Polytechnic legal structures after nationalisation: comments on the DES proposals

There is increasing concern over the number of university students and university staff who require psychological support; however, little is known about the impact of this on higher education (HE) staff. University employees (n=91) from two UK universities completed an anonymous survey which explored their experience of providing support for psychological distress, receptiveness to mental health training and ability to recognise signs of mental health problems. A total of 63% of the sample reported providing support for psychological distress to students, and 41% had provided this service to colleagues. More than half of those without regular student contact had still provided support for psychological distress to students. Many staff were untrained (>70%) in the topic of mental health, and the majority of staff (64%) would welcome this form of training from employers if made available. HE staff participating in this research demonstrated ability to recognise the signs of schizophrenia (99%) and major depression (95%), but 37% of the sample confused everyday troubles with likely signs of a mental health difficulty. In conclusion, a large number of HE staff provide support for psychological distress as part of their workloads, though most are untrained to do so. HE institutions should ensure that appropriate mental health awareness training is made available to employees, and should encourage staff to complete this training if already available.     

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.     

Bridging the gap: supporting student transitions into higher education

This research focused on the early experience of students entering an undergraduate course in a post‐1992 university that is committed to widening participation. Using Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital and habitus as a theoretical framework, data were collected from students using an online questionnaire and small‐group discussions during the critical first days and weeks when they need to fit in to their new environment. The research was designed to consider whether there is a ‘new student’ in higher education (HE) and to consider the possible influence of cultural capital and habitus on a student’s transition. Data were collected using an online questionnaire with a response rate of 52% (n=180), and this was followed up with five small‐group discussions with 25 of the respondents. Participants self‐selected to take part in the small‐group discussions but the sample did reflect the cohort in relation to ethnicity, age and gender. The data collected from the questionnaire provided a snapshot of the students’ early experience within the university, and data from the small‐group discussions were used to triangulate this and allow emerging themes to be explored in greater depth. The results showed that the majority of the students (70%) were combining work with study and most students spent a minimal amount of time on campus, perhaps supporting the concept that there is a ‘new student’ in HE. Perceptions about their transition varied, but most of the students expressed concern about the perceived need to be an independent learner. Students stated that they needed more structured activities on campus to encourage them to fit in, and more support from academic staff, with clear instructions about what was expected.     

Can Turnitin be used to provide instant formative feedback?

New students face the challenge of making a smooth transition between school and university, and with regards to academic practice, there are often gaps between student expectations and university requirements. This study supports the use of the plagiarism detection service Turnitin to give students instant feedback on essays to help improve academic literacy. A student cohort (n = 76) submitted draft essays to Turnitin and received instruction on how to interpret the ‘originality report’ themselves for feedback. The impact of this self‐service approach was analysed by comparing the writing quality and incidence of plagiarism in draft and final essays, and comparing the results to a previous cohort (n = 80) who had not used Turnitin formatively. Student and staff perceptions were explored by interview and questionnaire. Using Turnitin formatively was viewed positively by staff and students, and although the incidence of plagiarism did not reduce because of a worsening of referencing and citation skills, the approach encouraged students to develop their writing. To conclude, students were positive of their experience of using Turnitin. Further work is required to understand how to use the self‐service approach more effectively to improve referencing and citation, and narrow the gap between student expectations and university standards.     

An integrated project aimed at improving student success

Abstract

Student academic success is an important issue in South African (SA) higher education (HE). The transition from school to HE is a critical time that a student must successfully negotiate in order ultimately to succeed at university. Tinto (1993) identified the first phase of the transition process as the separation phase during which the student starts the move away from the originating environment toward becoming integrated into the institutional community. Orientation programmes have traditionally been one way in which institutions have tried to assist students in adapting to the new environment. Orientation sessions have however not always had the practical effect of improving student success. This article reports back on a newly designed “true to life” extended orientation programme that was implemented during January 2008. The success of the programme was evaluated using student feedback and by tracking the academic performance of the students. After tracking student academic performance the performance of the students who took part in the orientation programme was compared with the academic results of those who did not attend. The extended orientation programme seemed to have positively contributed towards student success.     

Student feedback to improved retention: using a mixed-methods approach to extend specific feedback to a generalisable concept

ABSTRACT

Across the Higher Education (HE) sector student feedback is used to feed into university processes and guide decision making. In this study, data gathered allowed the authors to investigate a hitherto neglected, but important, cohort of successful students – those who succeeded when all the odds were stacked against them. The identified group of students had relatively low predictive probabilities of passing their module, and yet despite all the odds passed. These identified students were interviewed by phone which yielded a much richer data set than is often available from student surveys. The advice they considered to be important to future students included specific guidance to get ahead, to plan and to contact their own academic tutor. Based on this advice an opportunity for future students to have a flexible early start on a specific module was created. A 4% increase in the number of registered students who subsequently started the module was maintained through to module completion.     

Social life for sale! A critical discourse analysis of the concept of student life on Danish university websites

This paper aims to investigate the marketization of higher education (HE) as it manifests itself in the concept of Student life on Danish HE websites. Taking Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis as its starting point, this paper critically examines this particular practice of marketization by making a single-case study of the pages called Student life at the biggest university in Denmark, Copenhagen University (CU). The findings show that these page elements of social life are intensively and routinely used to soften up the more demanding aspects of being a university student, and that this involves a significant positive evaluation of life as a university student. The paper addresses the potential problems related to the findings in order to contribute to further discussion and reflection upon issues centred around the marketization of HE on university websites and around the construction of what it means to be a student today.     

Evidence and benefits of postgraduate international students-staff members partnership in extra-curricular activities: a Malaysian perspective

ABSTRACT

The student engagement concept has been revolutionised so that students play an active role alongside staff members in determining their student learning experiences. Although the development of student–staff partnerships enhances student engagement and experience, empirical research on partnerships in Malaysia is scant. This paper contributes to the growing scholarly literature on such partnerships – in particular, exploring postgraduate international students and staff members’ partnership dimensions in extra-curricular activities at a research university in Malaysia. This qualitative study interviewed 33 postgraduate international students, 10 academic staff and 12 professional staff members. Based on the findings, the student–staff partnership model is well integrated into the extra-curricular activities: international students are invited to co-design and implement adjustment programmes for newly arrived international students. This paper also explores the multi-layered benefits of partnerships for postgraduate international students and for staff members. The implications of such partnerships for the university, international students and staff members are discussed.     

Seeing institutionally: a rationale for ‘teach the University’ in student and staff partnerships

ABSTRACT

Students as Partners (SAP) initiatives are often framed as opportunities to reanimate university education so that students become active participants in their learning, and change agents capable of transforming their institutions. Embedded in these framings is a view that students are also the primary ‘experts’ of their learning experiences. This shift marks curious terrain about how staff come into partnership when students are encouraged to understand themselves as experts at the very same time the purpose of universities is beset with multiple and contradictory narratives, and the whole notion of expertise – even for academics – has become unsettled by the politics of a post-truth era. If the advocacy of student expertise is to be understood as a radical intervention to the marketised neoliberal university, as is often claimed, we argue that the desire for expertise has a more compelling basis when students are engaged with what Gina Hunter calls learning to ‘see institutionally’. In this article, we both describe, and put to work, Jeffrey J. Williams’s idea ‘teach the university’ as one mechanism for students and staff working in partnership to ‘see institutionally’. We then examine the nascent efforts of our own SAP initiatives to make a case for why ‘the university’ – as idea and institution – deserves to be introduced to, studied and critically interrogated by students as part of a long tradition of inquiry. While a good many SAP initiatives aim to address where students are absent, under-represented or disempowered in the university, very few appear to take seriously that there is a field of scholarship about universities that lends credibility and contest to the notion of expertise. By staging a conceptual encounter between Williams, Hunter and our own partnership work, the potential for SAP is expanded as project that cares for the future university.     

The Experiences of International and Local Students at Three Australian Universities

In 1992 international fee‐paying and local students currently enrolled at the three tertiary institutions in South Australia were surveyed by a common questionnaire on students’ study‐related and personal experiences, and issues related to students’ choice and subsequent evaluation of their institution. The breadth of the student sample and the comparative data the questionnaire generated present an overarching view of the experiences and evaluations of a diverse range of university students.

The results of the survey show that while international students experience more problems, and experience them to a more serious degree than their Australian counterparts, the nature of the issues which are of most concern are generally shared. These are concerns about financial issues such as access to Austudy for local students, and the level of fees for international students and the ability to find part‐time work for both groups. The other broad group of issues of concern was study related: workload, fear of failure, loss of motivation, doubts about academic ability, nervousness and tension. Notably, in spite of the differences ‐between the three institutions – the University of Adelaide representing a ‘traditional’ university, Flinders University of South Australia, a ‘1960s’ university and the University of South Australia a ‘post‐1987’ university – the student responses across the three institutions were remarkably similar.

