Report of the Committee on Higher Education in Wyoming to President G.D. Humphrey and members of the Board of Trustees of the University of Wyoming.

Cover title: Higher education in Wyoming.

Ações afirmativas e inclusão sustentável de estudantes com limitações por deficiência na educação superior

A tese trata da política de ações afirmativas para pessoas com limitações oriundas de deficiência na educação superior problematizando os fatores que dão sustentabilidade, aperfeiçoam ou dificultam o acesso, a acessibilidade e a permanência de estudantes com tais características neste nível educacional. Valendo-se de fontes bibliográficas, documentais e orais caracteriza-se como pesquisa qualitativa do tipo exploratória. Seus objetivos são: apresentar elementos de referência para a construção de protocolos que dêem sustentabilidade a inclusão deste grupo na educação superior; discutir as bases sobre as quais se assentam o direito à reserva de vaga para este grupo social; investigar, aportada na acessibilidade, fatores facilitadores e dificultadores para o acesso e a permanência de estudantes cotistas com deficiência ao longo do processo de formação. O cenário de investigação é a Universidade do Estado de Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Campus Francisco Negrão de Lima (Maracanã) e os atores são estudantes com limitações por deficiência ingressantes através da reserva de 5% das vagas (vestibulares 2004/2005). O percurso metodológico compreendeu: entrevista de aproximação; construção de roteiro para entrevista composta de questões semi-estruturadas; oitiva destes estudantes através de entrevista e; análise hermenêutica (MINAYO, 1996, 1999, 2005) para interpretar as informações e apreender as dimensões em que se elaboram os sentidos sobre as ações afirmativas na UERJ. Privilegiamos a narrativa (QUEIROZ, 2004) como prática de linguagem que oportunizou abordar textos científicos, documentos e depoimentos como resultado de processos resultantes de múltiplas determinações e significados específicos expressos em linguagens. As conclusões apontam para a relativa invisibilidade dos estudantes cotistas com deficiência no contexto da UERJ. Tal invisibilidade deve ser pensada como construção na qual participam a Instituição - que se encontra em uma espécie ‗zona de conforto quanto às necessidades formativas destes sujeitos e a própria forma como eles se inserem na Universidade. Os estudantes têm escassa participação cultural, não integram redes de sociabilidade, não se reconhecem como parte de um coletivo (de estudantes cotistas com deficiência) e enfrentam problemas relacionados à pedagogia acadêmica, conforme a gravidade das limitações e os estigmas decorrentes. No tocante a UERJ, verificou-se a convivência de dois movimentos: um, que busca avançar no processo da permanência e conclusão do curso de tais estudantes e outro, que ignora tais necessidades podendo ser caracterizado como não-movimento. Esperamos contribuir para a construção de protocolos de sustentabilidade da inclusão de estudantes deficientes e cooperar para o funcionamento inclusivo das IESPs em dimensões culturais, técnicas, organizacionais e sócio-pedagógicas

Report and recommendations to the House Committee on Higher Education /

Cover title.

Attachment patterns and suicidal behaviours on higher education students

Introduction: Every individual has a necessity to establish affective relationships throughout life in order to feel comfort and support. This need is called attachment and allows the human being to explore the world, acquiring knowledge about himself and everyone else(1) There are several changes that occur on students’ lives when enrolling and attending university, a period that is known to include a set of situational and academic transitions which might lead to mental health problems, and thus making students more vulnerable and more prone to develop suicidal behaviours. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation on higher education students and to assess its relationship with attachment patterns. Methods: Quantitative, descriptive and correlational study, applied on a sample of 1074 students from a Portuguese higher education institution. Data collection was possible through an online platform that included a survey with questions regarding sociodemographical and academic profiling, the Portuguese version of the Adult Attachment Scale (EVA)(2) and the Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire(3) Results: Students’ age varies between the 17 and 49 ( = 23,9 years old ± 6,107 Sd), the vast majority (64.7%) are females. Results show that the presence/severity of suicidal thoughts is low ( = 13.84; ± 20.29 Sd) on a scale from 0 to 180 and cut-off point > 41 for values that suggest potential suicidal risk, and based on that, 84 students were identified (7,8%). We verified significant relationships between suicidal ideation and anxiety and attachment (r=0.314 p=0.000). Conclusions: Although there is not a high prevalence of suicidal ideation on students, we found 84 students in our sample (7,8%) that reveal a potential risk for suicide. The results also show that young students with safe attachment patterns display less suicidal ideation. Safe attachment patterns are essential on interpersonal and social relationships and play an important role during the academic period. We cannot be indifferent towards this issue due to its individual, familiar and social repercussions. Every higher education institution should then establish student support offices and develop mental health promotion programs as well as suicide prevention campaigns.

Transition pedagogy : a third generation approach to FYE : a case study of policy and practice for the higher education sector

Current research and practice related to the first year experience (FYE) of commencing higher education students are still mainly piecemeal rather than institution-wide with institutions struggling to achieve cross-institutional integration, coordination and coherence of FYE policy and practice. Drawing on a decade of FYE-related research including an ALTC Senior Fellowship and evidence at a large Australian metropolitan university, this paper explores how one institution has addressed that issue by tracing the evolution and maturation of strategies that ultimately conceptualize FYE as “everybody's business.” It is argued that, when first generation co-curricular and second generation curricular approaches are integrated and implemented through an intentionally designed curriculum by seamless partnerships of academic and professional staff in a whole-of-institution transformation, we have a third generation approach labelled here as transition pedagogy. It is suggested that transition pedagogy provides the optimal vehicle for dealing with the increasingly diverse commencing student cohorts by facilitating a sense of engagement, support and belonging. What is presented here is an example of transition pedagogy in action.

