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Focuses on Australian university publications. Choice of performance indicators; Incentive for placement in a prestigious journal.

In this paper, I take a simple game-theoretic view of educational production within universities to frame a discussion of pedagogical power, effort, and influence in Australian higher education. After introducing the stylised game structure, I first compare the role of teachers in Australian universities to that of university teachers elsewhere in the world, in terms of Australian academics' power in pedagogical affairs relative to the power of the higher-education institutions within which they operate. I then review some existing empirical evidence using Australian data that sheds light on the role of both teacher inputs and student inputs in creating educational outcomes, and discuss some new evidence on students' perceptions of teacher influence. The paper concludes with some recommendations for changes to the current system designed to improve student outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on reflections around the following three broad questions: "Can management be taught or do management educators simply teach those who are or wish to become managers?". "Can management educators and scholars become effective managers?"; "Can managers become effective management educators and scholars?". The roles of management educators in Australia include those employed in staff development in organizations, management consultants and academic staff in business schools and management departments of universities. This paper focuses on management education in universities in Australia, where educators may be academic discipline experts, teachers who have come into management department, or managers who have moved into academia. They may teach management theory, explore the links between theory and practice, focus on the development of assessable competencies, or all of these. Regarding current challenges facing management education, are we avoiding changes necessary in tertiary education or resisting the erosion of important educational values and standards? Considering the future of management education, both locally and globally, what part can universities play? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the model of students and staff working in partnership to enhance university education is well-established internationally, it is still an emerging field in Australia where most of such initiatives involve only small numbers of students. This paper examines the opportunities and challenges for students-as-co-inquirers initiatives in Australia. Drawing on a review of the literature, a consideration of theory, and discussions with colleagues, I propose ways in which students as co-inquirers practice and research might move forward, both in Australia and globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accounting and Finance ( A& F ) has experienced a surge in published research in the last decade. The analysis here reveals a marked increase in the number of published articles in A&F since 2003, a distinct trend for published papers to have a larger number of authors, a significant and stable contribution by the top 5 Australian accounting/finance departments, as well as a notable increase in contribution from non- US foreign universities, particularly those located in the UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and Spain. An analysis of citations indicates the increasing impact of A&F in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the employment and further education outcomes of students studying criminology who participate in professional skills development and work-integrated learning courses at a major Australian university. Three years of data were obtained from the Australian Graduate Survey, which is completed by university graduates four months after they complete their tertiary studies. The results indicate that students enrolled in a Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice who complete a career and professional development course in conjunction with a work-integrated learning course are approximately twice as likely to be engaged in industry relevant employment or further study four months after graduation. They also are more likely to use a wider range of search techniques to find employment. This suggests that it is possible to improve employment outcomes for students by providing a university-based course that focuses on employability and professional behaviors in conjunction with work-integrated learning programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper profiles Australian universities’ website communications about sustainability initiatives, especially relating to Talloires Declaration signification and the ten recommended actions. The research involves a content study of Talloires signatories’ websites and their semiotic and signaling theory aspects across time. The source is publicly available information (time period 2014 and 2015 respectively) in context with education for sustainable development (ESD) in society and the transaction model in communication theory. It is found that some of the signatory universities in Australia exemplify a few of the Talloires ten agreed actions in their public communications, but each point is not emphasised with equal priority. The variance may be due to divergent underlying objectives; such as public communication of Talloires toward genuine benefit for the environment, or to create a strategic positioning tool to signal the university as an environmental champion within the broader society. Focusing upon secondary data from signatory university websites in Australia, the paper provides a study of higher education signification of Talloires. It assists the initial understanding of signaling theory in the public communication transactions that promote Talloires action and implementation. The findings encourage further studies of related communication issues in universities in other countries. The paper also deepens local and global understanding of perceptions of sustainability and contributes to the body of comparative literature of sustainability in higher education as a development component of strategic management of ESD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High quality education programs are essential for preparing the next generation of Chinese medicine (CM) practitioners. Currently, training in CM occurs within differing health and education policy contexts. There has been little analysis of the factors influencing the form and status of CM education in different regions. Such a task is important for understanding how CM is evolving internationally and predicting future workforce characteristics. This paper compares the status of CM education in Australia and Hong Kong across a range of dimensions: historical and current positions in the national higher education system, regulatory context and relationship to the health system, and public and professional legitimacy. The analysis highlights the different ways in which CM education is developing in these settings, with Hong Kong providing somewhat greater access to clinical training opportunities for CM students. However, common trends and challenges shape CM education in both regions, including marginalisation from mainstream health professions, a