TLU Research

Current TLU Research

• Enhancing Domestic and International Student Engagement: Strategies for influencing attitudes and behaviours.
• Measuring Student Experience
• English Language Growth of International Students
• Client Sponsored Research Projects in Marketing
• Enhancing Active Learning
• Interdisciplinary Higher Education
• Enhancing Assessment Feedback Practices in Accounting Education
• Multidisciplinary Learning and Assessment
• Quality in Higher Education
• The Case Study Databank Project
• Peer Learning Project
• The Challenging Academic Development (CAD) Collective
• Key Thinkers in Higher Education Teaching and Learning

Enhancing Domestic and International Student Engagement: Strategies for influencing attitudes and behaviours.

Australian Learning and Teaching Council - $307,425.

Rationale and aims of the project
It is now well known that social and academic interaction and engagement between international and domestic students is difficult to achieve within Australian universities (Marginson, 2007; Prescott & Hellstén, 2005). There is a pressing obligation on the part of the sector to do something about this. Many universities have explored strategies to deal with this issue, with mixed success. While there has been much attention to developing programs within student services, there has been surprisingly little work on exploring approaches to teaching and learning that might foster international-domestic student engagement. This project team believes there is the potential to do much more in this area. The main focus of the proposed project will be on developing and disseminating teaching and learning approaches that create suitable environments for students to engage outside their cultural and socio-economic groupings for learning purposes, thereby creating a classroom environment that enhances learning for all students.

We acknowledge the existence of several informative websites and publications offering examples and strategies for engaging either international or domestic students in teaching and learning. The emphasis of these resources is primarily on the interaction between teacher and students, rather than student–to-student engagement. Our focus will be on enhancing engagement between students, and in this sense the project will break new ground.

Intended project outcomes
There are three broad outcomes of the project:

1. a better understanding of the underlying reasons for the problem;
2. a model of the assumptions, attitudes and barriers that inhibit engagement; and
3. a set of practical strategies, communicated in a highly accessible format for both academics and students, that will enhance student engagement.

These three elements will form a coherent suite that will be:

• - comprehensive in the advice and support that it provides;
• - flexible and adaptable to the diverse needs of institutions and individuals; and
• - based on best practice in learning and teaching in higher education.

Project deliverables and dissemination of project outcomes

1. A background paper analyzing the reasons for the existing problems in engagement between domestic and international students, and discussing what needs to be changed.
2. A 24-minute DVD for staff and students, incorporating a documentary approach which looks at the issues and challenges, and proposes strategies for enhancing student engagement.
3. Written guides for staff and students. It is proposed that these be prepared as a package, with DVD and supplementary material. This will be downloadable from the Carrick Institute website. In addition, the package will be distributed in multiple copies to all institutions on CDROM, with an accompanying booklet and DVDs — targeting DVC (Academic), Associate Deans International, Student Services Directors and English language support programs.
4. Presentation of findings at forums such as the HERDSA, IDP and ISANA.
5. Final project report, as per ALTC Scheme Guidelines.

Project Team
University of Melbourne
Dr Sophie Arkoudis and Chi Baik (Centre for the Study of Higher Education – lead agency)
Associate Professor Kim Watty, (Teaching and Learning Unit),
Professor Ian Lang (Victorian College of the Arts),
Dr Shanton Chang (Faculty of Science)

RMIT
Dr Josephine Lang (Learning and Teaching Development)

Victoria University
Dr Amanda Pearce (Language & Learning),
Assoc. Professor Helen Borland (Faculty of Arts)

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Measuring Student Experience: The Relationship between Teaching Quality Instruments (TQIs) and the Course Experience Questionnaire

National Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education ($212,722)

