Search

Ensuring effective university governance and leadership is more important than ever before given contemporary transformations of higher education functions, institutions and social roles. This paper reports contributions which seek to stimulate research in this field. Drawing from the formative case study of Australian universities, it discusses prevailing insights and gaps in leadership research, and articulates theoretical dimensions of good governance, an analytical framework for studying the empirical nature and work of university senior leaders, and the characteristics of contemporary arrangements. The paper contributes methodological approaches, analytical frameworks and empirical insights which are designed to generalize and replicate in broader research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sought academic staff and students’ views of electronic exams (e-exams) system and the benefits and challenges of e-exams in general. The respondents provided useful feedback for future adoption of e-exams at an Australian university and elsewhere too. The key findings show that students and academic staff are optimistic about the future adoption of e-exams if the e-exams system is sufficiently improved. They are fully aware of the benefits the technology could offer in supporting learning and education in general and see e-exams as an innovation for learning and teaching in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, the Indigenous health workforce is in urgent need of Indigenous health professionals with credible qualifications in higher education that they can draw upon when attempting to influence government policies and health strategies. One way that this can be addressed is by Indigenous health workers gaining a Bachelor of Nursing degree. This paper reports on a study that focused on the experiences of Indigenous health workers, and how they have met and overcome significant and specific challenges in higher education to become registered nurses. The active involvement of five Indigenous health worker participants is described and their experiences discussed in relation to cross-cultural awareness; financial, cultural, academic, family and peer support; stress factors; staying motivated; and the many and varied issues that impact on confidence levels. The paper provides a number of recommendations for improving the student support mechanisms for Indigenous health workers to overcome barriers to successfully participating in, and graduating from, higher education degree courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are facing growing levels of scrutiny to prove their identity to access Indigenous-specific government services designed to mitigate the impacts of past government policies. Yet, it is those who have been most severely impacted by past government policies of forcible removal from Country and separation of families who often face challenges obtaining evidence to prove their Indigeneity. Employing narrative inquiry and collaborative autoethnography, this article draws on the personal reflections and experiences of the Aboriginal authors to explore the health and wellbeing impacts of deficit discourses, perceptions, and judgements about Indigeneity in Australia. Our personal stories are shared to enliven discussion on how proof of Indigeneity requirements may systemically compound ongoing intergenerational trauma. These stories and perspectives are shared to stimulate review of proof of Indigeneity policies and procedures by government agencies and education institutions across Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research assessment framework is an unstable reality in many countries. While few would disagree that there is a need to measure and reward research excellence, there has been little investigation of how assessment mechanisms relate to knowledge itself. With a focus on the arts and humanities and writing from an Australian perspective, this paper draws together discussions of research assessment frameworks and forms of knowledge to consider what can and cannot be measured, and what we might gain from (or lose from not) measuring these things. We argue that the focus on measurable outputs risks a culture that favours effective packages of knowledge at the same time as ignoring the immeasurable, or hidden elements of research and scholarship – elements that Aristotle considered to underpin scholarship itself. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The future of education research is linked to what early career researchers in Education are doing and learning to do now. This paper presents a narrative of one early career researcher who works and lives in Australia. She tells the story about how she came to research and to an academic life, about what her doctoral work and education taught her and how now, as an academic in an on-going position, she feels needs to unlearn many of those values and practices in order to succeed particularly in the so-called 'grant game'. The narrative format, though, is intended to invite and encourage other readings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data gathered as part of a study of young people's early career attainments, this paper examines factors that influence Australian high school seniors' plans to attend college and their actual entry into college. The paper applies the Fishbein-Ajzen (1975) model of attitude-behavior relations to the particular issue of the link between intentions to continue school and the realization of those intentions. Results show that the Fishbein-Ajzen model provides a useful, but incomplete, representation of the educational attainment process. In accord with the Fishbein-Ajzen model, favorable attitudes toward higher education, parental encouragement, and Friends' college plans all