HLRC - Higher Learning Research Communications (E-Journal)
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Adjunct Faculty Perceptions of Participation in Online Collaborative Research Teams
Full text linkCareer professionals who serve as adjunct faculty at the university level are expected to engage in continual research and publishing to maintain their status as adjunct (part-time) faculty, to be considered for potential advancement, and to qualify for additional compensation. One way of meeting this objective is to participate in online collaborative research projects benefiting from a set of multiple lenses, multiple insights, and a multitude of considerations in regard to design, methodology, data interpretations, and broader reaching implications. A narrative inquiry approach was applied to gain an in-depth understanding of the experiences of adjunct faculty working in online collaborative research teams. Data was gathered through phone interviews where adjunct faculty shared their personal experiences and reflections about working as collaborative researchers in an online environment. Using an inductive process, themes were drawn from the responses of the participants to address the research question. The dominant themes found were organizational skills, interpersonal skills, and personal growth and development. The results of the study led to recommendations for supporting adjunct faculty in online collaborative research for building a sense of scholarly community and expanding opportunities for personal professional growth
Assessment of the Socrative platform as an interactive and didactic tool in the performance improvement of STEM university students
Full text linkThis paper collects and analyzes students' academic results related to the change in teaching methodologies used in different subjects of different science and engineering university courses between 2013 and 2016. This change means introducing active methodologies such as gamification and ICT instead of a traditional methodology. With this purpose the use of Socrative, a platform that has been designed for the educational field, was introduced during said period. Interaction with the Socrative platform took place in well prepared classrooms with computers and internet connections, including the use of personal mobile devices (laptops, smartphones and tablets) according to the BYOD methodology. The active methodology implemented allowed students to improve their academic results while learning and improving their passing rates
Indirect Feedback: A dialoguing approach to assessment
Full text linkWhilst there is consensus in the current literature that feedback plays a fundamental role to student performance and learning, there is also debate about what makes it effective. Particularly, some assessment instruments, like the National Student Survey in the United Kingdom, reveal that evaluation and feedback are systematically amongst the areas that students are less satisfied with. This paper aims to describe the ‘indirect feedback’ (IF) technique, which was utilised by the principle author in his previous tenure as a Professor at the University of Cadiz (Spain) and to reflect on how it can be applied to overcome some of the limitations presented in a different ‘context of practice’. It is argued that indirect feedback meets many of the principles of good practice, as it “facilitates the development of self-assessment (reflection) in learning, delivers high quality information to students about their learning, encourages teacher and peer dialogue around learning … provides opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance [and] provides information to teachers that can be used to help shape their teaching” (Nicol & MacFarlane-Dick, 2006, p. 205)
Active learning through community outreach: A case study of service-learning in a natural hazard, vulnerability and risk class
No full textThe popularity of service-learning is increasing, especially at a time where college students want to make a greater impact in their communities. One place we found that students can make a meaningful impact in their communities is promoting community resiliency to natural hazard events through a community outreach project. This article provides a case study of how incorporating service-learning through a community outreach project can increase student engagement, enhance the depth of understanding of a given topic, build communication and teamwork skills, and contribute meaningfully to the students’ community. This article shares how the instructor of a Natural Hazards, Vulnerability and Risk course implement service-learning through a community outreach project, and provides evidence for how such outreach can enhance student learning and address the common problem of student apathy and disengagement. We also discuss the transferability of our approach to other STEM and social science related courses. 
Battling Academic Corruption in Higher Education: Does External Quality Assurance (EQA) Offer a Ray of Hope?
Full text linkThe post-1980s changes in the global higher education landscape have triggered a burgeoning of incidents of academic corruption in higher education institutions. Since 2000, the discourse on how to combat academic corruption has gained traction in higher education and quality assurance is advanced as one of the strategies for fighting corruption in higher education. In 2016, UNESCO (and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation) issued a “wakeup call” to quality assurance systems to take up a leading role in the battle against academic corruption. However, a dearth of empirical and conceptual studies on how the quality assurance systems, in general, and external quality assurance systems, in particular, can take up a leading role in the crusade against academic corruption exists. This conceptual paper, using the crime-punishment model as an analytical lens, explores how the national quality assurance agencies (and systems) can exercise the leadership role in combating academic corruption. The paper advances the setting of academic integrity standards, institutional and programme accreditation, accreditation of academic journals, sharing information and promoting whistleblowing, monitoring of institutions, applying sanctions, and ranking of higher education institutions on the basis of integrity indicators as options that are available to quality assurance agencies in the exercise of their leadership role in combating academic corruption. These approaches are hypothesised to create both incentives and disincentives for the institutions and staff in connection with engaging in academic corruption. Nevertheless, the paper takes cognisance of the fact that external quality assurance is necessary but not sufficient in combating corruption at the level of the academy
Assessing and Modeling Student Academic Practices and Performance in First-Year Mathematics Courses in Higher Education
Full text linkObjectives: This research brief explores literature addressing developmental education to identify successful interventions in first-year math courses in higher education. Our goal is to describe the relationship between students’ academic practices and their final course grade in their first-year math courses.