The evaluation of teaching and learning has become an important activity in tertiary education institutions in recent years. This project extends a project undertaken in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce and funded through a faculty seeding grant (Davies et al. 2005a, 2005b, 2006). Student surveys provide information about student perceptions and judgments of a particular subject, in the case of the university Quality of Teaching (QOT) surveys, and a particular field of study in the case of the Graduate Destination Survey and Course Experience Questionnaire.  However, as is widely recognised, the appropriate interpretation of this data is problematic. The large, mainly US literature, on the use and usefulness of student subject evaluations has highlighted a number of ‘mitigating factors’ such as subject difficulty, discipline area, gender, class size, and so on that should be taken into account in interpreting the results of these questionnaires. It is often the case that raw average student evaluation scores are compared which implicitly assumes that potential mitigating factors have no impact on student perceptions differentials, or that such differentials cancel out in all cases. In our previous study, we examined panel data of QOT survey data over an 8-year period from the Department of Economics in order to determine to what extent other factors besides the instructor in charge of the subject have an impact on the raw average student evaluation scores. We have found a number of factors that are outside the control of the lecturer but which are significant in explaining QOT results.

We now want to extend this research in two main ways: Firstly by extending the study to all faculties in the university, and secondly, by including faculty attrition rates, CEQ and graduation destination surveys. This will allow us to explore four key questions:

• Is there is any relationship between university QOT scores and attrition rates in each faculty?
• Is there is a relationship between QOT scores and the CEQ? If there is no relationship then this may indicate that the university QOT survey should be reassessed to include questions that more closely mirror those in the CEQ.
• If there is a relationship then what is the nature of this relationship and what are the implications that it has for improving teaching in the university? To what extent can we affect a change in the CEQ by affecting a change in the university QOT surveys? We can use variations of the models we have used for analysing data in the faculty to analyse the QOT and CEQ relationship on a faculty-by-faculty and question-by-question  basis
• What is the relationship, if any, between the Graduate Destination survey, the CEQ and the QOT? Students who are employed in positions that relate to their degree may be more positive than those who are unemployed or employed in areas that do not relate to their study.

Contact:

A/Prof Joe Hirschberg; A/Prof Jenny Lye; Dr Martin Davies; A/Prof Carol Johnston

In conjunction with the following institutions:

• Flinders University (Staff Development & Training Unit)
• Wollongong University (Centre for Educational Development & Interactive Resources)
• University of Tasmania (Academic Registry)
• Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)
• Graduate Careers Australia (GCA)

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Addressing the on-going English language growth of international students

National Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education ($219,490)

This project will build capacity within Australian universities to respond to the ongoing language and academic needs of their changing cohort of students and by extension will enable universities to benefit from internationalisation. The broad aims are i) to improve learning outcomes for international students through the provision of resources for greater ongoing language and academic development, ii) to support institutions in facilitating intercultural learning through a program of staff workshops and resources, and, ultimately, iii) to secure Australia’s position within the international education community. More specifically, the project will draw on students’ own learning experiences and examine how best to encourage the continued English language and academic growth of international students from non-English speaking backgrounds. Students’ responses to surveys (designed specifically for language learners) about their strategies for ongoing academic and language development will be matched with grade point averages for evidence of correlations with academic success. The findings gained from this process will be developed into student and staff resources.

We aim to undertake a national project which addresses all stages of tertiary study (from first year to postgraduate study). It will focus on students’ own learning abilities rather than on variables such as university facilities and immediate social environments. The project will complement other recent work in this area, e.g., that of Deumert, Marginson, Nyland, Ramia & Sawir (2005) investigating the social and economic security of international students, and that of Krause, Hartley, James and McInnis (2005) encompassing a decade of first year experience. Members of the team will come from five Australian universities, making it an unusually large-scale study. These institutions include Monash University, the University of Melbourne, Deakin University, Edith Cowan University and Macquarie University. This collaboration should provide access to a cohort of approximately 60,000 international students.