small but established presence in universities, and an emphasis on biomedical research. Three factors stand out as significant for the evolution of CM education in Australia and Hong Kong and may have international implications: continuing biomedical dominance, increased competition between universities, and strengthened links with mainland China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background An understanding of anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology is considered essential for graduate nurses, but many nursing students find such courses difficult and anxiety-provoking. This was contrary to the authors' experiences, so student perceptions were studied at the survey institution. Objective This paper examines nursing students' satisfaction with bioscience and nursing courses in the first two years of a Bachelor of Nursing at an Australian university, in order to suggest strategies for effective bioscience teaching. Design Quantitative data for student satisfaction, measured on the Likert scale, were collected for three bioscience and 11 nursing courses from 2010 - 2012. Mean satisfaction was compared among courses and offerings by ANOVA, with offerings nested within courses, and correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between student satisfaction and pass rate. Qualitative data were sourced from open questions, emails and forum posts and examined for recurrent themes. Results Students rated the three bioscience courses in the top four of the 14 courses. There was no relationship between satisfaction and pass rate. Qualitative responses showed satisfaction with the course content, the learning materials, the delivery style and lecturer support. Conclusion It is possible to deliver bioscience courses that are appreciated by nursing students. Four principles are suggested in this paper that may improve student satisfaction with bioscience courses and, therefore, result in more effective learning and better prepared nursing graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the way that learning technologies frame teaching practice in higher education using both autoethnography and discourse analysis (interpretative repertoires). The analysis juxtaposes our own experience in the form of data from two interviews, with teaching and learning policy documents from the group of five Australian Technology Network universities, as a means of investigating the centrality of these technologies in the reconfiguring of teaching practice in higher education for the networked university. The data yielded three distinct discourses: technology as a bridge to globalised opportunity; technology as delivery of learning; and technology as communication and building relationships for learning. The first repertoire provides a utopian vision which glosses over the complex practice of implementation. The second repertoire also omits details of implementation, presenting learning technology unproblematically. The third repertoire, not present in the policy documents, but central to the autoethnographic accounts, focusses on both the possibilities and challenges of learning technologies in practice, and points to the potential for a complementary approach which foregrounds the student-teacher relationship. How these discourses can be reconciled is a central issue for academic teaching practice in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a 'just-in-time' engagement framework for a high quality first year experience ('FYE'). The concept 'just-in-time' refers to a student-centered timeline for a managed learning environment based on the week-to-week experiences faced by a first year student in an Australian University semester. The engagement framework detailed in this paper consists of a series of teaching strategies embedded as part of a designed, integrated and co-ordinated first year program, expanding on the transition blueprint of Nelson, Kift, Humphreys & Harper (2006), working within a transition pedagogy (Kift, 2008) and implementing an institutional-wide program of collaborative engagement. This paper discusses the application of this framework to a first year foundational unit in the Bachelor of Laws degree at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia, implemented as part of an embedded institutional-wide transition program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changed funding arrangements and views of education have resulted in a re-prioritization of activities and practices in Australian universities. While considerable research attention has been given to the consequences of these changes for university policies and the activities of academic staff, less attention has been given to how students perceive these changes. In this paper, undergraduate students’ experience of the commodification of higher education sector are explored. The evidence suggests that the changed context is beginning to affect how students perceive university priorities and their effects on teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There are currently limited pathways into a career in health policy research in Australia, due in part to a serious absence of health policy research capability in Australian universities. Discussion: We define what we consider health policy research and education should comprise. We then examine what is currently on offer and propose ways to strengthen health policy research in Australia. Summary: This paper, which is part analysis and part commentary, is offered to provoke wider debate about how health policy research can be nurtured in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how the principles and processes of an adaptive e-learning (computer-based) system can be used in a blended learning environment (for example, face-to-face teaching with additional online resources and activities) to assist the teaching of complicated taxation law issues. The system was used to create modules as part of three Australian taxation law courses at a major Australian university. Students were taught face-to-face, and the modules were demonstrated in class and made available to the students throughout the semester, so that they could access them at any time. The first course involved postgraduate students studying taxation law as part of a Master of Professional Accounting; the second involved students studying taxation law as part of a law degree; and the third involved students studying taxation law as part of an undergraduate business degree. Students who used the learning modules were surveyed in 2015 and 2016 in order to gain their insights into their perceived learning outcomes. The results demonstrated that the majority of students perceived that working through the modules was a good way to learn about the area of taxation law and that receiving feedback on their incorrect answers made them rethink their learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empathy is an important modifiable quality of health care practitioners that relates to the quality of patient care. The educative process may adversely affect the empathy levels of health care students at key phases of training. This topic remains unexplored in chiropractic students to date. A voluntary and anonymous questionnaire was distributed to all chiropractic students in an Australian university-based program in April 2021. This questionnaire recorded age, sex, year