Category: Refereed article

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Challenges in understanding and assisting mature-age students who participate in alternative entry programs

Author/s: Marguerite Cullity

Edition: Volume 46, Number 2, April 2006

Summary: Mature-age students are a significant group within the Australian sub-degree and undergraduate commencing cohort. Nevertheless, little is known about mature-age student backgrounds or factors that affect their participation at university. This paper draws on a case study that examined the nature and outcomes of Australian alternative entry programs for mature-age students. Specifically, the paper explores the demographic characteristics of mature-age students who participate in these programs. Australian research indicates that mature-age student circumstances influence their university aspirations and awareness of academic study. An understanding of mature-age student characteristics assists program organisers in designing effective alternative entry courses for unmatriculated, return-to-study and equity group mature learners. It is through a shared knowledge of mature learner circumstances and appropriate pedagogy that alternative entry program personnel can monitor and advance student participation at university.

Keywords: mature-age students, return to study, shared knowledge, appropriate pedagogy

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Adult, community and public education as primary sites for the development of social capital

Author/s: Rob Townsend

Edition: Volume 46, Number 2, April 2006

Summary: This article reviews current literature and discussion about the policies and sites of Australian adult education and training and their potential impact on the development of social capital in a regional context. The review stems from a current research project examining the impact of participation in adult education by people from diverse cultural backgrounds in a regional town in northern Victoria. There is evidence that adult education can transform individuals via access to new knowledge and skills, but can it impact on the social cohesiveness of groups, communities and regions in Australian society? Access and equity policies and strategies form the centre of adult, community and public education in Australia and it is time for these to be significantly reviewed in the context of a culturally diverse twenty first century society.

Keywords: adult education, social capital, diverse cultural backgrounds, northern Victoria, social cohesiveness

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Competency-based training: different perceptions in Australia and Germany

Author/s: Silke Hellwig

Edition: Volume 46, Number 1, April 2006

Summary: The German dual apprenticeship system has traditionally been viewed as an effective system for generating a highly skilled workforce in the trades, crafts and service sectors. In addition, countries and systems looking to improve their own approaches to vocational education and training (VET) have considered as exemplary the main features of the ‘dual system’ (that is, two learning sites and shared responsibility between private employers and public vocational schools). Nevertheless, competency-based training (CBT) as it has been implemented in the Anglophone countries has increasingly attracted the attention of public officials, vocational educators and VET researchers in Germany. This attention has been especially focused on the modularisation of curriculum and the importance of vocationalism in education and training systems. Comparative studies of these dual concepts (for example Deissinger 2002, Ertl 2000) have been used to inform  policy and practice. This paper focuses on the competency-based approach to VET in Australia and examines how reforms aimed at developing a national system, and implementing CBT in curriculum, training delivery and assessment are evaluated by stakeholders (for example, representatives of government, educators and academics). It also compares reforms to VET in Australia with those used in Germany for reforming and restructuring the dual system. This analysis is used to generate conclusions about the extent to which aspects of the Australian CBT model might be successfully applied to dual system reforms in Germany.

Keywords: dual apprenticeship, VET, competency-based training, Germany

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The age at which Indigenous Australians undertake qualifications: A descriptive analysis

Author/s: Nicholas Biddle

Edition: Volume 46, Number 1, April 2006

Summary: Reducing disparities in education outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is one of the main ways in which the relative disadvantage Indigenous Australians face will be overcome. Relative and absolute participation rates in all forms of education have improved, however they are still unacceptably low. Those Indigenous Australians who do undertake post-school education do so for the most part at a later age than the non-Indigenous population. This paper gives a descriptive analysis of the age at which Indigenous Australians are currently undertaking education, and the age at which Indigenous Australians obtained their qualifications in the past, making comparisons where appropriate with the non-Indigenous population. It also examines how certain characteristics of students vary across different age groups.

