Massey Documents by Type
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/294
Browse
16 results
Search Results
Item Exploring the Complexity of First-Year Student Belonging in Higher Education: Familiarity, Interpersonal, and Academic Belonging(Queensland University of Technology, 2022-07-06) Kahu ER; Ashley N; Picton CBelonging is critical to first-year student success and persistence in higher education. However, differing definitions make it challenging to fully understand why belonging is significant. Foregrounding student voice, this research explored how first-year Australian university students talked about their belonging. Using Kahu and Nelson’s (2018) framework of student engagement as a lens, 18 students were interviewed weekly throughout the year. Students talked about belonging in three distinct but interrelated ways: familiarity, interpersonal belonging, and academic belonging. While all were important for student wellbeing and engagement, academic belonging, students’ sense that university, their discipline, and courses were “right” for them, was critical for perseverance. Unlike interpersonal belonging which tended to build through the year, academic belonging fluctuated for many students. The findings suggest framing belonging merely as about relationships limits understanding of this important construct. Contributing to scholarship by bringing a refreshed perspective to the nuances and complexity of belonging, the research suggests higher education providers need to monitor and foster academic belonging in first-year students.Item An exploration of course and cohort communication spaces in Discord, Teams, and Moodle(ASCILITE, 2022-12-30) Heinrich E; Thomas H; Kahu ERThis research examined the impact of supplementing a learning management system, Moodle, with communication tools, Discord and Teams, to support communication in blended and distance undergraduate courses in computer science, information technology, mathematics and statistics at a New Zealand university with well-established use of Moodle. Nineteen students participated in semi-structured interviews. Findings show that adding Discord or Teams increases information and knowledge exchange and helps students to connect with peers and teachers in their courses. Teams was beneficial particularly in settings with formal group work. Discord, which enables both students and staff to set up additional communication channels that are not restricted to course enrolments, was instrumental in connecting students across year levels with peers and alumni. This enabled discussions on course selection, career options and disciplinary topics beyond the course curriculum. Importantly, these beyond-course communication spaces nurtured belonging to wider discipline and study communities. The research establishes the importance of the increased levels of communication by highlighting the effects on student learning and connections to others. Looking beyond the specific tools, the level of formality and the degree of student co-ownership are identified as key factors in supporting the within- and beyond-course communication spaces. Implications for practice or policy: Learning management systems provide valuable course support but do not meet all learning and teaching communication needs, partly due to their formal and university-controlled nature. Educators and students benefit from using strong chat tools with improved information and knowledge exchange. Both educators and students experience enhanced belonging when using collaboration and chat tools. Students value Discord’s informality and student-led characteristics. Educators who use Teams to support formal group work must carefully manage integration with Moodle.Item “My Uni Experience Wasn’t Completely Ruined”: The Impacts of COVID-19 on the First-Year Experience(Queensland University of Technology, 2021-11) McKay L; O’bryan S; Kahu ERThe 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.Item Completing a PhD by publication: A rewarding and challenging choice(NZCER Press, 2014) Kahu ER; McMaster, C; Murphy, CItem ‘Hardworking, determined and happy’: first-year students’ understanding and experience of success(Taylor and Francis Group, 30/05/2018) Picton C; Kahu ER; Nelson KWhile all agree student success in higher education is important, there is less agreement on what it means to be a successful student. Student success is often measured by institutional reports of grades, student retention and qualification completion. More recently, broader definitions have emerged; however, these do not incorporate student perceptions of success. The current study addresses this gap by exploring how first-year students talk about their success. Drawing from weekly interviews of students at an Australian regional university, the data are analysed through the lens of a conceptual framework of student engagement. The findings demonstrate that success is inextricably linked with student engagement as well as other dimensions of the student experience. As expected, students assess their success extrinsically with institutional measures such as grades and feedback. In addition, their behavioural engagement was seen as a more immediate measure of their success, while happiness and satisfaction were necessary for some students to feel successful. Perceptions of success have important consequences for students in terms of increased positive emotions, self-efficacy and course belonging. Success for these students has multiple dimensions. These findings give rise to suggestions for a staged approach to supporting first-year student success. However, the student experience is complex and multifaceted and further research is needed with different student cohorts who may define and experience success in other ways.Item The benefits of good tutor-student relationships in the first year(2019-08) Kahu ER; Picton C© 2019, QUT Library. All rights reserved. Teacher-student relationships (TSR) are an important influence on the student experience at university. Existing research, predominantly with lecturers, highlights that these relationships have academic and affective dimensions. Studies demonstrate good TSR increase student motivation, engagement, and learning. The current study adds a student voice to this topic, focussing on their views of tutoring staff, who undertake much of the face-to-face teaching in