In terms of student evaluations of the quality of the education and services provided, Australian students were consistently more likely to rate aspects of teaching more positively than their international counterparts, but for both groups it was evident, particularly in their comments, that aspects of teaching such as the quality of lectures, accessibility of staff, availability of resources and staff: student ratios were of major concern.

The findings lead to the recommendations that universities could improve both local and international student experience by providing clear information about courses and course expectations, by the provision of effective feedback on assignments, by embedding the teaching of academic skills within courses, by increasing course flexibility to enable students to balance study and earning demands, and by ensuring that student support services are adequately resourced.     

Pourquoi entrer a l'Universite? L'Exemple d'une universite de lettres et sciences humaines

The large number of secondary school graduates entering higher education is transforming the nature of universities, particularly in literature and the humanities, by changing the relative numbers of students enrolled in different academic years. At the same time this influx is accompanied by a significant failure rate in the first academic year, calling into question the efficacy of the university system. A national issue with local repercussions, the struggle against failure in the first year is leading to much heart-searching among the universities, whose staff are trying hard to understand why certain students abandon their studies. The enquiry described in this article reveals the co-existence of two student populations: those who enter university as an active choice and those who do so by default. In the case of the first group, entry to university represents an investment for the future which must be carefully managed. In the second case it is a matter of going into higher education as a faute de mieux solution in an economic context in which work is scarce.     

SELF AND STUDENT EVALUATION OF ACADEMIC STAFF

At the University of Queensland a questionnaire to students for their evaluation of tutors’ and lecturers’ classroom presentation and classroom management has been in (increasing) use since 1982. The introduction of the evaluation questionnaire and the management of the evaluation system are based on the research lieterature on change. Student evaluations per se do not induce change. However, self evaluations focus staffs attention on their own perception as teachers, and possible discrepancies between self and student evaluation may then motivate staff to change.

Therefore self evaluation has been used in the evaluation of teaching schemesto facilitate change. Overall, there was no relationship between student ratings and staff self ratings on the question, “All things considered, how would you rate this staff member's overall effectiveness as a university teacher?” Both highly and poorly rated lecturers showed large discrepancies between their self perception and student perception. This emphasises the importance of using more than one source of evaluative information for decision makeing. An interview study found that nearly all those evaluated had implemented changes and felt positive about evaluation.     

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.     

Peer assessment of oral presentations: effects of student gender,university affiliation and participation in the development of assessment criteria

Peer assessment provides a useful mechanism to develop many positive qualities in students studying in higher education (HE). Potential influences on peer‐awarded marks include student qualities such as gender, HE background (e.g. university affiliation) and participation in the development of the assessment criteria. Many studies that have investigated peer assessment have placed great emphasis on marks from a single tutor, or very few tutors, from a single university. This study examined grades awarded by 11 tutors (affiliated with four universities) to oral presentations delivered on a residential field course by second‐year undergraduate students from two universities studying environmental or biological disciplines. Student assessors awarded marks of fairly high precision (correlating strongly with tutor grades) but averaged 5% higher than their tutors (i.e. of only moderate accuracy). Marginally higher marks (circa 1.6%) were awarded by student assessors to speakers studying at the same university. Gender influences were detected as males tended to grade other male speakers very slightly more highly than female speakers. Marks from females were unaffected by speaker gender. Students who participated in the development of the assessment criteria did not achieve higher grades for their presentations. However, when these ‘participants’ were assessing, they awarded lower marks than their peers (i.e. closer to, but not as low as, those awarded by tutors). Lower marks were also awarded during the middle of sessions, possibly resulting from factors associated with motivation and attention of speakers and markers. Overall, the potential biases in marking by naive assessors examined in this study may influence the validity of marks generated by peer assessment schemes, but the experience of this type of assessment had positive effects on those involved.     

