The emergence of contesting motives for student feedback-based evaluation in Australian higher education

Student feedback-based evaluation performs a significant social role in framing perceptions of the quality of teaching in contemporary Australian higher education. Yet its emergence is a relatively recent phenomenon, having only been in widespread application since the mid-1980s. The early manifestations of student feedback-based evaluation came with newly emerging academic development units with a motive to enhance the quality of local teaching and to afford student retention. However, new motives for assailing student feedback evolved with the rapid growth in student numbers, the introduction of student fees and heightened levels of inter-institutional competition for students. As a result, student feedback-based evaluation progressively became also a powerful proxy measure of teaching and curricula quality assurance at an individual, institutional and sectoral level [Blackmore, J. (2009). Academic pedagogies, quality logics and performative universities: Evaluating teaching and what students want. Studies in Higher Education, 34(8), 857–872. doi:10.1080/03075070902898664]. This generated critical tensions between the seminal motive of student feedback around quality improvement, and the rising quality assurances discourses, academic performance management demands and institutional marketing. In this paper, the complex social origins of these competing motives for student feedback-based evaluation in Australian higher education will be explored and analysed. It is argued this provides an important means of understanding the polarising effects of student feedback-based evaluation in Australian universities.     

Professional staff contributions to student retention and success in higher education

ABSTRACT

Student attrition remains a persistent problem within the Australian higher education sector. Contributing factors include financial, reputational and quality issues, which can pose significant risks for a university’s sustainability. Institutional culture is fundamental to decisions student make about withdrawing or remaining in higher education. Therefore, student retention requires a sustained, deeply embedded commitment from all parts of the institution, placing student experience at the forefront of all activities in the student lifecycle. Applying a lifecycle approach to the way in which institutions think about student retention benefits students by providing comprehensive and consistent support. Given that less is known about how professional staff contribute to student academic learning journeys as part of whole of institution responses to student retention, this paper focusses on the contributions that professional staff make within the student lifecycle and how they can most readily map their contributions to student retention and success.     

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.     

Reimagining student employability: a case study of policy and practice transformation

ABSTRACT

Within Australian higher education, there has been an evolving of employability policy, realised in curriculum, at an intersection of the constructs of employment, work-readiness, life-long learning, and career development. The enactment of employability policy has driven an evolution in the practices of higher education in both curriculum and student support. This paper presents a case study of an Australian university which has reimagined the delivery of career and student support services through a framework that envisions preparing students for future worlds of work. The emergent policy framework has transformed organisational structures, human resources, and connections between student support practices and curriculum design. This transformation has generated new intersections of practice and is challenging institutional constructs of expertise. This case study provides transferrable learnings for broader considerations of higher education policy and practice as employability becomes the core driver of student success, and explores layered discourses of policymaking across an institution.     

Editorial

The first article in this issue raises some fascinating issues that relate to my own background in research into student learning and experience of courses in conventional higher education. Richardson, Long and Woodley have administered the Academic Engagement Form', used widely in colleges in the USA, and the 'Course Experience Questionnaire', used widely in universities in Australia, to distance learning students. John Richardson and various colleagues have previously shown that these questionnaires, separately, work as well in distance learning contexts as they do in conventional contexts: that is, they identify the same factors as components of students' experience, and the same factors relating to overall perceptions of quality of experience, as in conventional contexts. Of the many findings reported in the study reported in this issue of Open Learning, two stand out for me. First, academic engagement is shown to play a key role in students' perceptions of academic quality: engaged students perceive their course to be of higher quality. This does not tell us if students who are happy with their courses become more engaged or if those who are engaged become happier with their courses, however, merely that they are related. 'Engagement' here encompasses both social and academic engagement as defined in Tinto's model of student retention. Second, students' overall perceptions of academic quality are mediated by their perceptions of their tutors. The authors conclude: '... the attitudes and behaviours of tutors are crucial to students' perceptions of the academic quality of courses in distance education'. In conventional contexts the item on the Course Experience Questionnaire that relates most closely to student performance concerns the quality of teacher feedback, not teaching, and this is easy to understand in a distance context. The methodology of this paper (relying on factor analysis of questionnaires and multivariate analysis of the relationship between questionnaire scale scores and background variables such as age, gender, educational qualifications, workload and hearing status) may be relatively unfamiliar to readers of Open Learning. What is perhaps more familiar is that such an analysis adds to similar conclusions about the centrality of the tutorial role in ODL students' learning from very different kinds of study (such as of the relationship between tutorial attendance and student performance). There is a growing body of evidence that the same variables are involved in student perceptions of courses and of academic quality in distance learning contexts as in conventional contexts.     

