Editorial

Some things change for the better, and some things change for the worse, such is the nature of change. Higher education the world over is the subject of change, and it is argued that for very many reasons the pace of change is perhaps at its greatest at this particular time, although that is how it feels, anyway. This is in part, or for the most part perhaps, attributed to the use of technology in society at large and therefore within universities. The introduction of computers was, only a very short time ago, novel, yet we now wonder how we could possibly have done anything without them. How we, academics, did any work at all, whether teaching or research related, without the use of email, computers and the rest is difficult to imagine. Since then, there is hardly any university in the world which does not claim to be using more recent technologies such as Twitter and the rest, and it is by no means unusual to carry out a PhD-level viva via Skype, with the candidate and the examiners often in different countries. Most of the technological developments of our era are (eventually) welcomed, and after perhaps an initial reluctance, become part and parcel of normal, standard working practices. The use of email or the sending of text messages via increasingly sophisticated mobile phone technology falls into this category, and we would find it extremely difficult to engage with either our fellow academics both within our own universities but also within the wider community the world over and also with our students if we did not use email, Skype or whatever. That said, everything, even the very best of things, comes at a price. For those of us using a computer pretty much all day, one price to pay is the risk of repetitive strain injury (RSI) through so much typing/writing. Because, while there is software that is designed to reduce the need for typing/writing, most of us find ourselves at the keyboard for most of our time, one way or another. The advent of email and to a far greater extent mobile phone technology brings with it the claim that ‘students today just can’t write properly’. While likely the case the world over, in the press here in the United Kingdom in recent months some articles on the subject matter of the ‘declining standards’ of students when it comes to their skills and abilities in reading and writing has led to some intense and often emotionally charged debate. The latest of such articles made the claim that students today are unable to read a text book from cover to cover given, it has been claimed, not only their lack of reading ability per se but also that students, these ‘digital natives’, these ‘millenials’, can now only digest information in very small ‘bite sized’ pieces given that this is how they get information from their mobile phones, that is, they are used to getting ‘the answers’ to things in only very short texts and that as a result of using mobile phones, their attention span is not what it should be, so a whole book is simply ‘too much’.

To fan the flames still further, some academics have been quoted as saying that this means that students today are unable to deal with what we ask them to deal with, that is, complex theories and/or concepts (which do not come in ‘bite sized chunks’), that is, that they cannot grasp the ‘intellectual’ element; the very element which underpins what it means to be a graduate or postgraduate. Some academics have admitted that there has been a tacit agreement in the higher education sector that our students are, for whatever reason, not as keen on reading as they might be, and so rather than make students read whole books some academics have quietly reduced the need for them to do so, perhaps by reducing the number of core texts in their reading lists or to instead direct students to other, shorter, texts from other sources, perhaps even those of a less ‘academic’ nature. As can be seen from a website called ‘Higher Education Network, Academics Anonymous’ in the United Kingdom, but there are likely similar ones the world over, academics have not been slow to come forward with their views on this one, unsurprisingly. As academics, reading and writing is at the very heart of being, well, an academic, and so passions are easily aroused when there is either an actual attack on reading and/or writing (our ‘core business’) or a perceived one. Equally unsurprising has been the reaction of students themselves to what has been called the ‘furore’ in the higher education sector when these claims first surfaced. While there are likely more reasons than these given by students for their lack of reading (they readily admit that they struggle with reading books from cover to cover), they are the following. That we, in universities, do not give our students enough time to actually read them, that we are not asking them to work as hard as they should be and so have reduced the amount of reading that is being asked of them and that we have made it perfectly plain that one of the key reasons for students to do an undergraduate or postgraduate degree at all is that it enhances their job prospects, after graduation, that is, it is not so much ‘you are here for the love of learning about your discipline (which by definition involves reading about it)’ but instead ‘you have to do what you have to do in order to get the actual qualification itself’.