of study, and Toronto Empathy Questionnaire scores. Chiropractic student empathy scores approximated those of other Australian health care students. No statistical differences were found when comparing the mean scores of empathy levels across the 5 student cohorts. The empathy levels of female chiropractic students' were significantly higher than those of the male chiropractic students. This study provides a baseline from which further explorations on empathy may be conducted in chiropractic students. This holds the potential to improve practitioners' quality of life and patient outcomes and for educators to identify subject matter that may negatively affect empathy levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia is one of many countries to encourage its students to study abroad and hence develop a global perspective. Traditionally, students who have pursued this option represented a relatively privileged and demographically narrow group. More recently, governments and other agencies have been offering funding support with the aim of 'democratising' study abroad so that it is more accessible to all students. To help inform the 'democratisation' discussion, this paper presents an analysis of the demographic profile of students from Australian universities who currently study abroad, examining changing trends over time and identifying demographic groups that may be underrepresented in the current Australian study abroad population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the Public Relations Institute of Australia's introduction in 1991 of a national accreditation programme for university courses. Drawing on an analysis of previously unstudied industry archives, it identifies four themes significant for industry perspectives of education: public relations knowledge; industry expectations and experience; public relations curricula; and academic legitimacy. While university education was perceived by institute members to demonstrate the professional standing of public relations, the findings reveal divergent understandings of its role and content and identify considerable resistance to the institutionalisation of public relations knowledge. At the same time, the expansion and marketisation of higher education led to the introduction of new, vocational courses such as public relations. The significance of this study is it offers new insights into the development of Australian public relations education and the role of the professional association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, universities in developed countries are engaging in transnational education. Responsibilities and opportunities to exercise management and leadership in the provision of transnational education depend on the organisational model adopted and whether the academics involved are on home or international campuses. Models range from neocolonial control to transnational partnerships. In the Australian Office for Learning and Teaching study that informs this paper, good practice in allocation and exercise of management and leadership responsibilities was identified and recommendations developed. A balance was struck between the home institution's quality assurance obligations, which imply a high level of home-based control, and the value of a degree of local control to the commitment of local academics involved, to their career opportunities, and to the educational experiences of their students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of recent trends in the provision of general infrastructure funding by the Commonwealth for Australian universities (Table A providers) over the period 2004 to 2011. It specifically examines general infrastructure development and excludes funding for research infrastructure through the Australian Research Council or the research funding programme of the Education Investment Fund. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student attrition is an issue of particular concern in the field of ICT because the industry faces staffing shortfalls. The study described in this paper provides further understanding of the causes of attrition from ICT courses by exploring the reasons students give for leaving their ICT courses. An online survey of early leavers from four Australian universities was conducted. The results show that many factors can contribute to the attrition of ICT students, and that for many students it is a combination of issues that leads to their withdrawal. Only a relatively small number of ex-students had experienced serious life events that necessitated their withdrawal. It was much more common for the participants to cite reasons associated with the university environment, the teaching of their ICT course, and their inability to combine their studies with other commitments. Recommendations are made to address issues that could be mitigated by university action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Universities' Review began its life in 1958 as the Federal Council Bulletin, and was known as Vestes from 1958- 1988. Simon Marginson's paper follows the fifty-year history of the journal and reviews a number of themes and trends from that history. References in the text relate to these publications by volume and number, without further specific reference to the journal's title at the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media has become ubiquitous to modern life. Consequently, embedding digital professionalism into undergraduate health profession courses is now imperative and augmenting learning and teaching with mobile technology and social media on and off campus is a current curriculum focus. The aim of this study was to explore whether patterns of social media use for personal or informal learning by undergraduate health profession students enrolled at an Australian university across four campuses has changed over time. A previously validated online survey was administered in 2013 to a cohort of health profession students as part of an Australian survey. In 2016, the same survey was distributed to a later cohort of health profession students. Three open-ended questions to elicit descriptive information regarding the use of social media for study purposes were added to the later survey. A comparative analysis of both cohorts was undertaken and social media acceptance and penetration was shown to increase. Health profession students are now more interactive users of Facebook and Twitter, and they have become more familiar with career development sites, such as LinkedIn. The maturation of social media platforms within a three-year period has created realistic opportunities to integrate social media for personal and study purposes into the health profession education curriculum to ensure student understanding of the necessity for maintaining digital professionalism in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The extent to which the global financial crisis (GFC) has impacted upon teacher education in universities in Australia is potentially, like most other aspects of teacher education, a contested area. Purpose, aims/questions: The aim of this article is to examine the impact the GFC along with other funding constraints, has had on teacher education in Australia. Sources of evidence: On the surface we could cite some aspects of teacher education which may point to a significant impact of the GFC such as funding from the government