Development,Evaluation and Use of a Student Experience Survey in Undergraduate Science Laboratories: The Advancing Science by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory Student Laboratory Learning Experience Survey

Student experience surveys have become increasingly popular to probe various aspects of processes and outcomes in higher education, such as measuring student perceptions of the learning environment and identifying aspects that could be improved. This paper reports on a particular survey for evaluating individual experiments that has been developed over some 15 years as part of a large national Australian study pertaining to the area of undergraduate laboratories—Advancing Science by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory. This paper reports on the development of the survey instrument and the evaluation of the survey using student responses to experiments from different institutions in Australia, New Zealand and the USA. A total of 3153 student responses have been analysed using factor analysis. Three factors, motivation, assessment and resources, have been identified as contributing to improved student attitudes to laboratory activities. A central focus of the survey is to provide feedback to practitioners to iteratively improve experiments. Implications for practitioners and researchers are also discussed.     

Non-response in student surveys: The Role of Demographics,Engagement and Personality

What causes a student to participate in a survey? This paper looks at participation across multiple surveys to understand survey non-response; by using multiple surveys we minimize the impact of survey salience. Students at a selective liberal arts college were administered four different surveys throughout the 2002–2003 academic year, and we use the number of surveys participated in to understand how student characteristics such as demographics, engagement and Holland personality type affect cooperation. We find that survey respondents are more likely to be female and socially engaged, less likely to be on financial aid, more likely to be an investigative personality type and less likely to be an enterprising personality type.     

成人高等教育发展趋势探索

成人高等教育发展有自身的特点和趋势,文中分析了成人高等教育地位和作用、办学层次办学形式灵活多样、注重社会生活教育和全面培养人的素质等主要特点着重对成人高等教育发展的五个发展趋势进行探索.     

Review Essay

This article provides a critical sociological analysis of trends and perspectives pervasive during the emergence of North American adult education (1919–1970). In discussing transitions during the first 50 years of what is considered modern practice, it draws on Webster E. Cotton's (1986, On Behalf of Adult Education: A Historical Examination of the Supporting Literature. Boston, MA: Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults) periodization model—modified a few years later—to organize people, politics, and ideas as categories shaping North American adult education. In exploring this complexity, the article reflects on the perennial difficulty of answering the question ‘What is adult education?’ Following brief considerations of periods one (1919–1929) and two (1930–1946) in the field’s emergence, the article focuses on period three (1947–1970) in more detail, providing critical perspectives on field expansion during the perceived corporate age of adult education. It considers how adult education and constituent higher adult education were each affected as the field of study and practice negotiated the knowledge–culture–language–power nexus where it sought presence and place. Then, comparing the historical example of post-World War II North American adult education and the contemporary example of lifelong learning in neoliberal times, the article concludes by considering how cultural change forces have placed educational formations into reactive modes over time and tides.     

Continuing professional education and the discipline reviews

Continuing professional education (CPE) is an emerging area of educational provision in Australia for which there is no national policy. However, four single discipline reviews focusing on the law, medicine, engineering and teachers of mathematics and science, have been commissioned at the national level to examine, among other issues, CPE. The four reviews are discussed, using the same five headings relating to the importance given to CPE and its purpose, the relationship between CPE and pre‐service training, the mandatory and voluntary options and the delivery of CPE. General statements about CPE in Australia and possible policy developments in the field are drawn from the review reports.     

SURVEYING ADULT EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA

One of the results of a lack of overall co‐ordination of adult education in Australia is a very incomplete record of activities. Attempting to use existing data for research can be a very frustrating business. The form of the material available varies from State to State, is incomplete and uneven in quality. The peripheral nature of adult education in relation to education as a whole often results in only brief mention in official reports or no comment at all. The voluntary area, due for the most part to the spontaneous and informal nature of many agencies, is particularly poorly recorded. This paper discusses some of the problems facing researchers and brings together existing studies which have attempted to survey arrangements for the organisation and administration of adult education on a national basis.     