Concepts in Conflict: Students and Customers–An Australian Perspective

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, pressure is being brought to bear on Australian academics as service providers in the higher education ‘industry.’ Students are attracted to universities by marketing and promotion activities which inculcate the perception that the student is a customer. Furthermore, education is being treated by various governments as a commodity which may be purchased by customers in a free market system. The authors argue that students are not customers in the sense currently recognised by business. An alternative view of the customer base of an institution is put forward. This alternative more effectively accounts for the variety of interests that must be served by the higher education industry.     

Student perceptions of personalised learning: development and validation of a questionnaire with regional secondary students

This project sought to evaluate regional students’ perceptions of their readiness to learn, assessment processes, engagement, extent to which their learning is personalised and to relate these to academic efficacy, academic achievement, and student well-being. It also examined teachers’ perceptions of students’ readiness to learn, the assessment process, engagement, and the extent to which students’ learning is personalised. The sample involved students in years 7–10 from six Victorian secondary schools. An instrument Personalised Learning Environment Questionnaire (PLQ) was developed to measure students’ perceptions of the factors effecting the implementation of Personalised Learning Plans (PLPs). It employed the latest scales to assess a range of PLP indicator variables, with all scales modified for use in an Australian context, and the total number of items kept to a minimum. Only scales more sensitive to PLPs were used to minimise the length of the instrument. There were three outcome variables: academic efficacy, academic achievement, and student well-being. The PLPs were assessed through scales that assess several contributing, distinct dimensions: selfdirected learning readiness, personal achievement, goal orientation, learning environment, personalised teaching and learning initiatives, curriculum entitlement and choice, and perceptions of assessment for learning. The trail PLQ was administered to 220 students, resulting in a 19 scale questionnaire with three or four items per scale. This paper reveals good data to model fit for the majority of items and each scale had good reliability. The paper describes the analytic techniques and results, how the instrument was refined and identifies common and uncommon student perceptions based on a post hoc analysis. The main study consisted of 2,407 students from four schools in the Bendigo Education Plan. They responded to this refined 19 scale version of the PLQ that was developed from the trial PLQ. All scales had satisfactory internal consistency reliability.     

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 Effects of Teacher Professional Development on Children’s Attendance in Preschool

Abstract

Student absenteeism is a widespread and critical issue in early childhood education. Current efforts to reduce student absenteeism in both preschool and K–12 settings have largely been family- and parent-focused interventions. Yet, interventions targeting teachers and schools may similarly be effective tools to improve student attendance. We utilize data from a large-scale, experimental evaluation of an early childhood professional development intervention to examine whether it impacted children’s absenteeism and chronic absenteeism. Although the professional development targeted the quality of teacher-child interactions and did not target children’s absenteeism, we find that the professional development reduced student absence rates by 1.0 percentage points (equivalent to approximately an additional 1.9?days of preschool). The professional development also reduced chronic absenteeism by 6.0 percentage points. Impacts were concentrated among lower-income children. Implications for policies targeting student absenteeism in preschool settings are discussed.     

借鉴澳大利亚经验转变我国留学生教育发展策略

如何扩大留学生教育规模,是目前高等教育国际化面临的热点课题。澳大利亚在较短时间内摆脱了留学生教育发展困境,一跃成为当今世界的主要留学生接收国,在国际留学生教育服务市场的占有率居高不下,其发展经验很有借鉴意义。本文集中对中澳两国留学生教育发展策略展开对比分析,力求以澳大利亚经验为基础,探索出一种切实可行的发展策略,推进我国留学生教育事业整体进程。     

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.     