Along with this comes the unspoken, or perhaps spoken, message than anyone who fails to achieve a degree at all, or gets one with anything less than top marks, is somehow not going to make it in the workplace after graduation and by definition is not going to be ‘successful’ in life more generally. This, say students, means that we are now assessment driven rather than driven by trying to instil any love of learning and that this makes them, too, assessment driven. One of the quotes from a student on the website mentioned above perhaps neatly summed it up, by saying that “this over-emphasis on assessment – as opposed to genuine learning – means that when writing an essay or preparing for exams it makes more sense to read a journal article or a chapter of a book because we’re not given the time or thinking space”. Another admitted that given the number of assessments that they had to do, they were unable to finish reading all the course books in their entirety because there was simply no time between the assessments to do so. If, as is claimed, students are not reading enough, or not reading well enough, the same is being said for their writing skills. Again, that same Network provides some amusing quotes from students, although the comment on these from the academics who received them laments the failure of their students to distinguish between formal and informal communication and again this is attributed to, in part at least, the blurring between the formal and informal that is occasioned by the use of social media in all aspects of our students’ (and perhaps our) lives. This blurring between the formal and informal aspects of our lives is picked up later in that same website where academics bemoan the fact that most students are unable to sit through a whole lecture without checking (and using) their mobile phones and that given that the use of such technology is an activity that goes on from the moment that they wake up to the moment that they go to sleep (no one has yet claimed that students are using them while asleep!) that emails are coming in at all times of the day and night, often with one reporting that the peak time is between one and three o’clock in the morning, adding that as this is the generation said to be one characterised by expecting instant gratification, a response from their lecturer is expected at the earliest opportunity, if not within minutes. Add to this the disquiet that academics express about the (over) use of emoticons, smileys and the acronyms such as ‘LOL’, now used not only in written text but also when speaking with someone face to face, it is no wonder that there is some concern about how our future graduates are going to handle communication in the workplace after graduation where, despite things perhaps being more relaxed, a certain level of formality in text, both oral and written, is going to be required. Indeed, it is demanded in professions such as law. What does it mean for us, academics?

As websites such as this Network tell us, we have a choice. We can either wring our hands and bemoan the lack of appropriate writing skills that many of today’s generation of students seem to have, that is, to do nothing, or we ourselves have to add this to what we teach them, that is, in addition to assisting our students with their understanding of their subject matter, for example, law or history, but to also teach them how to write formal text suitable for the workplace, of which the university is, also, a workplace, and a relatively formal one, some might argue. The subject of helping students with their writing is the subject of the first article comprising this issue. Entitled ‘Peer review as a strategy for improving students’ writing process’, its author, Kimberly M Baker, from the University of Northern Iowa in the United States, looks at how peer review helps, arguing that although there is no disagreement that it is useful per se, there is a need to look more closely at the timing of that intervention, hence the study described within. As the article explains, if we want to instil good writing habits into our learners, it is going to take both a long time and a lot of effort on our part. For those of us teaching class sizes comprising, say, anything between 400 and 1000 students in one class, and with only limited opportunities for seminar/small group work, that is not going to be easy. Providing feedback on draft versions of coursework along the way, with such large classes, is either very difficult or impossible, but even where possible, the article tells us that our feedback is not always as well received, or acted upon, as we might wish, for the variety of reasons detailed. The article goes on to say that while providing feedback has the purpose of helping the reader of that feedback, when it comes to students reviewing the work of their fellow students, it is the student who is giving (rather than receiving) the feedback who perhaps learns more, and that peer review has benefits beyond merely helping students in the short term, that is, with only the assignment/coursework being reviewed. In their comprehensive review of the literature, the author argues that better guidance is needed on when to intervene and provide peer review during the writing process and also how to ensure that whatever feedback is provided from one student to another, it is of the quality that is needed. The article tells us what most of us know from our own experiences, that is, that students often leave the writing of their coursework assignments until very near the submission deadline, which encourages what is termed ‘binge writing’.