The politics are personal: The Australian vs the Australian curriculum in history

This article reviews the relationship between the conservative newspaper The Australian and the development of a national history curriculum in Australia. The lead author surveyed the major Australian press in the five-year period between 2007 and 2012 and found clear patterns of difference between The Australian and other press outlets in relation to education in general and history curriculum in particular. Using Jonathan Haidt's five-point model of moral values, the article analyses the behaviour of the press in Australia in relation to history education as a feature of moral preferences. Extending from this analysis, it then highlights a number of cases of press campaigns in The Australian targeted against individuals including one academic involved in the development of a national curriculum. The article demonstrates that a culture of aggressive conservatism exercised in this Murdoch press outlet reaches beyond the field of conventional political debate to constitute a serious and concerning influence in the dynamics of curriculum policy development.     

Demographics and professional practices of school psychologists: A comparison of NASP members and non–NASP school psychologists by telephone survey

A national telephone survey was conducted to examine potential differences between National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) members and non–NASP member school psychologists. Identified schools were contacted by telephone and the researchers asked to speak with the school psychologist. A sample of 124 practicing school psychologists was obtained. Overall, 57.3% (n = 71) of respondents were NASP members, and 42.7% (n = 53) were not. In most respects, current results were similar to NASP‐member‐only surveys. Current results suggest that previous studies overestimated the proportion of NASP members among school psychologists and may have underestimated the total number of school‐based practitioners. Significant differences between NASP members and nonmembers were found in ethnicity, national certification, professional organization membership, and use of Curriculum Based Measurement. Results are discussed in the context of previous national surveys. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Cuba’s “Yes,I Can” mass adult literacy campaign model in Timor-Leste and Aboriginal Australia: A comparative study

In the field of international adult education, mass literacy campaigns enjoyed wide support in the 20th century, when they were seen as a way to increase the participation of previously marginalised and excluded populations in national development. Cuba’s 1961 campaign achieved iconic status, but was only one of many successful campaigns in Latin America, Africa and Asia. In the 1990s, while mass literacy campaigns continued in many countries, scholarly interest in them declined under the influence of World Bank empirical critiques of their effectiveness and increasing postmodern scepticism towards the socialist “grand narrative” of liberation which underpinned some of the more famous examples. Recently, the mass campaign model has gained new impetus through Cuba’s international literacy missions, which use an approach known by its Spanish name, Yo, Sí Puedo [Yes, I Can]. This paper reports on the deployment of this model in two very different settings, one being a national literacy campaign in Timor-Leste, a newly-independent island nation in the Asia–Pacific; and the other a pilot campaign in an Aboriginal community in Australia. The authors have utilised participatory action research methods to evaluate the model in both countries, and locate their comparative analysis in the theoretical tradition of popular education.     

Looking East: Shanghai,PISA 2009 and the reconstitution of reference societies in the global education policy field

This paper examines the outstanding performance of Shanghai, China on PISA 2009 and its effects on other national systems and within the global education policy field. The OECD's PISA is helping to create this field by constituting the globe as a commensurate space of school system performance. The effects of Shanghai's success are considered in three other national contexts: the USA, England and Australia. We combine (a) analysis of data from more than 30 research interviews with senior policy actors at the OECD, the IEA and within Australia and England; and (b) document analysis of policy speeches, commissioned research reports and media coverage from the three national contexts. Shanghai's performance in PISA 2009 produced a global ‘PISA-shock’ that has repositioned this system as a significant new ‘reference society’, shifting the global gaze in education from Finland to the ‘East’ at the beginning of the so-called ‘Asian century’.     

Parental opinion concerning school sexuality education in a culturally diverse population in the USA

This study aimed to expand upon previous research related to parental opinion concerning school sexuality education by sampling a culturally diverse, low-income population that has been traditionally under-represented in the literature. A total of 191 parents attending an urban community college completed a written questionnaire about what topics schools should teach their children about sexuality education. Independent variables, including country of origin, religion and religiosity, were explored to determine if support for school sexuality education was similar or different in this population compared to previous national and state survey data. The majority of sex education topics were supported by 80% of the parents. There was a significant negative correlation between attendance at religious services and support for school sex education. The hypothesis that there would be less support for comprehensive sexuality education in the sample population than in national and statewide surveys was not supported.     

