Curating care-full spaces: doctoral students negotiating study from home

ABSTRACT

This article explores how care and space shape doctoral becoming. We extend previous higher education research that has critically examined the spatial arrangements of postgraduate study to explore how doctoral students negotiate both study from home and care-work responsibilities. The article draws on collaborative autoethnographic texts created by the authors to understand the ways in which care shaped their decisions about study spaces. We identify both exclusions and disadvantage in these accounts, at the same time as we discern wilfulness in the ways the contradictory positions of postgraduate student and caregiver were negotiated. We conclude the article by arguing that educational spaces are involved in the maintenance of academic norms that position care-work as invisible and out-of-place/space. Despite this, the creation of productive home spaces that facilitate both care and doctoral work remain possible.     

Tracking New Directions in the Evaluation of Postgraduate Supervision

This article focuses on the evaluation of thesis supervision and highlights the vast range of problem areas presently documented as significant areas of concern for both graduate students and their supervisors. Additionally, the authors report on a study completed in 1995, which surveyed all Australian universities about current evaluative practices in postgraduate supervision. The conclusion of this study was that the conduct of such evaluations appears to be minimal and is primarily designed to obtain an indicator of the general health of a university's postgraduate supervision rather than to foster improved supervisory practices. As part of the same study, the authors conducted University faculty-based student and supervisor focus groups. Key issues emerging from these focus groups were: (1) the importance of relational aspects of supervision as the student communicates over the long term with one or more supervisors; (2) the importance of systematic feedback, monitoring, and evaluation to the supervisory process; and (3) the lack of strategies to facilitate this evaluative feedback process. On the basis of these findings, the authors designed evaluative strategies to facilitate regular ongoing feedback between students and supervisors.     

Enabling connections in postgraduate supervision for an applied eLearning professional development programme

This article describes the practice of postgraduate supervision on a blended professional development programme for academics, and discusses how connectivism has been a useful lens to explore a complex form of instruction. By examining the processes by which supervisors and their students on a two-year part-time masters in Applied eLearning negotiated the blended approach adopted to supervision, it illustrates the conditions that enable connections to occur and flourish. The socio-technical context for supervision was supported using learning technologies (VLE, research wikis and ePortfolios), small group supervision (two to three supervisors and students) and traditional individual supervision. Qualitative data were obtained through surveys and focus groups, and analysed using a framework which drew on connectivist principles. Findings suggest that for increased connections between supervisors and their students, a sense of sanctuary, community and regulation within the supervision process is important; the role of technologies in unifying postgraduate supervision in professional development are discussed.     

Using Social Networking Technologies for Postgraduate Research Supervision at a South African Rural-Based Historically Disadvantaged Institution

Abstract

The use of social networking technologies (SNTs) for academic purposes has created new pedagogy opportunities, especially for well-resourced teaching and learning institutions. This article reports on a study that analysed the use of SNTs for postgraduate research supervision at a South African university classified as previously disadvantaged during the apartheid era. The current democratic government is trying to ameliorate the consequences of the Bantu Education Act by paying greater attention to historically disadvantaged institutions (HDIs). Although the study generated quantifiable data from a questionnaire, it largely employed the qualitative research approach and was underpinned by the connectivism theory of learning. A structured questionnaire and an interview schedule were used to collect quantifiable and qualitative data, respectively, from 32 postgraduate students who were enrolled for research by distance learning and eight lecturers who supervised postgraduate research. Quantifiable data from the structured questionnaire was analysed and plotted on graphs while qualitative data from the interviews was thematically analysed. The study findings revealed that the use of SNTs had positively impacted on postgraduate supervision and improved the success rate in students’ problem-solving skills and critical thinking at one rural-based HDI. From the study findings, it is recommended that more resources be channelled to the South African HDIs, to equip both their students and lecturers with the requisite knowledge and skills to effectively harness SNTs into research supervision, as well as teaching and learning, through deliberately designed online learning platforms, so that they can catch up with all-white historically advantaged institutions (HAIs) on research output.     

The quality of teaching and learning of BCom honours degree students at an open distance learning university in South Africa

ABSTRACT

Student support at Unisa involves a range of stakeholders providing academic and administrative support. The study was conducted among Unisa BCom honours students. The main objective of the study was to determine the educational quality of teaching and learning offered. Students were contacted by e-mail and asked to complete an online questionnaire. New methods on problem solving, investigating problems and formulating problems were found very useful and students gained independence in developing their learning capabilities. Available resources and supervision were not utilized to the full. Adequate financial aid seemed to be a problem. Support should be optimized and students should realize that all resources made available to them are crucial for their success. Students are of all ages and levels of maturity and have different needs and views regarding their studies. Unisa should endeavour to meet as many of these needs as is practically possible.     

