23,278 research outputs found

    Australian tertiary learning and teaching scholarship and research 2007-2012

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    Research into Higher Education is strongly supported in Australia by journals and conferences. Teaching and learning awards, projects and programmes in Australia have gained a significantly larger profile over the last five years thanks, in part, to an imaginative and supportive environment fostered by the federal government through the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) and now the Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT)

    Chemistry PhD Supervisors in Australia: A Study of the Relationship between their Conceptions of Doctoral Purpose and their Reported Educational Practices

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    Over the past 30 years, the literature on doctoral education has raised a number of debates about the research doctorate. This has included debates over its purpose and whether its graduates are well prepared to address the diverse and complex problems of today’s workforce. However, scholarly literature on doctoral education in the academic discipline of chemistry is mostly non-existent. To address this research gap, I draw upon key concepts arising from the doctoral education literature such as doctoral purpose, practice, and evaluation to provide the necessary framing for this study. Based on this, I ask the following question: ‘What are the Positions of Chemistry PhD Supervisors in Australia in Relation to Contemporary Debates and Practices in Doctoral Education?’ This study adopts a qualitative research methodology in which 31 chemistry PhD supervisors in Australia were interviewed using the semi-structured interview method. Data were analysed thematically using both deductive analysis for pre-existing themes from the literature, and inductive analysis for emergent themes from the data. Three main themes characterised the analysis: supervisors’ conceptions of doctoral purpose; their reported educational practices; and their reported methods of self-evaluation of supervisory success and graduate follow-up. It was found that the reported practices for two groups of supervisors in the sample did not align with their conceptions of purpose. Instead, they showed a strong tendency to socialise their students into becoming custodians or ‘stewards’ of the discipline, despite interviewees expressing conceptions of doctoral purpose that aligned with the development of graduates as knowledge workers equipped with the knowledge and skills for wider employment. For the other group, their conceptions of doctoral purpose did align with their reported educational practices of preparing ‘stewards’ of the discipline, with their reported practices also tending towards setting up their students to become stewards. These issues were further compounded by supervisors not adequately following up with their graduates in terms of their career outcomes, despite them indicating that they considered graduate employment as one measure of supervisory success. The main scholarly contribution this thesis makes is in initiating the scholarly debates and discussions about contemporary doctoral education within the discipline of chemistry. These debates and discussions are needed in order to not only critically reflect on the role and influence chemistry PhD supervisors have in the education of future chemistry PhD candidates, but also to critically contemplate the purpose and contribution of the chemistry doctorate in relation to the labour market and broader society. Practical implications arising will also be discussed

    Contextual Sensitivity in Grounded Theory: The Role of Pilot Studies

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    Grounded Theory is an established methodological approach for context specific inductive theory building. The grounded nature of the methodology refers to these specific contexts from which emergent propositions are drawn. Thus, any grounded theory study requires not only theoretical sensitivity, but also a good insight on how to design the research in the human activity systems to be studied. The lack of this insight may result in inefficient theoretical sampling or even erroneous purposeful sampling. These problems would not necessarily be critical, as it could be argued that through the elliptical process that characterizes grounded theory, remedial loops would always bring the researcher to the core of the theory. However, these elliptical remedial processes can take very long periods of time and result in catastrophic delays in research projects. As a strategy, this paper discusses, contrasts and compares the use of pilot studies in four different grounded theory projects. Each pilot brought different insights about the context, resulting in changes of focus, guidance to improve data collection instruments and informing theoretical sampling. Additionally, as all four projects were undertaken by researchers with little experience of inductive approaches in general and grounded theory in particular, the pilot studies also served the purpose of training in interviewing, relating to interviewees, memoing, constant comparison and coding. This last outcome of the pilot study was actually not planned initially, but revealed itself to be a crucial success factor in the running of the projects. The paper concludes with a theoretical proposition for the concept of contextual sensitivity and for the inclusion of the pilot study in grounded theory research designs

    Final report. Teaching Fellowship: Benchmarking partnerships for graduate employability

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    Interdisciplinary Engagement in Higher Education: Opportunities Explored

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    There are increasing pressures on universities to make their graduates ready for life and work, in addition to ensuring technical and professional competence. This chapter discusses the implications of supporting such an approach for higher education in a university in Australia where the university was treated as an urban living lab, supporting student engagement for a course innovated to cover three different disciplines. Urban living labs are a form of collaborative partnership particularly in urban areas to support sustainability outcomes. The innovation presented here was in using a green building on campus, bringing students from different disciplines, to study this green building, thereby also partnering with industry. The key question driving the research was whether academic-industry partnerships may be used to understand the performance of green buildings on an urban campus. The anchor course was in construction management and the other disciplines were business and computer science. Twenty three students undertook study of predetermined spaces of a green building on campus. The results show that as a pilot study, this project was successful, with good engagement of students, teaching and non-teaching staff from the university and industry. However, it was more difficult to convert the pilot to mainstream teaching and learning