Dr Judith Rochecouste (Monash), Professor Rhonda Oliver (Edith Cowan University), Dr Martin Davies

In conjunction with the following institutions:

• Monash Uni (Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching)
• Edith Cowan University in Western Australia (Department of Regional Professional Studies)
• Macquarie University The National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research (NCELTR)
• Deakin University (Faculty of Education)

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Client Sponsored Research Projects in Marketing: A Qualitative Study

This paper outlines the methodology and results for the trial of a client sponsored research project developed at the University of Melbourne in one subject: Marketing Research (325-680).

Contact: Dr Lilliana Bove (Department of Management) and Dr Martin Davies

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Enhancing active learning in Business and Management

University of Gloucestershire, UK

This project explores the ways in which active learning can be fostered in economics/business degrees, working collaboratively with the staff in the new Business and Management (BM) programme at the University of Gloucestershire.  It examines the ways in which a culture that enhances active learning practices can be promoted amongst staff.  One key focus of the project will be the notion of critical thinking as a lynchpin for active learning in that it is both a component and a facilitator of active learning.

This project investigates the nexus between the theorising of active learning in a disciplinary context and the practical implementation of an active learning programme. It investigates academic staff perceptions of active learning to determine what is required in order to enhance active learning in an economics/business classroom.  This will be achieved in two ways.  The first is through a case study which examines the implementation of the new BM programme based on active learning pedagogy.  This examines the practicalities of implementation, successes and areas for future development. This will serve both as an evaluative resource for those who are implementing the new programme and also as a resource for academics and policy makers in other institutions who are contemplating the move to a similar programme. The second is through an examination of the complex factors behind the successful creation of an active learning culture.  This will be achieved through an exploration of the facilitators and barriers to active learning for staff, such as the rationale and scholarship behind active learning, and structural, epistemological, practical and individual factors which promote or restrict the development of an active learning culture.

Contact person Dr Anna Jones, Visiting Fellow, University of Gloucestershire, 2008

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Interdisciplinary Higher Education: Theory and Practice.

Edited book comprising 20 chapters and "vignettes" of practice from more than 25 scholars from 17 institutions worldwide. Proposal under review with publishers.

Contact: Dr M Davies and Professor Marcia Devlin (Deakin University).

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Enhancing Assessment Feedback Practices in Accounting Education: Issues, Obstacles and Reforms

Australian Learning and Teaching Council ($238,927)

This project which has the full support of CPA Australia and AFAANZ aims to achieve a discipline-wide improvement in feedback practices by:

• Specifying current practice in student feedback within accounting programs nationally.
• Identifying the various factors that have resulted in below sector average scores on CEQ for accounting in Australia in the area of student feedback.
• Identifying workable solutions to the present deficiencies in the area through engaging with accounting schools, AFAANZ as the peak academic body for the discipline and CPA Australia as the key stakeholder in the accounting profession.
• Raising awareness of and implementing workable solutions that will result in an improved student experience and systematic sectoral change.

To achieve these aims a four stage process will be undertaken. First a comprehensive literature review and focus groups with staff and students to scope out the current issues and identify obstacles to improved practice. Second, informed with these findings a comprehensive survey will be developed and administered to a broad range of students and staff and the survey responses analysed to obtain the major themes and recurring responses. Thirdly, a report will be produced detailing current practice and problems in assessment feedback and providing recommendations for improved practice in student feedback. A website and an implementation working party will be used to detail and implement the study findings and recommendations. Lastly, dissemination and adoption of the study findings will occur through presenting the findings at the AFAANZ conference, Heads of Accounting Schools meeting hosted by CPA Australia, a colloquium being convened and working with CPA Australia to integrate assessment feedback ‘best practice’ into the accreditation audit of university accounting programs.

Members of the team come from a diverse range of universities within Australia, and are a blend of accounting educators and teaching and learning staff representing an important alliance across institutional boundaries.

