Enhancing Frameworks for Assuring the Quality of Teaching in University Offshore Programmes

Author(s):

Tania Aspland(presenting / submitting)Tom O'Donoghue(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 06 A, Teaching, Learning and Assessment in Higher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-11

15:30-17:00

Room:

STD-301

Chair:

Antonia Scholkmann

Contribution

The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the enhancement of the quality of teaching and learning in offshore education programmes of universities by:

analysis a database of international and national policy documents, empirical studies and quality assurance frameworks relating to such programmes;
reporting on an empirically-based qualitative study of the perspectives of key academic stakeholders on the delivery of transnational programmes ; and
developing a framework for future businees in transnational teaching.

The empirical study was designedwithin the qualitative tradition of social science research was undertaken to provide:

(a) a set of case studies providing rich portrayals of the findings at each of the sites to be investigated, with particular reference to ‘giving voice’ to the stakeholders interviewed; and

(b) a set of generalisation from the case studies to inform practice.

The corpus of data was produced by pursuing the following three main research questions:

(i.) What are the perspectives of key academic stakeholders on what constitutes a quality university off-shore programme, with particular reference to quality learning and teaching?;

(ii.) What are their perspectives on the issues involved in the delivery of quality university off-shore programmes, with particular reference to quality learning and teaching?; and

(iii.) How do they ‘respond in the light of their perspectives to’ the various issues that arise for them in providing quality university offshore programmes, with particular reference to learning and teaching?

Method

The study is shaped by the social theory of ‘symbolic interactionism’. This theory is appropriate for underpinning projects aimed at generating rich data of the type sought here (O’Donoghue, 2007, pp. 21-25). Its central tenet is that in order to understand social reality, one has to study how individuals see, define, interpret and consequently respond to situations in the world around them. The three central research questions are based on two core concepts within symbolic interactionism, namely, ‘perspectives’ and ‘respond to’. A ‘perspective’, the core concept in the first two research questions, is defined as a framework through which people make sense of the world (Woods, 1992). ‘Frameworks’, in this sense, have the following interrelated components (O’Donoghue, 2007, p. 38): 1. participants’ intentions and the reasons they give for having these intentions; 2. participants’ strategies for realising their intentions and the reasons they give for utilising these strategies; 3. the significance which participants attach to their intentions and strategies, and the reasons they give for this; and 4. the outcomes which participants expect to result from their actions and the reasons they give for this

Expected Outcomes

The outcomes includre: a.a database of international and national policy documents, empirical studies and quality assurance frameworks relating to such programmes; b.a set of case studies on the perspectives of key academic stakeholders on the delivery of such programmes c a framework for quality assurance for transnational teaching by all universities; and for conducting professional development programmes for those working transnationally.

References

O’Donoghue,T. A. (2007) Planning Your Qualitative Research Project: An Introduction to Interpretivist Research in Education (London: Routledge, 2007). Punch, K. (2000) Introduction to Social Research (London: Sage). Pyvis D. and Chapman A. (2004) Student Experiences of Offshore Education: Issues for Quality, Australian University Quality Agency (AUQA) Occasional Publications Series, No.2. Chapman, A. and Pyvis, D. (2005) ‘Identity and social practice in higher education: Student experiences of postgraduate courses delivered ‘offshore’ in Singapore and Hong Kong by an Australian university’, International Journal of Educational Development, 25(1), pp. 39-52.

Author Information

Tania Aspland (presenting / submitting)

University of Adelaide

School of Education

Adelaide

Tom O'Donoghue (presenting)

The University of Western Australia

Graduate School of Education

Perth

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