Tactics or strategies? Exploring everyday conditions to facilitate implementation of an Indigenous graduate attributes project

In 2017 Universities Australia (UA), the peak body representing Australian universities released its Indigenous Strategy 2017–2020. The document unites universities together in common goals for Indigenous achievement, filling a notable gap in the Australian higher education landscape. The Strategy outlines a comprehensive plan for enhanced Indigenous outcomes in critical areas of higher education including student access and success, graduate research, and community engagement. This paper focuses on the implementation of Indigenous curriculum for all Australian university graduates which is a key aspect of the Strategy. The changing Indigenous higher education landscape invites the nuanced analysis that critical examination of universities, as organisations, might elicit. Drawing on de Certeau’s notion of tactics and strategies, the paper examines the policy and cultural climate of an Australian university which supports an Indigenous Graduate Attribute curriculum project.     

‘Earnest students anxious to acquire a practical knowledge suited to the trade of the district’: the growth and development of the mechanics' institute movement with particular reference to Huddersfield 1824–1890

The mechanics' institute movement of the British Isles has been underrated by some historians, who have argued that many of the institutes were attended by the middle and upper classes. In any case, they state that by the 1850s, they were declining in both popularity and usefulness. This paper questions these assumptions, concentrating on the developments at the Huddersfield Mechanics' Institute and comparing with other institutes both locally and nationally its responsiveness to local and national developments with regard to its contribution to education. Like many other institutes, Huddersfield provided a foundation on which twentieth-century further education was firmly established. Britain was not the only country to establish a mechanics' institute movement as similar developments were also taking place in other countries, particularly in Australia.     

Improvements in equity in the participation of young people in higher education in Australia during the 1980s

This paper addresses the question of the extent to which there were improvements in equity in the patterns of participation of young people in higher education in Australia during the 1980s. Data from theYouth in Transition longitudinal surveys of Australian youth are used to assess the effectiveness of the Labor Government's equity initiatives since 1983 in this area. The conclusion is that participation by young people in higher education in Australia did generally become more equitable under Labor during the 1980s, though differences in higher education participation rates persisted between certain sub-groups of the population.     

关于成人教育的功能的探究

成人教育通过改变成人的观念和价值，引起成人的某种变化，进而影响社会的进步和发展。成人教育功能的内核实质上是成人教育在社会发展中的地位和作用的表现形式的总和。探究成人教育功能的意义在于全面地理解成人教育，澄清理论上的模糊认识，科学地预见和防止负向功能的出现。成人教育的功能不是某个单一的方面，而是各种功能的整合，它以合力的形式表现出来，是社会化和个性化共同作用的结果。成人教育的功能是中性的，由教育的本质所决定，它有利弊之分并且不断地发展变化，它的负向功能客观地、普遍地存在着。     

Standards of practice to standards of evidence: developing assessment capable teachers

Abstract

Teacher education is a hotly debated policy area in higher education and schooling portfolios, with increasing emphasis on standards and accountability. It is in this environment that The Standards Project (2013–2015) presented in this article began. It has at its core a three-part commitment: first, to undertake a comprehensive audit and analysis of all teacher education programmes in the state of Queensland, Australia, to establish the approaches and practices Universities relied on to preparing beginning teachers as assessment capable; second, to take account of multiple perspectives and approaches in initial teacher education to integrating data into how beginning teachers are prepared to source and use evidence for improving learning and teaching; and further, to develop new principles, policy and practices for reviewing and moderating teacher education programmes against professional standards. The paper proposes a move beyond the discourse of professional standards of practice towards a complementary discourse of standards of evidence. In our collaboration we drew on two fields, namely the writing on teacher education including reviews, and the field of assessment, both considered within broader sociocultural theory applied to assessment.     

Development through educational collaboration: facilitating social equity

Previously, psychology has not been recognized as bearing on the educational, managerial and health issues that often characterize developing countries. Recently however, the Departments of Psychology at the University of Newcastle (Australia) and the National University of Malawi have used the Internet to conduct joint research on applied issues such as expatriate-host national pay inequities, ambivalence towards workplace achievement, and psychological influences on charitable behaviour. This tertiary collaboration has produced practical recommendations concerning community development, stress management, and poverty reduction, each of which may in turn inform higher education policy. Since these recommendations apply both in Malawi and in Australia, the Internet is functioning as a two-way bridge between the two universities and their respective countries. In addition to development through university cooperation, such cross-fertilization is also generating theoretical developments within the academic discipline of psychology itself.