PRAR / CARN 2005 Conference, 4-6 November 2005. Utrecht, The Netherlands

Using Action Research to address questions of quality in the African campus of an international university a

Judy Backhousea and Claudia Holgateb School of Information Technology, Monash South Africa b School of Arts, Monash South Africa

Abstract: The South African campus of Monash University hosts students from across Africa. We teach programs designed for Australian school leavers to students with different educational, cultural and language backgrounds. This raises questions about what quality in education means for African students, for teaching and assessment practices and for prospective employers in Africa. Lecturers are encouraged, through a staff development program, to use action research to investigate these questions. We describe two projects in progress which look at what behavioural norms and interpersonal skills are expected of students in the learning programs and in subsequent employment and how those skills can be developed. We also consider how appropriate it is to develop such behaviours and skills in the African context. We found that action research provides a means of investigating culturally sensitive questions in partnership with the students.

Introduction Monash South Africa Monash South Africa opened in 2001 as the first African campus of Melbourne-based Monash University. The student body on the South African campus is drawn from across Africa. In 2005, of the 829 students registered, 812 come from Africa. Roughly one quarter of the students (203) are South African. About one third (263) come from Botswana, another quarter (202) from Zimbabwe with the remainder coming from 15 other countries across Central and Southern Africa. Literature on diversity tends to focus on the challenges of dealing with a minority in a class consisting mostly of learners from one dominant culture - for example Howard-Hamilton et al (1998) and Noel (2000). At Monash South Africa we face a different challenge - teaching learners from all over Africa, with no particular dominant culture. The situation is further complicated by the use of teaching materials developed by Australians for Australian learners. Staff development program The Centre for Learning and Teaching Support (CeLTS) at Monash provides support to Monash staff and students in teaching and learning activities. The Centre conducts a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (GCHE) which academic staff who do not have a teaching qualification are encouraged to complete. The GCHE provides grounding in educational theory, teaches approaches to monitor and evaluate learners and encourages reflection on teaching practices.

The GCHE consists of four units, the last of which is an action research project. In this unit staff learn about action research and plan an action research project relevant to some area of their teaching practice. The unit provides a more formal framework in which to analyse, experiment, and evaluate strategies to improve learning (GCHE home page). Although there is no requirement to carry out the action research plan, staff are encouraged to do so. This paper reports the experiences of two academics from Monash South Africa who completed this program and are implementing action research projects. Both projects were aimed at improving generic skills of students to support their performance within the discipline based work. Project to address presentation skills Background Students at a tertiary level are expected to give oral presentations as a part of their assessment criteria in many subjects, particularly those within the Faculty of Arts. The University teaching system provides much help to students to prepare for written assignments, assisting them with correct referencing skills, writing and grammar skills and basic written language skills. Monash University even has a specialist unit, whose main aim is assisting students improve their skills in these areas. Verbal presentation skills however are normally disregarded as most of the assessment at tertiary level is written. If we, as university teachers, see one of our roles as assisting students to equip themselves for life outside the University, then we must address one of the core competencies required by commerce, industry, government, education or almost any other sector, public or private - the ability to clearly and succinctly make oneself heard and understood by an audience when giving an oral presentation. The aims of this project are to: 1. Identify barriers in giving oral presentations 2. Assist students to overcome issues which act as barriers to success, using action research methodology. These issues include lack of training and unclear expectations, inhibitions due to cultural experience and expectations in a culturally diverse environment and presenting in English as a second language. Literature There is very little written about the issues surrounding verbal presentations and barriers that students may face, particularly with reference to a multi-cultural environment like that at Monash South Africa. Students from cultures other than an English speaking western culture often experience a degree of “culture shock” as their expectations and experiences about life and studying are often significantly different to the environment in which they find themselves in first year (Maclean et al., 2003). If their experience and culture dictates that it is impolite to question someone in authority (i.e. the lecturer) or to speak out amongst a group of strangers (i.e. the rest of the class), it can lead to significant barriers for giving oral presentations. According to McKenzie and Schweitzer (2001), the better the students’ social support networks and the social