Keywords: Indigenous, disadvantage, post-school education, characteristics, students, age groups

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Learning in and through social partnerships

Author/s: Kathleen M. Fennessy, Stephen Billett and Carolyn Ovens

Edition: Volume 46, Number 1, April 2006

Summary: This paper explores participation in social partnerships as a space for learning. It analyses interview data about participation in social partnership from partnerships involved in vocational education and training (VET) to argue that social partnerships constitute a form of learning space. Partnership participants engage in new learning through the interactions and activities inherent in partnership work, and relational learning is the kind of learning most supported in these learning spaces. By fostering learning about the self and its relationship to others, social partnerships have potential to enhance capacity for action and responsibility, which underpins citizenship as a learning process. In this way, social partnerships are learning spaces that potentially build collective, even democratic, understanding by enhancing the individual’s cognitive and affective competencies. This cultural learning is embodied in the social partnership through engagement in effective partnership work.

Keywords: social partnerships, space for learning, VET, citizenship, responsibility

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Bridging to the future: What works?

Author/s: Helen Anderson

Edition: Volume 47, Number 3, November 2007

Summary: This paper discusses three levels of ‘what works’ in enabling education – namely, current and successful engagement, transition and future participation, and managing uncertainties. It points to the importance of high quality programs that get the students involved with learning, effectively preparing them for further study and providing the necessary survival skills for an essentially unknown and technology-driven future.

Keywords: engagement, transition, participation, enabling education

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‘I’m not stupid after all’ – changing perceptions of self as a tool for transformation

Author/s: Ms Julie Willans and Ms Karen Seary

Edition: Volume 47, Number 3, November 2007

Summary: When adult learners return to formal education after a period of absence, coping with change is a constant and often omnipresent challenge. As they come to break down previous barriers to success in an educational arena, many adult learners are able to change the perceptions they have of themselves as learners. Previously held assumptions are often challenged and perceptions of how individuals come to hold these views undergo scrutiny. Using Cranton’s (2002) phases of perspective transformation as a framework, this paper explores the notion that some learners can and do change their perspectives regarding their abilities as learners. This occurs when they are provided with opportunities to reflect critically upon themselves as learners, and deconstruct the origins of past assumptions. Based on data collected during the thirteen week academic writing course within the Skills for Tertiary Education Preparatory Studies (STEPS) program at Central Queensland University, evidence suggests that upon critical reflection of previously held assumptions about their learning abilities, many students revise those assumptions and become more empowered individuals.

Keywords: formal education, adult learners, transformation, opportunities, reflection

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The relative value of investment in ‘second chance’ educational opportunities for adults in Sweden and Australia: a comparative analysis

Author/s: Tom Stehlik and Michael Christie

Edition: Volume 47, Number 3, November 2007

Summary: The article presents a comparative analysis of educational policy and provision in Sweden and Australia, with particular emphasis on the relative investment in continuing and further education in both countries. The authors investigate the extent to which further education opportunities provide a ‘second chance’ at learning for adults and contribute to social and economic capital.

Keywords: educational policy, provision, Sweden, Australia, investment, further education

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After the doctorate? Personal and professional outcomes of the doctoral learning journey

Author/s: Barry Elsey

Edition: Volume 47, Number 3, November 2007

Summary: This paper explores the post-graduation experiences of 94 doctoral graduates from the Division of Business at the University of South Australia. Data were gathered by means of an online questionnaire. The first part examines the extent to which the original goals and ambitions of the graduates were realised in successfully completing the doctoral learning journey. The second part investigates ways in which doctoral learning outcomes were applied after graduation. These two foci are of interest to university policy-makers, marketing and administrative staff and academics ultimately responsible for the delivery of programs and the management of the doctoral learning journey.

Keywords: doctoral graduates, online questionnaire, learning journey, learning outcomes

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Transformative pedagogy for social capital

Author/s: Peter Willis

Edition: Volume 47, Number 3, November 2007

Summary: This paper explores ways in which pedagogy for an elaborated form of transformative learning can be a useful catalyst for the development of social capital in community and workplace groups and networks. I begin with an example and then explore ideas of learning challenges embedded in building and maintaining social capital. I consider the usefulness of a four-dimensional approach to transformative learning as a suitable pedagogy for its development and maintenance. The paper concludes with brief profiles of four educators whose work, in different ways, could be said to have promoted forms of social capital, directly or indirectly: Desmond Tutu, Anne Sullivan, Jesus and Socrates. Each of these educators, without excluding other approaches, tended to emphasise one of the four transformative pedagogies.

Keywords: transformative pedagogy, transformative learning, social capital

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