Inside-out: mapping an understanding of undergraduate study abroad programs

The potential benefits of undergraduate students studying abroad as part of a degree program have long been touted as central to the social and strategic goals of governments and more recently to an increasing number of universities in the three national case-sites selected for this project – Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Yet, despite the rhetoric, research consistently indicates each year that only a small percentage of the undergraduate student populations in each of the three national case-sites participate in study abroad programs. Given that ‘study abroad’ is often considered a central aspect of the “internationalisation” model projected by many universities, the thesis’ conceptual framework considers the provision and delivery of study abroad programs as a form of experiential learning (Dewey, 1963) focused on the development of cross-cultural and intercultural understanding. In particular, the thesis suggests that to meet this goal, study abroad programs operate according to institutional social/cultural, political, academic and economic rationales (de Wit, 1995; Knight & de Wit, 1997, 1999). Why study abroad programs attract such low student participation rates in light of these influential factors forms the focus of the inquiry contained herein. This thesis presents a survey of successive government-assisted campaigns, field/academic literature and an ethnography of the experiences of study abroad professionals selected from universities in the three national case-sites who manage or operate study abroad programs. Applying a qualitative interpretivist methodology, the experiences reflect observations from the researcher’s professional field notes and narratives derived from semi-structured interviews. Extant research largely explores study abroad programs from the perspectives of senior administrative and/or academic staff or students. Therefore this thesis is the first to add comparative practitioner-based knowledge to the literature and aims to introduce cohesive collaborative methods to increase study abroad participation rates in and beyond the three national case-sites

Letter from Vina M. Aylmer to State Senator John Joseph Moakley expressing opposition to the Anti-Snob Zoning bill, 8/1/1969

https://dc.suffolk.edu/moakley-docs/1062/thumbnail.jp

Circular arch analysis

This work presents an analysis of a two-hinged circular arch by both the elastic theory and the deflection theory. The basic assumption made in this analysis was that the moment of inertia of the arch rib and the normal force vary as the secant of the angle with respect to the crown. The increase of maximum moment as found by the deflection theory was in the range of 30% --Abstract, page 2

In-Service Information Required in a Redesign Task: An Analysis of Documents from the Aerospace Industry

This research was undertaken in an aerospace company, which manufactures aero engines and also offers contracts, under which it remains responsible for the maintenance of engines. These contracts allow the company to collect far more data about the in-service performance of their engines than was previously available. This paper aims at understanding what parts of this in-service information are accessed when components or systems of existing aero engines need to be redesigned, because they have not performed as expected in service. In an attempt to address this aim, five case studies involving the redesign of components of an aero engine are examined. The redesign is based on the in-service experience of the existing components.The findings provide an understanding of the different types of information, and in particular the types of in-service information, accessed by designers in a redesign task

Business Surveys and Economic Activity

In this paper we examine the information content of business survey information, focusing in particular on some of the characteristics of the net balance statistic. A number of Australian business surveys are appraised. Four aspects are examined: the extent to which surveys are correlated with economic variables that they are designed to track; advantages in terms of timeliness; the degree to which surveys are forward or backward-looking; and the ability of business surveys to pick turning points. In summary, the business conditions (including sales/output), employment and selling prices components of the business surveys seem to provide the most information, and to a lesser extent the component relating to corporate profitability. Taken together, the surveys can provide useful coincident information on the economy with some advantage in terms of timeliness. The recommended approach to the use of business surveys is to extract common themes and not place too much weight on a single result.business; confidence; sentiment; survey

241: Creative Aspects of Natural Law.

Reproduced with permission of Cambridge University Press