Tag: tertiary bridging program

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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.

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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.

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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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Investigating the influence of teacher strategies on academic self-efficacy and study behaviour of students in a tertiary bridging program

Author/s: Patricia Whannell, Robert Whannell and Bill Allen

Edition: Volume 52, Number 1, April 2012

Summary: This article describes the findings of an action research project which examined the link between academic self-efficacy and the study behaviours of students in a tertiary bridging program at a regional university in Australia. Continue reading “Investigating the influence of teacher strategies on academic self-efficacy and study behaviour of students in a tertiary bridging program”