Paper
Abstracts
Adult learning
Accessibility to lifelong learning opportunities in the light of the Lisbon Agenda – adult eduction centres: a Greek study.
Adamantios Papastamatis & Eugenia Panitsidou
University of Macedonia
The problems faced by post-modern European Union, due to internationalization of the economy, loss of competitiveness, rise in unemployment and negative demographic outcomes, call for transformations able to reinforce excellence in knowledge, technology and economic effectiveness, as well as promote social cohesion. Thus, investment in human capital emerged as a core priority for European Union policies at the Lisbon European Council of 23 and 24 March 2000, providing for strategic goals to strengthen employment, economic reform and social cohesion. Within this framework, a new period of enhanced collaboration in education and training has been initiated among member states, committing them to a consistent strategy and concrete objectives and accentuating the aspects of openness and accessibility of adult education systems. This will provide equal opportunities for all European citizens to participate in the “knowledge-led society”. Hence, novel priorities have emerged for Greek educational policy. These gave exceptional significance to lifelong learning and initiated the implementation of Adult Education Centres in 2003 to meet the Lisbon goals. The present paper reports the findings of three case studies, regarding the promotion of openness and accessibility to learning opportunities throughout life. The research was launched in three Adult Education Centres in Northern Greece. The study attempted to assess their strengths and weaknesses in their efforts to deliver educational services or activities to both citizens of urban and rural areas and to promote adult learning in a broader sense, in the light of the Lisbon mandate.
Flexible learning and electronics trades training: a case study.
Peter Jansen & Don Adams
TAFE NSW Hunter Institute; University of Newcastle
The electronics industry and its associated consumer market are experiencing a technological revolution and thus creating an ever increasing demand for new equipment servicing skills and alternative learning approaches. Workplace demands have created a requirement for training using flexible learning approaches. This is often because many mainstream courses on offer from large public sector Registered Training Organisations have time scheduling patterns which are incompatible with industry work-practices. This industry incompatibility suggests the need for a more flexible delivery approach. This paper presents a case study methodology to investigate flexible delivery and self paced learning strategies within a complex electronics trades training environment, consisting of students aged 18 to 60 years old. The paper discusses the issues such as the advantages to adult learners using this approach, the risks of such approaches, areas that can be improved and an analysis of the levels of the adult learners under such conditions. The findings of the study suggest these adult learners exhibit low abilities in self direction and lacked confidence coping with flexible self managed learning, when first attempting this method of learning. Additionally, students were reluctant to use textbooks and perform meta learning.. A need for guidance and development in self direction and self organization, particularly in the early stages of the courses was identified.
A framework to assist women returning to study.
Robyn Donovan, John Dekkers & Jo Keleher
Central Queensland University
Women are returning to study as mature aged students and require assistance and support as they make the transition into higher education. The Women into Science and Technology (WIST) bridging program is a self-paced flexible program of study which has been designed to cater for women’s multiple roles and responsibilities. In order to inform the review of courses within the WIST program, students were surveyed to establish what they needed in order for them to succeed in their studies and progress into higher education. The development of the survey was informed by a literature review, focus groups held with enabling students and interviews conducted with university staff members. The survey was distributed to students enrolled in the WIST bridging program through email and was also posted to those students who were not able to access the online version of the survey. This paper presents and discusses the findings of the survey and the incorporation of the findings into the Information Literacy component of the Communications course in the WIST program. A factor analysis conducted on the survey data resulted in the Get SET for Study framework. The implications for course review and further development of communication and information literacy skills are discussed.
Incidents for reflection in research.
Hilary Hughes
Queensland University of Technology
Reflection is at the heart of lifelong learning. It enhances professional practice, information use and learning. It also helps us make sense of our daily lives. This paper explains how reflective approaches can also contribute to research. It draws on the author’s recent research study where critical incidents provide the focus of reflection for both the participants and the researcher. For the international students involved in this study, university assignments represent the critical incidents that trigger reflection on their use of online information resources for learning. The researcher develops insight into both the students’ experiences and her own learning by reflecting on critical incidents during this research journey.
Student journeys
With a little help from my friends: student journeys and women research higher degree students.
