{"title":"The Best Chance For All: A Policy Roadmap for Post-Pandemic Panic","authors":"S. Kift, N. Zacharias, M. Brett","doi":"10.5204/ssj.1782","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.1782","url":null,"abstract":"The Best Chance for All was developed in 2018 as a long-term policy vision for student equity in Australian tertiary education. We argue in this article that COVID-19 has exacerbated the issues that the policy vision sought to address and has increased demands on and of post-secondary education. Specifically, we argue that the magnitude of the social and economic challenges presented by COVID-19 warrants holistic policy responses that enable the transition to a connected tertiary education system; one designed to deliver choice and flexibility for lifelong learners. A roadmap for this transition exists in the form of The Best Chance For All. The vision can be actuated through demand driven funding arrangements across tertiary education that are coherently aligned to optimise the performance of both the higher and vocational education sectors and are underpinned by sustained investment in equity outreach and support.","PeriodicalId":43777,"journal":{"name":"Student Success","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44010891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Baumber, Lucy Allen, T. Key, G. Kligyte, J. Melvold, Susanne Pratt
{"title":"Teaching Resilience: Enabling Factors for Effective Responses to COVID-19","authors":"A. Baumber, Lucy Allen, T. Key, G. Kligyte, J. Melvold, Susanne Pratt","doi":"10.5204/ssj.1773","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.1773","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted higher education globally. Teaching staff have pivoted to online learning and employed a range of strategies to facilitate student success. Aside from offering a testing ground for innovative teaching strategies, the pandemic has also provided an opportunity to better understand the pre-existing conditions that enable higher education systems to be resilient - that is, to respond and adapt to disturbances in ways that retain the functions and structures essential for student success.\u0000This article presents a case study covering two transdisciplinary undergraduate courses at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. The results highlight the importance of information flows, feedbacks, self-organisation, leadership, openness, trust, equity, diversity, reserves, social learning and nestedness. These results show that resilience frameworks developed by previous scholars are relevant to university teaching systems and offer guidance on which system features require protection and strengthening to enable effective responses to future disturbances.","PeriodicalId":43777,"journal":{"name":"Student Success","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45226079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“My Uni Experience Wasn’t Completely Ruined”: The Impacts of COVID-19 on the First-Year Experience","authors":"L. McKay, Stephen M. O'Bryan, E. Kahu","doi":"10.5204/ssj.1762","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.1762","url":null,"abstract":"The first year at university is always challenging, but particularly in 2020 when COVID-19 triggered lockdowns and a rapid shift to online learning. This mixed methods study tracked the wellbeing and engagement of 60 new students in an undergraduate teacher education program at an Australian university throughout the first trimester of 2020. Follow-up focus groups with 14 students used interview and photo elicitation to explore how COVID-19 influenced wellbeing and engagement. Quantitative results demonstrate both student wellbeing and student engagement dipped strongly at the start of lockdown but recovered towards the end of the trimester. Focus group findings illustrate the diversity of experience in terms of student access to time and space to study, their ability to sustain relationships online, and the cumulative stress of COVID-19. The findings lead to recommendations for supporting this cohort and for future research.","PeriodicalId":43777,"journal":{"name":"Student Success","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41432140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Volume 12 Issue 2 2021","authors":"Karen Nelson, T. Creagh","doi":"10.5204/ssj.2059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.2059","url":null,"abstract":"After a COVID-induced postponement of the annual STARS Conference in 2020, the event bounced back, albeit virtually, in 2021. Over five days (5-9 July) the STARS community heard from four keynote speakers, participated in 65 concurrent presentations (Emerging Initiatives and Good Practice Reports) and enjoyed live poster sessions - all allowing online interaction between authors and delegates. The conclusion of the Conference saw a student panel of five students (see Feature) answer questions from the STARS community.","PeriodicalId":43777,"journal":{"name":"Student Success","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45068387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"PECS: An Evidence-Based Orientation Event Framework for Enhancing Students' Sense of Belonging","authors":"Rhys Cooper","doi":"10.5204/ssj.1906","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.1906","url":null,"abstract":"In 2020, staff at Griffith University, Australia used a best practice and evidence-informed orientation event framework to create the University’s first series of fully online, university-wide orientation sessions. The PECS design framework was created to ensure that orientation events at Griffith focused on developing students’ sense of belonging at their institution. For the first time, this framework was used as the foundation of the new “Griffith Welcome Sessions”. This study uses established qualitative methods to analyse 572 student surveys about the Griffith Welcome Sessions. It finds that the use of a PECS orientation design framework improved students’ orientation experience and helped them to develop a sense of connection at university. This study also establishes that the PECS-based orientation sessions remained a key driver for many students’ continued sense of belonging five weeks after the sessions were delivered. ","PeriodicalId":43777,"journal":{"name":"Student Success","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42882135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Balancing the COVID-19 Disruption to Undergraduate Learning and Assessment with an Academic Student Support Package: Implications for Student Achievement and Engagement","authors":"N. Lloyd, R. Sealey, M. Logan","doi":"10.5204/ssj.1933","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.1933","url":null,"abstract":"In response to the COVID-19 pandemic-induced emergency pivot to online teaching and assessment, an Academic Safety Net was implemented at a regional Australian university