Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    Malaysian higher education and the United States as a model: policy borrowing or policy learning?
    Abdullah, Arnida ( 2013)
    Higher education plays an important role in many developing countries. Graduates are being equipped with professional knowledge and skills to fulfil the demands of the labour market in a knowledge economy. Developing countries tend to adopt models of higher education organization from developed nations, especially those that are world leaders. Progress in science and technology and national wealth itself point to the success of these systems and suggest that they represent a suitable and feasible path to take. Malaysia is amongst those developing nations that have looked to advanced economies to provide a model of mass higher education which would raise educational levels and national income. But has a process of policy-borrowing achieved both the growth and the equity that governments have promised? Has the expansion and diversification of higher education in Malaysia created more equitable access for all students in order to ensure that increased higher education is undertaken by a wide range of population who have the ability and motivation to succeed? This study aims to contribute to policy learning in higher education in the developing world (as distinct from uncritical policy borrowing). It focuses on Malaysia’s efforts to learn from the US experience. The findings of this study may assist the Malaysian policy makers in designing new improved policies to widen access in higher education and to further strengthen Malaysian higher education sector. In the first section of this thesis, a review is made of US efforts to expand higher education, while improving equity. Two barriers to participation in higher education – school dropout rates and low achievement among young people who do graduate – are examined in greater detail. This then leads to a key discussion on the types of higher educational institutions in the US, their enrolment patterns and the challenges faced by each institution. At the end of this section, the findings that developing countries can learn from the United States’ experience are highlighted. In the second section, the study focuses on Malaysia. It starts with historical overview pre independence, focusing on economic, social and educational developments. The growth and structural transformation of the Malaysian economy are also examined and compared with educational attainment. Trends in primary and secondary public education expansion and challenges facing this public system are then discussed, leading to a detailed discussion on the development of the Malaysian public and private tertiary education sector. The findings presented in this study show that the challenge for Malaysia is not to become like the USA, but to learn from the US experience and to develop its own strategic plans for higher education that fit with the social and economic needs of the country. The study suggests policy directions to making higher education in Malaysia more effective and equitable, which includes strengthening and improving Malaysia’s public schools, enhancing the quality of higher education and assisting students from disadvantaged families. Such initiatives may assist Malaysia to become the best provider of higher education in the South East Asian region and a high-income developed country by the year 2020.
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    The aspiring spires: momentum and the status university
    Leihy, Peodair Seamus ( 2013)
    Higher education is in many respects governed by market relations and state direction; in some ways, however, it is not. In prestige, it falls back on an elusive force. The university is entrepreneurial, and it is public spirited, and it is also itself. According to perceptions of how much of a university a university is, it is able to relay credibility. Rankings and taxonomical mapping may come at this nebulous prestige from more solid data, including the tracing of market performance and state backing. Crucially, though, it is prestige that any ranking hoping to gauge the calibrations of trust and belief is after, whether prestige already detected or that anticipated according to momentum. Aware of this, inasmuch as an organization can think, the status university continues to grow as a magnet for competitive but remarkably peaceable human endeavour, and as a major junction for the forces of civil religion. The thesis seeks to update the appraisal of the highly evolved sense of status in universities and in progressively expanded higher education systems, and to deepen appreciation of the energy and history with which they swell.
