Stakeholder participation in international higher education partnerships: results of a survey of two sub-Saharan African universities

In the last few years, foreign institutions have increasingly sought to establish partnerships with African universities. Likewise, African universities have increasingly sought to establish linkages with foreign institutions. Different factors suggest that these partnerships will continue to be a major focus in the future. This study draws from a survey of a random sample of 468 university administrators, academic staff and postgraduate students at two major public universities in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It estimates the level of participation in international partnership activities and examines factors related to this participation. The study found that 4 in 10 stakeholders at the two institutions had participated in partnership activities, and that participation was a function of awareness of partnership opportunities, the use of technology and stakeholder status.     

The Impact of Centralized Advising on First-Year Academic Performance and Second-Year Enrollment Behavior

To enhance student success, many colleges and universities have expanded academic support services and programmatic interventions. One popular measure that has been recognized as critical to student success is academic advising. Many institutions have expanded advising by creating centralized units staffed with professional advisors who serve specific student groups. In this study, I used propensity score matching to estimate the impact of using centralized academic advising at a large metropolitan public research university on undergraduate students’ first-year GPA and second-year enrollment behavior. Using a cohort of 2,745 first-time full-time freshmen who matriculated in fall 2010, I matched students who used centralized advising with those who used no advising, over the course of two semesters. I then fit an OLS regression model to examine the impact of centralized advising on first-year GPA and a Zero Inflated Negative Binomial model to examine its impact on students’ enrollment behavior in the second year. I used these parametric results to simulate average treatment effects. Results indicated that students who used centralized academic instead of no advising experienced an increase in their first-term GPA, second-term GPA, and first-year cumulative GPA. Also, students who used centralized advising during the second term experienced a decrease in their probability of first-year attrition.     

Gap between actual and expected time allocation to academic activities and its impact on undergraduate academic performance

Tertiary Education and Management - This study uses survey data and administrative records collected over a three-year period to examine the gap between the amount of time students invested and the...