Postgraduate Supervision Practices: Strategies for Development and Change

This paper describes strategies for enhancing postgraduate supervision procedures and practices developed at Sydney University in response to a national focus upon improving the quality of postgraduate research education. The results of needs analyses conducted in Departments and Faculties and amongst postgraduate coordinators, supervisors and students are reported, and the subsequent development of an ongoing and systematic training program for supervisors of postgraduate students is described. The structure of the program, training methods adopted, and participant evaluations of the constituent workshops and seminars are discussed. Finally, consideration is given to aspects contributing to or militating against the success of the program and to alternative or complementary strategies for improving the quality of postgraduate research supervision.     

Valuing Teaching: A Strategy For Changing the Organisational Culture of an Academic Department

Although government funding initiatives can provide an immediate incentive for the development of good teaching practices, ongoing and widespread improvement in the quality of teaching and learning is likely to occur only when the organisational culture of academic departments is such that good teaching is held in those departments to be a fundamental and shared value rather than primarily an individual responsibility. This paper describes the organisational development strategies used within one large academic department to bring about a reassessment of the role and practice of teaching and support the subsequent implementation of teaching‐related reforms. It examines the role of leadership, devolved responsibility and consultation in effecting change in both the practice of teaching and the organisational culture of a department.     

Ask Dr. Discovery: the impact of a casual mobile game on visitor engagement with science museum content

Educational technology research and development - This study examines the impact of a mobile game app on science museum visitors’ level of engagement with exhibit content, compared to a non...     

Improving engagement in an early career academic setting: can existing models guide early career academic support strategies?

ABSTRACT

Early career academics (ECAs) represent the future of the academic workforce, but competition and career uncertainty is resulting in disengagement and burnout. In professions outside academia, increased engagement is associated with perceived organisational support and fair recognition and rewards, as well as opportunities to meet basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness. In contrast, decreased engagement is linked with increasing demands on effort and over-commitment to work. The current study used multiple linear regression to test whether comparable relationships were observed in a sample of 151 ECAs in an Australian university. Opportunities to build and demonstrate competence at work, the presence of meaningful relationships and perceived organisational support were independent and statistically significant predictors of engagement. The need for autonomy and fair rewards and recognition appeared to be correlated but not statistically significant predictors of engagement. Contrary to prediction, increasing effort and over-commitment to work did not predict decreases in engagement. These results are discussed in light of implications for programs designed to support the development of ECAs into various career pathways.     

Reading comprehension,working memory and higher-level language skills in children with SLI and/or dyslexia

This study examined (1) whether working memory and higher-level languages skills—inferencing and comprehension monitoring—accounted for individual differences among Chinese children in Chinese reading comprehension, after controlling for age, Chinese word reading and oral language skills, and (2) whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) or dyslexia showed deficits in these skills. Eighty-two Cantonese Chinese-speaking children between the age of 7; 8–9; 5 were assessed. Regression analyses on the full sample offered support for the first question. The children were also classified into four groups: Typically-developing (TD; N = 34), specific language impairment-only (SLI-only; N = 18), SLI-dyslexia comorbid (SLI-D; N = 22) and dyslexia-only (D-only; N = 8). Pair-wise comparisons focusing on the second question revealed that both the SLI-only and the D-only group performed worse than the TD group in reading comprehension after controlling for age and nonverbal intelligence. The SLI-only and the D-only group showed a different profile of deficits: only the SLI-only group performed worse than the TD group in working memory, comprehension monitoring, and inferencing. The SLI-D comorbid group did worse than the SLI-only, but not the D-only group, in reading comprehension. The SLI-D comorbid group did not do worse than either single diagnosis group in the higher-level language skills associated with reading comprehension. These findings suggested adopting different intervention approaches for reading comprehension difficulties in children with SLI versus children with dyslexia.     

The recontextualisation of ‘quality’ in Australian higher education

In the education policy arena, the notion of ‘quality'as a mechanism for increasing accountability to stakeholders has risen to prominence in the 1990s, as part of the micro‐economic reform agenda of many national governments. This study analyses the way in which policy makers in Australian higher education have recontextualised the notions of quality adopted in other countries to reconstruct a uniquely Australian version. Further, the study analyses how this recontextualisation continues from the ministerial level, through the Higher Education Council (HEC), and then the Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (CQAHE), to the site of intended policy effect ‐‐ individual universities. A theoretical framework, in part offered by Stephen Ball's policy trajectory studies, is employed to examine the negotiation, resistance and even transformation of the original ministerial quality policy of 1991. A central contention is that the operation of the subsequent 3‐year cycle of quality reviews between 1993 and 1995 provides an example par excellence of a government strategy of ‘steering at a distance’.     

South-south migration and education: the case of people of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic

The world is witnessing an era of unprecedented human mobility and much of this movement entails migration between countries in the global south. This article contributes to the development of an important new line of inquiry within the field of comparative and international education: South-South migration and education. In the first section, I review the available literature to sketch the outlines of this phenomenon. I then examine a particular case: schooling for youth of Haitian descent born and living in the Dominican Republic. The qualitative data reveals two important findings: first, despite claims to the contrary, some immigrant children are still being denied access to basic education; second, once enrolled in school, children and youth of Haitian descent, and especially darker-skinned boys, are subject to intense verbal abuse and, in some cases, physical abuse. As I discuss in the conclusion, the case of Haitians in the Dominican Republic raises significant questions regarding south-south migration and education that merit further and, when possible, comparative scrutiny.     

Review of "The Small Library Manager's Handbook," edited by Alice Graves

As librarians, and especially collections-focused librarians, we almost daily face misperceptions and misunderstandings of libraries, of our work, and of the collections and services that we provide. From outdated ideas, to stereotypes, to incomplete images of the realities and value of our institutions and our profession, these representations may pose constant challenges and consternation. In this special review section, my colleague Dr. Angela Wiseman, Associate Professor of Education and an expert on children's books, joins me in reviewing a sampling of current children's books about libraries.     

School science achievement: Conditions for equality

Data are presented on the trend in sex differences in science achievement of the total population of 15 year old students in Western Australia over the period 1972‐85 inclusive. Since 1979 the science achievement of boys and girls has been approximately equal. This finding is attributed to the fact that, in Western Australia, at lower secondary school level, boys and girls are exposed to a common science curriculum for a common amount of instructional time. A discussion of the differential course taking hypothesis as an explanation for sex differences in science achievement found in other large‐scale studies is presented. Some evidence of the possible success of intervention strategies aimed at increasing the involvement of girls in science is given.