Academic Adjustment and Learning Processes: a comparison of international and local students in first‐year university

This article examines the academic adjustment and learning processes of international and local first‐year students. Twenty first‐year local and international students participated in a semi‐structured interview study upon the completion of their first year in a Faculty of Commerce and Management. Students reported positive and negative critical incidents which helped or hindered their learning during the first year. In addition, students described their feelings, thoughts and behaviours in relation to these incidents. Critical incidents were coded, themes identified, and comparisons made across local and international student groups. The impact of particular teaching processes are considered, and implications for teaching and learning in the first year are discussed.     

The directional links between students’ academic motivation and social integration during the first year of higher education

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Previous theoretical research proposed a link between students’ academic motivation and students’ experiences of social integration, but...     

Peer and self‐assessment in the first year of university

This paper reviews the literature about peer and self‐assessment in university courses from the point of view of their use, and the suitability of their use, in the first year of university study. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part argues that although first‐year students are involved in many of the studies that report on the use of peer and self‐assessment in higher education, the proportion of these studies that do so is somewhat less than in other year levels. In addition, relatively little of this work directly and explicitly discusses the suitability of peer and self‐assessment for students and courses at this year level. The second part of the paper provides an introductory exploration of the relationship between peer and self‐assessment, and specific features of first‐year assessment, learning and teaching. Three issues relating directly to the suitability of peer and self‐assessment in the first year are explored. In the third part, the paper briefly discusses the desirability of implementing peer and self‐assessment, in general, before seeking to extend this specifically to the first year. The paper concludes by recommending that greater use can and should be made of peer and self‐assessment in the first year of university study.     

Factors affecting intention to leave in the first,second and third year of university studies: a semester‐by‐semester investigation

As most research into attrition and retention has focused on attrition during the first year of studies, we know little about the relationship between students’ experience of subsequent years and their decisions to withdraw from university. This paper addresses this gap in research by examining the relationship between students’ intention to withdraw from studies and their experience of university in each of the three years of Business degree studies. This empirical research indicates that the factors affecting intention to withdraw are differentiated not only by year but also by semester of study.     

E‐learning and the transformation of social interaction in higher education

This article examines the way in which e‐learning is transforming the nature of social interaction in higher education. In this new educational environment, radical societal transitions and the opportunities afforded by modern communication technologies together produce formidable challenges. Significant as these challenges may be, concentration upon problems of a practical kind draws attention away from the more theoretical concerns in understanding e‐learning. By drawing together developments in social, educational and communicational theory and Gilly Salmon’s hands‐on approach to teaching and learning online, this article reveals some unintended consequences: e‐moderation and the use of e‐tivities may perpetuate the very conditions that limit our chances of dealing successfully with the challenges posed by e‐learning. While theory may muddle what might otherwise be communicated meaningfully to those in search of practical answers, theoretical developments provide concepts and frameworks that can be placed in the service of a critical understanding of e‐learning and the transformation of social interaction in higher education.     

Comparing forms of new higher education organisations at start‐up

Abstract

In this article, we investigate three recently established entrepreneurial organisations created to deliver education and training to new audiences of learners at a distance. Each of the organisations ‐ the University of Michigan's Academic Outreach Program, the University Center at Northwestern Michigan College, and the Michigan Virtual Automotive College — is involved in multiple complex partnerships with internal and external entities, including government, industry, and education. Paying particular attention to the structures, strategies, and processes of these organisations, we argue that their emergence signals the evolution of a postsecondary knowledge industry in which permeable boundaries, new competitors, and market sensibilities are converging to challenge the fundamental nature of postsecondary education.     

Engineering education at a new public university in Brazil: first students’ contact with engineering methods

This paper describes the experience of an introductory discipline to the engineering curricula at the Brazilian Federal University of ABC (UFABC). The university offers a common basic curriculum that must be accomplished by every student and can be followed by professionalising courses. The discipline ‘Introduction to Engineering’ presents the basis of the engineering career, methods and thinking together with professional commitments and regulations. The objective is to help students to consciously choose their careers, minimising the precocity problem in deciding a professional future. The discipline methodology includes activities proposed by the TryEngineering website and from Brazilian engineering councils. Lectures with invited professors introduce UFABC engineering specialities: Aerospace, Bioengineering, Energy, Environmental & Urban, Information, Instrumentation & Automation & Robotics, Management, Materials. This paper reports the proposed activities, results obtained by the students, a methodology critical analysis and the impacts on the following steps of students embracing an engineering career.     

