Trends in policies, programs and practices in the Australasian First Year Experience literature 2000-2010. The First Year in Higher Education Research Series on Evidence-based Practice. Number 1

This publication is the first in a series of scholarly reports on research-based practice related to the First Year Experience in Higher Education. This report synthesises evidence about practice-based initiatives and pragmatic approaches in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia that aim to enhance the experience of commencing students in the higher education sector. Trends in policies, programs and practices ... examines the first year experience literature from 2000-2010. It acknowledges the uniqueness of the Australasian socio-political context and its influence on the interests and output of researchers. The review surveyed almost 400 empirical reports and conceptual discussions produced over the decade that dealt with the stakeholders, institutions and the higher education sector in Australasia. The literature is examined through two theoretical constructs or “lenses”: first, a set of first year curriculum design principles and second, the generational approach to describing the maturation of initiatives. These outcomes and suggested directions for further research provide the challenges and the opportunities for FYE adherents, both scholars and practitioners, to grapple with in the next decade.

Evaluation of the quality of diverse teaching practice in higher education research methods

The purpose of this paper is to report on a methods research project investigating the evaluation of diverse teaching practice in Higher Education. The research method is a single site case study of an Australian university with data collected through published documents, surveys, interviews and focus groups. This project provides evidence of the wide variety of evaluation practice and diverse teaching practice across the university. This breadth identifies the need for greater flexibility of evaluation processes, tools and support to assist teaching staff to evaluate their diverse teaching practice. The employment opportunities for academics benchmark the university nationally and position the case study in the field. Finally this reaffirms the institutional responsibility for services to support teaching staff in an ongoing manner.

Melancholy and power, knowledge and propaganda : discussing the contribution of the bologna process to higher education research in Europe. 'Melancolía y poder, conocimiento y propaganda : discutiendo la contribución del proceso de Bolonia sobre la investigación en enseñanza superior en Europa'.

Resumen tomado de la publicación. Monográfico con el título: El proceso de Bolonia : dinámicas y desafíos de la enseñanza superior en Europa a comienzos de una nueva época

Higher education research at Deakin University

There is much complexity to the term ‘higher education research’. This paper explores the notion and provides some background for ongoing discussion with members of the College of Distinguished Deakin Educators (CDDE) and other staff stakeholders at Deakin University.

Existence of externalities from investment in higher education research and development

Research undertaken for this thesis supports the underlying claim that education does generate externalities. By examining the impact of higher education R&D on Australian state production, the results suggest that both pure and applied R&D have a statistically significant impact on Australia's regional economic performance.

Towards a theory and practice of policy engagement : higher education research policy in the making

Academic engagement with higher education research policy in Australia, and with education policy more generally, is in crisis. This time around, it is not just that our theoretical tools are blunt and irrelevant (Ball 1990), so are our politics. It seems our attention has been so consumed by ‘what is policy’ (Ball 1994a) and with challenging its claims to authority, that we have missed or ignored imperatives to engage with its production. Even though some have attempted contributions, for the most part we have been ‘coerced into an era of cooperation’. Getting ourselves out of this mess will take more than just better theories and new politics. It will require a degree of cooperation, to advance a theory and practice of policy engagement and to re-establish a field of education that resists the tendency to fragment and/or the temptation to defend itself ‘against’ policy. In this paper I attempt an assessment of where we are theoretically and politically with regard to education policy and where we need to look to find new forms of policy engagement. By way of illustration, I draw on examples from AARE (the Australian Association for Research in Education) and the Australian RQF (Research Quality Framework) although the analysis is by no means restricted to these.

Within/against: feminist theory as praxis in higher education research

This chapter will explore how different feminist theories and theorists have informed what counts as research, what is defined as a research issue, and methodological approaches to research in higher education. It will consider the theoretical and methodological tools feminist academics have mobilized in order to develop more powerful explanations of how gender and other forms of difference work in the relation to the positioning of the individual, higher education and the nation state within globalized economies. It pays particular regard to the feminist political project of social justice.

Undertaking research into higher education : maximising quality

Research into higher education is increasingly gaining momentum. It is vitally important that the highest standards of scholarship possible are applied to each and every investigation that scholars in the field of higher education undertake. As well as being an important aim in itself, the pursuit of high quality research into higher education meets requirements for greater accountability and efficiency in the context of increased student diversity and reduced funding worldwide. The quality of higher education research is dependent on a number of factors and dimensions. These include appropriate preparatory groundwork; the formulation and use of clear research questions; the appropriate use of conceptual and theoretical framework(s); ethical research conduct; the use of relevant and appropriate methods and methodology and choosing the highest quality dissemination outlets. This seminar will discuss each of the components of high quality research.