While no one would disagree that, whether as a student or an academic or anyone else, we should begin to write as early as we can, there is something in the human condition that, for most of us, means that we do not in fact do that. Even the most organised, effective and efficient student, or academic, makes the decision to start doing the writing at the time when they believe that there is sufficient time left to do it. However, whenever we, as writers, choose to start or finish that writing, the article reports that peer review is often brought in right near the end, that is, around 1 week before the deadline for submission of the coursework, with the argument made that, at this stage, all that can be dealt with is the ‘polishing’ of the piece such as correcting aspects such as spelling and grammar but that it is too late, at that point, to provide feedback on what is far more important, that is, the actual content itself. The article provides a lengthy and comprehensive analysis of the literature on formative feedback, and also how best to provide it, but concludes by arguing that there is a need for the study described, that is, to look at peer review at a different stage of the writing process, and also by students who are more experienced, as writers, that is, those who have been at university for a longer period of time. Although the author readily acknowledges the limitations of such a study, not least of which is that we do not know if students have read that feedback, whether from academics or fellow students, however excellent in quality it might have been, the results make for very interesting reading, notably around the issue of which students seem to derive the most benefit from the earlier peer review process and also what changes were actually made. Asking students to help other students is the focus of the second article, although not on the subject of writing skills. Over the last decade or so, and for various reasons, much attention has been given to the student experience, not least in the early days, as they make the difficult transition to university. The early days of being at university, or starting a new job after graduation, is not without its stresses and anxieties, even for the most confident of people, and so it is unsurprising that we, in universities, devote a great deal of time and effort helping to ensure that, where we can, those early days in the new environment of being at university, perhaps in one where we know no one at all, and perhaps in a new country, are made less daunting in so far as we are able to do so. It is here that mentoring is one of the ways in which we may support our new students, whether undergraduate or postgraduate. As this article explains, formal mentoring programmes are, just as in the workplace, becoming more popular in the university environment.

Entitled ‘Implementation and evaluation of a formal academic peer mentoring program in higher education’, the authors of this article, Vanessa Cornelius, Leigh Wood and Jennifer Lai, all from Macquarie University in Australia, look at three aspects of what is important in any mentoring programme, that is, matching the mentor with the mentee, the frequency of the interaction between them and their training and orientation. Indeed, peer mentoring is also becoming more popular when it comes to supporting new academic members of staff, too, given that anyone new to an environment as complex as that of a university might benefit from this. For our students, and as the article tells us, as the highest rate of attrition is in undergraduates within their first year, there is all the more reason to look at a mentoring programme with these particular students in our sights, which is what the authors of this article have done. The article describes at length both formal and informal mentoring, and the differing roles that a mentor has to play during the mentoring process, arguing that evidence exists which supports the claim that such programmes are, for various reasons, positive for those who are mentored. And, most likely, the benefits apply to those who undertake that mentoring, just as in the earlier article about peer review, where the person doing the reviewing benefits from the process as much as, if not more than, the one whose work is being reviewed. The article provides an overview of the design features of mentoring programmes that are said to contribute to their success, although concluding that the evidence is conflicting in places, thus resulting in making it difficult to draw conclusions about what makes for successful mentoring relationships and/or programmes when it comes to the three aspects under scrutiny here, that is, matching the mentor with the mentee, the frequency of the interaction between them and their training and orientation. Regardless of institution or country, we are keen to do all that we can to foster engagement and to help our students as best we can with transition, so any article which sheds light on this important aspect is to be welcomed. As these programmes gain greater popularity, studies such as this are to be commended.

Either mentoring or being mentored brings with it the idea that the mentor or mentee will need to look at their own skills and competences, to assess themselves, in some way. This is perhaps all the more necessary in the first year at university, when students are new, and have to find their place in this new learning environment. They may well have been ‘top of the class’ in the high school that they have just left, but this does not necessarily mean that the same applies once at university, given the different skills, abilities and competences that we require at this higher level. No wonder, then, that the first year brings with it the pressures described by our first year students as they make that transition. There are many ways in which students can assess their own abilities, and also those of their fellow students, and one such is via assessing themselves in the important skill of giving an oral presentation. As Sian M Ritchie from Washington State University in the United States, the author of the third article, rightly says, the ability to present something to an audience is something that is needed in most professions and so we need to provide our students with opportunities to do so while at university. This is perhaps all the more useful to those who are not natural orators and who would therefore benefit more from a ‘practice run’ or two while in the safety of the university environment. Entitled ‘Self-assessment of video-recorded presentations: does it improve skills?’, the article describes a very interesting study in which the class was divided into two groups. Students in both groups had to give an oral presentation on their own, on a subject matter of their choice. Their presentations were evaluated both by the instructor and their fellow students and after they had given their presentation, the study looked to see what difference, if any, it would make if students were encouraged to watch the presentation that they had made but not make any written self assessment of it compared to those who were asked to complete an evaluation form of their own performance.