Method: Data on 3,249 students have been gathered and analyzed using descriptive statistics and predicative analytics. We describe the Math program, which includes a supplemental support component, and the environment under which it was created. We then examine the behavior between students’ participation in supplemental support and their academic performance.
Results: We used classification and regression tree algorithms to obtain a model that gave us data-driven guidelines to aid with future student interventions and success in their first-year math courses.
Conclusions: Students’ fulfillment of the supplemental support requirements by specified deadlines is a key predictor of students’ midterm and final course grades.
Implications for Theory and/or Practice: This work provides a roadmap for student interventions and increasing student success with first-year mathematics courses.
Keywords: First-year mathematics courses, supplemental support, higher educatio
Psychological Adaptation of International Students in the Northern Part of Cyprus
No full textThis study examined how cultural distance, acculturative stress, and social support interacted to influence emotional responses among international students studying in the northern part of Cyprus. Acculturation models and the stress-buffering hypothesis served as theoretical frameworks. The research questions involved understanding whether international students experienced more negative emotional responses compared to students from the home culture and whether social support moderated acculturative stress and reactions to being in the northern part of Cyprus. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) examined differences in emotional reactions between home and international students while hierarchical multiple regression was used to examine the moderation hypotheses. ANOVA results indicated that Turkish-Cypriots had more positive emotional responses than international students to being in the host culture. Results did not support social support as a moderator for either international students’ acculturative stress or their emotional reactions. However, results suggested that unmet expectations, less financial satisfaction, and less social support predicted acculturative stress, while being in a relationship, higher Turkish proficiency, unmet expectations, and higher acculturative stress predicted more negative emotional responses. These results may help universities design programs to support psychological adaptation among international students, which could ultimately facilitate student retention
Predicting education science students’ statistics anxiety: The role of prior experiences within a framework of domain-specific motivation constructs
Full text linkBased on a cognitive-motivational modeling of construct relations, the present study aimed at analyzing the role of prior statistics experiences to explain education science students’ statistics anxiety. Data were analyzed from two independent samples which consisted of N = 113 and N = 87 participants – using a different operationalization of the experience variable in each case. In both samples, analyses demonstrated students’ statistics anxiety to be substantially explained by their self-concept and negative utility value – but not by their prior statistics experiences. However, conceptually assumed interaction effects between motivation and experience variables did not occur. Instead, students’ statistics anxiety appeared to be dependent on self-concept and value scores across all experience levels. Moreover, different operationalizations of the experience variable produced somewhat varying effect patterns. Findings are discussed in terms of conceptual, methodological, and instructional implications
The Internationalization of Higher Education in Japan: Effective Organization for a Sustainable Internationally Cooperative Higher Education Program
No full textThe goal of this study is to explore the challenges of international collaboration in higher education activities in Japan by identifying the management frameworks and elements necessary to run sustainable, quality-assured, internationally collaborative activities. Internationalization was examined from three perspectives: collaboration between a university’s headquarters and its departments, program management, and quality assurance. A qualitative case study design was used that involved interviews with 48directors of collaborative international higher education programs. Regarding intra-university collaboration, it was found that there were four major system types divided into eight subtypes: 1. Top-down; (A) Leaving the job to departments, (B) Control, and (C) Ownership; 2. Bottom-up; (A) Approval and (B) Independent; 3. Acting as one; and 4. Cooperation; (A) Regional and (B) Field. The most frequent subtype was “Approval” and the most successful subtype was “Independent.” Regarding program management, many institutions have mature systems, but even these systems found it difficult to achieve accreditation by external agencies. To enable Japanese higher education institutions to survive in the global market, central leadership that encourages departmental independence is necessary. Entrepreneurialism, whereby not only executives but also academics and administrators explicitly seek out new strategies is a key element in Japanese higher education institutions