not keeping pace with other OECD countries' spending on higher education in general and teacher education in particular, increased pressure to find appropriate practicum placements for students, increased staff/student ratios, reduction of hours for teaching in university courses, obsession with profit margins and cost-driver budget models. However, all of these issues were evident or at least immanent before we started hearing about the GFC. Alistair Mant in his book Intelligent Leadership (Crow's Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin; 1997) employs the metaphor of frogs and bicycles to describe organisations and systems. Universities and most organisations are in fact more naturally like frogs than bicycles. They are organic in that all parts interact to create the whole and they are complex systems, which are not susceptible to technical, machine-like approaches. A bicycle is a machine and a frog is a living thing. Main argument: Governments view universities as bicycles or machines, and this thinking is further reinforced through the introduction of a market forces model. Teacher education when treated as a bicycle when it is really more of a frog, shows signs of adaptation for as long as it can cope with various bits being cut off, but then will become unsustainable. While the impact of the GFC in Australia generally was much less severe than in many other countries, the continued starving of teacher education of adequate funding over a long period has taken its toll as reflected in unduly high staff student ratios, an over-reliance on casual staffing, insufficient funds to support the requirements of practicum placements, unrealistic staff workloads, lack of succession planning and inability to innovate. Conclusion: The issues discussed in this article are likely to be attributable to a highly successful and prolonged period of economic rationalism and policies, which emanate from New Right ideologies. The influence of neo-conservative and neo-liberal policies is well in evidence in universities generally and in Australia, successive governments have underfunded higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Post-school education earnings premia have remained strikingly stable over the 1981 to 2003–2004 period in Australia. This stability contrasts sharply with the rising college premium observed in the USA. The observed stability in Australia may in part be due to changes in the credentials earned by individuals entering certain professional occupations (especially nursing and teaching) during the period, particularly for women. We construct an estimate of the potential effect of within-occupation credential changes on estimates of education earnings premia in Australia over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid expansion of the transnational education market, more and more universities join the ranks of transnational education providers or expand their transnational education offerings. Many of those providers regard fully-online provision of their programs as an economic alternative to face-to-face teaching. Do transnational students accept this model as a viable and effective educational alternative? A recent research study investigated students' attitudes towards fully-online provision of computing education programs in one of the most important Australian transnational education markets: Hong Kong. Of interest were students' perceptions about the suitability of fully-online mode of teaching and learning with respect to computing studies, and their views on the importance of face-to-face interaction in their programs. Students from three transnational computing programs, offered in Hong Kong by Australian universities in co-operation with Hong Kong partners, participated in the study; the programs are delivered in face-to-face sessions and rely on the Internet for support and communication (unit Web sites, bulletin boards, email, etc.). The rationale behind the choice of locale and participants for the study was threefold: first, Hong Kong is one of the largest Australian transnational education markets (hence, the results of the study would be of importance); second, it is a well-developed territory where English is commonly spoken (hence, participants would not be biased towards online education because of lack of suitable technological infrastructure or inadequate linguistic skills); and thirdly, computing students were technology savvy and, therefore, would not be biased in their views of online education because of technophobia. Approximately three hundred students participated in the study, which was based on analysis of data collected though a survey and group interviews with students. Results from the survey revealed that students did not regard fully-online provision of transnational programs as a preferred alternative to the current model -- that is one that is based on face-to- face communication and uses the Internet for support. Their opposition was pronounced and ranged from total rejection of fully-online provision in one of the programs (100% of students against the idea), to marginal support of fully-online provision from students in the other two programs (9% and 13% respectively). Students repeatedly stated the importance of face-to-face communication as the most important reason for preferring the current program model. The subsequent group interviews with students sought to explore further the reasons behind the students' views. Students again responded in favor of the current model of the programs reiterating the importance of face-to-face interaction. They regarded face-to-face communication as more conducive to the learning process, affording better opportunity to sharing knowledge and asking for help, "easier" and more interactive, and more compatible with the needs of Hong Kong students. However, the respondents acknowledged the usefulness of the Internet as a means for providing course material, facilitating submission of assignments, and enabling communication with lecturers outside classes. The findings of the study endorse the current trends of Australian transnational education in South East Asia and support the prediction that Web-supported face-to-face delivery is likely to continue as a principal model of transnational tertiary education programs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines the differences in perceptions and expectations between students at the Caulfield and Peninsula campuses of Monash University with different entrance criteria and degree availability to determine whether two different introductory finance subjects should be offered rather than one. Results reported in this study suggest that students at the Caulfield campus are interested in studying a challenging introductory finance subject, whereas students at the Peninsula campus perceived that introductory finance is ‘difficult’. Capital structure and cost of capital topics are statistically significantly ranked higher by Caulfield students than Peninsula students. The results reported in this study revealed that two different introductory finance subjects would be more effective. The core subject at the finance major campus (Caulfield) follows a traditional structure with more emphasis on finance theory, whereas the new subject at the non-finance campus (Peninsula) places greater emphasis on applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]