The literature on peer assessment tells us that the marks/grades given by students about their own performance may or may not mirror those given by their assessors, their instructors, and so the study looked at any possible differences between the marks/grades of these students and those of their instructors, in each of these two groups. Indeed, as the article tells us, public speaking is something that most adults, whether students or anyone else, are anxious or very anxious about, and for the very many reasons detailed. Whether or not watching yourself on video, afterwards, heightens or reduces that anxiety for any future presentations is unclear, but it is a resource, whether it does or does not. What is undeniable is that it has the many and diverse benefits described in the article, which can be categorised into two broad ones, namely, it helps the person who did the presentation to improve their actual skills in terms of presenting but also that it improves their attitude and confidence in those skills and abilities. However, the author says that while actually doing a presentation may well improve our skills and abilities, the literature is not so clear when it comes to the value or otherwise of assessing yourself, that is, of reflecting on your performance, afterwards. The article goes into some depth about what is known about self assessment and also being assessed by either peers or, more normally, by instructors (most presentations attract a mark/grade) and the congruence or otherwise of the marks/grades awarded by each. Of note in this aspect of assessment, and as discussed here, is the differences between underachieving and high achieving students, which goes some way towards explaining why assessment is such a complex area when it comes to learning. As the author rightly concludes, their study is the first to look at self assessment in the manner detailed, that is, giving students the opportunity to give the same presentation twice, using presentations that have been recorded via video. The results make for very interesting reading indeed when it comes to looking at the improved performance, if any, between the two groups of students, whether within the areas of content, organisation and/or delivery and what difference, if any, it makes if they formally self assess their first presentation. A surprising result can be seen when the students in the two groups were asked to rate the usefulness or otherwise of self assessment, and the study sheds light not only on presentation skills per se but also on the three types of assessment used, that is, self assessment, assessment by peers and assessment by instructors.

How students approach their learning and their performance is the subject of the fourth article comprising this issue. Entitled ‘Investigating the relationship among extracurricular activities, learning approach and academic outcomes: A case study’, by Yiu-Kong Chan from the University of Hong Kong, the article looks at not just what goes on within the classroom, which is of course only a very small part of the time that students spend when it comes to their learning, but also at the relationship between various aspects of learning and the activities that students engage in beyond the academic, that is, extracurricular activities. In the article, the author provides a lengthy and useful overview of the literature on the aspect of individual characteristics which affect performance, such as intelligence, cognitive style, personality, self-esteem, motivation, self-efficacy and emotional intelligence to name but some, but it also covers aspects such as the learning environment itself and also the approaches to teaching that are used, as all in some way or another impact performance. The study described in the article takes as its starting point Biggs’ Presage–Process–Product (3P) model, which comprises the three variables of ‘presage’ (what the learner has encountered before the learning that they are expected to do and also their personal characteristics), ‘process’ (the learning approach taken by the learner at the time of doing that learning) and ‘product’ (what has been learned), although that last one might perhaps better be characterised by the aspects of their learning that we have some measurement of, that is, their actual performance on a task, which is related to, but different from, learning or what has been learned. The author argues that extracurricular activities fall into the ‘presage’ part of the model because they are concerned with the individual differences aspect, but that there have been few studies which have shed light on the relationship between such activities and either learning approach or any of the other aspects associated with it, including actual performance. The results show some positive relationships but also a perhaps more surprising one when it comes to the link, if any, between the impact that engaging in extracurricular activities has on the actual performance of students. As much of the learning takes place outside the classroom, whether during the undertaking of extracurricular activities or any others, it involves interaction of some sort. Interaction or otherwise online is the subject matter of the fifth article, and it explores interaction in terms of how learners interact with each other in a group situation when working with a case study.

