facilitating learning processes and student supervision are present in current DBL engineering practices.

Sample: The sample (N=16) consisted of teachers and supervisors in two engineering study programs at a university of technology: mechanical and electrical engineering. We selected randomly teachers from freshman and second-year bachelor DBL projects responsible for student supervision and assessment.

Design and method: Interviews with teachers, and interviews and observations of supervisors were used to examine how supervision and facilitation actions are applied according to the DBL framework.

Results: Major findings indicate that formulating questions is the most common practice seen in facilitating learning in open-ended engineering design environments. Furthermore, other DBL actions we expected to see based upon the literature were seldom observed in the coaching practices within these two programs.

Conclusions: Professionalization of teachers in supervising students need to include methods to scaffold learning by supporting students in reflecting and in providing formative feedback.     

Enhancing student engagement in student experience surveys: a mixed methods study

Background

Measuring the student experience is becoming increasingly important in higher education in the UK. Student experience surveys are used as indicators of quality and form the basis of rankings of higher education institutions. They are also used by them as tools to assist their quality enhancement initiatives. However, these surveys frequently suffer from low response rates, which can reduce the reliability and usefulness of their data. The UK Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) is a relatively new survey and suffers from a low response rate. As this survey is new, little is known about why students do not respond to it.

Purpose

This study aimed to explore the reasons why postgraduate students do not respond to the PTES.

Sample

Three hundred and fifty-five postgraduate taught students from four health faculties in one UK higher education institution completed an online survey. Of these, seven participated in one of two focus groups.

Design and methods

The online survey was completed both by students who completed the PTES in 2011 and those who did not. This provided us with cross-sectional data to compare both groups’ knowledge of PTES and their reasons for completing or not completing it. We used multivariate regression analysis to explore which variables were associated with response to PTES. We led two focus groups to explore the themes that emerged from the survey in more depth. This data was analysed by two researchers using thematic analysis.

Results

The cross-sectional data found that students who were not clear about the purpose of PTES were less likely to respond, independent of other potential predictor variables. Focus group data indicated that if postgraduate students felt a stronger connection to the university community they may be more likely to respond to PTES.

Conclusions

This study suggests that higher education institutions may wish to review their strategies for advertising student experience surveys to focus more on their purpose rather than their impact.