Pourquoi entrer a l'Universite? L'Exemple d'une universite de lettres et sciences humaines

The large number of secondary school graduates entering higher education is transforming the nature of universities, particularly in literature and the humanities, by changing the relative numbers of students enrolled in different academic years. At the same time this influx is accompanied by a significant failure rate in the first academic year, calling into question the efficacy of the university system. A national issue with local repercussions, the struggle against failure in the first year is leading to much heart-searching among the universities, whose staff are trying hard to understand why certain students abandon their studies. The enquiry described in this article reveals the co-existence of two student populations: those who enter university as an active choice and those who do so by default. In the case of the first group, entry to university represents an investment for the future which must be carefully managed. In the second case it is a matter of going into higher education as a faute de mieux solution in an economic context in which work is scarce.     

Towards a structural inequality framework for student retention and success

ABSTRACT

University campuses are increasingly diverse, reflecting substantial growth in student enrolments, but this has not translated to equitable outcomes for all students. While much attention has been focused on student retention and success, particularly for those from non-traditional backgrounds, dominant theoretical models rest on a limited notion of cultural capital that places undue responsibility on students themselves. We suggest that structural inequality, whereby some people receive unequal privileges and opportunities, offers a more productive, less problematic framework for use by academic staff, university leaders and policy makers to address these challenges. In this article, we identify three types of structural inequality – vertical, horizontal, and internal – and include a taxonomy of internal inequalities to prompt further research and policy outcomes. Put simply, rather than ask how students can build cultural capital to assimilate to their institutions, we should ask what institutions can do to include students, staff, and the wider community.     

EDITORIAL

Novice nurses encounter numerous factors that impact on their learning in the complex healthcare workplace. Registered nurses often work one‐on‐one with novices as preceptors to facilitate the development of novices’ clinical skills and socialisation into the profession. This paper explores the concept of preceptorship from novice nurses’ and preceptors’ perspective, drawing upon data from a project between a large healthcare organisation and a university in Melbourne, Australia. The study, framed in ethnomethodology, included fieldwork observation, interviews and student surveys; this paper focuses on data collected over a series of individual interviews with nursing students (n = 28) and preceptors (n = 25). Thematic analysis yielded six key themes: workplace socialisation, empathy, individuality, willingness to engage, changing support and a realisation [by novices about the preceptor role]. Findings highlight the complexity of workplace learning that is influenced by the idiosyncrasies of the individuals involved and the social milieu in which the learning takes place.     

A comparison of student teachers’ perceptions of school placement experience in Malta and China Compare

ABSTRACT

This study explores the insights about teaching that student teachers elicit from schools when they go on their first school placements. It thereby offers an appraisal of how student teachers experience teaching when still at the relatively early stages of training and how they are socialised into a role where they become protagonists who can create a positive teaching climate in the classroom. The authors approach this study from the perspective of construction of meanings and consider the discourse that takes place in candidate teacher-student interactions in two university settings – in Malta and China, respectively. The study shows how student teachers believe that cultures and cultural differences need to be clearly considered across the curriculum if schools are to promote active learning equitably.     

University Practicum Supervisors: marching to a different drummer?

The roles and responsibilities of university supervisors in the practicum have changed during the last ten years. Once, the routine tasks of observation and feedback of student teaching performance were the main responsibilities associated with visits to the school. Lecturers in this role also determined, with the school personnel, the assessment rating of the student teacher. Presently, there is considerable variation in the part played by university supervisors of the practicum. Against this background, this paper examines the actual and ideal characteristics of university supervisors from their own viewpoint and from the perspective of teacher supervisors, principals and student teachers. The reasons for the actual‐ideal discrepancies are discussed, and suggestions are made in relation to addressing the matter.     

‘Teaching excellence’ in higher education: a comparative study of English and Australian academics’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

In the current higher education (HE) environment, indicators of ‘teaching excellence’ (TE) are increasingly under the spotlight. The literature offers a wide range of models and perspectives, but also highlights the need for greater (comparative) scrutiny of the perceptions of those at the centre – staff teaching across the disciplines in different countries. This article aims to contribute to ongoing debates by investigating and comparing the views of 120 academic staff teaching in one of two countries – England and Australia – in an attempt to deepen our appreciation of their definitions and understandings. The findings from this two-stage enquiry using online questionnaires and interviews indicate broad commonalities in the ways in which academics define TE, centred on facilitative, interactive pedagogy related to individual professional aspirations; they also reveal widely shared reservations about the term’s legitimacy and institutional/marketised (ab)use. As such, the findings offer policy-makers and institutions useful insights at a time when TE definitions and metrics are growing global pre-occupations.

Abbreviations: teaching excellence (TE); higher education (HE)