2

integration, the better their chances of academic success. In Monash South Africa’s context, large numbers of international students provide a serious barrier to high levels of achievement. When discussing factors that affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander students at a tertiary level, Digrogrio et al. (2000), believe that cumulative stressors result in small problems expanding to major problems, that there is a vulnerability to negative learning experiences and the cultural diversity needs to be recognised and incorporated into the curriculum to provide a positive learning experience. These are all issues experienced by Monash South Africa’s international students. These issues of culture, identity and language are often further compounded by secondary school education which has not adequately prepared students for tertiary level education. Project structure This project follows an action research design with a number of feedback cycles, with self-reflective components for the lecturer and students alike. The first phase of the project was to get students to complete questionnaires on what they found easy and challenging about giving verbal presentations and their experiences in doing presentations. This was followed by an interactive session with the group on components of presentations that they thought would be important, from content and style, to dress and body language. Thus the students provided very clear expectations as to what was required, with the lecturer facilitating the discussion. A week later the students did a “practice run” of their presentation, where their fellow students gave feedback on the presentations in a manner which reinforced the positive and pointed out the aspects that could be improved. Again, this was facilitated by the lecturer. Finally, the students had to present their research for assessment and complete another selfreflective questionnaire. Project results The pilot phase has been completed with a small class of 10 students from six countries. None of the students explicitly raised the issue of culture or language in their reflective comments. However, issues such as “not feeling comfortable making eye contact”, getting stage fright and not having the confidence to speak in front of an audience especially if there are “people more experienced in the crowd” were brought up. In conversations I (Claudia) have had with the students, they have indicated that many do not make eye contact as it is disrespectful and speaking in front of people who have a higher social rank is not the norm and thus is a very stressful situation. As the issues of culture, language and identity were not specifically mentioned in the responses, I will attempt to probe these to a greater depth in future cycles of this research project. The students reported in their self-reflection cycle that the project had helped them with their presentation skills and that they felt far more competent than before. It appears from comments received, that the feedback from the other students directly after the practice run were particularly helpful. When questioned about the most useful part of the project, the students indicated that they found all of it worthwhile and they find themselves critically evaluating all other presentations that they now attend. There was

3

no aspect of the action research cycle that the student did not feel was of some use to them. Project to address group collaboration skills Background There is ongoing debate in the IT industry about the communication and teamwork skills of graduates (Denning, 1997, 2000). At present IT degrees include group work, but there is little understanding of what students learn from this and it would be difficult to demonstrate that learning. I (Judy) worked for twelve years in the IT industry and observed that the working environment appeared more effective in teaching these skills than the university environment. This project was initiated to investigate this perception. The aims of the project are to: 1. Get a better understanding of student’s experience of group work in the undergraduate IT programs and what they learn from it. 2. Introduce reflective tools to students that they can use to develop awareness of the ‘soft skills’ they are learning. 3. Construct a tool to measure improvements in at least some of the group skills that students are learning. Literature The literature on teaching of group skills is extensive and covers a wide range of disciplines (Mathiassen, 2002; McDrury, 2001; Donne, 2000; McDougal, 1995). Teaching group skills is addressed in different ways – from substantial projects that require students to work in groups, to shorter tasks and more experiential team-building exercises. Mathiassen and Purao (2002) describe projects used to teach software development practices where students were dependent on each other had to use communication, negotiating and conflict resolution skills. Several papers describe the use of reflective tools in developing group skills (Aldridge, 2004; Mathiassen, 2002; Dunne, 2000; Mazany, 1995). McDrury and Alterio (2001) propose the use of storytelling as a reflective tool. Storytelling ‘pathways’ can be structured to involve little or no writing and the oral interaction suits both the African cultures of many of the students and the limited writing skills of IT undergraduates. If universities claim graduate attributes, they need to evaluate what has been learned and how effectively. Much of the literature glosses over the issue of evaluation (McDrury and Alterio, 2001; Dunne and Rawlinds, 2000; Mathiassen and Purao, 2002). Others attempted evaluation by asking students to report on their learning (McDougall and Beattie, 1995). While this measures the perceived learning, it is not necessarily a good measure of actual learning. Jaques (2000) suggests peer evaluation which prompted me to ask if 360-degree evaluations might be used. Such evaluations include evaluations from the individual, their colleagues and others that they interact with.