The prison is another country: incarcerated students and (im)mobility in Australian prisons

ABSTRACT

Space, time and movement have particular meanings and significance for Australian prisoners attempting higher education while incarcerated. In a sense, the prison is another ‘world’ or ‘country’ with its own spatial and temporal arrangements and constraints for incarcerated university students. The contemporary digital university typically presupposes a level of mobility and access to mobile communication technologies which most Australian prisoners cannot access. This article examines the immobility of incarcerated students and their attempts to complete tertiary and pre-tertiary distance education courses without direct internet access. Drawing on critical mobilities theory, this article also explores attempts to address this digital disconnection of incarcerated students and where such interventions have been frustrated by movement issues within the prison. Prison focus group data suggest the use of modified digital learning technologies in prisons needs to be informed by a critical approach to the institutional processes and practices of this unique and challenging learning environment. This article also highlights the limitations and contradictions of painful immobilisation as a core strategy of Australia’s modern, expanding penal state, which encourages rehabilitation through education, while effectively cutting prisoners off from the wider digital world.     

Leading by example: the influence of ethical supervision on students’ prosocial behavior

Universities worldwide strive to nurture socially responsible graduates to create a better society. Since ethical behavior of role models can stimulate followers’ professional standards and ethical values, it is crucial to focus on an appropriate path through which ethical values can be conveyed and learned by individuals. The current study seeks to examine if this objective can be facilitated through the positive role played by academic supervisors at higher education level. Owing to the very close leader-follower relationship, this study empirically investigated if ethical supervisors could stimulate prosocial behavior among students under their supervision. Data was collected from 240 postgraduate university students and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings of this study revealed that students demonstrated greater anonymous, emotional, and compliant prosocial behavior when they perceived stronger ethical supervision. Study implications and limitations have been discussed.     

Subjects of Western education: Discursive practices in Western postgraduate studies and the construction of international student subjectivities

This paper focuses on discursive practices of postgraduate research as a crucial element in constructs of international student subjectivities when they undertake postgraduate studies in Australian universities. As such, it focuses on a discursive field emerging within domains of internationalisation, globalisation, and resistance. It examines processes and protocols in a number of Australian universities’ postgraduate divisions’ practices in the conduct of postgraduate supervision, in the context of increasing pressures towards internationalisation within frameworks of globalising influences. It takes issue with Western custom and tradition as privileged within the field of supervision of postgraduate research studies and suggests a model of postgraduate research supervision as intentional and systematic intervention, based on literature deriving from research in postgraduate supervision which acknowledges the problematic natures of cultural relationships as to teaching and learning and knowledge production, and student resistances within these fields. In doing so, it examines issues of discursive practices and the problematic natures of power relationships in supervisor-supervisee protocols and possibilities suggested by alternative models of postgraduate supervision of international students.     

Self-representations of International Women Postgraduate Students in the Global University 'Contact Zone'

This article explores some aspects of the role of race and gender in shaping women postgraduate students' experience of intercultural study. It focuses on various social and cultural aspects of their sojourn. These were suggested by data from two small pilot research projects investigating the experiences of two cohorts of international women postgraduate students, the one studying in an Australian university and the other, a Canadian. The authors focus particularly on the intersections between the students' representation of themselves as women and the way they see themselves represented by their host cultures. In other words, they are interested in the students' understandings of themselves as 'other', and how this impacts on their representations of 'self'. The authors suggest that these representations reflect a process of negotiation of identity that occurs in what they call the globalising university 'contact zone'. The concept of contact zones derives from post-colonial theory. A further goal of this article, then, is to examine how such data appear when viewed from a post-colonial perspective.     

Exploring the connection between impostor phenomenon and postgraduate students feeling academically-unprepared

ABSTRACT

Impostor phenomenon refers to an overwhelming feeling of being an intellectual fraud despite evidence to the contrary, and it affects highly capable individuals in many fields, including those in postgraduate education. This project sought to answer the following question: in what ways do postgraduate students enrolled in a large, American institution experience impostor phenomenon during their postgraduate education? Interviews and a survey showed that the majority of the participants experienced impostor phenomenon, and that many of those feelings related to the participants feeling academically-unprepared, including concerns related to reading, writing, and discussing academic work. This article explores this connection between impostor phenomenon and participants feeling like they lacked sufficient academic skill sets to succeed in their programmes. The results build a case for doing literacy work as a way to address impostor phenomenon among postgraduate students.     

