Martin Davies

Systematic Influences on Teaching Evaluations: The Case for Caution

In this paper, we examine eight years of Quality of Teaching (QOT) responses from an Economics Department in an Australian University. This is done to determine what factors, besides the instructor, have an impact on the raw average student evaluation scores. Most of the previous research on student ratings has been conducted in the US. One significant difference between US and Australian tertiary education is that, on average, the number of foreign undergraduate students in Australia is ten times the number in US institutions. We find that cultural background significantly affects student evaluations. Other factors that have an influence on the average QOT score include: year level; enrolment size; the quantitative nature of the subject; the gender of the student; fee-paying status by gender; course of study; the differences between the course mark and previous marks; the quality of workbooks; the quality of textbooks; and the QOT score relative to those in other subjects taught at the same time. In addition, average QOT scores for instructors who have taught in a mix of subjects are similar to those based on scores adjusted to account for subject and student characteristics.

Critical thinking and the disciplines reconsidered

This paper argues that Moores specifist defence of critical thinking as ‘diverse modes of thought in the disciplines’, which appeared in Higher Education Research & Development, 30(3), 2011, is flawed as it entrenches relativist attitudes toward the important skill of critical thinking. The paper outlines the critical thinking debate, distinguishes between ‘top-down’, ‘bottom-up’ and ‘relativist’ approaches and locates Moores account therein. It uses examples from one discipline-specific area, namely, the discipline of Literature, to show that the generalist approach to critical thinking does not ‘leave something out’ and outlines why teaching ‘generic’ critical thinking skills is central to tertiary education, teaching and learning, and employment opportunities for students. The paper also defends the assessment of critical thinking skills.

Studies in Higher Education 1976-2013: A Retrospective Using Citation Network Analysis.

This paper provides a citation network analysis of the publications in Studies in Higher Education from 1976 to 2013 inclusive. This represents the entire history of the journal to date. It analyses the most published authors, most cited authors and most discussed topics using keywords. 1056 articles were taken from Web of ScienceSM as a source of primary data. These articles were determined to have 32,738 references. A small percentage of these articles, 218 articles, had 1030 keywords. A data visualisation and manipulation software, Gephi, was used to provide a visual representation of the associated citation networks. We compare the results with other higher education citation analyses published elsewhere – a small, but growing area of research. Results indicate that the five most published authors throughout the journals history are Richardson, Kember, Becher, Boud and Elton. The five most cited authors are Entwistle, Marton, Ramsden, Biggs and Becher. The five most discussed topics, using keywords, excluding higher education, are ‘doctoral education’, ‘assessment’, ‘phenomenography’, ‘student learning’ and ‘identity’, with a number of subordinate topic clusters amongst these. Results derived from this exercise are helpful in illuminating the evolving concerns of the journal and its readership, and providing a demonstration of a rigorous analytical technique for assessing journal citation data in the future.

A Model of Critical Thinking in Higher Education

There has been no shortage of definitions of the concept of “critical thinking” over the years and the concept has been subject to much detailed scholarly work. In social and educational terms critical thinking is an important topic. Of late, critical thinking has also been widely discussed in the popular media, and the concept has been regarded as one of the most important graduate outcomes expected of a university education. However, despite this, scholars have yet to arrive at a holistic conception of critical thinking—a model of critical thinking as it were—that might usefully underpin the range of considerations about critical thinking that occur in the higher education literature. This paper: (1) reviews the various definitions and approaches to critical thinking, and (2) incorporates them into a single, coherent model. A number of disagreements in critical thinking scholarship are outlined as ‘axis disputes’ arising from the proposed model.

The effectiveness of a single intervention of computer-aided argument mapping in a marketing and a financial accounting subject

An argument map visually represents the structure of an argument, outlining its informal logical connections and informing judgments as to its worthiness. Argument mapping can be augmented with dedicated software that aids the mapping process. Empirical evidence suggests that semester‐length subjects using argument mapping along with dedicated software can produce remarkable increases in students’ critical thinking abilities. Introducing such specialised subjects, however, is often practically and politically difficult. This study ascertains student perceptions of the use of argument mapping in two large, regular, semester‐length classes in a Business and Economics Faculty at the University of Melbourne. Unlike the semester‐length expert‐led trials in prior research, in our study only one expert‐led session was conducted at the beginning of the semester and followed by class practice. Survey results conducted at the end of the semester, show that, with reservations, even this minimalist, ‘one‐shot inoculation’ of argument mapping is effective in terms of students’ perceptions of improvements in their critical thinking skills.