lead to the formation of intentions to enter college. Intentions, in turn, predict actual college attendance. Other results, however, suggest revisions in the Fishbein-Ajzen model. In particular, college entry was affected by attitudes toward college, academic achievement, and parental encouragement, over and above the effect of intentions. Moreover, behavioral intentions were shaped by academic achievement and by perceived academic ability, in addition to attitudes and perceived social norms. Finally, evidence was obtained that several variables in the model, such as gender and perceived parental encouragement, have interactive effects on college plans and college attendance. The results lend support to Liska's (1984) argument that social-structural opportunities and resources must be considered when applying the Fishbein-Ajzen model to behaviors such as entry into higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australian government concern for improved governance in the higher education sector over recent years has driven the implementation of governance protocols. However, there has been little evidence of any evaluation of the impact of the governance structures on the performance of universities. This paper presents an analysis of the impact of the governance structures on performance in government-funded universities since the Australian National Governance Protocols were introduced in 2004. The methodology involved analysing the relationships between indices of governance structures namely board size, board independence and board committees, and financial, research and teaching performances. Results showed that the board size did not relate to financial, research or teaching performance in any way. In terms of board independence, the more independent the boards, the less impact they had on both research and teaching performances. Financial performances were not impacted. This finding may suggest that boards dominated by internal members rather than independent ones could have a better influence on teaching and research performances. While stronger board committees positively impacted financial and research performances, this was not the case for teaching performance. Board committees showed a negative relationship with teaching performance, suggesting that excessive monitoring may negatively influence teaching quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes to the governance and management of institutions of higher education (often described as ‘new managerialism’) and the effects this is having on the work of academics have been the subject of much discourse over the last 30 years in the pursuit of a globally appropriate model for higher education. Less attention has been afforded to discussion of new forms of institutional leadership needed to effectively respond to the associated challenges. Despite growing research into shared models of leadership, particularly distributed leadership, as a potentially appropriate approach distinct from traditional structural/positional leadership, discussion has been principally confined to normative description of the parameters that describe distributed leadership rather than rigorous critical analysis of its applicability in, and effectiveness for, higher education. Underpinning this discourse is the presumption that increased collaboration is synonymous with distributed leadership. This paper presents a more critical analysis of the experience of a distributed leadership approach used to build leadership capacity in learning and teaching in an Australian university. This example demonstrates first, that despite evidence of a relationship between distributed leadership and collaboration, there is no evidence of an inherent direct causal relationship, second, that a distributed leadership, while it may increase participation of academics in decision making, is not synonymous with democratic decision making. It is concluded that for a distributed leadership approach to be appropriate and effective, higher education institutions need to instigate action supported by formal leaders and underpinned by an action reflective approach that enables change over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the emergence of aspiration as a keyword linked to higher education equity policy in England and Australia since 1997. Aspiration serves multiple purposes when constructed as a problematic site in which policy must intervene. For example, it can be understood as a vector for new technologies of governance that operate through the production of entrepreneurial dispositions; as a signifier for groups that have experienced upward social mobility; and as a personality trait that correlates with future earnings and thus can be defined as a dimension of human capital. It has also provided a rallying point for equity work in higher education. Focusing on English and Australian policy contexts, as well as the recent education work of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), we examine the different perspectives of a range of stake-holders on the strategy of 'raising aspiration' for higher education and how these have changed over time; the partnership work undertaken in the HE systems of both countries under the aegis of aspiration-raising policies; and recent policy developments in both contexts. In particular, we consider how aspiration-focused policies have affective effects on policy actors and seek to control affects directly by modulating feelings about capacities for action in the future. Two data sets provide the empirical basis for the paper: (a) document analysis of major equity policies in England since 1997 and in Australia since 2008, as well as a review of relevant OECD policy documents; and (b) analysis of nine interviews with equity practitioners and policy personnel in England, Australia, and located within the OECD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article evaluates the research and development in teacher education in Australia. The author focused on the topic of discussion for higher education teachers. The federal government has mandated the merger of many relatively small and independent colleges and College of Advanced Education into single multi-campus college. Some of the potential theoretical gaps between teacher education curriculum practice and school-based curriculum development which is a national movement in the country were also explored.

