Exploring intercultural interactions on a university campus through the lens of a local student: A multidimensional, multi-theoretical analysis

Modern-day universities are sites of unprecedented levels of cultural diversity, thus affording plentiful opportunities for intercultural interactions to occur. However, research from nations across the sector consistently suggests a pattern of limited intercultural contact among students on university campuses. Further, there is emerging evidence that this pattern is heightened among local students, with research suggesting that local students are less likely to engage in intercultural interactions than their international peers. The implications of this limited contact are concerning, suggesting that many local students are being denied the cognitive, affective and educational benefits that intercultural interactions can generate. However, the issue also raises a broader question: why, in a climate of unprecedented levels of cultural diversity and global mobility, are intercultural interactions on campus constrained in their frequency and depth? Using a variety of qualitative methods and theoretical lenses, this research provides insight into how local students conceptualise, perceive and experience intercultural interactions on an Australian university campus. Participants were first-year students (n=27) representing a range of academic disciplines. Students were recruited for the study at the beginning of the academic year and participated in two semi-structured interviews (at the beginning and the end of their first study period) in which students’ subjective accounts of their intercultural interaction experiences were elicited. The use of several conceptual lenses (including cultural identity, ethnorelativism and ethnocentrism, cultural awareness, structure and agency, and context) and theoretical paradigms (including Bourdieu’s Social Field Theory, Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory, Allport’s Intergroup Contact Theory, Tajfel and Turner’s Social Identity Theory and Phinney’s Model of Ethnic Identity Development) not only provided different views into the data, but different ways of seeing it, ensuring fine-grained, nuanced insight into the many and varied ways students perceived, understood and ultimately experienced intercultural interactions. Further, the development of a theoretically-informed and inductively-generated coding framework allowed the systematic and rigorous analysis of students’ accounts of their positive intercultural interactions across affective, behavioural and cognitive dimensions including agency, self-disclosure, duration, contexts, and cultural interest. Positive intercultural interactions were revealed to be complex, multidimensional, and situated phenomena shaped by numerous, layered and often competing intrapersonal and structural dimensions. The findings highlighted the criticality of students’ cultural awareness and understandings in shaping intercultural interaction outcomes. Students who demonstrated higher levels of cultural awareness and ethnorelativist understanding were found to experience interactions at deeper levels of experience than students displaying lower levels of cultural awareness, and ethnocentric understanding. While the research highlighted the potential of transformative intercultural interactions to foster intercultural growth and cultural awareness, its related finding that students who entered an intercultural interaction possessing high levels of cultural awareness were more likely to benefit from intercultural interactions than students possessing low levels was noteworthy. Nuanced insights into the role of student agency (operationalised as the initiation of an intercultural interaction) in mediating intercultural interaction outcomes were also revealed, the findings suggesting that deep level intercultural interactions and intercultural transformation could still occur when agency was not exercised, provided other dimensions were present in the interaction. Related, a student’s failure to exercise agency may not necessarily reflect a lack of interest in culture and diversity, but could suggest contextual factors. Finally, the simultaneous adoption of two ethnic identity theoretical lenses in the analysis of students’ accounts allowed systematic relationships between how students conceptualised and understood their ethnic identity, and the depth at which they experienced an interaction, to be revealed. From a higher education perspective, the findings of this research suggest that the cultural frames and understandings that students bring to university campuses might not simply mediate their intercultural interaction experiences, but also reinforce and perpetuate their existing levels of cultural understanding, thereby possibly constraining their intercultural growth. Related, institutional policies and practices vis-à-vis pedagogy and curriculum were also found to militate against meaningful intercultural interactions and intercultural learning, with this research highlighting the need for higher education institutions to engage in systemic and systematic curriculum and pedagogical redesign to effect changed frames of cultural awareness. Institutions could also consider broadening the range of academic, linguistic, social and cultural capitals that are valued on their campuses so that they are more representative and inclusive of the cultural diversity that is present in its learning and teaching structures, this potentially affording intercultural interactions

Student retention and learning analytics:A snapshot of Australian practices and a framework for advancement

The analysis of data from user interactions with technologies is literally changing how organisations function, prioritise and compete in an international market. All industries have been influenced or impacted by the so called digital revolution and the associated analysis of user data. In the higher education (HE) sector this wave of data analytics has flowed through the concept of learning analytics (LA). This field of research has been touted as a game changer for education whereby the outcomes of LA implementations will address core education challenges. These include concerns regarding student retention and academic performance, demonstration of learning and teaching quality, and developing models of personalised and adaptive learning. While there is broad consensus across the sector as to the importance for LA there remain challenges in how such endeavours are effectively and efficiently rolled out across an organisation. The lack of institutional exemplars and resources that can guide implementation and build institutional capacity represents a significant barrier for systemic adoption. This report seeks to unpack these challenges to institutional adoption and provide new insights that can aid future implementations of LA and help advance the sophistication of such deployments. The study does so by interrogating the assumptions underpinning the adoption of LA in the Australian University sector and contrasting this with the perspectives of an international panel of LA experts. The findings and recommendations highlight the need for a greater understanding of the field of LA including the diversity of LA research and learning and teaching applications, alongside the promotion of capacity building initiatives and collaborations amongst universities, government bodies and industry

Challenging, developing and valuing general staff: The action eXchange learning program

Universities are complex if not at times contradictory organisations. On the one hand, they offer courses in a range of disciplines that provide cutting edge pedagogy in the theory and practice of various disciplines. On the other hand, when it comes to actually applying the same cutting edge theory to their own workplace professional development (PD) practices, there is sometimes a gap between the practice and the rhetoric. One example of this gap has been in the area of PD for general staff. Coaldrake and Stedman make the point that general staff comprise nationally the majority of university employees . The paper describes an inevitable blurring of roles between academic and general staff as being a consequence of this change to the traditional roles that have previously delineated them. It makes sense then that investing in quality, better targeted PD for more than half of a university\u27s staff is not only sensible, it is essential..

