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1 ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS, INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS AND PERFORMANCE IN ENGINEERING PROGRAMS Whatever we think of the recently released Birrell report (Birrell, 2006) and the subsequent flurry of media and academic interest that surrounds it (see, for example, Ewart (2007), Barthel (2007) and Bretag (2007)), Australian universities are now, as never before, being called on to examine their English language admission standards and support mechanisms. If, as Birrell's report indicates, one third of our international student graduates gaining permanent residency in Australia are not achieving the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) band 6 scores required for admission to Australian universities, we may well be concerned. The raising of immigration requirements for permanent residency to favour IELTS band 7 and above applicants in 2007 means that international student graduates will be under increased pressure to demonstrate competency if they wish to remain in Australia at the end of their degree. IELTS band 6 denotes mere competence in English, while IELTS band 7 denotes the much higher proficiency standards necessary for professional employment. Explanations for the low performance of international graduates on IELTS tests vary widely. There are those who find fault with university admissions procedures and standards, others who express concerns that universities may not be doing enough to ensure that international students improve their English language levels to professional standards throughout their degrees (see, for example, student views on this issue in the media release by the National Union of Students and National Liaison Committee for International Students in Australia Inc. (2007)), and still others who point to the fact that graduating students often lack recent familiarity with the IELTS test and therefore naturally struggle with it. Despite these differences in opinion about causes for low performance, there is one issue on which most of those involved in Australian tertiary education would likely agree. This is that it would be a great disservice to international students who undertake studies in Australia if they were not enabled to develop adequate English language skills for professional employment in Australia by the time they graduate, should they so desire it. It would be an equally great disservice to local students if we were to not facilitate their ongoing academic English literacy development in our universities. Just as there is a controversy surrounding immigration statistics, IELTS scores and higher education, there are debates on English literacy standards in our schools. In this paper, we intend neither to engage fully with the arguments and controversies surrounding international students in higher education, nor to enter into debates on curricula and standards in our schools. Although academic tertiary literacy is more of a challenge for some students than others, denying bright but less highly literate students opportunities for higher education would have consequences. It would reduce our international student intake and the accompanying benefits (ie. educational, cultural, economic, etc.) that this provides. It would also restrict our local student base and have long-term social and economic implications. This paper does not provide a cost-benefit analysis of these issues, but presumes a commitment to ensuring adequate ongoing tertiary skills development for all students who require it. The engineering field at Australian universities presents an interesting picture. It seems that international students perform on par with, if not better, than their Australian counterparts, despite the fact that international students often speak English as an additional language or dialect. It has been proposed that international students are highly motivated to pass units due to the higher penalty of failure in light of the additional burdens they face (eg. …

1 INTRODUCTION Understanding student differences in their motivation, attitude about teaching and learning, and responses to different classroom environment and instructional practices helps lecturers meet the diverse student needs (Ribeiro & Mizukami, 2005). While it is impossible to tailor their class to match each student's needs, it is possible to provide a balanced teaching approach that will meet the needs of the majority of the students in the classroom (Besterfield-Sacre et al, 2001). One of the main student concerns is how to pass a course and, at the same time, achieving satisfaction. For example, for a particular course such as Physics, most students may consider a grade of Credit as satisfactory, however, a small number of students in the class may aim for High Distinction. As such, assessment items and methods, which tell students how to score marks contributing towards the final grade, play a key role. Further, achieving a high grade for a course, which means that students theoretically understand the subjects and concepts taught in the course, does not always mean that they are satisfied with the course. Students usually consider further explorations during their own time to apply the knowledge that they have learnt in the course to real-world problems, such as finding jobs, web-page design, designing a small circuitry or building a bridge meeting certain criteria. Thus, assessment items and methods need to be carefully designed and experimented with to meet student needs on one hand, and to ensure that they are able to contribute to their profession upon graduating on the other hand (Berglund et al, 1998). This can be considered as the single most important aspect of assessment. From the lecturer perspective, it should also be noted that assessment items and methods should also be designed and arranged so that the marking and feedback-giving processes are not time consuming. This ensures that the teaching process is productive, and by meeting the above-mentioned point, the teaching process can be considered effective and satisfactory (Hapburn, 1992). The most effective way to measure the effectiveness of assessment items and methods is to conduct surveys to measure student attitude (Berglund et al, 1998; Burtner, 2005; Carrington et al, 2005; Grace et al, 1998; Mead et al, 1999; Ribeiro & Mizukami, 2005). From that, possible improvements can be made. The objectives of this paper are: * To conduct student attitude and understanding on different assessments items and methods. * To show and to analyse results of the survey using RII values and F-tests results. * To give appropriate recommendations to improve the assessment methods. 2 LEARNING APPROACH Learning is a succession of (Griffith Institute For Higher Education, 2006): i) an increase in knowledge; ii) memorising; iii) acquisition of facts and procedures; iv) abstraction of meaning; and v) an interpretive process. Two conceptions can be linked to approaches to learning that have been classified as taking a surface or deep approach by Gibbs's study (Gibbs, 1992). Figure 1 shows a 3 "P" model of teaching and learning, which involves Presage, Process and Product. Process is the main focus in this paper, in which it can be divided into two main learning approaches: a deep approach and a surface approach. In the deep approach, students attempt to make sense of what is to be learnt, which consists of ideas and concepts. This involves integrating between components and between tasks, and also playing with ideas. In the surface approach, students reduce what is to be learnt to the status of unconnected facts to be memorised. The learning task is to reproduce the subject matter at a later date. The surface approach to learning is encouraged by (Ramsden, 2003): i) assessment methods emphasising recall or unconceptualised procedural knowledge; ii) assessment methods that create anxiety; iii) cynical or conflicting messages about rewards; iv) an excessive amount of material in the curriculum; v) poor or no feedback on progress; vi) lack of independence in studying; and vii) lack of interest and background knowledge in the subject matter. …

Innovation in higher education is challenging as staff are often overloaded and highly independent. The rollout of new initiatives in higher education is difficult. This paper explores a successful innovation in higher education: the rollout of new staff training methods as part of a new learning management system (LMS) in an engineering school. The research question explored was whether diffusion of innovation theory offers a successful project structure for innovation in higher education. The measures used in this research were LMS logins in engineering compared to the whole university and feedback from the target group towards the beginning and end of the training. The findings are: (a) diffusion of innovation theory is a useful guide to innovate in higher education (b) a community of practice can play a key role in innovation in education. We conclude that key elements of a successful innovation include: (1) senior management support, (2) the time needed to change practices, (3) appropriate skill development, (4) contextualised innovation, (5) supportive networks, (6) a solid institutional infrastructure.