Fear of heterosexism—as distinct from actual experiences of heterosexism—plays a significant role in staff and students lives on campus. Ambient workplace heterosexism provides a context for staff and students about what to expect from their peers and colleagues, and shapes the daily activities of those who perceive heterosexism as a regulating force. In this article, we consider the psychometrics of the Fear of Heterosexism Scale (FoHS), which was integrated into a campus climate survey of Western Sydney University staff and students (N = 3,106; n = 412). This scale was considered in relation to a range of associated factors, including perceived safety on campus, bystander efficacy, responsibility to intervene, and awareness of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, asexual, and many other terms such as nonbinary and pansexual (LGBTIQA+) issues. In turn, the results of the FoHS are considered across a range of demographic factors such as gender, sexuality, role, dis/ability, and membership of campus-based support organizations. Supporting the findings from the initial operationalization of the FoHS by Fox and Asquith in 2018, this research identifies the consequences of fear of heterosexism on daily activities and engagement with study/work. Understanding the factors associated with fear of heterosexism is critical in creating more inclusive and respectful university environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its original form the provisions of the LK Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) contained little of practical help to students with disabilities. This situation was rectified when the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Act (SENDA) was passed in 2001 becoming the new Part 4 of the DDA. From 2002 legal duties not to discriminate against students with disabilities came into effect. In the Commonwealth of Australia a very different attitude towards disability discrimination has been demonstrated by having legislation to combat disability discrimination in place since 1992. which included specific provisions on education from the outset. The purpose of this article is to examine the approach taken in both jurisdictions towards the use of the anti-discrimination statutes and consider the effectiveness of the legislation in preventing discrimination on the ground of disability in higher education. The paper will examine points of similarity and divergence in the respective systems regarding the application of anti-disability discrimination laws to higher education as well as look to the longer established jurisprudence of the Australian courts for potential guidance that may be helpful to the nascent Part 4 of the DDA and the types of issues that may arise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studio teaching is a long standing tradition and a signature pedagogy across a broad range of art and creative disciplines, from arts to architecture and design. However, the practice of studio teaching varies across disciplines and practitioners. Do these variances indicate different signature pedagogies in the creative disciplines? An exploratory study was conducted to examine how studio teaching is practised at a Faculty of Creative Industries in Australia, and whether those studio practices suggest distinctive signature pedagogies and creative transfer. In this article, we describe the study and offer insights into studio teaching practices in the creative industries disciplines. We argue that nuances and differences among studio practices in creative industries reveal different signature pedagogies. Our findings offer a unique lens on current approaches to creative disciplines education, where interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to teaching are encouraged in order to support and prepare a highly educated and flexible future workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Streamed and recorded lectures as well as audience response technology are increasingly used in public health tertiary education, to train practitioners to address Asia-Pacific region's rapidly changing health needs. However, little is known about the impact on student performance, satisfaction, and understanding. This study aimed to assess postgraduate students' perceptions and their use of technology in a large epidemiology subject at an Australian university in internal and external modes. The study used both routinely collected student data (n = 453) and survey data (n = 88). Results indicate that students accept and use technology-based learning tools, and perceive audience response technology as well as streamed and recorded lectures as useful for their learning (96.6%). Students have shown a preference to review recorded lectures rather than viewing streamed lectures. Analyses further suggest that the use of recorded and streamed lectures may be linked to better student performance for external students (passing, any use odds ratio = 3.32). However, these effects are not consistent across all student subgroups and externally enrolled students may profit more than those enrolled internally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a study that investigated the education