Kristy Richardson & Geraldine Neal
Central Queensland University;
Griffith University
Supervision is an intrinsic part of any RHD journey. This is evident by the number of texts that have been written on the effective practices of supervisors and students. One publication which identifies not only the importance of supervision but seeks to promote as a good practice interaction between student and supervisor is Melbourne U’s Eleven Practices of Effective Postgraduate Supervisors. The practices whilst discrete are collected in a form that mirrors the research journey: foundation, momentum and final stages. The literature suggests that positive supervisory practices have positive outcomes for RHD students. But does a negative supervisory experience produce a negative experience. Is a negative supervisory experience a barrier to learning? Little formal work in respect of Australian women has been done to enable us to better understand the ‘down side’ of supervision and what that means for the women involved and for their commitment to ongoing learning and creating new futures. The theoretical framework of Eleven Practices provided the basis of a research project which examined the effect of negative supervisory experiences on the lives of women who had undertaken RHD studies. The participants identified and reflected upon the absent/poorly managed supervisory practices in their individual RHD learning experiences. The women’s narratives opened up the diverse ways in which women had utilised supports in order to frame their futures and to achieve success.
The international L2 postgraduate experience of the academic essay: a learning journey.
Belinda Nicolson-Guest
Griffith University, Nathan campus
This paper reports on the findings of a Masters thesis which contributes to an understanding of international coursework postgraduate English-as-a-Second-Language (ICP-ESL) students’ experiences of the western academic essay. This small-scale study departs from the current emphasis on second language (L2) composing (reading, writing, thinking) as it takes a more holistic or ecumenical approach to the topic. The findings focus on three major themes – composing (reading, writing and thinking); academic literacy; and learning issues. This makes it possible to explore the student experience itself, the external cultural and contextual influences on the student, and effect of the student’s own broader orientation to learning. The first of the findings in the theme of composing indicate three distinct composing patterns in L2 composers and also point to strong associations between argument and evidence, and referencing and plagiarism. The findings in the theme of academic literacy show that L2 composers who identify changes in themselves and their essays as a result of increasing affiliation with the discourse community (the shift akin to an L2 writer identity) also recognised the importance of reciprocity and the associations between evidence, argument and appropriate acknowledgement. The findings in the theme of learning issues show how motivations, conceptions, approaches and orientations inter-relate and have an effect on the processes of the L2 composer. This group, in contrast to undergraduate and higher degree L2 students, has not attracted much specific attention. Only a brief trajectory of development as L2 composers is available to these coursework postgraduates. The holistic and exploratory nature of this study seeks to stimulate further research in the area of ICP-ESL students and to improve the quality of the support we can provide to them. It will be of interest to academics, librarians, learning advisers and policy makers in higher education.
International students: does attendance and involvement correlate with assessment performance?
David Hamilton, Leone Hinton & David Qia
Central Queensland University
This is an ongoing study probing the correlations between student demographics, attendance, satisfaction and results, for a selected student cohort offered at an Australian international campus university. The data provides a better understanding of our students’ background, motivation and attitudes in relation to their outcomes. Given emerging changes in modes of delivery and external pressures across the higher education sector, this presentation challenges teachers of international students to identify appropriate modes that better support high levels of satisfaction. Abstract Central Students in universities today have interests in their lives that compete for their time. Absenteeism or failure to attend class can result from a variety of competing commitments such as work, family, health, social and where a student finds they lack vital skills to function properly in class or where they fail to engage with the learning environment in class. We intuitively expect that good attendance will be necessary for sound results, yet research done by Rodgers and Rodgers (2001, 2002) and Gump (2005), for example, illustrates a lack of correlation between attendance and improved performance. This presentation is an ongoing study probing the correlations between student demographics, attendance, satisfaction and results. It focuses on 2 core courses in business programs offered at one of the Central Queensland University international campuses, that illustrates how analsyis and correlation of the data provides us with a better understanding of our international students’ motivation and attitudes in relation to their learning outcomes. The timeliness of this research is congruent with changes in the National Code of Practice for Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students (2006) that is focused on standards for student engagement, services, consumer satisfaction, visas and supportive educational resources. Given emerging changes in modes of delivery and external pressures across the higher education sector as highlighted by the National Code, this presentation highlights the challenges for teachers of international students in identifying appropriate models of delivery that better support higher levels of satisfaction and improved learning outcomes for such students. Audience Engagement This presentation will highlight to the audience an ongoing study about the analysis and correlation of international student demographics, attendance, satisfaction and results and illustrate the need for different modes of delivery in order to achieve positive learning outcomes in such student populations.
Stepping off into the unknown: framing external futures for a successful preparatory program.
Violeta Todorovic, Phillipa Sturgess & Geoff Danaher
Central Queensland University
This paper considers the ways in which the external cohort of Central Queensland University’s (CQU’s) STEPS preparatory program act as agents of change. Through the online discussion forum with appropriate lecturer support, the students practise self-reflection and generate a space to challenge the institutional rigidity of the university.