Supervision of Higher Degree Students — Problem Areas and Possible Solutions

Supervision of postgraduate students remains an area of concern to university administration, to supervisors, to student unions and the individual research student. Many studies have examined student dissatisfaction with supervision. However, there is also considerable uneasiness among academic staff about the extent of their supervisory role and functions. In a series of workshops in several tertiary institutions problem areas were discussed with supervisors, both experienced and inexperienced; and practices and strategies were explored which facilitate effective supervision. Those provisions for and approaches to supervision which supervisors have found to be effective are presented and discussed as they apply at the institutional, departmental or individual level.     

Field Supervision of Counselors in Training: A Survey of the North Atlantic Region

Most of the research on supervision has focused on supervisors in academic institutions (faculty members or doctoral students). In this article the authors describe a study in which they examined supervisors in community agencies where master's level counselors were assigned for practicum and internship training. The survey suggested that agencies were heavily invested in supervising graduate level counseling students and providing them with a rich clinical experience. Respondents typically had a master's degree, used various models of supervision, and provided feedback by means of self-report and audiotape or videotape review of counseling sessions. Results suggest that these supervisors had little contact with the concurrent academic supervisor and may have had little formal training in supervision. Implications of this survey include a need for more training for supervisors in graduate counseling programs and a need for more liaison between campus and field supervisors.     

Modifying Field Instructors' Supervisory Approach Using Stage Models of Student Development

Abstract

There is a growing awareness of field instructors' need for training in their important role as educators (Abramson & Fortune, 1990; Raschick, Maypole, & Day, 1998; Raskin, 1994). Research suggests that due to workload demands field instructors tend to be expedient and practical in supervision (Rogers & McDonald, 1995), suggesting the importance of field instructor training that is relevant, accessible, and easy to implement. This article provides information about how and when MSW students typically learn certain skills coupled with a supervisory framework to help field instructors vary the structure, support, and supervisory focus of their supervision depending on the developmental level of their students. The framework is based on a synthesis of developmental stage models of students in social work (Holman & Freed, 1987; Saari, 1989) counseling, and psychology (Friedman & Kaslow, 1986; Ralph, 1980; Stoltenberg, McNeill, & Delworth, 1998). Implications for field instructor training are discussed.     

Improving the Motivation and Retention of Online Students Through the Use of ARCS-Based E-Mails

Abstract

This study examined the use of ARCS-based, motivational mass e-mail messages designed to improve the motivation and retention of students enrolled in an online, entry-level, undergraduate computer applications course. Data from the Course Interest Survey, based on Keller's ARCS model, were gathered and analyzed for two online groups (one treatment and one control) and compared with a face-to-face class for differences in attention, relevance, confidence, satisfaction, and overall motivation. Based on the analysis, this article argues that simple, cost-effective, and easy-to-design mass e-mail messages show potential for addressing some of the motivational needs and retention concerns of online students.     

考研高等数学的重点内容和常见题型

依照考研数学考试大纲[1],对考研高等数学的重点内容和常见题型进行归纳、整理和总结,使其所涉及的各知识点之间相互关系清晰明了,可供学生考研复习高等数学以及教师进行高等数学课程教学时参考。     

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.     

The Results of the Implementation of a Professional Supervision Model on Counselor Trainee Behavior

This article presents the results of the application of a professional model for practicum supervision using co-equal supervisors. This study found that beginning practicum students (a) learned to use a counseling theory in a professional manner with clients, (b) were rated by an expert rater as having skills equal to or higher than a comparison group of interns, graduate students, and employed agency counselors, and (c) rated the professional supervision practicum higher than did those under the usual apprenticeship supervision model. The authors suggest that counselor educators and supervisors can train students in less time to respond at a more complex skill level than has been previously reported in the literature.     

Double Blind: Supervising women as creative practice-led researchers

Abstract

Many women creative practice-led researchers appear inhibited by a number of factors directly connected to their gender. This article discusses these factors, including the culture of visual arts professional practice, the circumstances surrounding women postgraduate students and unproductive self-theories about intelligence and creativity. A number of feminist strategies are discussed as potential interventions that may assist women creative practice-led researchers and their supervisors to reap more personal and professional rewards from their postgraduate research.