pathways of 464 young people. We were interested in the effects of New Zealand citizenship and Pacific ethnicity on pathways so compared findings for three groups residing in Australia: Pacific youth with New Zealand citizenship, Pacific youth with Australian citizenship, and non-Pacific youth with Australian citizenship. Findings showed that the first group was significantly less likely than others to have gained a university qualification. Pacific youth, regardless of citizenship, were more likely than non-Pacific peers to have a vocational qualification rather than a university qualification. No evidence suggests this resulted from lack of motivation or lack of ability. However, two inter-related factors explained outcomes for the Pacific cohort: likelihood of low socio-economic status and first-in-family to attend university. We propose that Pacific communities’ collectivist orientation may also restrict opportunities for Pacific youth seeking higher education pathways. We therefore argue that until Pacific young people are better represented in higher education cohorts, they should be a targeted equity group, and that the Australian government’s decision to exclude many of these young people from higher education loans is an anomaly in the context of its ‘widening participation’ agenda for Australian higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs a psychosocial analysis to discuss ways that working-class students interpret their struggles at university as personal inferiority rather than as disadvantage. Using life-story interviews from a qualitative study of Australian university graduates, it examines working-class students' negotiation of university culture and their own identities. The article makes use of a legal term, inherent vice, to describe a process in which individuals and institutions are disposed to viewing lower levels of cultural capital in working-class students as an indication of their 'natural' inferiority, rather than as disadvantages of inheritable, symbolic resources. Working-class students employ significant forms of 'resistance' to develop their own resources and resourcefulness. However, they do not have equal access to what Skeggs refers to as techniques of selfhood required by the dominant symbolic in the field in which they are engaged. Building on Bourdieu's development of cultural capital, habitus clivé, and symbolic violence, these findings challenge deficit views of working-class students. They also raise questions about the responsibility of higher education institutions in understanding and equipping working-class students with the necessary resources, rather than relying on students to have been born with the 'right' background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We know from research across all levels of education that feedback and interactive teaching have the greatest positive effect on students’ achievement. However, in higher education, teachers’ constructive feedback often logistically cannot be delivered in time for all students to apply to future tasks. In this article, we report on a study of an interactive teaching approach using assignment exemplars to provide students with before-task ‘feedback’ or feedforward. We evaluated the effectiveness of the approach through a questionnaire and analysis of students’ grades. Our results show that while the teacher’s explanation of the exemplars was an important positive factor in students’ achievement, some students did not improve their performance although they understood the quality of work expected. We discuss implications for teachers in teaching discipline-writing skills as part of an exemplar-based approach to providing feedforward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An Australian scholar in the Arts and Humanities responds to recent US models emphasizing civic-engaged learning as a way to renew the humanities in undergraduate education. Policy contexts and curriculum initiatives of kindred trends in recent Australian undergraduate education in the humanities are contrasted in this essay. The Australian experience reiterates the worth of a turn towards engaging undergraduates in active learning contexts which take them out of classrooms and libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the internationalization of public relations education, by examining public relations education in Australia, its relation with the public relations industry, and its growth in response to international student- and market-led demand. The discussion highlights the tensions within what is essentially an education project driven in part by stakeholders seeking to professionalize the industry and in part by university staff seeking academic legitimacy and disciplinary status for public relations within a rapidly changing higher education sector. Tensions between the local, national, and global contexts of higher education, and academic, industry and market factors are evident. In particular, the process of developing an internationalized curriculum exposes the narrow disciplinarity and weak theoretical foundations of a field, which emerged out of industry practice and is strongly influenced by U.S. scholarship. It is concluded that internationalization of the public relations curriculum offers scholars the possibility to address the ethnocentric values and narratives of their discipline and improve learning outcomes for students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the international higher education environment there is evidence of continuing growth and interest in creative and performing arts programs. While there is similar growth in the creative industries sector where these students will seek to develop a career, as well as further validation of the importance of creativity in the future workplace, ongoing