A 10 year case study on the changing determinants of University student satisfaction in the UK

Higher Education (HE), once the prerogative of a tiny elite, is now accessible to larger numbers of people around the world than ever before yet despite the fact that an understanding of student satisfaction has never been more important for today’s universities, the concept remains poorly understood. Here we use published data from the UK’s National Student Survey (NSS), representing data from 2.3 million full-time students collected from 2007 to 2016, as a case study of the benefits and limitations of measuring student satisfaction that might have applicability for other countries, particularly those that, like the UK, have experienced significant growth in student numbers. The analyses showed that the factor structure of the NSS remained generally stable and that the ability of the NSS to discriminate between different subjects at different universities actually improved over the ten-year sample period. The best predictors of overall satisfaction were 'Teaching Quality' and 'Organisation & Management', with 'Assessment & Feedback' having relatively weak predictive ability, despite the sector's tangible efforts to improve on this metric. The tripling of student fees in 2012 for English students (but not the rest of the UK) was used as a ‘natural experiment’ to investigate the sensitivity of student satisfaction ratings to the real economic costs of HE. The tuition fee increase had no identifiable negative effect, with student satisfaction steadily improving throughout the decade. Although the NSS was never designed to measure perceived value-for money, its insensitivity to major changes in the economic costs of HE to the individual suggest that the conventional concept of student satisfaction is incomplete. As such we propose that the concept of student satisfaction: (i) needs to be widened to take into account the broader economic benefits to the individual student by including measures of perceived value-for-money and (ii) should measure students’ level of satisfaction in the years post-graduation, by which time they may have a greater appreciation of the value of their degree in the workplace

Inequalities and Agencies in Workplace Learning Experiences: International Student Perspectives

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12186-016-9167-2National systems of vocational education and training around the globe are facing reform driven by quality, international mobility, and equity. Evidence suggests that there are qualitatively distinctive challenges in providing and sustaining workplace learning experiences to international students. However, despite growing conceptual and empirical work, there is little evidence of the experiences of these students undertaking workplace learning opportunities as part of vocational education courses. This paper draws on a four-year study funded by the Australian Research Council that involved 105 in depth interviews with international students undertaking work integrated learning placements as part of vocational education courses in Australia. The results indicate that international students can experience different forms of discrimination and deskilling, and that these were legitimised by students in relation to their understanding of themselves as being an ‘international student’ (with fewer rights). However, the results also demonstrated the ways in which international students exercised their agency towards navigating or even disrupting these circumstances, which often included developing their social and cultural capital. This study, therefore, calls for more proactively inclusive induction and support practices that promote reciprocal understandings and navigational capacities for all involved in the provision of work integrated learning. This, it is argued, would not only expand and enrich the learning opportunities for international students, their tutors, employers, and employees involved in the provision of workplace learning opportunities, but it could also be a catalyst to promote greater mutual appreciation of diversity in the workplace

Conclusion

The conclusion summarises the key findings of this study, elucidating my extension to Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, before briefly reflecting on ways in which the cultural deficit model of working-class children could (and should) be challenged and disrupted in education. The chapter draws together the insights of the book, and reflects on the emotional tensions of being working class and being pulled in a different cultural direction. Throughout, this theme has been carefully unpicked and examined in all its complexity, and I have shown how these tensions can play out in different ways for different working-class teenage boys. © 2018, The Author(s)

Murdoch’s Aspirations and Pathways for University (MAP4U) Project: Developing and supporting low SES students’ aspirations for higher education participation using school-based university outreach programs

Students from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds and schools in the southwest corridor of Perth, Australia, are far less likely to enter higher education than those from a high SES background. On-campus university outreach programs have long been the tool of choice to engage with low SES students to raise and support their aspirations for higher education. The Murdoch Aspirations and Pathways for University Project sought to engage with secondary-level students through school-based outreach programs that were developed and offered as long-haul, curriculum-based activities with university and industry professionals as mentors and role models. The project sought to promote and support inclusion and diversity in higher education (HE) and contribute to the literature on HE participation for low SES youth in Western Australia. Twelve hundred and twenty-three students across 23 schools participated in the program. This chapter discusses the effects of the programs on aspirations for higher education participation, how their aspirations were supported by important socialisers at home, school and in the neighbourhood. Students also reported personal changes and stronger social and cultural connections with their parents and carers, teachers and friends; thus providing them with supported strategies to achieve school completion and to realise their expectations for a transition to higher education after school graduation

Congruent and Discordant Habitus

This chapter explores the processes involved in being an academically successful boy at St. John’s, the secondary school. It considers the degree of fit or discordance between the boys’ habitus and that of the institution. For many of the boys in this school, there was a reasonable degree of congruence between their habitus and the institutional habitus. This is exemplified through the consideration of the story of Henry, who appeared to be a ‘fish in water’ and said that he was able to be who he wanted to be both inside and outside of school. However, not all boys find things so easy. The chapter also explores the cases of Brendy and Ollie, who, each in their own ways, have struggled with their dispositions. © 2018, The Author(s)

Students’ transition into higher education from an international perspective

In introducing the special issue on students’ transition into higher education, we emphasise the importance of expanding our understanding of students’ enculturation in higher education. Next to this, the editorial presents a working definition on transition and takes stock of the existing empirical lines of research on the subject of students’ transition into higher education. Further, we evidence that research primarily stems from Western countries and predominantly applies either a quantitative or a qualitative approach. We argue that a more international perspective and studies using different methodologies (including mixed-method approaches) are fruitful to advance this field further. Finally, we give an introduction on the nine empirical contributions in this special issue, stemming from an equal number of countries and applying quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods