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AJAL Volume 60 / Number 1 / April 2020
This edition of AJAL is available for purchase in pdf format
ALA Members can download a free copy of this edition by logging in to the member area of the ALA website here: AJAL Past Editions
Share this page.
Just another student survey? – Point-of-contact survey feedback enhances the student experience and lets researchers gather data
Author: Warren Lake, William Boyd, Wendy Boyd and Suzi Hellmundt
Southern Cross University
Edition: Volume 57, Number 1, April 2017
Summary: When student surveys are conducted within university environments, one outcome of feedback to the researcher is that it provides insight into the potential ways that curriculum can be modified and how content can be better delivered. However, the benefit to the current students undertaking the survey is not always evident. By modifying Biggs’ revised two-factor study process questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F), we have provided students with immediate point-of-contact feedback that encourages students to consider their own cognitive processes. The main purpose of the modified tool is to provide immediate benefit to the student, whilst retaining the functionality of the survey for the researcher. Two versions of the survey were presented to students, a feedback version and non-feedback version, with results indicating that the participants of the feedback version had a significantly higher opinion that the survey helped them to be a better learner. In general, the importance students place on feedback, regardless of the version of the survey completed, was evident in the study. The point-of-contact survey model implemented in this study has successfully allowed a tool that was once exclusively researcher focused to be oriented towards current students, introducing an additional layer of feedback, which directly benefits the current student, whilst retaining its usefulness as a diagnostic research tool.
Keywords: Feedback, survey feedback, student feedback, point-of-contact feedback, immediate feedback, R-SPQ-2F
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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 57_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.
Insights into attrition from university-based enabling programs
Author: Cheryl Bookallil and Bobby Harreveld
CQUniversity, Australia
Edition: Volume 57, Number 1, April 2017
Summary: High attrition rates from university-based enabling programs continue to be the subject of much research and administrative effort. Understanding the factors behind decisions to withdraw from such programs is difficult since those who do not successfully complete an enabling program may not readily agree to participate in research into their motivations for enrolling, and reasons for withdrawal, leaving them silent in the literature. Students who are relatively successful with enabling study have ‘insider’ perceptions to share concerning the motivations of their fellow students, and the barriers some face. They can provide unique insights into factors behind the intractable problem of high attrition from enabling programs and the low rates of articulation into university study.
Keywords: University-based enabling programs, attrition, articulation, barriers
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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 57_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.
Second chance education: barriers, supports and engagement strategies
Author: Harry Savelsberg, Sylvia Pignata, Pauline Weckert
University of South Australia
Edition: Volume 57, Number 1, April 2017
Summary: Second chance education programs are now a well-established presence in institutions seeking to provide access and equity pathways for socio-economically disadvantaged groups. This paper focusses on the strategies used to support positive engagement in second chance equity programs, drawing upon evaluation research data from four TAFE sponsored programs. Interviews were held with service providers involved in the programs’ development and delivery, and focus groups were held to gather information from program participants. The findings highlight the complex and often multiple barriers facing participants and the importance of delivering programs with sustained and tailored approaches. While tangible educational and/or employment outcomes were delivered, it was the associated social and personal development that made these programs especially successful. Hence, there is a need for equity programs to be holistic, scaffolded, and tailored to practical and vocational pathways.
Keywords: Vocational pathways, second chance education, access and equity
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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 57_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.
Second chance learning in Neighbourhood Houses in Victoria
Author: Tracey Ollis, Karen Starr, Cheryl Ryan, Jennifer Angwin and Ursula Harrison
Deakin University
Edition: Volume 57, Number 1, April 2017
Summary: Neighbourhood Houses in Victoria are significant sites of formal and informal education for adult learners. Intrinsically connected to local communities they play an important role in decreasing social isolation and building social inclusion. The focus of this research is on adult learners and adult learning that engages with ‘second chance’ learners who participate in adult learning programs in the Barwon and South West regions of Victoria. The greater Geelong region is characterised by declining car automotive and textile manufacturing industries and emerging new industries such as hospitality and tourism. The data from the research participants in the study include career changers, long term and recently unemployed, newly arrived and migrant communities, young people and older adults. This paper focuses on the learning practices of second chance learners who frequently have negative perceptions of themselves as unsuccessful learners, but are transformed through their learning experiences in Neighbourhood Houses. We argue the unique social space of the Neighbourhood House, the support and guidance offered by staff and teachers, the unique pedagogy and small group learning experiences, allows adult learners to reconstruct a new identity of themselves as successful learners.
Keywords: informal learning, formal learning, adult education, ACE, VET, training reform, Neighbourhood Houses
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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 57_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.
Identifying tertiary bridging students at risk of failure in the first semester of undergraduate study
Authors: Robert Whannell and Patricia Whannell, University of New England
Summary: This study presents the findings of the second phase of a project examining the attrition and progression of two cohorts of students in a tertiary bridging program at a regional university in Australia. The first phase of the study (Whannell, 2013) based on data collected up to week 5 of the bridging program identified age, academic achievement on the initial assessment tasks, the level of peer support and the number of absences from scheduled classes as being the factors which predicted attrition from the bridging program. This phase of the study examined a sample of 92 students who subsequently completed a custom questionnaire in week 12 of the tertiary bridging program and then continued into the first semester of undergraduate study. Participants at risk of failure in the first semester of undergraduate study were characterised by being younger in age, demonstrating a high incidence of absence from scheduled classes and low levels of academic achievement in the final assessment tasks in the bridging program and reporting lower quality relationships with academic staff. The need to initiate interventions to target at-risk students prior to commencement of their undergraduate study is discussed.
Keywords: tertiary bridging program, attrition, educational transition.
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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 54_2. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.
The international importance of a national association
Author/s: Edward Hutchinson
Edition: Volume 50, Number 3, November 2010
Summary: It is my experience that some of the most perplexing and time‑consuming problems that face the chief executive of a National Association in Adult Education, arise out of international contacts. I think it is very wise that the Australian Association should give attention to the matter early in its existence. By so doing, it can perhaps avoid some of the pitfalls and can offer creative leadership and example that may be of the greatest value in the next half century. One thing is certain—there is no established pattern of international relationships into which a new national association can fit comfortably and conveniently. There are a number of connecting strands but there is nothing approaching an organized network with a clearly discernible pattern.
Keywords: National Association in Adult Education, Adult Learning Australia, relevance, challenges, value
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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 50_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.
Agenda for a national association 50 years on
Author/s: Barrie Brennan
Edition: Volume 50, Number 3, November 2010
Summary: I was honoured to be asked by the current Editor to write a response to W.G.K. Duncan’s 1961 paper, ‘Agenda for a national association’, in the first number of the Australian Journal of Adult Education , the journal of the newly established Australian Association of Adult Education (AAAE). The brief has been interpreted in this way. Duncan viewed AAAE as an ‘outsider’ and proposed challenges for the new association without giving guidance as to how the challenges may have been met.
Keywords: Adult Learning Australia, challenges, relevance
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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 50_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.
Agenda for a national association
Author/s: W. G. K. Duncan
Edition: Volume 50, Number 3, November 2010
Summary: I was reminded of my schoolboy days when I read the opening words of the first number of the Newsletter, to be issued quarterly by the Australian Association of Adult Education. In our textual study of Macbeth (does this sort of thing still go on?), we were asked to say what punctuation mark we thought most appropriate after Lady Macbeth’s famous words ‘We fail’, when trying to screw her husband’s courage to ‘the sticking place’. A question mark, indicating that the possibility of failing had never occurred to her before? A full stop, suggesting resignation, or fatalism? An exclamation mark—to be accompanied by a scornful tone of voice? Which of these alternatives fitted in best with our conception of Lady Macbeth’s character? I plumped for the exclamation mark. (The edition I now have gives a colon—that would have floored us!)
The opening words of the Newsletter were simply “WE ARE!”—and I wondered whether the Editor had used the exclamation mark to indicate surprise, relief, triumphant satisfaction at difficulties overcome, or a sense of exhilaration at future prospects.
Keywords: Adult Learning Australia, Australian Association of Adult Education, relevance, future
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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 50_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.