A/Prof Kim Watty, Professor Colin Ferguson, Professor Brendan O’Connell (James Cook University), Associate Dean T & L Audrey Milton (James Cook University), A/Prof Paul DeLange (RMIT University), A/Prof Bryan Howieson (University of Adelaide), Ben Jacobsen (James Cook University)

In conjunction with the following institutions:

• James Cook University
• RMIT University
• University of Adelaide
• CPA Australia
• AFAANZ

Contact: Associate Professor Kim Watty (The University of Melbourne)

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Multidisciplinary Learning and Assessment: Reflection on Practice

While designing assessment for student learning outcomes is always difficult, the task is made more challenging in an interdisciplinary context.  How much focus should be placed on assessment of discipline specific knowledge, how much on the interdisciplinary knowledge that emerges as students work together in a non linear, co-rational design, and how much on the group dynamic (generic capabilities) being developed?  While additional learning outcomes can be expected from the activities in which students engage in an interdisciplinary context, there is also an expectation, (particularly for disciplines such as accounting, engineering and architecture where courses are professionally accredited) that discipline specific learning outcomes are not compromised. This research considers assessment issues as they relate to the implementation of a pilot course designed as an experiential real-world of work challenge for student. 

Contacts: Associate Professor Sandra Jones (RMIT)
Associate Professor Kim Watty (The University of Melbourne)

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How Do Academics Conceive Quality in Higher Education?
A Comparative Study between Australia and Turkey

Using a questionnaire survey, this research will identify how quality is conceived and constructed by accounting academics in a Turkish University. The survey will illicit responses based on attitudes (what is currently occurring) and beliefs (what ought to be occurring). The theoretical model for this study is an adaptation of the model used to define quality in higher education by Harvey and Green (2003).

The results will be compared to a previous study by Watty (2006) of accounting academics from Australian universities.

Contacts: Associate Professor Kim Watty (The University of Melbourne)
Associate Professor Nurdan Kalayci (GU, Gazi Faculty of Education, Department of Educational Science)

The Case Study Databank Project

The TLU, in conjunction with the department of Management is engaged in a knowledge transfer activity with the Women's Legal Service of Victoria (WLSV). This project evolved from a successful grant application for the purpose of developing a case study bank, and facilitating workshops on case study writing, and evaluating cases that the officers within WLSV put together, and assisting with the creation of a case study proforma. (The WLSV is a non-profit, voluntary organisation that provides legal assistance to women who face issues such as domestic violence and family problems.) The need for the case study bank is crucial for the work that the service does, i.e., lobbying governments, providing training, making media comments and advising clients. The model devised will be emulated by many of the other 50 legal services around the state.

Contact: Dr Martin Davies and Dr Prakash Singh (Management and Marketing)

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Peer Learning

The purpose of this project is to investigate students’ perceptions of formal and informal peer learning practices, and to develop programs and strategies that can be used by academic and professional staff to encourage and support peer learning practices. The project seeks to identify the value students perceive in different peer learning practices and how these features can be adapted into support programs.

Contact Sanchia Draper

Peer Learning page

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The Challenging Academic Development (CAD) Collective

In 2004, Dr Tai peseta co-founded the CAD Collective – an international research group of over 100 academic and educational developers from the UK, NZ, Australia and Canada, interested in theorising the identity of the academic development project. The Collective has an email list serve (http://mailman.ucc.usyd.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/itl-cad) and a wiki (http://cadc.wordpress.com/), and has organised several international conference symposia in which to present its work. A Special Issue of the Collective’s work was published in the May 2007 issue of the International Journal for Academic Development (IJAD): Thinking Otherwise in Academic Development. 

Contact Tai Peseta

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Key Thinkers in Higher Education Teaching and Learning

With Dr Peter Kandlbinder, University of Technology, Sydney, this project sets out to identify the key thinkers in university teaching and learning in order to explore and understand the contribution of their ideas and lives to the field of higher education. The project contains three stages: (i) a methodology for the identification of key thinkers; (ii) an interview stage; (iii) bringing the published works and personal reflections of those thinkers into dialogue with emerging researchers of higher education teaching and learning.  

Contact Tai Peseta

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