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Vol. 6 No. 1 (2009)

Published: 1 January 2009

Articles

  • Editorial 6.1

    Geraldine E. Lefoe

    Welcome to the first issue of Volume Six of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice. This issue contains six papers exploring a range of issues relating to teaching and learning practice and marks my first issue as Senior Editor. I would like to extend our thanks to Associate Professor Helen Carter, who has been Senior Editor of JUTLP since its inception and contributed significantly to the establishment of the journal. This edition also marks a significant change for the organisation of the journal as it is now published through an automated system providing authors, reviewers and editors with up to date information on the submission and review process, allowing authors to track their article through to publication.

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  • What is a Sociologist doing in a School of Management?' Reflections on the Use of Sociological Concepts in Management Education

    Fernanda Duarte

    Written from an auto-biographic perspective, this paper is based on reflections and insights arising from a journey of adaptation by a ‘sociologist-teaching-in-a-school-of-management’. These reflections unveil the relevance to management studies of four interrelated conceptual tools: critical thinking, reflection, reflexivity and the sociological imagination. Examples of scaffolding activities and class exercises are provided throughout the paper to illustrate the usefulness of these concepts in management teaching.

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  • First year student expectations: Results from a university-wide student survey

    Geoffrey Crisp, Edward Palmer, Deborah Turnbull, Ted Nettelbeck, Lynn Ward, Amanda LeCouteur, Aspa Sarris, Peter Strelan, Luke Schneider

    Although much has been written on the first-year experience of students at higher education institutions, less attention has been directed to the expectations of students when they enter an institution for the first time. This paper provides additional insights into the expectations of students at an Australian university and highlights areas in which students’ expectations may not necessarily align with the realities of common university practices. By providing opportunities for students to articulate their expectations, staff are able to use the responses for a constructive dialogue and work towards a more positive alignment between perceived expectations and levels of student satisfaction with their experience.

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  • Active Tasks to Change the Use of Class Time within an Outcomes Based Approach to Curriculum Design

    Dr Diane Salter, Dr Marco Y.C. Pang, Dr Piyush Sharma

    This paper describes how new roles for instructors and learners can be integrated into course design and delivery by rethinking course design as part of a process-based staff development program. The goal of incorporating online learning tasks was to engage students with course resources prior to class time through active learning. The staff development program guided faculty to consider ways to ‘rethink’ the use of student and teacher time to engage students in learning tasks to prepare for class time. In this way, students were able to use class time for active discussion rather than listening to a traditional lecture in the classroom. This paper reports on the overall results of this project and provides specific suggestions on how teachers can consider technology options within an outcomes-based approach to curriculum design.

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  • Intercultural interpretations: making public relations education culturally relevant

    Joy Chia

    Public relations educators delivering courses to international students find that each cohort of students interprets and understands public relations theory and its application to practice according to their respective cultures. The premise of this paper is to reflect on some of the interpretations and expectations of public relations students enrolled in postgraduate master classes from 2003 to 2007 in Singapore, Malaysia and Australia, at the University of South Australia. The Australian masters’ classes include cohorts of international students from diverse cultures. This paper suggests that public relations educators need to adapt their style of delivery and methods of assessment to facilitate optimum engagement of diverse groups of students taking account their varied political, religious and social backgrounds that shape their thinking and perception of public relations theory and practice.

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  • A model for determining student plagiarism: Electronic detection and academic judgement

    Tracey Bretag, Saadia Mahmud

    This paper provides insights based on the authors’ own practice as university instructors, researchers and arbitrators of student plagiarism. Recognising the difficulty in defining plagiarism while still acknowledging the practical importance of doing so, the authors find the common element between the various types of plagiarism to be the lack of appropriate attribution to the original source. The use of electronic text-matching software to detect different types of plagiarism is explored, and a model presented for identifying potential plagiarism in students’ work. The authors conclude that despite its shortcomings, electronic detection in combination with manual analysis, nuanced academic judgement and clear processes provide the means to determine if plagiarism has occurred.

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  • Predicting Satisfaction with Group Work Assignments

    Jane Burdett, Brianne Hastie

    Universities are increasingly using group based assessment tasks; however, as with workplace teams, such tasks often elicit mixed feelings from participants. This study investigated factors that may predict student satisfaction with group work at university. Final-year business students completed a questionnaire addressing experiences of group work. Quantitative and qualitative data suggest that the major barrier to students’ group work satisfaction was workload issues. Conversely, perceptions of learning and feelings of group-based achievement contributed most to satisfaction. Knowledge of predictors of satisfaction allows teaching staff to identify potential problems in groups, and improve the quality of the group work experience.

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