challenges remain for educators in attempting to create a smooth and effective transition for artists who rarely follow a typical linear career path. This article overviews an initial research project which seeks to investigate the value and impact of industry-based internships in the creative and performing arts, involving a sample of graduates and industry employers from a regional area of northern Australia. The findings suggest that while internships offer a range of benefits for students and employers, there are significant challenges and issues which not only affect current practice but require additional research and investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article asks: what is the significance of design history within higher education? It reviews the practice and purpose of design history, in the education of historically aware and critically engaged designers, as an emerging independent discipline, and in terms of what the subject has to offer allied fields such as history, sociology, cultural studies, history of technology, area studies and anthropology. It considers the development and current state of design history as it is taught in the UK and non-Anglophone Europe (including France, Italy, Scandinavia, Spain, Turkey and Greece), in the US, Australia and East Asia. The argument that follows is grounded in recent design historical scholarship, combined with the views of design historians working in the abovementioned countries, in order to provide both a contemporary perspective on current practice and suggestions about possible futures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Higher education in Australia is currently in a state of flux, with the Federal Government’s Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency commencing operations in January 2012. The ‘After Standards Project’ has been working with Australian university history departments and the Australian Historical Association, educating and empowering the discipline to act as a united community and assert ownership of a standards process. This article provides a stocktake of the achievements and challenges the After Standards Project has faced in coming to terms with the new environment and resultant new demands around compliance and accountability. It discusses the After Standards Project’s work in terms of both quality assurance and quality improvement, with reference to the establishment of a set of discipline standards and the trial of an accreditation scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The intensity of provision of transnational education (TNE) in the Asian region by Australian universities has been increasing over the past three decades. Although much is claimed, little is actually known about the outcomes and opinions of students enrolled in TNE programs. This article investigates student experiences through the longitudinal extension of an ethnographic study of one TNE program in Singapore. Student motivations, career paths, and adaptations are considered in the context of “second chance” and lifelong learning in Singapore. Analysis reveals something of a good news story in the face of much negativity about transnational education at the current time. The study reveals that TNE students are achieving high-level positional outcomes and developing transformative learning habits. Recommendations are made for the use of global comparative studies in TNE programs to facilitate mutual learning through respect for local knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the construct validity of the Paramedic Graduate Attribute scale (PGAS) using factor analysis and Rasch Analysis. A convenience sample was used in the study involving paramedics from all states and territories in Australia. Participants were asked to rate the importance of 47 graduate attribute items. Principal components analysis (PCA) was undertaken on the 47 items followed by Oblique Oblimin rotation. For the Rasch analysis item fit, item invariance and dimensionality were examined. A total of 872 paramedics participated in the study (23% response rate). PCA of the 47 items revealed seven factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, accounting for 40.6% of the total variance. The subsequent Rasch analyses based on the seven factors produced seven misfitting items and confirmed a 7-factor solution. The 7-factor PGAS produced a good fit to the Rasch Model and exhibited good reliability and unidimensionality, offering the Australian paramedic discipline a set of empirically based graduate attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Summary: This article analyses how neo-liberal and managerialist policies, over the last two decades in Australia, have positioned university staff as self-managing individuals. Social work academics are positioned as ‘free agents . . .empowered to act on their own behalf while ‘‘steered from a distance’’ by ‘‘policy norms and rules of the game’’ (Marginson, 1997, p. 63, italics added). Using governmentality theories as developed by Bacchi (2009), Burchell, Gordon, and Miller (1991), Dean (1996, 1999a, 1999b), Foucault (1983, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991), Hindess (1997, 2003), Miller (1992), Barry, Osborne, and Rose (1996) and Rose (1999) and an analysis of how staff are positioned in higher education settings is explored.• Findings: This article identifies the ways neo-liberal policy and managerialism operates to enable power relations that both individualize and totalize academic staff, including social work academics. Efforts to transform power relations require an understanding of how particular situations are problematized and the identification of the governmental technologies employed to constitute the political identities of social work academics.