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    Building university research capacity in Vietnam: prospects, problems and possibilities
    Nguyen, Thi Lan Huong ( 2013)
    There has been an absence of research on university research capacity building, particularly in developing country contexts. To narrow this research gap, this thesis aims to: (i) identify the essentials of building university research capacity; (ii) evaluate critically the extent to which these essentials have been embraced by four selected leading Vietnamese universities; (iii) recommend policies, processes, and strategies to enhance these universities’ research capacity and performance. Taking a qualitative, case-study approach, this study uses semi-structured interviews as the primary method for data collection. The study interviews 64 participants, of whom 55 are from within four selected leading Vietnamese universities and nine are external stakeholders. The study identified five key empirical findings in accordance with five domains of university research capacity building. First, in terms of research resources, the four universities lacked adequate research related human resources, infrastructure, and funding. Second, in organizing and structuring research, ideally, a university should manage both visible and intangible organizational tasks. In practice, the four universities focused mostly on completing an organizational chart for research. They seemed to neglect most of the other underlining structural issues. Third, regarding research related HR policies, in theory, universities should employ various strong HR policies in recruiting, developing, assessing, and rewarding academics. In practice, to a certain extent, the four universities recognized their academics’ research activities. However, their policies did not adequately encourage academics to maximize their research potential. Fourth, in terms of research management plans, it is argued that universities should develop an institutional interlocking and integrated research strategy. In practice, the four case-study universities hardly managed research strategically. They developed research plans only for the purpose of obtaining external block-grant funding, not for guiding future action. Finally, regarding research culture, universities should develop shared underlying organizational assumptions supporting research. The four universities failed to fully achieve this goal. Overall, their institutional research development was in its infancy. To enhance the universities’ research capacity and performance, this study suggests that changes should take place at a number of levels. At the system level, the government should (1) provide more funding for university operational expenditure and research; (2) use research performance-based tools in allocating research funding; and (3) confer a higher level of autonomy on the universities, especially in the areas of finance and human resources (HR) management. At the institutional level, the four universities should (1) enrich research resources; (2) create a more professionalized system of organizing research; (3) design a well-supported career development path for research-oriented academics; (4) clearly define institutional research objectives; and (5) translate these espoused objectives into concrete organizational actions. This study provides rich empirical data on research capacity building at four leading Vietnamese universities and suggests a model for enhancing these universities’ research capacity and performance. This knowledge is useful not only for these four case-study Vietnamese universities but also for any other university in a similar development context requiring tools and resources for building research capacity.
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    The challenges of academic leadership in Korean higher education
    KIM, DONG KWANG ( 2013)
    In recent years, South Korean higher education has been transformed from a system driven by traditional humanist values to a system that is now highly commercialized. This has given rise to numerous challenges of academic leadership faced by the deans of faculties at both public and private universities in Korea. This thesis addresses three key research questions: ‘What challenges do Korean deans face?; ‘How do Korean deans interpret these challenges?’; and ‘How do Korean deans respond to these challenges?’ The thesis addresses these questions through accounts the deans themselves provide of their lived experiences of policy and practice, particularly with respect to the demands of academic leadership. The thesis takes a hermeneutical, phenomenological approach to research, involving attempts to listen empathetically to the deans’ narratives of their feelings and understandings. An analysis of these narratives reveals that, particularly in wake of recent New Public Management-inspired reforms in Korea, the key challenges that the deans face may be clustered around issues of governance; autonomy and authority; and how to interpret and enact the requirements of effectiveness. It also suggests that for these deans one of the major tasks of academic leadership is to reconcile the potentially competing values that these challenges represent. I argue that their attempts at this reconciliation involve a complex assemblage of new managerialism and commercialization, as well as retaining a commitment to traditional academic values.
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    Journeys to university and arrival experiences: a study of non-traditional students transitions at a new Australian university
    Funston, J. Andrew ( 2011)
    The broad context for this study is the rapid shift in recent decades from elite to mass Higher Education in Australia, and new government policies and institutional strategies which are geared to building university graduate numbers and increasing successful participation by working-class and other non-traditional students in degree courses. This study of a cohort of commencing humanities students at a new university aimed to produce a more in-depth and holistic account of non-traditional students’ transitions in Higher Education in Australia than is available through large-scale survey-driven reports or available through studies focused on curriculum matters; notwithstanding the valuable contribution to knowledge made by many of these studies and reports. This is a mixed-method study weighted towards the analysis of 33 students’ biographical stories produced through in-depth interviews and contextualised by survey results and other data. The study investigated the students’ social and family backgrounds, their educational experiences prior to coming to university, their aspirations and career goals, their dispositions towards Higher Education and their preparedness for degree level studies on arrival. It also investigated the daily lives of these students in the early weeks and months of their time at university, and investigated on-campus and off-campus matters impacting or intruding on their first-year studies including financial worries, paid-work commitments and household duties. And it explored how students were dealing with the difficulties they faced, and the resources they were bringing to meet various challenges. In seeking to understand the wider context or backdrop to these students’ experiences and perspectives the study drew on strands of youth sociology concerned with persistent inequalities amidst rapid social change, non-linear life-course transitions, and pressures on young people to produce their own biographies. In seeking to understand the nature of people’s class-based relationships with educational institutions and practices, and education’s role in social reproduction, the study drew on work by Pierre Bourdieu and some scholars who draw on and critique his ideas. The thesis foregrounds a framework which draws on theories and concepts from critical social psychology – including the work of academic Margaret Wetherell and therapist Michael White – concerned with the transformative potential of biographical reflexivity and narrative practice. This framework aligns to the narrative research method of using in-depth interviews to produce biographical stories about people’s lives in education.The study found that the majority of these non-traditional students at a new university had strong educational aspirations and clear career goals, were socially and intellectually engaged and satisfied with their courses, felt well supported by families and by the institution, and were generally enjoying successful Higher Education transitions, despite various difficulties and challenges most faced on-campus and off-campus. The study also argued that students’ reflexive capacities and their use of ‘narrative as a discursive resource’ (Taylor 2006) seemed to be contributing to their production of learner identities, including a strong sense of belonging in Higher Education. Several interviewees described ‘finding themselves’ through participation in Higher Education. Overall, conceptually, this study brings some new questions to analyse the contemporary relevance of arguments about working-class people ‘losing themselves’ in Higher Education. The study’s analysis and presentation of non-traditional students’ successful first-year university transitions at a new university supports the view that there is in Australia a changing relationship of working-class people to Higher Education; a field which remains beset by inequalities but one which has become literally and culturally more accessible. This accessibility is evidenced in the collective stories produced here and more generally in the take up by working-class people of the new places and opportunities which have become available in the current political climate.
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    The structuring of knowledge for interdisciplinary teaching in higher education
    MILLAR, VICTORIA ( 2011)
    This study investigates and compares teaching within both disciplinary and interdisciplinary subjects at the higher education level. Interdisciplinary subjects are increasingly being offered within university curricula in response to a range of stakeholders both internal and external to the university system (Holmwood, 2010). Seen to expose students to complex problems that cross disciplinary boundaries, they are also considered beneficial as it is believed they provide students with a range of skills necessary to succeed in society and in the workplace (Frodeman et al., 2010). Interdisciplinarity and disciplinarity are often presented as disparate (Moore, 2010) and so the introduction of interdisciplinary subjects is seen as an alternative to discipline–based subjects. However, there has been little research investigating the nature of knowledge that is taught in interdisciplinary subjects and whether this form of teaching differs from that in discipline–based subjects. This study explores the differences between teaching in these two contexts by investigating whether and how academics within a university structured around the disciplines change their teaching for the interdisciplinary context and in particular how they perceive knowledge in these two teaching environments. This research employs a qualitative case study approach, drawing on interviews with six experienced academics from The University of Melbourne, Australia, a university that has recently undergone major curriculum reform. The academics come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds allowing for diversity in the data. At the time the interviews were conducted, interdisciplinary subjects had been part of the university curriculum for one year. This study, therefore, presents a snapshot of interdisciplinary teaching for these academics after this first year. The theoretical framework for the research draws on Shulman’s (1986; 1987) idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Bernstein’s theoretical ideas of the pedagogic device and knowledge structures (Bernstein, 2000) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) (Maton, 2000, 2007, 2009). This study reveals that there is a shift in academics’ teaching practice for the interdisciplinary context. Teaching in interdisciplinary subjects is shown to be influenced by a number of complex factors that are determined by the academics’ background, the setting in which interdisciplinary subjects occur and the nature of interdisciplinary knowledge itself. The most significant contribution this thesis makes to an understanding of interdisciplinary teaching is its discussion of the role of knowledge, knowledge structures and the knower in determining what is taught. Interdisciplinary studies that focus on a particular problem or context, such as climate change, place a stronger emphasis on developing a particular type of knower and ways of knowing while at the same time reducing the value placed on students developing an understanding of particular content knowledge. This is attributed to the manner in which the disciplines that make up an interdisciplinary subject contribute their knowledge. The study also shows that in translating knowledge for interdisciplinary teaching that some of the subtleties of disciplinary knowledge are lost and so the same topic taught in an interdisciplinary subject will not have the same depth as when taught in a discipline–based subject. These findings have a number of implications for universities incorporating interdisciplinary subjects in their curricula. While the content and skills that students are taught in interdisciplinary subjects can be seen as beneficial they are different to those in discipline–based subjects. It is argued here that in order to maintain the depth of knowledge that comes with discipline based teaching and the breadth that is associated with interdisciplinary teaching, interdisciplinary and disciplinary subjects need to be included within university curriculum for complimentary rather than opposing reasons.