4

Project structure The project was structured in a number of small cycles. In the first cycle a survey was carried out of 2nd and 3rd year IT students in an analysis unit and a design unit respectively. Students were asked questions about their experiences of working in groups, what they thought they had learned from the experience and what contributed to negative experiences. The survey was supplemented by my reflections on observing the students working in groups. Due to the small numbers, statistical analysis was not pursued, and the focus of this discussion is qualitative. The students were also asked to complete an evaluation of the group skills of each of the members of their group. I kept notes of group interactions during tutorials and compared these with the comments students made in this part of the evaluation. The intention was to use multiple perspectives to evaluate the group skills of individual students. The second cycle of the project will conduct a workshop with students to discuss the value, role and expected outcomes of group work and to introduce reflective tools that the students will use to monitor their own learning of group skills. The issue of peer evaluation will be revisited in a later cycle. Project results Twenty-nine IT undergraduates participated in the survey. Students were enthusiastic about completing the survey, with many writing long answers indicating substantial reflection on the group experience. Three students also sought me out to discuss the survey and expand verbally on their answers. The students surveyed were studying either a second year unit in systems analysis or a third year unit in interface design. In each unit there was a major assignment that was completed by groups of two or three students working together. The assignment constituted half of their final mark. The study revealed that students have mixed experiences of group work, and they do see benefit in current practices. The factors contributing to negative experiences included ‘free riding’, different expectations of work quality, concerns over the fairness of assessment, logistical problems in working together, and the additional time it took to communicate. Students reported improved listening skills, social skills, time management, communication skills, patience and tolerance as well as commenting that the merging of ideas produced better solutions. Very few students completed the peer evaluations. It was apparent that they felt uncomfortable about ‘judging’ their peers and more work needs to be done on how such an evaluation is introduced to the group. Those that did respond showed that the self evaluation and the peer evaluation differed widely. I plan to give more thought to this and investigate it further in a future research cycle. Reflection on the projects In each project, the researcher set out to improve the skills of students – the first project in public speaking and the second in team work – but both lead to the researchers

5

questioning if the behaviours being taught, and the definitions of ‘excellent performance’ of these skills were appropriate. In the first project it is apparent that we are assessing skills and components of skills that are not learnt in traditional African culture and that in fact are frowned upon. However, in modern day western society, in which these students will have to perform once they have graduated, they will be expected to have the skill to present clear, understandable oral presentations. Given clear guidance and well defined expectations, it may be possible for students from diverse backgrounds to use their own cultural context and comfortable behaviours, such as storytelling, as a means of getting their message across. In the second project it became clear that we teach IT software development teams to interact according to a ‘western’ model of group interaction. We observed strong listening skills and conflict resolution skills among African students and this prompted the question as to whether there are ‘African’ modes of interaction that are being ignored or ‘lost’ that might be better for developing software. African cultures have been characterized as collectivist, but the implications of this for software design and for the process of software design have not been explored. An ‘African’ style of group work might produce better software. In both projects, we came to question whether the apparently desired outcome was best for the students. The curriculum has built in assumptions about the kind of behaviour and skills that we want to encourage in students, but this reflects a particular set of values and behavioural norms. Perhaps by making these kinds of assumptions about what constitutes ‘quality outcomes’, we were missing an opportunity to find even better outcomes. With imaginative and innovative teaching and using participatory action research we can, in the words of Le Grange (2001), “create new knowledge spaces where western epistemologies and African indigenous knowledge can co-exist”. In the case of presentation skills, perhaps there are other ways of presenting information – as one person in a circle of seated people communicating to each other – rather than as an ‘expert’ standing in front of a group of seated people. Perhaps this more natural way of interacting would be easier for students and bring a different set of values to the interaction. In the case of group skills, perhaps instead of encouraging students to ‘speak up’, to assert themselves and to be heard, we should be encouraging them to be quiet, to listen and to think about the points being made. Perhaps this would improve communication in a group and lead to better understanding. Reflection on action research Some of the characteristics of action research include: that it solves practical problems at the same time as increasing knowledge; it is carried out collaboratively between people sharing skills, experiences and knowledge for mutual benefit; it is cyclical in nature and it strives to be emancipatory (Cohen, 2000). Action research is particularly well suited to investigating complex social problems. Our experiences confirm that this approach to research gives an opportunity to investigate complex cultural perspectives in a sensitive way that provides new insights.

