Sue Gordon

What Are We Missing Here? Problematising Wisdoms on Teaching Quality and Professionalism in Higher Education.

In this discussion paper we seek to challenge prevailing wisdoms in higher education regarding the value of measuring teaching quality, prescribing standards for professionalism and using student satisfaction as an indicator of teaching effectiveness. Drawing on the literature, we explore and probe four wisdoms in an attempt to identify and problematise popular assumptions about teaching and professionalism. We suggest that externalising procedures for assessing quality can be counter-productive to effective teaching and learning and propose core values we see as central to enhancing higher education practice: collegial reflection on practice, consideration of ethical issues and risk-taking.

Research Interviews in Cyberspace

Contemporary developments in technology provide opportunities for qualitative researchers to enhance their modes of collecting rich data for analysis. In this article we explore the utility and impact of using email as a means of collecting data in the form of semi‐structured interviews. We investigate what participants think about email interviews, and how they view the relationship between email interviews and online pedagogies. We illustrate our discussion with reference to a recent research project carried out using email interviews with professional colleagues, including analyses of the respondents’ own insights about the methodology. We conclude that email interviews provide a useful medium to explore the experiences of an international group of participants, including some for whom English is not their first language. Further, the method enables respondents to participate in the process of collaborative knowledge building as co‐researchers, by reflecting on and analysing their own responses in the email interviews

From mentoring to monitoring: the impact of changing work environments on academics in Australian universities

Universities in many western nations are experiencing increasing performance measures for academic accountability. This paper maps the pitted pathway that has led Australian universities from mentoring to monitoring and from performance enhancement to performance evaluation, and reviews implications for teaching and learning in higher education. We explore understandings of good mentoring and its effects and examine the social and political climate out of which quality assurance processes have arisen, to articulate the aims and philosophies underpinning these approaches. Drawing on the published literature, we critique processes that have as their main goals monitoring rather than mentoring, and performance evaluation rather than performance enhancement. From our perspectives as teachers in higher education in Australia we raise issues for consideration, including the tensions between practice and promise and the roles of mentors and monitors in promoting growth or compliance. We discuss criteria and models for evaluating mentoring and monitoring.

Mature Students Learning Statistics: The Activity Theory Perspective

The concept of approach “stresses relationships between intention, process and outcome within a specified context as described by an individual” (Schmeck, 1988, p. 10). This paper explores the approaches to learning of a group of mature students from the theoretical perspective of activity theory in order to gain an insight into some of the ways statistics is learned. In this framework, learning, regarded as goal-directed behaviour, is analysed by exploring the socio-historical factors relating to students’ self regulation of their cognitive activities. The material is derived from questionnaires and interviews with five students, and focuses on the students’ own interpretations of the contexts affecting their approaches.

Students’ conceptions of mathematics bridging courses

In this study we investigate the conceptions of mathematics bridging courses held by students enrolled in these courses at a major Australian university. We report on the participants’ responses to email-interview questions about the mathematics bridging courses to describe a two-dimensional outcome space of variations in awareness about the bridging courses. On one dimension the conceptions relate to cognitive functions: the course bridges students’ difficulties with mathematical concepts, helps develop strategies for learning mathematics and extends skills in thinking and reasoning. Categories on the other dimension reflect ideas on how the bridging course advances personal goals and enhances self-development. The findings show that students are aware of the value of the bridging courses not only to ameliorate prior difficulties with mathematics and improve their approaches to learning mathematics but, less transparently, as an important opportunity to facilitate their transition into higher education, meet fellow students and help realise their potential.

Prior decisions and experiences about mathematics of students in bridging courses

We report on the survey responses of 51 students attending mathematics bridging courses at a major Australian university, investigating what mathematics, if any, these students had studied in the senior years of schooling and what factors affected their decisions about the level of mathematics chosen. Quantitative findings are augmented by qualitative responses to open-ended questions in the survey as well as excerpts from follow-up emails. The findings show that the major reasons for students taking lower levels of mathematics in senior year(s), or dropping mathematics, include finding enough time for non-mathematics subjects, confidence in mathematical capability, advice and maximizing potential ranking for university admission.

What Counts for Students Studying Statistics

ABSTRACT Statistics is taught in many different disciplines. This study explores the orientations to studying statistics of over 100 students of the University of Sydney. Fifty two students entering second year Psychology and 59 Arts students starting a first year general statistics course were surveyed. Three open ended questions asked students to report on their reasons for studying statistics, their expectations of their courses and their usual approaches to studying mathematics. Categories of description for students’ responses were identified. The results showed that those who chose to study statistics were motivated primarily by perceptions of the relevance of the knowledge. In contrast, personal and negative evaluations of mathematics dominated the responses of those unwillingly studying a compulsory course in statistics. About half the students surveyed expected their statistics course to provide a tool; most of the others focussed on statistical processes. Disturbingly, almost 80% of them reporte...

University teachers' intentions for introductory professional classes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate ways in which university students are introduced to disciplines and thence to the professions based on those disciplines.Design/methodology/approach – E‐mail interviews with a broad sample of university teachers in a variety of professional disciplines formed the basis of a grounded theory approach to identification of analytically distinct themes.Findings – Four different approaches were identified from the interview data, labelled as academic, apprenticeship, affective, and experiential. While these themes represent distinct approaches to introductory classes in professional fields, and have been described independently in the paper, in practice most teachers would use combinations of them.Research limitations/implications – The research represents a first stage in investigating approaches to introducing students to a discipline and profession. No claim is made to randomness, completeness or representativeness of the sample, which indeed was heavily ...

University Teachers' Conceptions of Memorising in Learning Science

This paper describes what a sample of university teachers in science conceive to be the role of memorising and the relationship between memorising and understanding in their disciplines. Sixteen, purposively selected university teachers were interviewed in depth. The university teachers were from three disciplines--mathematics, physiology and physics. Analysis of the data was undertaken from a phenomenographic perspective (Marton, 1988) and indicates a set of conceptions of memorising including memorising as rote learning for reproduction, as facilitating learning--a way to progress--and as a key component of the learning process. Opposing views of the relationship between memorising and understanding were expressed; these were viewed either as unrelated processes or as dynamically interwoven.

Researchers’ Use of Statistics in Creative and Qualitative Disciplines

The aim of this chapter is to open up and explore a little-researched area of statistics education. We investigate how academics and postgraduate students use quantitative approaches to carry out research in creative and qualitative disciplines, such as music, design and art. We describe our method of interviewing 19 participants by email, indicate respondents’ research contexts and the role that statistical techniques played in their research. We discuss how interviewees familiarised themselves with quantitative methods and what assistance they received and would have liked to receive. We investigate the researchers’ epistemological views underpinning their methodological approaches. Finally, we develop an interpretive tool for situating research approaches where the home discipline is not usually associated with quantitative methods. The findings raise important issues about the training and institutional support of researchers in these fields.