The effects of accountability on higher education

This paper analyzes the effect of an accountability system in the Brazilian college market. For each discipline, colleges were assigned a grade that depended on the scores of their students on the ENC, an annual mandatory exam. Those grades were then disclosed to the public, giving applicants information about college quality. The system also established rewards and penalties based on the colleges’ grades. I find that the ENC had a substantial effect on different measures of college quality, such as faculty education and the proportion of full-time faculty. The detailed information from this unique dataset and the fact that the ENC started being required for different disciplines in different years allow me to control for time-specific effects, thus minimizing the bias caused by policy endogeneity. Indeed, I find strong evidence on the importance of controlling for time-specific effects: estimates of the impact of the ENC on college quality more than double when I do not take those effects into account. The ENC also affects positively the ratio between applicants and vacancies, and it decreases the faculty and the entering class sizes. The results suggest that its introduction fostered competition and favored colleges entering the market.

The Renaissance of Performance Funding for Higher Education: Policy Adoption, Implementation, and Impacts

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Technological talespinning : new media and higher education in the USA : an examination of technological determinism

This thesis examines the theory of technological determinism, which espouses the view that technological change drives social change, through an analysis of the impact of new media on higher education models in the United States of America. In so doing, it explores the impacts of new media technologies on higher education, in particular, and society in general. The thesis reviews the theoretical shape of the discourse surrounding new media technologies before narrowing in on utopian claims about the impact of new media technologies on education. It tests these claims through a specific case study of higher education in the USA. The study investigates whether 'new' media technologies (eg the Internet) are resulting in new forms of higher education in the USA and whether the blurring of information and entertainment technologies has caused a similar blurring in education and entertainment providers. It uses primary data gathered by the author in a series of interviews with key education, industry and media representatives in North America in 1997. Chapter 2 looks at the literature and history surrounding several topics central to the thesis - the discourses of technological determinism, the history of technology use and adoption in education, and impacts of new media technologies on education. Chapter 3 presents the findings of the American case study on the relationship between media and higher education and Chapter 4 concludes and synthesises the investigation.

Consumer guarantees and the supply of educational services by higher education providers

The higher education sector is undergoing a number of significant changes, the implications of which have yet to emerge. One such change is the increasing reliance by higher education providers on the revenue generated by full fee paying international students to fund their operating expenses. The report by the Victorian Ombudsman, Investigation into how Universities Deal with International Students ('Victorian Ombudsman's Report') tabled in the Victorian Parliament on 27 October 2011, provides evidence that Australian higher education providers may be failing to meet their legal obligations to international students. The Victorian Ombudsman's Report is the result of an investigation into four Victorian universities teaching international students with a focus on accounting and nursing schools. The report contains evidence that the universities were admitting students with scores below, or at the lower end of, the International English Language Testing System ('IELTS') score considered acceptable. Alternatively, they were relying upon their own language testing admission standards and not on an independent test like the IELTS test. While the universities provided English language support services for their international students after they had been admitted, the Ombudsman was concerned that the universities 'have not dedicated sufficient resources to meet the level of need amongst international students'.

Illuminative evaluation as a method applied to Australian Government policy borrowing and implementation in higher education

Any government deciding to invoke widespread change in its higher education sector through implementation of new policies impacts on every institution and all staff and students, often in both the time taken up and the heightened emotions caused. The central phenomenon that this study addresses is the process and consequences of policy changes in higher education in Australia. The aim of this article is to record the research design through the perspective (evaluation research), theoretical framework (program evaluation) and methods (content analysis, descriptive statistical analysis and bibliometric analysis) applied to the investigation of the 2003 federal government higher education reform package. This approach allows both the intended and unintended consequences arising from the policy implementation of three national initiatives focused on learning and teaching in higher education in Australia to surface. As a result, this program evaluation, also known in some disciplines as policy implementation analysis, will demonstrate the applicability of illuminative evaluation as a methodology and reinforce how program evaluation will assist and advise future government reform and policy implementation, and will serve as a legacy for future evaluative research.Any government deciding to invoke widespread change in its higher education sector through implementation of new policies impacts on every institution and all staff and students, often in both the time taken up and the heightened emotions caused. The central phenomenon that this study addresses is the process and consequences of policy changes in higher education in Australia. The aim of this article is to record the research design through the perspective (evaluation research), theoretical framework (program evaluation) and methods (content analysis, descriptive statistical analysis and bibliometric analysis) applied to the investigation of the 2003 federal government higher education reform package. This approach allows both the intended and unintended consequences arising from the policy implementation of three national initiatives focused on learning and teaching in higher education in Australia to surface. As a result, this program evaluation, also known in some disciplines as policy implementation analysis, will demonstrate the applicability of illuminative evaluation as a methodology and reinforce how program evaluation will assist and advise future government reform and policy implementation, and will serve as a legacy for future evaluative research.

The perceptions of learners on the effectiveness of e-learning in higher education: An empirical study

This paper examines the critical dimensions of the effectiveness of e-learning from the perspective of e-learners within the framework of pedagogy, technology and management of learning resources in higher education. A survey is conducted in an Australian University for exploring the association between the critical dimensions of e-learning and the learners' perceived impact of these dimensions on the e-learning effectiveness using multiple regression analysis. The results show that technology, management of learning resources, metadata and management effectiveness of learning resources positively influence the effectiveness of e-learning in higher education.

List of references on higher education.

Mode of access: Internet.

Involvement in learning : realizing the potential of American higher education : final report of the Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American Higher Education.

Item 461-D-5