Lifelong learning
Reframing future lifelong learning discourses.
Gun Berglund
Umeå University, Sweden
This paper discusses if, and then how, we can think about present and future ideals such as a ‘healthy society’ consisting of successful ‘lifelong learners’, without excluding ‘others’? That is, how can we re-frame future lifelong learning as an inclusive discourse? Using foucauldian concepts of power/knowledge and governmentality, this study of Swedish, Australian and American policy documents identifies a number of discursive stories about the present in terms of how the ideal society and its ideal citizens are construed. A pervasive story in Western lifelong learning policy formation is that of ‘medicalization’ where the deviant is pathologised as an undesirable other in need of treatment and correction by professionals. As such stories of the present also envision and shape future discourses, researchers as well as practitioners should actively engage in discussions about how ‘things’ could be different.
Learning by men not in work: a review of research.
Barry Golding
University of Ballarat
This paper undertakes a research review of learning by men not in work. Despite relatively low unemployment levels in most developed countries in 2007, around one third of all men in such countries are not in the paid work force. Most are not unemployed but have withdrawn from the workforce, including but not restricted to men in age-related retirement. All six developed countries selected for the review are part of an in-progress international study and use English as one of their official languages. The review is considered timely with predictions of a significant increase in the proportion of men not in paid work (some of whom are unemployed, but most of whom are retired or not otherwise in the workforce) in countries with aging populations. It is also prompted by a realisation, mainly though recent Australian and UK research, that men not in work are more likely than other men not to have access to the critically important, recurrent learning, typically provided informally through work. The paper explores the implications of evidence that men not in paid work, particularly those with limited or negative experiences of formal learning, are difficult to engage in many existing forms of lifelong learning, including through adult and community education. They are also less likely to participate in or benefit from either formal education or training or learning for other purposes, including for enjoyment and recreation, unless it grounded in some form of practical, work-like activity. The paper examines the possible wider implications of new evidence from recent Australian research identifying the particular importance and positive value to such men, of informal learning through voluntary involvement in community contexts.
Conditions for lifelong learning.
Jacqueline McManus
University of New South Wales
The concept of lifelong learning requires that people are able to learn and are motivated to learn. Or at least, that the ability to learn, and the desire to learn are attributes that can be taught or encouraged. Literature on ‘generic’ skills and basic competencies, learning skills, and learning to learn (also referred to as self-regulation and self-directed learning) support these propositions. Yet, in my experience, people do not always continue to learn in the desired or even expected manner and/or use, demonstrate or benefit from what is learnt. My experience and research to date relates more particularly to learning at and for work. But clearly applies beyond the bounds of the workplace. Lifelong learning, I suggest, is also dependent on and can be encouraged through the development of certain conditions. These are necessary conditions for attracting a person’s attention to learning, enabling them to learn, and benefiting from what they learn. These conditions include awareness and understanding of both one’s self and their environment. Satisfaction of these conditions results in a person not only knowing how to learn and encouraging lifelong learning, but also benefiting more from what they learn. Collectively, I describe these conditions for lifelong learning as resulting in capacity. That is, capacity to learn and develop throughout life – be it at or for work, or in other realms of life. This paper introduces and explains these conditions for developing capacity and thus lifelong learning, based on an holistic approach to learning. Understanding learning in an holistic way provides a means for understanding the complex environment in which we operate and live, and in doing so we can see the reasons for a persons action or inaction, and consequently, conditions that must be present for lifelong learning.
Understanding the role of context in lifelong learning.
Catherine Down
Charles Sturt University
All learning occurs in a context. This context may be physical, social, psychological or, as Illeris (2002) argues, the tension caused by the juxtaposition of all three spheres of human experience. Yet, there is little written in educational literature about how the context shapes the learning and, by extension, how we can increase the potential of individuals to learn in a variety of contexts. This presentation draws on my recently completed PhD research in which I attempted to discover how practitioners understand the transfer of existing competence to new contexts and how this understanding shaped their own and their students’ learning. The presentation outlines some of the main findings of the project. In particular, it challenges the concept of generalisation as abstraction, arguing instead for Van Oer’s (1998) concept of embedding contexts and looks at changes we need to make to the metaphors of learning if we are to effectively integrate formal and experiential learning throughout our lives.
Illeris, K. (2002). The Three Dimensions of Learning: Contemporary learning theory in the tension field between the cognitive, the emotional and the social. Frederiksberg, Denmark, Roskilde University Press.
Van Oers, B. (1998). The fallacy of decontextualization. Mind, Culture and Activity 5: pp. 135-142.