Chapter 1 Interdisciplinary higher education

In higher education, interdisciplinarity involves the design of subjects that offer the opportunity to experience ‘different ways of knowing’ from students’ core or preferred disciplines. Such an education is increasingly important in a global knowledge economy. Many universities have begun to introduce interdisciplinary studies or subjects to meet this perceived need. This chapter explores some of the issues inherent in moves towards interdisciplinary higher education. Definitional issues associated with the term ‘academic discipline’, as well as other terms, including ‘multidisciplinary’, ‘cross-disciplinary’, ‘pluridisciplinarity’, ‘transdisciplinarity’ and ‘interdisciplinary’ are examined. A new nomenclature is introduced to assist in clarifying the subtle distinctions between the various positions. The chapter also outlines some of the pedagogical and epistemological considerations which are involved in any move from a conventional form of educational delivery to an interdisciplinary higher education, and recommends caution in any implementation of an interdisciplinary curriculum.

Geographies of influence: a citation network analysis of Higher Education 1972–2014

This paper provides a citation network analysis of the publications of the journal Higher Education from 1972 to 2014 inclusive. This represents nearly the entire history of the journal. It analyses the most published authors and the most cited articles, as well as the most cited authors. This data includes the highest number of publications both by institution and country of origin. 2176 articles were taken from Web of Science™ as a source of primary data. These articles were found to have 68,009 references. Analysis was carried out using the Web of Science™ online analytics tool and Excel®. Gephi™, a data visualisation and manipulation software, was then used to provide visual representations of the associated citation networks. These representations were shown to constitute “terrains” of citations or “geographies of influence”—effectively bringing to bear empirical data in support of Macfarlane’s higher education research “archipelago”. Nationality biases were observed between US and UK/European/Australian higher education journals. Results indicate that the most published authors throughout the journal’s history are Meyer, Kember, Richardson, Enders and Prosser. Confirming earlier studies on UK and Australian journals, the five most cited authors are Entwistle, Clark, Marton, Biggs and Ramsden. The single most cited article is Clark’s 1983 Higher education system: academic organization in cross-national perspective. The top publication years for the journal were 2012, 2009 and 2011. Results from this paper shed light into the evolving concerns of the journal and its readership, and provide a demonstration of a powerful way of analysing citation data.

Academy of Management Journal, 1958---2014: a citation analysis

This paper provides a citation network analysis of publications from the Academy of Management Journal, one of the key US-based journals in the field of Management. Our analysis covers all publications in the journal from 1958–2014. This represents the entire history of the journal until the arbitrary cut-off point of our study. The paper analyses the most published authors, most cited articles, most cited authors, top institutions, and the nationalities of authors that are most represented in the journal. 2304 articles containing 114,550 references were taken from the primary data source, the Web of Science™. An analysis of 114,550 citations was carried out using the Web of Science™ online analytics tool and Excel®. Gephi™, a data visualisation and manipulation software, was used to provide a visual representation of the citation networks. Results indicate that the most published authors within AMJ throughout the journal’s history are Ivancevich, Golembiewski and Hambrick. The three most cited authors within AMJ are Pfeffer, Porter and Thompson. The single most cited article is Pfeffer and Salancik’s 1978 article The external control of organizations: a resource dependence perspective. A keyword analysis revealed that the most important terms used in the journal’s history were ‘Performance’, ‘Organization’ and ‘Work’. Results from this paper extend our previous citation analyses of key journals in the discipline of Higher Education to a new discipline—the field of Management. The paper provides evidence of how visual analyses can help to represent the citation “geography” of a journal over time.

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 1947–2016: a retrospective using citation and social network analyses

ABSTRACT In anticipation of the journal’s centenary in 2027 this paper provides a citation network analysis of all available citation and publication data of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy (1923–2017). A total of 2,353 academic articles containing 21,772 references were collated and analyzed. This includes 175 articles that contained author-submitted keywords, 415 publisher-tagged keywords and 519 articles that had abstracts. Results initially focused on finding the most published authors, most cited articles and most cited authors within the journal, followed by most discussed topics and emerging patterns using keywords and abstracts. The analysis then proceeded to apply social network analysis using Kumu© – a visualization platform for mapping systems and relationships using large datasets. Analysis reveals topic clusters both unique to the journal, and inclusive of the journal’s history. Results from this analysis reaffirm the journal’s continuing focus on topics in traditional analytic philosophy such as morality, epistemology and knowledge, whilst also featuring topics associated with logic and paradox. This paper presents a new approach to analysing and understanding the historic and emerging topics of interest to the journal, and its readership. This has never previously been done for single philosophy journal. This is historically important given the journal’s forthcoming centenary.