6

We both came to academic research as people with professional consulting careers. In Africa - where there are so many problems to be addressed - the time and resources that go into research can make it seem like a luxury. Action research provides a way to reconcile research with our desire to ‘get things done’.

References Aldridge, J.M., Fraser, B.J. & Sebela, M.P. (2004) Using teacher action research to promote constructivist learning environments in South Africa, South African Journal of Education, 24 (4) pp. 245–253. Cohen, L., Manion, L. & Morrison, K. (2000) Research Methods in Education, 5th edition. RoutledgeFalmer. Denning, P.J. (1997) How we will learn, in Denning, P. J. & Metcalf, R. M. (Eds.) Beyond calculation, the next 50 years of computing. New York: ACM Press. Denning, P.J. (2000) The future of the IT profession, in Ubiquity: an ACM IT magazine and forum. Retrieved August 15, 2005, from http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/p_denning_1.html () Digregorio, K.D., Farrington, S. & Page, S. (2000) Listening to our students: understanding the factors that affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ academic success, Higher Education Research & Development, 19 (3) pp. 297-309. Dunne, E. & Rawlins, M. (2000) Bridging the gap between industry and higher education: Training academics to promote student teamwork, Innovations in Education and Training International, 37 (4) pp. 361–371. GCHE home page (2005, April 11). Retrieved, August 16, 2005, from http://www.celts.monash.edu.au/staff/gche/hed5004.html Howard-Hamilton, Richardson & Shuford. (1998) Promoting Multicultural Education: A Holistic Approach, College Student Affairs Journal, 18 (1). Jaques, D. (2000) Learning in Groups, 3rd edition. London: Kogan Page Ltd. Le Grange, L. (2001) Challenges for participatory action research and indigenous knowledge in Africa, Acta Academica, 33 (3) pp. 136-150. Leonard, D. C. (2002) Learning Theories, A to Z. Westport: Greenwood press. Maclean, P., Heagney, M. & Gardner, K. (2003) Going global: the implications for students with a disability, Higher Education, Research and Development, 22 (2) pp. 217-228. Mckenzie, K. & Schweitzer, R. (2001) Who succeeds at university? Factors predicting academic performance in first year Australian university students, Higher Education Research & Development, 20 (1) pp. 21-33. Mathiassen, L. & Purao, S. (2002) Educating reflective systems developers, Information Systems Journal, 12 pp. 81–102. Mazany, P., Francis, S. & Sumich, P. (1995) Evaluating the effectiveness of an experiential “hybrid” workshop strategy development and team building in a manufacturing organisation, The Journal of Management Development, 14 (1) pp. 40. McDougall, M. & Beattie, S. (1995) Learning from learning groups, Journal of Management Development, 14 (8) pp. 35-41. McDrury, J. & Alterio, M. (2001) Achieving reflective learning using storytelling pathways, Innovations in Education and Training International, 38 (1) pp. 63–74. Noel, J. (2000). Developing Multicultural Educators. London: Longman.