Enhancing the ethical use of learning analytics in australian higher education

Ensuring the ethical use of data about students is an important consideration in the use of learning analytics in Australian higher education. In early 2019 a discussion paper was published by a group of learning analytics specialists in the sector to help promote the conversation around the key ethical issues institutions need to address in order to ensure the ethical use of learning analytics. This panel session will explore these ethical issues in more detail and update the conversation with new perspectives and provocations. The panel will include authors of the discussion paper and structured so the audience will have an active role in considering the key issues and advancing the ongoing conversations about these important issues

Student retention and learning analytics: a snapshot of Australian practices and a framework for advancement. Final Report 2016

The analysis of data from user interactions with technologies is literally changing how organisations function, prioritise and compete in an international market. All industries have been influenced or impacted by the so called digital revolution and the associated analysis of user data. In the higher education (HE) sector this wave of data analytics has flowed through the concept of learning analytics (LA). This field of research has been touted as a game changer for education whereby the outcomes of LA implementations will address core education challenges. These include concerns regarding student retention and academic performance, demonstration of learning and teaching quality, and developing models of personalised and adaptive learning. While there is broad consensus across the sector as to the importance for LA there remain challenges in how such endeavours are effectively and efficiently rolled out across an organisation. The lack of institutional exemplars and resources that can guide implementation and build institutional capacity represents a significant barrier for systemic adoption. This report seeks to unpack these challenges to institutional adoption and provide new insights that can aid future implementations of LA and help advance the sophistication of such deployments. The study does so by interrogating the assumptions underpinning the adoption of LA in the Australian University sector and contrasting this with the perspectives of an international panel of LA experts. The findings and recommendations highlight the need for a greater understanding of the field of LA including the diversity of LA research and learning and teaching applications, alongside the promotion of capacity building initiatives and collaborations amongst universities, government bodies and industry

Lessons from bright-spots for advancing knowledge exchange at the interface of marine science and policy

Evidence-informed decision-making is in increasing demand given growing pressures on marine environments. A way to facilitate this is by knowledge exchange among marine scientists and decision-makers. While many barriers are reported in the literature, there are also examples whereby research has successfully informed marine decision-making (i.e., 'bright-spots'). Here, we identify and analyze 25 bright-spots from a wide range of marine fields, contexts, and locations to provide insights into how to improve knowledge exchange at the interface of marine science and policy. Through qualitative surveys we investigate what initiated the bright-spots, their goals, and approaches to knowledge exchange. We also seek to identify what outcomes/impacts have been achieved, the enablers of success, and what lessons can be learnt to guide future knowledge exchange efforts. Results show that a diversity of approaches were used for knowledge exchange, from consultative engagement to genuine knowledge co-production. We show that diverse successes at the interface of marine science and policy are achievable and include impacts on policy, people, and governance. Such successes were enabled by factors related to the actors, processes, support, context, and timing. For example, the importance of involving diverse actors and managing positive relationships is a key lesson for success. However, enabling routine success will require: 1) transforming the ways in which we train scientists to include a greater focus on interpersonal skills, 2) institutionalizing and supporting knowledge exchange activities in organizational agendas, 3) conceptualizing and implementing broader research impact metrics, and 4) transforming funding mechanisms to focus on need-based interventions, impact planning, and an acknowledgement of the required time and effort that underpin knowledge exchange activities

Lessons from bright-spots for advancing knowledge exchange at the interface of marine science and policy

Evidence-informed decision-making is in increasing demand given growing pressures on marine environments. A way to facilitate this is by knowledge exchange among marine scientists and decision-makers. While many barriers are reported in the literature, there are also examples whereby research has successfully informed marine decision-making (i.e., ‘bright-spots’). Here, we identify and analyze 25 bright-spots from a wide range of marine fields, contexts, and locations to provide insights into how to improve knowledge exchange at the interface of marine science and policy. Through qualitative surveys we investigate what initiated the bright-spots, their goals, and approaches to knowledge exchange. We also seek to identify what outcomes/impacts have been achieved, the enablers of success, and what lessons can be learnt to guide future knowledge exchange efforts. Results show that a diversity of approaches were used for knowledge exchange, from consultative engagement to genuine knowledge co-production. We show that diverse successes at the interface of marine science and policy are achievable and include impacts on policy, people, and governance. Such successes were enabled by factors related to the actors, processes, support, context, and timing. For example, the importance of involving diverse actors and managing positive relationships is a key lesson for success. However, enabling routine success will require: 1) transforming the ways in which we train scientists to include a greater focus on interpersonal skills, 2) institutionalizing and supporting knowledge exchange activities in organizational agendas, 3) conceptualizing and implementing broader research impact metrics, and 4) transforming funding mechanisms to focus on need-based interventions, impact planning, and an acknowledgement of the required time and effort that underpin knowledge exchange activities