Student and tutor perceptions of learning and teaching on a first‐year study skills module in a university computing department

The level of student preparedness for university‐level study has been widely debated. Effective study skills modules have been linked to supporting students’ academic development during the transition phase. However, few studies have evaluated the learning experience on study skills modules from both a student and staff perspective. We surveyed 121 first‐year students and seven tutors on a study skills module on an undergraduate computing programme. The aspects in which the students’ and tutors’ views diverge provide insights into the perceptions of academic tasks and associated competencies for higher education and the delivery of study skills in practice for computing students.     

When will I succeed in my first‐year diploma? Survival analysis in Dutch higher education

The goal of this study was to illustrate survival analysis with higher education data and gain insight into a limited set of factors that predict when students passed their first‐year examination at a Dutch university. Study participants consisted of 565 first‐year students in four departments. Data were collected on when students pass their first‐year examination, prior achievement and procrastination. The analysis showed that 69% of the students had not passed their examination within the nominal study length of 12 months. The estimated median lifetime, the time when 50% of the students had passed their examination, was after 23 months. Students from the 2nd department passed their examination fastest. Female students reached the estimated median lifetime at 20 months, younger students at 16 months, older students at 24+ months and students with high prior achievement scores at 12 months. The analysis finally indicated that age, prior achievement and procrastination predicted passing first‐year examinations.     

Strategies of alliance: Models and modes of post‐secondary‐university integration

Abstract

Late in 1996, Kalgoorlie College and the Western Australian School of Mines in Western Australia were merged to form an expanded campus of Curtin University, based in the state capital city of Perth. This paper uses a frame analytical approach to examining how differing and competing interpretations and commitments affected how the merger was played out. Three important frames, each of which had a major influence on the merger for periods of time are identified: one that emphasised regional social and economic development, another centred on education for industry and a third based on economic rationalism. This analysis connects changes in the direction of the merger to shifts in the way the merger was framed.     

Same university,same challenges? Development strategies of two schools at a prestigious Chinese university in a changing higher education landscape

In a globalized world, universities face challenges adapting to changing environmental pressures and expectations of legitimacy. Studies on the topic have tended to focus on universities in North America and Europe, while Chinese universities have received less attention, perhaps due to their status as latecomers to global higher education. Based on institutional theory and resource dependence theory, this study examines the development process of two schools with different characteristics in a prestigious public Chinese university. Based on document and interview analyses, the findings indicate that both schools advocate internationalization as a development strategy but for different reasons. In response to the changing environment, one school continues to conform to the institutional environment; meanwhile, the other is competing in the task environment while also adhering to the university’s and the state’s norms, beliefs, demands and expectations. Based on the analysis, this article recommends that Chinese policymakers allow proactive schools willing to further their positioning in national and global higher education systems to have more autonomy and leeway in developing themselves.     

Expectations and experiences: the voice of a first‐generation first‐year college student and the question of student persistence

This single case study takes a phenomenological approach using the voice centered analysis to analyze qualitative interview data so that the voice of this first‐generation college student is brought forward. It is a poignant voice filled with conflicting emotional responses to the desire for college success, for family stability, for meaningful friendships, and for understanding the self. In combination with other research calling for an expansion of the dominant theory of persistence, this research raises the importance of elevating family relationships in the student persistence model.     

The care‐less manager: gender,care and new managerialism in higher education

While there has always been a profound indifference to the affective domain in formal education, given its Cartesian allegiance to the development of the rational autonomous subject, this indifference to the emotional subject is intensifying with the glorification of performativity. As higher education is especially subject to performance measurement and rankings, this study of top‐level management in Irish higher education shows that those who hold senior management posts are subjected increasingly to disciplinary rationalities that largely preclude being a primary carer. The definition of senior managerial posts as care‐less positions, in terms of primary care responsibilities, advantages those who are care‐free and these are disproportionately men in societies where the moral imperative to do primary care work applies mainly to women. The data suggest that understanding how the care ceiling operates is crucial for understanding why women do not occupy senior managerial positions within new managerial regimes in higher education.     

