Responding to the learner diversity : an inquiry into the delivery of a second year marketing unit

This paper reports on the outcome of an inquiry into the learner diversity and the delivery of a second year marketing subject in an Australian university. Using Biggs’s revised SPQ2F instrument (Biggs, 2003), it analyses the learning approaches of students and the opportunities for developing teaching strategies for better learning outcomes. The results suggest that overall students seem to adopt deep learning than surface learning though they differ in terms of the learning contexts. Moreover, no significant differences among students in regard to the study approach domains except for minor variation related to specific items in the instrument.

Accommodating learner diversity in web-based learning environments: imperatives for future developments

In this article, we focus on the use of Web-based learning environments for university students. We draw on an evaluation of an online environment that was developed to supplement face-to-face components of an undergraduate education unit in an Australian university. We explore learners' affective responses to this environment, finding that students' responses were often related to their familiarity with the learning environment, their skills and confidence with computer technology, and their preferred learning styles. It is not surprising to us that different students experienced the environment differently as this is the foundation of constructivist and socio-cultural understandings of learning. Yet, the models that currently predominate in the provision of online learning environments in universities offer very little in terms of responding and adapting to students' individual needs and preferences. Instead, online Web-based learning environments are most often designed to anticipate an average, or sometimes ideal, learner. We argue that designing for an imagined average or ideal learner does not adequately respond to the challenge of accommodating learner difference. If hopes for student-centred education are to be realised, future technological and pedagogical developments in online course provision need to be sophisticated enough to respond and adapt to individual students' needs and preferences across a wide range of variables.

Using multimedia concept maps to enhance the learner experience in business law

Students’ learning experience can be affected by difficulties in understanding the interrelationships between concepts and also between topics. Concept maps have been used in many disciplines (Kremer & Gains, 1996) to structure information and express relationships between them. Their holistic approach with multiple pathways through the learning resource can make relationships and linkages between topics and subtopics obvious, and contribute to a meaningful and positive learning experience. This paper outlines the development and formative evaluation of two hypermedia concept maps which led to the development of a series of eleven concept maps to enhance the learning experience of students in a first year undergraduate business law unit.

As part of the Stage 1 formative evaluation, two concept maps were developed together with supporting multimedia resources and trialled on the learners. Feedback was also obtained from technical staff. This phase was designed to assess and control the quality of the learning resource as well as the impact it had on the learning experience. The paper closes by discussing how information gained in Stage 1 was used in Stage 2 as a basis to modify the initially trialled maps and to develop the other supporting maps.

Role of blended cultures in enhancing teacher and learner performance outcomes

This paper explores the enhancement of teaching and learning perfonnance outcomes from the perspective of educators from different cultural backgrounds and a very large mix of international students. The research milieu focuses on social connectivity, peer-ta-peer networking and peer-ta-peer meDtaring amongst teachers, tutors and students; particularly aspects of trust and cultural awareness between teacher and learner.  The key findings of this research are that the social capital dimensions of trust and reciprocity, and the notion of academic guanxi can assist academics and institutions to better understand ways in which to optimize teaching and learning. The result is a pool of educators who have become change-agents by inspiring a network of their peers in using components of a collective cultural toolkit as a culture reference point.

Designing blended learning in higher education : the neomillenial learner and mediated immersion

Blended learning as a term and a learning approach is still being refined, at times debated as a legitimate area of research, at times seen as the answer to the conundrum and challenges of the digital learner. Is it the Emperor’s new clothes? As Morrison (2003) suggests, blended learning could be seen as an uncertain or unsure strategy, or alternatively a way to find a solution to promises given for e-learning. Three case studies within this paper explore the possibilities of e-learning within a work-based framework. Elements of ‘neomillenial learning styles’ (Dede in Educause Quarterly vol 28 No 1 2005) reflected by students in postgraduate coursework programs provided the challenge and stimulation of designing and facilitating e-learning components, incorporating experiential or action learning with ‘associational’ approaches rather than linear ones. The journey to virtual simulations such as the postgraduate Newlandia incorporates the learner perspective, or how to activate neomillenial learning styles; blended learning with online and face-to-face community activist groups working for solutions to a water problem; and a virtual scenario which can appeal to and engage an internationalised user group. Do Dede’s neomillenial learners synthesise and process experiences rather than (or as well as) information? Is this mediated immersion a part of Newlandia’s applicability to the modern learner? The student teams of community activists and project managers described in the case studies incorporate a potent mix of learning styles, nationalities and backgrounds, expectations, interpersonal and technical skills and indicate a trend in millennial learners towards a community of knowledge which is collaborative, mobile and group-focused.

The enigma of the Chinese learner

Although increasingly challenged in the higher education literature in recent years, there is still a common perception among teachers of the stereotypical Chinese rote learner. This perception, however, lies uncomfortably with the paradox that Chinese learners nevertheless often excel in their studies, in comparison with their Western counterparts. This comparative study of Chinese and Australian accountancy students provides evidence that, while surface approaches to learning can be associated with mechanical rote learning, the Chinese tradition of memorization through repetition can be used to deepen understanding and achieve high levels of academic performance. In recognizing this phenomenon, the enigma of the Chinese learner is better understood.

Technology licensing and grantbacks under hidden information

This paper explores technological transfer via licensing under hidden information. The transaction features a quality choice of technology to be transferred between a licensor and a licensee that has private information about its ability to implement and refine the technology. The model accounts for the possible damage that drastic refinements and reverse licensing can do to the licensor's market position, and makes predictions on the structure of licensing contracts. We show under what conditions a licensing contract will include a further contractual provision such as a grantback clause. Finally, the welfare implications of grantback inclusion are assessed.

Outsourcing the risks : alcohol licensing, risk and the making of the night time economy

Mariana Valverde argues that in the late twentieth century, the British state contracted out the prevention of disorder and monitoring of risks produced by widespread alcohol use to the private sector through the process of liquor licensing. This paper will argue that this scenario was duplicated in Victoria at the same time. It will do so by an analysis of four government-instigated inquiries into liquor licensing regimes from 1965 to 1998. The inquiries were distinguished by the subtly different emphases in their terms of reference. In 1965, the Phillips Royal Commission was directed to inquire into the best ways of dealing with the problems alcohol produced and how best to regulate it for the benefit of the population as a whole. By the time the Nieuwenhuysen Report was commissioned in 1985, the emphasis had changed, and he was directed to inquire how best to serve the interests of alcohol consumers and to produce the licensing regulatory regime which would enable the construction of a 24-hour city. Any anomalies that still existed in the revised Act were eliminated in the 1998 review which was instigated as a direct response to the National Competition Policy. A consequence of these changes over 30 years was the development of particular risk groups, such as ‘binge-drinking young people’, whose violence and nuisance must be controlled to enable all other ‘reasonable’ and ‘moderate’ drinkers be allowed to keep drinking. Thus the notion of risk had been redefined and the responsibility for dealing with these risks had been directed from the state to individual licensees and individual drinkers.