Adopting an active learning approach to teaching in a research-intensive higher education context transformed staff teaching attitudes and behaviours

The conventional lecture has significant limitations in the higher education context, often leading to a passive learning experience for students. This paper reports a process of transforming teaching and learning with active learning strategies in a research-intensive educational context across a faculty of 45 academic staff and more than 1000 students. A phased approach was used, involving nine staff in a pilot phase during which a common vision and principles were developed. In short, our approach was to mandate a move away from didactic lectures to classes that involved students interacting with content, with each other and with instructors in order to attain domain-specific learning outcomes and generic skills. After refinement, an implementation phase commenced within all first-year subjects, involving 12 staff including three from the pilot group. The staff use of active learning methods in classes increased by sixfold and sevenfold in the pilot and implementation phases, respectively. An analysis of implementation phase exam questions indicated that staff increased their use of questions addressing higher order cognitive skills by 51%. Results of a staff survey indicated that this change in practice was caused by the involvement of staff in the active learning approach. Fifty-six percent of staff respondents indicated that they had maintained constructive alignment as they introduced active learning. After the pilot, only three out of nine staff agreed that they understood what makes for an effective active learning exercise. This rose to seven out of nine staff at the completion of the implementation phase. The development of a common approach with explicit vision and principles and the evaluation and refinement of active learning were effective elements of our transformational change management strategy. Future efforts will focus on ensuring that all staff have the time, skills and pedagogical understanding required to embed constructively aligned active learning within the approach.

The judicious utilization of new technologies through authentic learning in higher education : a case study

Though technology holds significant promise for enhanced teaching and learning it is unlikely to meet this promise without a principled approach to course design. There is burgeoning discourse about the use of technological tools and models in higher education, but much of the discussion is fixed upon distance learning or technology based courses. This paper will develop and propose a balanced model for effective teaching and learning for “on campus” higher education, with particular emphasis on the opportunities for revitalisation available through the judicious utilisation of new technologies. It will explore the opportunities available for the creation of more authentic learning environments through the principled design. Finally it will demonstrate with a case study how these have come together enabling the creation of an effective and authentic learning environment for one pre-service teacher education course at the University of Queensland.

Theorising a model for teaching and assessing reflective learning in higher education

The importance of reflection in higher education, and across disciplinary fields is widely recognised; it is generally included in university graduate attributes, professional standards and program objectives. Furthermore, reflection is commonly embedded into assessment requirements in higher education subjects, often without necessary scaffolding or clear expectations for students. Despite the rhetoric around the importance of reflection for ongoing learning, there is scant literature on any systematic, developmental approach to teaching reflective learning across higher education programs/courses. Given that professional or academic reflection is not intuitive, and requires specific pedagogic intervention to do well, a program/course-wide approach is essential. This paper draws on current literature to theorise a new, transferable and customisable model for teaching and assessing reflective learning across higher education, which foregrounds and explains the pedagogic field of higher education as a multi-dimensional space. We argue that explicit and strategic pedagogic intervention, supported by dynamic resources, is necessary for successful, broad-scale approaches to reflection in higher education.

‘It's the end of the university as we know it (and I feel fine)’: the Generation Y student in higher education discourse

This paper examines discussions of Generation Y within higher education discourse, arguing the sector’s use of the term to describe students is misguided for three reasons. First, portraying students as belonging to Generation Y homogenises people undertaking higher education as young, middle-class and technologically literate. Second, speaking of Generation Y students allows constructivism to be reinvented as a ‘new’ learning and teaching philosophy. Third, the Generation Y university student has become a central figure in concerns about technology’s role in learning and teaching. While the notion of the ‘Generation Y student’ creates the illusion that higher education institutions understand their constituents, ultimately, it is of little value in explaining young adults’ educational experiences.

Multimodal approaches to reflective teaching and assessment in higher education

Reflection is not a new concept in the teaching of higher education and is often an important component of many disciplinary courses. Despite this, past research shows that whilst there are examples of rich reflective strategies used in some areas of higher education, most approaches to and conceptualisations of reflective learning and assessment have been perfunctory and inconsistent. In many disciplinary areas reflection is often assessed as a written activity ‘tagged onto’ assessment practices. In creative disciplines however, reflective practice is an integral and cumulative form of learning and is often expressed in ways other than in the written form. This paper will present three case studies of reflective practice in the area of Creative Industries in higher education – Dance, Fashion and Music. It will discuss the ways in which higher education teachers and students use multi-modal approaches to expressing knowledge and reflective practice in context. The paper will argue that unless students are encouraged to participate in deep reflective disciplinary discourse via multi-modes then reflection will remain superficial in the higher education context.