Ways of Coming to Understand: metacognitive awareness among first‐year university students

This paper presents a phenomenographic study of conceptions of how understanding comes about. In‐depth interviews with 30 first‐year university students were carried out, dealing with questions about learning, understanding and knowledge. The analysis presented here focuses on the experience of how understanding arises. The subjects came from teacher education, cultural studies and chemistry economics. Data were analysed according to phenomenographic principles. Three main categories of conceptions were found: coming to understand by (1) experiences, (2) mental construction and (3) merging with reality. The order of the categories is interpreted as a progression in ‘metacognitive awareness’. The results are compared with other phenomenographic studies of conceptions of understanding. Finally, they are related to constructivist models of learning and some philosophical views. It is suggested that such a recontextualisation of students’ conceptions can be made part of the curriculum in order to stimulate a ‘deep approach’ to study and learning.     

Can university qualification promote social mobility? A review of higher education expansion and graduate employment in China

Higher education expansion is expected to widen access to universities and promote social mobility, but evidence from the real world frequently contradicts this expectation, and China is no exception. Most empirical studies have been conducted on the relationship between social origins and education without considering studies on education and social destinations. As a result, relatively weak modifying measures are suggested without a panoramic view to inform structural changes. Inspired by the ‘positional competition’ observed by Mok, this study attempts to continue the exploration by constructing a dialogue between the two studies and look into the fluidity process across the two relationships to trace the determinants of social stratification in the country. Key findings include the following: 1) The education system is obligated to play a specific role in China depending on the governing theme of the regime, that is, the existing one prioritises economic growth but not social mobility. 2) Social elitist status in China is associated with an occupation in the public sector, the pursuit of which constitutes over-education among graduates. 3) The queuing model derived from the screening and signalling theory exercises explanatory power in the analysis of the public sector, whereas the thesis of human capital may still be illuminative in the private market. This study argues that, without addressing the state’s continual grip on commanding heights, which is a fundamental reason behind weak fluidity, future modifying measures to propel mobility may be fruitless.     

‘Even with higher education you remain a woman’: a gender perspective on higher education and social change in the Toliara region of Madagascar

This article investigates some issues related to gender and education based on a qualitative, empirical study of women in higher education in the Toliara region of Madagascar. The focus is on how women’s participation in higher education has created changes in gender relations, and how these women have succeeded in achieving higher education. In spite of the interviewed women’s more influential social position and individual freedom, we found that the traditional gender expectations and economic expectations from the extended family are still present. Indeed, it appears that with rising social position and individual freedom, the pressure and demands from their extended families increase.     

Devising inequality: a Bernsteinian analysis of high‐stakes testing and social reproduction in education

High‐stakes, standardized testing has become the central tool for educational reform and regulation in many industrialized nations in the world, and it has been implemented with particular intensity in the United States and the United Kingdom. Drawing on research on high‐stakes testing and its effect on classroom practice and pedagogic discourse in the United States, the present paper applies Bernstein’s concept of the pedagogic device to explain how high‐stakes tests operate as a relay in the reproduction of dominant social relations in education. This analysis finds that high‐stakes tests, through the structuring of knowledge, actively select and regulate student identities, and thus contribute to the selection and regulation of students’ educational success.     

Conceptions of first‐year university students of the constituents of matter and the notions of acids and bases

Preconceptions of first‐year university students of the constituents of matter and the notions of acids and bases were investigated on a total of 400 students. The procedure used consisted of free interviews, semi‐structured interviews and questionnaires.

It was found that the constituents of matter were well known to students, but that interactions between these constituents were either totally unknown or were the subject of severe misconceptions. The students’ knowledge tended to be qualitative and formal, with a worrying lack of connection with everyday life.