• Applications: Identifying how neo-liberal technologies of government affect social work academics could stimulate a renewed struggle for change and reinvigorate political action in social work university departments and social work settings more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When university academics implement changes in learning, such as introducing blended learning, it is conventional practice to examine and evaluate the impact of the resulting curriculum reform. Judging the worth and impact of an educational development is a complex task involving subtle differences in learning. Qualitative methods to explore these deep processes in learning include using interviews, observations and open-ended questionnaires targeting all stakeholders in the process, such as students, teachers, administration and technical staff. These evaluation tasks generate a mass of raw data that many faculty members in higher education are unaccustomed to analyzing. This article provides a framework using radar charts adapted from the field of organizational development. A modified six-zone radar chart was used to assess the extent of blended learning in order to compare changes in the learning environment. Data collection included interviews, classroom observations and electronic records generated during educational delivery over a 1-year period of time. A purposeful sample of online course data was collected by three participating universities in South Africa, Australia, and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of students cross national borders for their studies. An expanding global market in higher education has been created. Yet significant gaps exist in the governance of international students' rights. As well as being educational service beneficiaries, cross-border students are migrants, workers, consumers and human beings. A broader view of students, as individuals deserving of ‘social and economic security’, is superior to that which treats them as social protection subjects. Recognizing this multiple status, and utilizing in-depth data from 200 interviews with international students in Australia, the article finds that the existing social protection regime falls significantly short of recognizing students' rights. Problems are located in relation to language acquisition, social integration, finances, work and personal safety. The article argues that, as well as law and policy, a student security regime should incorporate better university practices and more integrated civil society networks and non-governmental organizations (NCX)s), and intergovernmental organization (IGO) coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, North America and Australia, credit-bearing discipline specific English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses are seen as a challenge to remedial views of English as a Second Language and a key element in revitalizing a profession on the periphery of the institution. However, the EAP field has to confront not only institutional challenges to its acceptability as a discipline but also tensions within the field. In this article we examine the tensions which underpin current and future directions in the field, review the development of credit-based EAP courses in the US, UK and Australia, and illustrate our discussion with a case study from the University of Melbourne, We conclude by arguing that discipline specific credit-based EAP offers promising hope for the future of the EAP discipline in higher education, but that to achieve this end the field and practitioners need to find a position between critique of and accommodation to discipline specific content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'successful' Arts student of the new millennium in Australia is likely to be female and studying full-time, having just completed her final year of schooling. Increasing numbers of students, however, are mature-age, are working long hours in paid employment, or may be the first in their family to attend university. A significant proportion of this heterogeneous population may appear on campus only rarely. In order to engage the hearts and minds of these students in their arts and humanities studies, it is necessary to acknowledge such realities. Last century's solutions to the 'academic adjustment' question will not hold. The new transition to study initiatives rely to an extent on differentiating between student groups to establish starting points, but must also find broad and stable ways of supporting the student cohort to make the transition successfully, particularly to the kinds of writing and thinking that characterize the individual disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As elsewhere in the Anglophone world, there has been a serious contraction in public funding for the teaching of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Australian universities during the 1990s. Although staff morale has suffered and class sizes have grown, the level of innovation in undergraduate teaching has risen and student assessments of how they are taught have improved. Certain disciplines in the Humanities have prospered during this decade; others have gone into seemingly irreversible decline. The Humanities will play a crucial role in Australia's economic future, given the emergence of new knowledge-laden industries. The styles of teaching and learning in the BA will also foster some of the skills necessary for success in that as yet ill-defined economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the nursing practice, education and research in Australia. Description of apprenticeship-style model of nurse education in Australia; Implication of the transfer of basic nurse education courses to the higher education sector in the country; Objective of the Colleges of Advanced Education.