One of the major current issues in education is the question of why Chinese and East Asian students are outperforming those from Western countries. Research into the approaches to learning of Chinese ...students revealed the existence of intermediate approaches, combining memorising and understanding, which were distinct from rote learning. At the time, research into the paradox of the Chinese learner was content to establish that the approaches were not consistent with a surface approach and there was, therefore, no reason to anticipate the inferior learning outcomes associated with the approach. This article takes the analysis further to discuss whether the intermediate approaches could be advantageous for academic performance and could contribute to the superior performance, especially in mathematics, of Chinese students. Learning approaches are re-formulated as a continuum between pure surface and deep poles characterised by the presence of understanding and memorisation in the intention and strategy and in the sequence of their use. Evidence is presented of more frequent use by East Asian students of the approaches in the centre of the continuum which make the most use of meaningful memorisation, particularly when it precedes understanding. It is, therefore, possible that East Asian students are more likely to have memorised a knowledge base which enables them to perform better in comparative testing.
Where courses have as an aim the promotion of reflective practice, it will enhance the achievement of the goal if the level of reflective thinking is assessed. To do this in a satisfactory way ...requires a reliable protocol for assessing the level of reflection in written work. This article presents a protocol that can be used to guide the allocation of work to four categories, namely: habitual action/non-reflection, understanding, reflection, and critical reflection. Intermediate categories can also be used. Detailed descriptors of each category to guide the process are provided. The protocol was tested by four assessors independently using it to grade a set of written work, and very good agreement was obtained.
Umbrella action research projects link together a number of small action research projects under a common organizational and thematic umbrella. This article provides an example of an umbrella action ...research project, which aimed for teaching quality enhancement. There are two mechanisms by which teaching quality can be enhanced. The first of these is through the improvements initiated in the small projects, which are normally conducted by teachers in the courses they teach. The second mechanism is that of the collective reflective discussions of the whole project team. The collective umbrella that over-arches the individual projects provides a mechanism for participants to collectively transform their understanding of the common thematic issue. There is, therefore, the possibility of an emancipatory transformation, so that the whole achieves more than the sum of the individual projects. This article substantiates the impact of umbrella action research projects by presenting case studies from an overall project that focused on online learning. The cases highlight our reflective discussions on promoting student engagement in online learning. They show how our collective understanding of engagement in online learning was advanced and some of the means tried in the small projects to encourage student engagement. As there is evidence of teaching quality enhancement through the umbrella action research project, we discuss the possibility of redirecting some of the resources currently devoted to quality assurance to quality enhancement through encouraging action research projects.
Many academics see themselves primarily as experts in their discipline and hold content-oriented conceptions of teaching. It can then be difficult to persuade them to adopt forms of teaching ...incorporating active student engagement, even though there is evidence for the effectiveness of such forms of learning. This article describes a university-wide initiative to promote student-centred forms of teaching and learning. The campaign included: models of good practice from award-winning teachers, compulsory teachers training courses for new junior teachers and teaching assistants, projects funded by teaching development grants, a diagnostic programme-level survey accompanied by counselling over results and programme reviews. Evidence of impact comes from the overall university-level results of the programme survey, which showed marked increases, over a 2 year period, on each of the nine scales used to obtain feedback on the quality of the teaching and learning environment. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).
Aim. To produce a revised two‐factor version of the Study Process Questionnaire (R‐SPQ‐2F) suitable for use by teachers in evaluating the learning approaches of their students. The revised instrument ...assesses deep and surface approaches only, using fewer items. Method. A set of 43 items was drawn up for the initial tests. These were derived from: the original version of the SPQ, modified items from the SPQ, and new items. A process of testing and refinement eventuated in deep and surface motive and strategy scales each with 5 items, 10 items per approach score. The final version was tested using reliability procedures and confirmatory factor analysis. Sample. The sample for the testing and refinement process consisted of 229 students from the health sciences faculty of a university in Hong Kong. A fresh sample of 495 undergraduate students from a variety of departments of the same university was used for the test of the final version. Results. The final version of the questionnaire had acceptable Cronbach alpha values for scale reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated a good fit to the intended two‐factor structure. Both deep and surface approach scales had well identified motive and strategy subscales. Conclusion. The revision process has resulted in a simple questionnaire which teachers can use to evaluate their own teaching and the learning approaches of their students.
