No End of a Lesson by Stuart MacIntyre

Author:Stuart MacIntyre [MacIntyre, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780522871906
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
Published: 2017-01-15T07:00:00+00:00

The student experience

This second project investigated the experiences of undergraduates as they adjusted to life on campus. Survey responses were obtained in mid-1994 from more than 4000 first-year students at seven institutions and supplemented by interviews with students and staff. The results were disturbing. Barely half the students surveyed found their subjects interesting or thought the lecturers were enthusiastic in presenting them. A quarter of the students failed to make friends, took no part in extracurricular activities and felt very uncomfortable participating in class. Slightly over a third gave serious thought to deferring their studies.47

The progress of students through their courses was a subject of longstanding concern. Progress was measured by calculating the proportion of students who successfully completed their subjects in a given year, and the national progress rate remained stable at 84 per cent in 1987 and 85 per cent in 1996 (although there was significant variation between courses, institutions and modes of study). But in addition to the students who failed to progress, others discontinued their studies; hence there was a lower retention rate: 78 per cent in 1996. CTEC’s review of Efficiency and Effectiveness in 1986 had noted that many students, particular part-time and external ones, withdrew before they completed their courses because they had gained the knowledge they were seeking. While it might have been possible to increase the efficiency of higher education (as measured by expenditure per graduate) by reducing the intake of such students, that would come at the expense of participation and equity.48 The mood in the 1990s was more stringent. John Dawkins had set an increase in the number of graduates as a principal objective of the Unified National System, and this required ensuring that inputs resulted in outputs. Universities were expected to reduce wastage.

The problem of engagement that McInnis and James identified, however, was concentrated among school-leavers. The part-time and mature-age students in their sample had a stronger purpose, took greater interest in their courses, were more positive about the teaching, studied more consistently and found the workload more manageable. Among the two-thirds who had completed Year 12 studies in the previous year, it was perhaps not surprising that females adapted to university better than males; but the finding that students from government schools and those with parents who did not have a degree applied themselves with greater purpose was arresting. The male undergraduate who came from a fee-paying school and a more educated family background, for so long over-represented in the Australian university, seemed to find the transition more difficult by the 1990s.49

A feeling of disappointment, aimlessness and disengagement among young people who embarked on university studies was not new. The cover of a student handbook produced for orientation week in 1974 drew on the absurdist humour of the BBC’s endlessly replayed Goon Show: ‘Neddy Seagoon—What are you doing here? Eccles—Everybody’s got to be somewhere’, and the handbook’s editorial reproduced the blunt warning erected alongside the country’s first freeways—‘Wrong Way/Go Back’.50 Such mockery was discouraged in the Unified National System, and expectations were higher.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.