Tag: research

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‘SERPS Up’: Support, Engagement and Retention of Postgraduate Students – a model of postgraduate support

Authors: Margaret Alston, Juliane Allan, Karen Bell, Andy Brown, Jane Dowling, Pat Hamilton, Jenny McKinnon, Noela McKinnon, Rol Mitchell, Kerri Whittenbury, Bruce Valentine, Alison Wicks, and Rachael Williams; Charles Sturt University

Edition: Volume 45, Number 2, July 2005

Summary:  The federal government’s 1999 White Paper Knowledge and Innovation: a policy statement on research and research training, notes concerns about retention and completion rates in doctoral studies programs in Australia. This paper outlines a model of higher education support developed at the Centre for Rural Social Research at Charles Sturt University. The postgraduate student body in the Centre represent the most vulnerable to attrition – mostly female and mature-aged, a majority studying at a distance and part-time, and most with family and work responsibilities. The program developed in the Centre – the SERPS model (Support, Engagement and Retention of Postgraduate Students) – has seen a significant  rise in the number of students studying through the Centre and significantly high retention and completion rates. This paper outlines the model as well as the results of an evaluation of the model conducted with students in the Centre. This paper indicates that retention (and ultimately completion) is linked to the vibrancy of the learning and social support networks established for the students and the creation of a collegial culture.

Keywords: White Paper, Knowledge, Innovation, research, doctoral, retention, completion

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‘Trying to keep up’: The experience of combining full-time VET with work

Author: Michelle Morris: Student Services, TAFE SA Regency Campus

Edition: Volume 53, Number 1, April 2013

Summary: Maintaining a healthy work-life relationship is important for the health and wellbeing of individuals and families. This is also true for students studying in vocational education and training(VET) who face increasing pressure to combine study and work. The intersecting commitments of work, life and study create a range of demands for individuals, which, in turn, impede work-life satisfaction. Time and money have been shown to be the biggest factors affecting people who combine work and VET – particularly for workers in low-income jobs, which constitute the biggest employment source for VET students. Data from a research project at TAFESA indicates that working students experience high levels of stress, time strain and interference with activities outside work/ TAFE. The work life outcomes for full-time students are significantly worse than outcomes for workers in the general population.

Keywords: full-time, work-life, balance, VET, research, TAFESA

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 53_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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Getting connected: insights into social capital from recent adult learning research

Author/s: Barry Golding

Edition: Volume 47, Number 1, April 2007

Summary: This paper begins by teasing out the nature of social capital and its particular and current relevance to adult learning policy and practice in Australia. The paper identifies a number of benefits and significant problems with social capital as an organising construct for adult learning research and policy in Australia. Some connections are made between social capital and lifelong learning, and important distinctions are drawn between ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ social capital. I draw on my experiences and insights over the past seven years using network diagrams as a research tool. Network diagrams are identified as a useful tool for charting relationships between learning organisations and individuals. The paper suggests ways of using the network relationships in these diagrams as a proxy for social capital in a range of formal and informal settings in which adult learning occurs in Australia. Network diagrams are seen to have particular utility in situations where communities and organisations become too small for surveys, where relationships become complex and ambiguous as well as in rural and remote communities where distance and spatial relationships affect access to learning.

Keywords: social capital, adult learning, policy, practice, research, lifelong learning

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