The aim of this study was to help universities promote graduate attributes by investigating mechanisms for promoting the development of cognitive, social and affective attributes which could impact ...upon all undergraduate students. Small group interviews were conducted with 90 final year students at a university in Hong Kong. Interview transcripts were coded for statements relating to 13 attributes. Five categories of mechanism existed: subject-independent teaching and learning activities, which provide practise in the use of the attribute; immersion in a rich campus environment; holding a value; subject-dependent mechanisms; and, participation in an overseas exchange. These five mechanism categories were then cross-tabulated against the 13 attributes, ranked in order of student perceptions of their development. Subject-independent learning activities were the most effective mechanism, followed by exposure to a rich campus environment. For a wide range of attributes to be nurtured effectively, the curriculum and co-curriculum need to be regarded holistically.
Hong Kong has moved from elite to mass post-secondary education in a very short space of time and at little cost to the Government. Most of this spectacular expansion in participation has come ...through enrolments in 2 year associate degrees in recently founded community colleges, which have self-financing status. The achievement has been clouded by complaints from associate degree graduates that the articulation envisaged by the government is not working; so they are unable to obtain places for undergraduate degrees in UGC-funded universities. The value of an associate degree as a suitable terminal award for employment in a knowledge-based economy is yet to be clearly established. There must be doubts as to whether students will continue to enrol in associate degrees if they provide stepping stones to neither employment nor places in undergraduate degrees in UGC-funded universities. In an attempt to deal with the lack of articulation, some community colleges, in conjunction with overseas universities, have started to offer top-up degrees to enable associate degree graduates to convert the award to a degree. However, the resulting qualifications are seen as inferior to undergraduate degrees from the UGC-funded universities. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).
Surveys at a university in Hong Kong indicated that graduates of discrete part-time programmes perceived significantly higher development in eight out of nine graduate capabilities than their ...counterparts in full-time programmes. Several possible explanations are considered and rejected. The conventional view that capabilities are nurtured through immersion in a stimulating campus environment was not applicable, as the part-time students spent less time on campus than the full-time ones. Other data in the survey suggested that the respective teaching and learning environments might be the principal cause. It appeared that the part-time courses had more teacher-student interaction, and were more likely to employ active learning approaches. Structural equation modelling was used to examine this possible explanation. A model in which the type of teaching and teacher-student relationships impacted upon capability development showed a good fit to the data. The greatest effect was from teaching approaches requiring active student involvement and aiming for understanding. There was a mutually reinforcing effect from good teacher-student relationships. The results suggest that a strong effect on the development of graduate capabilities may come through employing active learning approaches.
This study aimed to characterise academics’ conceptions of teaching in fully online undergraduate distance education courses with no on-campus component. The study aimed to fill a gap in the ...literature, as previous research had examined conceptions of teaching in face-to-face courses, with a few studies of blended teaching via the Internet in on-campus courses. Fourteen academics from five faculties in a Vietnamese regional university were interviewed, with the study taking place shortly after the outbreak of Covid-19. Grounded theory was used for data analysis. The results revealed four categories of conceptions of online teaching, namely online teaching (1) as transmitting structured knowledge and skills, (2) as guiding students to acquire knowledge and skills, (3) as facilitating students’ understanding via interaction and (4) as developing students’ understanding and capabilities. The four categories of conceptions were defined and distinguished by a set of six dimensions, which included e-Learning/LMS. The set of categories had some similarities to those found for face-to-face teaching, but also some distinctions which could be explained by the nature of online teaching and learning. The study, therefore, makes a major contribution by establishing a category scheme for conceptions of teaching in online distance education, with detailed characterisation of the four categories of conceptions. The descriptors of the conceptions showed cultural influences, particularly from a Confucian heritage, which is of significance as research into face-to-face conceptions had not found cultural variations.
As higher education has made the transition from elite to mass enrolments, the student body has become more diverse and online and blended learning have become more common. This study aimed to ...examine the impacts on attrition of admitting a more diverse student body with the shift towards online and blended learning. A hypothesised path model of attrition was tested with structural equation modelling. The model contained four presage variables related to the changed demographic of the student body and alternative modes of study; attendance mode, admission basis, remoteness and socio-economics status. There were two intervening variables; age and year of study. The two outcome variables were dropout and GPA value. The model was tested against a large sample of data from a student record system of a regional Australian university. The model showed a good fit to the data predicting that the expansion of higher education, along with the increasing use of online and blended learning, will impact on attrition.
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