Singapore international education hub and its dilemmas: the challenges and makings for cosmopolitan learning

ABSTRACT

Higher education in Asia is massifying at an exceptional pace and scale. In this paper, I ask how practices and discourses which inform the internationalization of Singapore’s higher education can provide opportunities for developing cosmopolitan learning that it claims to provide. Cosmopolitan learning is closely related to cross-border student mobility and plays an important role in shaping the international students’ identities, aspirations and worldviews. Based on a recent study in Singapore of a group of international students from various parts of Asia and Europe, this paper attempts to bring the theoretical and grounded realities of cosmopolitan learning in an Asian context into the fore. The aim of the paper is to provide a useful frame for rethinking the purpose of international education for cosmopolitan learning in an increasingly interconnected world that is strewn with ambivalence, and what that means in the context of Singapore as an erudite nation-state critical to building Asian education hub aspirations.     

Gender differences in the Australian undergraduate STEM student experience: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

In Australia, the number of female graduates in some science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines is as low as 15%. Previous reviews exploring the issues affecting female undergraduate STEM students are primarily based in North America and there is yet to be an Australian focused review. This review identifies the factors contributing to the gendered experience of Australian undergraduate STEM students. A systematic review was conducted in November – December 2018 using ERIC, PsycInfo, ProQuest and Scopus databases. From this review, 36 papers that focus on gender differences and university STEM students in Australia were identified. The Australian research suggests the most prominent issue for female STEM students is their lower self-efficacy. Gendered preferences for learning, gendered motivations to pursue STEM degrees, the masculine culture of these fields and gender differences in science identity were also themes identified through the review. This review indicates some gaps in the Australian literature, namely that identity, and other emotional factors, are understudied in the Australian context and an avenue for future research. The findings suggest that science educators should be aware of the gendered experiences of their students to ensure female persistence in university STEM degrees.     

What do prospective students look for in higher degrees by research? A scale development study

ABSTRACT

This empirical investigation was aimed at conceptualizing, developing and validating a scale for the measurement of the quality of higher degrees by research (HDR-QUAL). For that purpose, this study specifically measured perceptions of higher degrees by research (HDR) students about the constituents of HDR quality in Pakistani tertiary education institutions. Following the 7-step process of scale development, three studies were conducted in order to develop an initial pool of scale items, establishing proposed scale validity and reliability, and assessing nomological behavior of the proposed scale. The principal component analysis with Varimax rotation method resulted in a 3-factor solution, subsequently proposing a 15-item scale. The model fit indices of measurement and the higher-order model indicated a satisfactory fit to data. Finally, the resultant three factors, i.e. financial assistance, supervisory expertise, and infrastructural support, converged into a unidimensional HDR-QUAL scale that was found positively associated with student satisfaction, thus, confirming nomological validity as well. Important policy measures and directions for future research are proposed at the end.     

Cross-Cultural Differences in Student Expectations

ABSTRACT

International students represent a growing market segment for colleges and universities in the U.S. As universities begin to target international students, it will become imperative that university administrators and faculty understand what these students expect once they arrive on campus. The present study, utilizing 686 U.S. and 338 Australian business students was designed to explore university service expectations from a cross-cultural perspective. Results indicate that expectations of Australian students are greater than those of U.S students on three dimensions of service quality. Implications for university administrators and faculty, along with future directions, are discussed.     

Navigating the ambiguous policy landscape of student participation

ABSTRACT

Student participation at school is receiving heightened attention through international evidence connecting it to a range of benefits including student learning, engagement, citizenship and wellbeing, as well as to overall school improvement. Yet the notion of student participation remains an ambiguous concept, and one that challenges many deeply entrenched norms of traditional schooling.

Informed by understandings of ‘participation’ linked to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, this article takes the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) as a case study to explore how student participation is currently articulated in educational policy. It reports the findings of an analysis of 142 state and federal government policy-related documents, along with qualitative interview data from nine policy personnel. The findings suggest that students are conceptualised within these policies in contradictory ways, interpretations of participation are diverse yet frequently instrumentalist, and there is little conceptual coherence across the educational policy landscape in NSW in relation to ‘student participation’. The findings are discussed in light of international interest around student participation. The analytical framework used in this analysis is proposed as a possible tool for critically examining the place and purpose of student participation at school, regardless of jurisdiction.

