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While higher education (HE) is entrenched as a context for scholarly inquiry in Australian universities, there remains contest about it as a research field. Unlike other forms of ‘Education’, in Au...

Physics experiments for students not majoring in physics may have little meaning for those students and appear to them unconnected in any way to their majors. This affects student engagement and influences the extent to which they regard their experiences in the physics laboratory as positive. We apply a framework for the development and evaluation of experiments for nonphysics majors, which draws on the perspectives of a range of stakeholders and is designed to bring relevance and context to the fore. We report the application of the framework to a particular experiment over four semesters. The framework assisted in identifying features of laboratory work that often go unrecognized. These include the discord that can exist between the ambitions of the laboratory demonstrators and the expectations of the students; the change in the response of the students to an experiment once it moves from the trial phases to being implemented in classes that comprise several hundred students; and the impact of contextual factors, such as the quality of the laboratory environment. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd.

The growth of eLearning technologies has blurred the boundaries of educational modes to a point where distance education programs can be offered without drawing particular notice on campus. The experience of distance education staff working in campus-focused universities and their perceptions of their chances of successfully planning and teaching by distance should inform evaluation of a university's quality framework. In this case study, we report on the experience of distance educators at an Australian campus-focused university. We identify organisational structure and culture as critical success factors for quality in distance education, with technology a, perhaps surprisingly, minor consideration. While the eLearning era has opened the door to a distance education cottage industry, eLearning strategy has failed to comprehensively prepare the way for the issues unique to distance education. The paper recommends that campus-focused universities must protect their reputation by systematically assuring the quality of their (inevitable) distance offerings. © 2010 HERDSA.

This paper reports on a large longitudinal survey of students and their use of technologies in two Australian universities. The SEET survey is unique in Australia because it includes not just current use, but students' expectations about their future use of technology. The survey was originally run in 2010 and then repeated, with slight modifications to reflect changes in technologies, in 2013. This paper compares the results from 2013 with the 2010 results. Whilst some changes reflect the wider access to freely available open resources and new technologies such as Smartphones and iPads, other results are remarkably consistent with the 2010 results. Overall students are increasingly satisfied with their use of technologies and despite the increase in uptake of freely available technologies, it is evident that the LMS and its inbuilt tools and functions remain a key platform for learning and teaching at universities.

Few institutions have reported research on students' use of orientation programs designed for mature students returning to study in contemporary learning environments now regularly amalgamating distance and online strategies. We report within a design-based research framework the student experience ofGetLearning, the third stage of an innovative online orientation program. Integral to the design is active student engagement with activities to extend their skills whilst still supported in a risk free environment. Analysis included observations of the patterns of student activity, students' responses in evaluation instruments, our reflections, and identification of the limitations to deployment of such orientation programs. We also provide a set of design principles to guide further development work and research.

Postgraduate coursework is now delivered to a largely mature age study population, in what may be an unfamiliar mix of online and distance learning to many students. This paper reports on a novel approach to student orientation in this new environment. Orientation is conceptualised as a process of transition between the domain of everyday life and the domain of academic study over a period of time commencing prior to enrolment and continuing into formal studies. A schema addressing three dimensions (interpersonal, technical and reflective) was constructed and operationalised as a staged orientation plan (GettingOnTrack). Students are able to move through the three stages participating in activities which align with their needs before, during and after enrolment. This builds on critical concerns reported in earlier literature, highlighting the need for an extended time line and authentic learning tasks in a risk free environment.

This study investigates the impact of a University Teacher Development (UTD) Program. It explores how a cohort of medical educators who completed a Master of Medical Education degree are facilitating change in their own workplaces several years after graduating. The experiences of these participants elicits a new meaning of program impact as a longer-term, negotiated, socially situated phenomenon of shifts in the teaching and learning practices of workgroups and organisations. In this sense, UTD program impact occurs both beyond the individual and beyond the program. UTD programs are now commonplace in Australia. With the increasing regulation of teaching quality in higher education, governments and universities are seeking indicators of quality such as the number of staff who complete UTD programs and evidence that these programs ‘work’, to justify the time and resources allocated to their continuation. This study analyses participants’ experiences of program impact one to three years after completing a UTD program. This analysis identified that impact, as a longer-term phenomenon, is best understood as being socially negotiated and contested and requiring interactions with students, with colleagues and with the profession. This suggests that understanding the impact of a UTD program requires investigation over time, not just at the point of graduation. It also requires an interpretation of longer-term impact through shifts in educational practice within organisations, not only changes in individual attitudes and approaches. This study advocates for a methodological approach in which a hermeneutic process is used to distil the essential elements of participants’ accounts and a practice theory lens to make sense of those elements. This approach facilitates engagement with the experiences of program participants to form a complex understanding of the impact of the program on them and on the organisations in which they operate.

With the widening participation agenda in Australia, more students from low socio-economic backgrounds are being encouraged to undertake university degrees, and will be expected to use digital technologies and demonstrate digital literacies. This paper used data from a 2013 survey of students across three universities, to examine whether there were socio-economic differences in students' access to and use of technologies. There were few differences in access to equipment. There were also no differences in the most common uses of technologies, such as accessing course materials from the LMS, and few differences between students from low, medium and high socioeconomic status suburbs. However students who received government support benefits less frequently used technologies that related to disciplinary skills or to creating rather than receiving content. There may be a subtle digital divide, where financially disadvantaged students are engaging less with technologies that will most benefit their future employment.

An initiative involving the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and Australia's premier science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Agency (CSIRO), connects first year students in a large enrolment physics service subject to research of national standing through a co-developed inquiry-oriented experiment. We describe the background to the initiative which we believe to be the first of its kind, how it was piloted, and our findings from the first running of the experiment with enrolled students. The initiative applies a previously published framework for designing and evaluating new and existing experiments with regard to student engagement and learning, laboratory logistics, and scale. Evidence from focus groups, student surveys, and classroom observations indicates that the experiment is regarded by students as: 1) a worthwhile, very valuable or outstanding learning experience; 2) engaging; and 3) benefitting their learning through group discussions. Student feedback during the development phase highlighted issues to be addressed, including allowing students greater time to design and carry out their own investigations, more explicit assistance for students in the use of supporting technology, and better guidance on the assessed component of the experiment.