to provide academic student support. Bayesian hierarchical models were used to compare student performance between 2019 and 2020. More students withdrew from subjects in 2020, while fewer students remained enrolled but failed. While there was no overall year effect for overall student achievement, exam achievement increased and on-course assessment achievement decreased in 2020. When achievement was analysed according to an assessment task change, a year effect emerged, with the magnitude and direction of the effect dependent on the task changes. The results indicate that the enrolment component of the Academic Safety Net was an effective equity measure that enabled students an extended opportunity to self-withdraw in response to general impacts of the pandemic; while the results component protected the integrity of results awarded during the emergency pivot.","PeriodicalId":43777,"journal":{"name":"Student Success","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44678499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Piper A. Bell, Anna Wilkey, Farriz Roslan, L. James, Maxwell Willis, Alison Mander
{"title":"2021 STARS Conference: Student Plenary","authors":"Piper A. Bell, Anna Wilkey, Farriz Roslan, L. James, Maxwell Willis, Alison Mander","doi":"10.5204/ssj.2060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.2060","url":null,"abstract":"The Student Panel Session at the 2021 STARS Conference concluded the formal presentations for the event. At this session, students from the tertiary sector shared with delegates their personal experiences in higher education and thoughts concerning the messages and insights gained from the conference experience. The students had responded to an invitation from Student Voice Australia to participate in the conference, be part of the Panel, and were encouraged to attend the keynote presentations across the event. Delegates had the opportunity to present questions to the students. For the purposes of this feature, the editors have summarised and edited the transcript to present the key points of each discussion, including questions and comments from delegates. Panel members have approved the editorial interpretations of their comments.","PeriodicalId":43777,"journal":{"name":"Student Success","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44203710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“A Stepping Stone That Just Pushed Me Further Into Wanting to Go to University”: Student Perspectives on ‘What Works’ for Effective Outreach Strategies for Indigenous Students","authors":"Katelyn Barney, H. Williams","doi":"10.5204/ssj.1913","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.1913","url":null,"abstract":"In Australia, there are numerous outreach initiatives run by universities for Indigenous high school students that attempt to elevate aspirations of Indigenous students to go to university. The theoretical case for these initiatives is strong as much data exists surrounding the barriers Indigenous students face in entering university. However, the research and evidence base for these equity programs remains largely underdeveloped and limited (Bennett et al., 2015). Drawing on findings from interviews with Indigenous university students as part of a National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE) Equity Fellowship, this paper identifies what works and what areas to strengthen in Indigenous specific outreach programs. The paper concludes by discussing the development of strategies and resources to build the evidence base of effective outreach activities for Indigenous students.","PeriodicalId":43777,"journal":{"name":"Student Success","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43659089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jill Lawrence, Alice V. Brown, P. Redmond, S. Maloney, Marita Basson, Linda Galligan, Joanna Turner
{"title":"Does Course Specific Nudging Enhance Student Engagement, Experience and Success?: A Data-Driven Longitudinal Tale","authors":"Jill Lawrence, Alice V. Brown, P. Redmond, S. Maloney, Marita Basson, Linda Galligan, Joanna Turner","doi":"10.5204/ssj.1914","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.1914","url":null,"abstract":"Low levels of online student engagement impact negatively on student success and adversely affect attrition. Course learning analytics data (CLAD), combined with nudging initiatives, have emerged as strategies for engaging online students. This paper presents a mixed method case study involving a staged intervention strategy focussing on the employment of timely, strategic communication interventions conducted across 19 courses and six disciplines. The research methodology utilised CLAD, online surveys, student interviews and student evaluations of teaching. The findings substantiate benefits for both academics and students. Academics benefitted from the provision of a relatively simple, accessible and proactive intervention for increasing students’ capacities to be more in control and engaged in their learning. Students benefitted as the intervention accentuated critical resources to assist them to better address assessment requirements, align their expectations more realistically with those of the course, and more readily demonstrate their learning obligations and responsibilities.","PeriodicalId":43777,"journal":{"name":"Student Success","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44391691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Shining a Light” on Mature-Aged Students In, and From, Regional and Remote Australia","authors":"N. Crawford, S. Emery","doi":"10.5204/ssj.1919","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.1919","url":null,"abstract":"This article shines a light on a little-known cohort of higher education participants, mature-aged students in, and from, regional and remote Australia – the focus of a National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education mixed-methods study. Notable patterns were found in the quantitative data; for instance, compared to their metropolitan counterparts, higher proportions of regional and remote students were older, female, from low socio-economic status areas, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and studied online and/or part-time. The presentation of four vignettes from the interviews uncovers the stories behind the numbers, revealing students’ diverse and complex circumstances; two of the students shared experiences of facing systemic obstacles, while the other two described receiving invaluable institutional support. The obstacles can be attributed to systems designed for “ideal”, “implied” and “traditional” students, and entrenched attitudes that privilege some “types” of students over others and limit the aim of full participation for all students.","PeriodicalId":43777,"journal":{"name":"Student Success","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48085673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}