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    Plagiarism in higher education: confronting the policy dilemma
    Grigg, Gabrielle Anne ( 2010)
    Plagiarism is a problem that all universities have to address, not only to maintain academic standards, but also to maintain institutional reputation and confidence in the tertiary sector. In a global context of massification combined with competition for students, government funding, and income, these are crucial concerns. Policy is a central avenue for defining acceptable behaviour and for signalling that institutions are prepared to deal with activities contravening their expectations. However, plagiarism presents distinct challenges for policy, many of which arise from its amorphous nature. This study analyses the language, content and structure of policy according to the principles of social constructionism, using policy documentation related to student plagiarism from all 39 Australian universities. It is the first comprehensive, sector-wide survey of policy on plagiarism that also provides detailed analysis of depictions of plagiarism. This research shows the ways in which plagiarism is depicted as a problem for universities, and thus develops new insights into the relationship between conceptualisations of plagiarism as an offence and institutional responses to cases of plagiarism. The linguistic analysis approach of Appraisal is used as a device to analyse selected sections of policy documentation. These data are supplemented by interviews with people experienced in formulating and implementing policy on plagiarism. The study found that policy attributes multiple causes to unintentional plagiarism: misunderstanding; lack of knowledge; and carelessness. While it is acknowledged that there may be contributing factors, intentional plagiarism is attributed solely to student choice. Moreover, plagiarism is commonly depicted as an offence. Student intention is the key criterion for determining the severity, and the intensity of response, for any specific instance of plagiarism, although policy does not always express this explicitly. There is variation across the sector in the key criteria presented in policy. This thesis concluded that institutional policy acknowledges the complexity of plagiarism in its range of criteria and possible responses to individual cases. However, depicting minor and/or unintentional plagiarism as an offence may have some undesirable consequences for teaching and learning. This study offers broad recommendations for policy in minimising the predominating depiction of plagiarism as an offence; for approaching the criteria by which the severity of instances of plagiarism and the intensity of the institutional response to these cases are assessed; and for acknowledging the different contexts of coursework and research students.
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    Pedagogical practices and adult learners’ professional formations: a multiple-case study within a Malaysian university
    Baba, Jamiah ( 2010)
    With the belief that the quality of the workforce can be improved by increasing the number of those with tertiary qualification in the workforce, higher education in Malaysia has been entrusted by the government to help develop the needed human capital. Among the many public universities, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) confronts greater challenges due to its special mission to overcome the shortage of Bumiputera [‘sons of the soil’] manpower at the professional level. The thesis sought to examine professional formations as these are constructed through transitional experiences of adult learners moving between higher education and employment. It also investigates how pedagogical practices in Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Malaysia impact upon these experiences. A multiple-case study utilised quantitative and qualitative methods in five different programmes. The findings were derived from questionnaires, interviews, and classroom observations, which involved ten lecturers, and five groups of learners. Five practising professionals were also interviewed to explore what they do at work, and their views of UiTM graduates. The findings show that the learners’ professional identities were variably formed, with age, quality of experience, and qualification as important markers. The learners’ work experiences were helpful as these experiences helped connect theoretical knowledge to their everyday lives and professional practices. Depending on the engagement, their studies and work had reinforced their knowledge and had been beneficial in many aspects, in a symbiotic relationship which suggests the relevance of different ways of ‘knowing’. Another significant finding is that lengthy engagement with practice is required for professional learning and for becoming an expert, as lifelong experience plays an important role in doing work successfully. Through its findings, the thesis recommends changes in policy and practices so as to provide more relevant and responsive educational opportunities for adults in institutions of higher learning.