Abbrevations: NSW = the Australian state of New South Wales; UNCRC = United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child; SRC = Student Representative Council     

Umbrella action research projects as a mechanism for learning and teaching quality enhancement

ABSTRACT

Umbrella action research projects link together a number of small action research projects under a common organizational and thematic umbrella. This article provides an example of an umbrella action research project, which aimed for teaching quality enhancement. There are two mechanisms by which teaching quality can be enhanced. The first of these is through the improvements initiated in the small projects, which are normally conducted by teachers in the courses they teach. The second mechanism is that of the collective reflective discussions of the whole project team. The collective umbrella that over-arches the individual projects provides a mechanism for participants to collectively transform their understanding of the common thematic issue. There is, therefore, the possibility of an emancipatory transformation, so that the whole achieves more than the sum of the individual projects. This article substantiates the impact of umbrella action research projects by presenting case studies from an overall project that focused on online learning. The cases highlight our reflective discussions on promoting student engagement in online learning. They show how our collective understanding of engagement in online learning was advanced and some of the means tried in the small projects to encourage student engagement. As there is evidence of teaching quality enhancement through the umbrella action research project, we discuss the possibility of redirecting some of the resources currently devoted to quality assurance to quality enhancement through encouraging action research projects.     

PhD by Publication: innovative approach to social science research,or operationalisation of the doctoral student … or both?

ABSTRACT

The PhD by Publication offers doctoral students an opportunity to focus on publishing during their candidature. A considerable body of literature has explored questions of legitimacy, consistency and quality of this model of scholarship, while students have reflected on how this approach helped build a publishing track record and develop skills associated with writing scholarly articles [Jackson, D. (2013). Completing a PhD by publication: A review of Australian policy and implications for practice. Higher Education Research & Development, 32(3), 355–368; Robins, L., & Kanowski, P. (2008). PhD by publication: A student’s perspective. Journal of Research Practice, 4(2), 1–20]. However, there is a need to explore how this approach both shapes and reflects the student experience of doctoral studies. This auto-ethnographical article analyses my own experience of the PhD by Publication. On the one hand, this method suited my multidisciplinary research topic and approach to research and assisted the flexibility and creativity of my research. On the other, I began to view my value as a researcher and the value of my research, in terms of the quantitative performance metrics of research in output, citation counts and h-index. Concept of performativity, I analyse how the PhD by Publication potentially reshapes what it is to be a doctoral student, and how the value of doctoral students is construed by themselves and others within their university.     

Book review

An equitable and democratised higher education system should, in principle, be permeable to the flow of populations with different social and/or cultural backgrounds, allowing access to any parts of the system. However, despite the democratisation efforts that took place in Portugal after the 1974 revolution, and although the student population is now much more diversified and heterogeneous than ever before, the particular routes to higher education still hinder the free access of students to some areas of the system.

Purpose

In this study, those different routes to higher education and the way they might influence students’ choices are analysed. Of particular interest was whether students tended to make choices based on feasibility rather than personal preference.

Sample

Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews with 60 first year students (32 female and 28 male), from universities and polytechnics, both public and private, and from three first cycle study programmes (Arts, Pharmacy and Computer Engineering) in the urban area of the city of Porto.

Design and Methods

The analysis was a small scale qualitative investigation of Portuguese students’ perceptions underlying their choices in higher education. The sample selection took into account the diversity of the student population and sought to include different student profiles to gather contrasting cases and potentially contrasting views. Data gathered through interviews (conducted in 2009/2010) were systematised by means of a content analysis technique and submitted to a codification process according to a grid of categories that emerged from the analysis of data.

Results

Findings from this small scale exploration suggest that the majority of the students interviewed chose a study programme based on preference but based their choice of institution on feasibility.

Conclusions

The study provides insights into factors that limit student access to all parts of the higher education system, namely to some selective and more prestigious institutions.     

试论学生工作与素质教育的关系

全面提高大学生的整体素质是当今学生工作的核心和必然要求。要正确认识学生工作与素质教育的关系，明确学生工作在素质教育中的特殊地位。更好地解决大学生思想上存在的种种疑惑，从而努力实现学生工作从单纯的思想教育管理为主向以提高整体素质为中心的转变。