    Accounting Academic Workloads: Balancing Workload Creep to Avoid Depreciation in the Higher Education Sector

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    Accounting academics are subject to external influences such as preparing graduates for future workplaces, bridging the gap between industry and academia and development of pathways to becoming professional accountants. Add to this the internal influences of delivery methods for student engagement, work integrated learning and casualisation of the workforce, the accounting academic is at capacity in terms of how these influences impact on workload. Using the “lived experience”, this research delves into the academic themselves to find that they categorize their workload into four themes of Teaching, Research, Accounting academic workload and development of Curricula, deemed the TRAC Framework for this study. Using this workload TRAC framework, accounting academics identified five factors they believe will influence their future roles. These include growth in international students that student success will be a shared responsibility that student engagement will be critical, that curricula design will involve stakeholder input and that expectations around research will change. These additional impact factors when added to the already at capacity workload model for accounting academics, will create a type of workload creep. This workload creep can be described as an increase in academic wear and tear, almost like depreciation on capital assets

    Accounting Academic Workloads in the Higher Education Sector: Balancing Workload Creep to Avoid Depreciation

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    Accounting Academics according to the literature are subject to external influences such as preparing graduates for future workplaces, bridging the gap between industry and academia and development of pathways to becoming professional accountants for their student cohort. Add to this the internal influences of delivery methods for student engagement, work integrated learning and casualization of the workforce, the accounting academic is at capacity in terms of how these influences impact on workload. Using the “lived experience”, this research delves further into the academic themselves to find that they categorise their workload into four themes of Teaching, Research, Accounting academic administration and development of Curricula, deemed the TRAC Framework for this study. Using this workload TRAC framework, accounting academics identified five factors they believe will influence their future roles. These include growth in international students, that student success will be a shared responsibility, that student engagement will be critical, that curricula design will involve stakeholder input and that expectations around research will change. These additional impact factors when added to the already at capacity workload model for accounting academics, will create a type of workload creep. The workload impact factor (WIF) model is created for this research to demonstrate just how these additional factors will be absorbed by accounting academics, ballooning their workload. This workload creep can be described as an increase in academic wear and tear, almost like depreciation on capital assets, a recognition of a diminution in economic benefit or value. Accounting academics must be careful to balance their future workload so as to not become commercially obsolete

    Accounting Academic Workloads: Balancing Workload Creep to Avoid Depreciation in the Higher Education Sector

    Get PDF
    Accounting Academics are subject to external influences such as preparing graduates for future workplaces, bridging the gap between industry and academia and development of pathways to becoming professional accountants. Add to this the internal influences of delivery methods for student engagement, work integrated learning and casualisation of the workforce, the accounting academic is at capacity in terms of how these influences impact on workload. Using the “lived experience”, this research delves into the academic themselves to find that they categorize their workload into four themes of Teaching, Research, Accounting academic workload and development of Curricula, deemed the TRAC Framework for this study. Using this workload TRAC framework, accounting academics identified five factors they believe will influence their future roles. These include growth in international students that student success will be a shared responsibility that student engagement will be critical, that curricula design will involve stakeholder input and that expectations around research will change. These additional impact factors when added to the already at capacity workload model for accounting academics, will create a type of workload creep. This workload creep can be described as an increase in academic wear and tear, almost like depreciation on capital assets

    Strategic leadership and its contribution to improvements in teaching and learning in Higher Education

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    This paper aims to provide a strong conceptual underpinning for our project, &lsquo;Strategic Leadership for Institutional Teaching and Learning Centres: Developing a Model for the 21st century&rsquo;. The project intends to:1. investigate the forms of leadership that are present and emerging in organisational Centres for teaching and learning and whether or not they are responding to the &lsquo;organisational redesign&rsquo; that Marginson (2000, p.28) argued that the sector required. This involves close consideration of the ways in which institutional structures and distinctive organisational cultures are being shaped by strategic leadership stakeholders to enhance teaching and learning quality.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And2. develop a model of leadership that is anticipatory, innovative and creative, strategic and contingent and which directs particular professional development and approaches in support of central groups as they confront the challenges of the 21st century. This involves the development of a Teaching and Learning Strategic Leadership Framework for professional development purposes for capacity building of leadership personnel of institutional Centres for teaching and learning.</div
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