universities. The qualitative study followed 19 students through their first year at an Australian university. The students identified four characteristics of a ‘good’ tutor: Helpful, caring, likeable, and hands-on. Students talked about multiple benefits of having a good tutor including increased help-seeking, studying harder, more interest in class, and improved wellbeing and belonging. The importance of the tutor role is underestimated and institutions would do well to better support these valuable staff.Item Pathways to engagement: a longitudinal study of the first-year student experience in the educational interface(Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2/07/2019) Kahu ER; Picton C; Nelson KStudent engagement is critical to success in the first year of university, yet evidence about how and why various factors influence engagement remains relatively rare. This study addresses this gap combining an existing framework of student engagement (Kahu and Nelson, Higher Education Research and Development, 37(1), 58–71, 2018) with student narratives to provide a detailed understanding of students’ engagement throughout their first year. Weekly semi-structured interviews with 19 first-year students at an Australian university illustrate how student and university factors interact to influence engagement, as conceptualised in the framework. The findings provide empirical support for the framework of student engagement, offering a more nuanced understanding of the student experience within the framework’s educational interface. The importance of self-efficacy, belonging, emotions and wellbeing as interwoven pathways to student engagement is demonstrated and the contextual and dynamic nature of engagement highlighted. Further work is necessary to understand how this knowledge can best facilitate student engagement and perhaps reduce cycles of disengagement.Item Engaging in spaces: How mature distance students fit study into their homes and lives(2/07/2013) Kahu ERIn order to fit study around family and work, a third of mature aged tertiary students in New Zealand study by distance. By enabling students to study when and where they want, distance study is said to overcome the barriers of space and time. But space and time must still be found and the blurring of the physical boundaries between study and home creates new challenges. While much has been written about how distance students juggle time, little has considered how they manage space; yet it is often the availability of an appropriate learning space that determines not just when and where they study, but the quality of their engagement. This qualitative study, following 19 mature aged distance students and their families through their first semester, examines how the students carved learning spaces from their busy lives, the nature of those spaces, and the impact this had on their engagement. For some, a space without other people was the essential characteristic and they achieved this through either a physical separation strategy such as studying at work, or a temporal separation strategy such as studying only when children were at school. For others, isolation was a barrier to their engagement and they gravitated to shared living spaces. Individual lifeload, context, and personal preference mean there are no right or wrong choices, but family support is a critical influence on the success of different strategies.Item Increasing the emotional engagement of first year mature-aged distance students: Interest and belonging(Queensland University of Technology, 8/08/2014) Kahu ERThis research followed 19 mature-aged distance students through their first semester of undergraduate study. The analysis of interviews and video diaries presented in this paper focuses on two key elements of emotional engagement: interest and belonging. Findings highlight the importance of interest triggered by personal preferences and experiences. Interest led to enjoyment, increased behavioural engagement with greater time and effort expended, and improved cognitive engagement in terms of depth and breadth of learning. In contrast, there was less evidence of the social side of emotional engagement, belonging. Participants felt little connection to the university, but connecting with fellow students through face-to-face courses and online forums was important for some to reduce their sense of isolation. However, distance study was not for all. The findings highlight the need for staff to consider emotional engagement when designing and delivering the curriculum and when interacting with students, particularly in the all-important first year.Item Using photo elicitation to understand first-year student experiences: Student metaphors of life, university and learning(29/02/2020) Kahu ER; Picton C© The Author(s) 2020. The transition from school to university is challenging and a greater knowledge of the first-year student experience will enable staff to better support their students. University- and government-run student surveys fail to capture the depth and breadth of the first-year experience and so qualitative research is needed to get a more nuanced and holistic understanding of students’ lives. The study described in this article used a photo elicitation method. We asked students to choose four images that represented their first year at university. The data – the chosen photographs and the students’ explanations of their choices – were thematically analysed, focusing in particular on the diverse metaphors students used to depict three dimensions of their experiences: life, university and learning. The findings highlight the dual nature of the transition to university – learning to be a university student and learning to be an adult – as well as the challenges and stresses of that process. The lack of agency that students felt is evident. The students likened their journey to a rollercoaster and talked of not being able to keep up with the fast-moving curriculum. They depicted themselves as passive acquirers of knowledge. The findings offer new ways for staff to understand the challenges that potentially disrupt student engagement in the first year. Both students and staff could benefit from recognising the metaphors in their thinking and, potentially, seeking new metaphors that might reveal different and more positive ways of experiencing the first year in higher education.