Contact information Judy Backhouse, School of Information Technology, Monash South Africa Private Bag X60, Roodepoort 1725, South Africa [email protected].

7

Using Action Research to address questions of quality ...

Nov 6, 2005 - Monash staff and students in teaching and learning activities. The Centre conducts a. Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (GCHE) which academic staff who do not have a teaching qualification are encouraged to complete. The GCHE provides grounding in educational theory, teaches approaches to ...

161KB Sizes 0 Downloads 244 Views

Recommend Documents

Using Action Research to address questions of quality ...
Nov 6, 2005 - aSchool of Information Technology, Monash South Africa ... education means for African students, for teaching and assessment practices and for ..... The future of the IT profession, in Ubiquity: an ACM IT magazine and forum.

Using Quality Models to Engineer Quality Requirements
Donald Firesmith, Software Engineering Institute, U.S.A. ... providing all of its required features and fulfilling each and every one of its use cases, it ... for an application, component, center, or business, quality models can also be developed.

Research Note_The Supply of High Quality ... - egbetokun
key to set the stage for government interventions that will strengthen the national entrepreneurship system. This is ... technical colleges of education. A national ...

Hitlist Worm Detection using Source IP Address History - University of ...
The University of Melbourne, Australia. {jkcchan, caleckie, tpeng}@csse.unimelb.edu.au. Abstract—Internet worms are a growing menace due to their increasing sophistication and speed of propagation. Although there have been many different detection

Bank of England Digital Currencies research questions
o How would the presence of CBDC affect bank funding and the cost and ... How should the security and resilience of CBDC be assured? ... the potential vulnerabilities of distributed systems? ... What new business models may emerge?

Quality-of-Service Routing Using Maximally Disjoint Paths
destination so that any link with low resource availability is highly unlikely to belong .... node of the current domain or peer group). Crankback in. Phase I is ..... Name. Number Diameter Core. C2C PROB MAX of Links (hops). Nodes. DEGREE.

Forensics Research: A Call to Action
ther documented nor articulated the importance of our area of expertise to the university community at large. We will continue to be overlooked as a viable area of study until we recognize and begin con- ducting scholarly research in our discipline.

Read PDF A Short Guide to Action Research
Read PDF A Short Guide to Action Research (4th Edition) - Full ... the latest news and analysis in the stock market today including national and world .... qualitative and quantitative techniques in action research ... reporting data; reviewing the.

Quality Monitoring of Network Traffic Forecasts using ...
Abstract— The literature of network traffic analysis has investigated different forecasting methods applied to traffic engineering in computer and communication networks. Several sophisticated models have been proposed, evaluated and compared, show

Spandanam_111 questions on Using Language Elements-signed.pdf
The father left the rabbit in the field. Without any delay it ran into the woods. 19.Think-Tank ordered the Martians to leave the earth. They obeyed his order as. fast as possible. 20.The principal informed Martha that she would get the Jacket. She l

Hitlist Worm Detection using Source IP Address History
addresses between regular users and scanning hosts to distinguish ... fic patterns and consider these as worm signatures [10] [15] ... To the best of our knowledge, our ..... of service attacks: Characterization and implications for cdns and web.

Research Questions Cause of Chicago Fire--State Journal-Re….pdf ...
There was a problem previewing this document. Retrying... Download. Connect more apps... Try one of the apps below to open or edit this item. Research ...Missing:

AddressSanitizer: A Fast Address Sanity Checker - Research at Google
uses of freed heap memory, remain a serious problem for .... applications (as each malloc call requires at least one ... will behave incorrectly in a way detectable by existing ...... tional Conference on Virtual Execution Environments (VEE '07),.

pdf-12119\washingtons-farewell-address-to-the-people-of ...
... of the apps below to open or edit this item. pdf-12119\washingtons-farewell-address-to-the-people-of-the-united-states-1796-by-george-washington.pdf.