Learner profiles at a UK university: an exploratory study

In the academic literature and practice, there is often a perceived dichotomy between home and international students, with the focus on finding solutions to dealing with differences between those two students groups. This paper aims to explore if this focus on differences between students from diverse cultural backgrounds is helpful, or if instead a broader approach to looking at differences between students generally may be more useful. In this paper, the authors use the concepts of identity perception, self-efficacy as a learner, intelligence perception and learning motivation together with a choice of learning strategies and techniques are to establish student profiles using cluster analysis. The paper explores the differences between these student profiles and the extent to which cultural background impacts on these profiles. Five distinct groups of students are identified. The findings show that whilst some of the groups are dominated by one nationality, all groups are multinational. This implies that cultural specific behaviour amongst students can hide the fact that actual learning strategies, techniques and motivation are very varied between students from one nationality. Rather than thinking in terms of international and British students, identifying students as a type of learner may be more appropriate

CAL and FE: A Welsh perspective

The core of this paper is the result of an investigation into the use of computer‐aided learning (CAL) in further education (FE) colleges in Wales: All institutions surveyed used CAL to some extent in teaching or learning, and academic staff were in some way involved in producing CAL materials in almost all. However, student numbers were found not to be a good indicator of the degree to which CAL is used Furthermore, only two‐thirds of colleges approached claimed to have received any external funding for CAL and distance learning involved only a small proportion of FE students. Nevertheless, the general conclusion drawn is that all FE colleges in Wales use ICTs (information and communication technologies) extensively, although there are significant differences in the equipment/student ratios, and there appears to be little strategic college‐wide planning concerning such developments

Going Global-Remaining Local: The Impact of E-Commerce on Small Retail Firms in Wales

This project explores the e-commerce usage of 25 small and micro retail companies in Wales. Based on the Connectivity Indicator and E-commerce Adoption Model, the level of e-commerce usage was established. Furthermore, an evaluation of the startegies employed was conducted, which examine if these businesses, through their use of e-commerce, are focusing on global, local or other markets. This research only included retailers who are new channel experimenters, i.e. companies augmenting their main business with experimental electronic commerce. The focus of the project was on transactional e-commerce as this is a growth area. The conclusion was that some of the companies fail to use the the opportunities that e-commerce offers, which in turn may lead to future job losses and revenue losses due to e-commerce competition from abroad. Therealso appears to be a conflict between business structures aimed at supplying local markets and attempts of reaching global markets with inadequate means