Entitled ‘Does a case-based online group project increase students’ satisfaction with interaction in online courses?’, its authors Sang Joon Lee, Anchalee Ngampornchai, Trudian Trail-Constant, Andres Abril and Sandhya Srinivasan, from Mississippi State University, Florida State University and the University of South Florida in the United States respectively, claim that while many of us use case studies to support student learning in some way, there is a need to further explore this in the online environment and to see whether or not so doing leads to greater satisfaction. The article extols the virtues and benefits of asking learners to work in groups, although as both the literature and our own experiences of asking students to work in groups tells us, it is not without its significant drawbacks, not least of which concerns the awarding of marks/grades to students should this activity be assessed. We award degrees not to groups but instead to individuals and as pretty much all group work is done outside the classroom and not within it we, the assessors, need to ensure that the marks/grades that we award recognise the performance not of the group as a whole but instead of every member, every individual student, within it. The article discusses these drawbacks, which include aspects such as free-riding, that students prefer ‘expert-led’ classrooms and that a poor experience with the first group work task undertaken may negatively impact any future group work tasks. The same is the case in the online learning environment, naturally enough, although the benefits and drawbacks are slightly different given the medium, hence this study, as the authors wished to explore the particular challenges faced when students are required to undertake group work online. Whether for group work or anything else, the results from this study confirm that students need to see the value and benefits in doing anything if they are to appreciate and enjoy it, and that there are many challenges involved in group work, particularly when it comes to working collaboratively in the online environment, which throws up additional, different, ones, as detailed in the article. As the authors rightly say, more and more of what we as educators do, and what we ask our students to do, is in the online virtual environment and so there is more that we need to do in order to better understand not only the perceptions and attitudes of students in this environment but also to better understand how this impacts their performance on task.

Looking beyond the classroom is something that is picked up in the sixth and final article, comprising this issue, which looks at what we, educators or the institution itself provide in terms of aspects designed to assist our learners in their learning, such as library resources and learning management systems, and also technologies and other resources such as Twitter and Facebook but also what is now becoming more widespread, the use of free/open education resources. Calling the former ‘official’ resources and the latter ‘unofficial’, the authors of this article, Michael Henderson, Glenn Finger and Neil Selwyn from Monash University, Griffith University and Monash University, respectively, all in Australia, argue that a particular segment of the university sector, namely, postgraduate students, has not been the subject of as much research as that of undergraduate students. Their article, entitled ‘What’s used and what’s useful? Exploring digital technology use(s) amongst taught postgraduate students’, argues that there is a need to redress this imbalance, hence their study. Explaining why postgraduates have not been the subject of much research, the article then goes on to say that while student numbers on postgraduate courses are always much smaller than those on undergraduate programmes, they are nonetheless a sizeable majority and so are worthy of our attention and to be considered separately given various factors that make them different from undergraduates in very many ways. For various reasons, as detailed in this article, it is the population of postgraduate students whose use of such technologies needs to be further explored. The article provides an excellent overview of the literature around the use (or not) of digital technologies, and if you are not quite sure what ‘surfers’, ‘gamblers’ and ‘sceptics’ are when it comes to such technologies, this article will inform, and it will also provide a wider perspective given that it looks at the bigger picture when it comes to the higher education landscape today, not only in terms of the issues and tensions within it but also the impact that networked digital technologies have had not only in terms of the transfer/communication of knowledge but also how it has impacted the thinking and behaviours of today’s ‘digital natives’, the ‘millenials’, which also includes many if not most of our postgraduate students too. As our postgraduate students are very different from our undergraduate students for many reasons, the authors rightly say that postgraduate students may well not be using these digital technologies in the same ways as our undergraduates or even between themselves given their greater diversity as a population. Discussing studies such as those which have described the use of podcasting, blogs and micro-blogs, the integration of student-generated audio files into online courses, and even newer technologies such as three-dimensional (3D) printing, augmented reality and learning analytics, the article leaves us in no doubt that we in higher education are, finally, some might say, embracing what these technologies have to offer, although enthusiasm for, and experience of, might vary somewhat, depending on the educator being asked.

As the article tells us, we, educators, need to be cautious about concluding that today’s generation of students are both confident and effective users of such technology however, as studies cited suggest that, like some of their educators perhaps, they might be ‘passive’, ‘sporadic’ and even ‘unspectacular’, not to mention surprised at the number and variety of technologies available. As we are all engaged in the teaching of postgraduate students as well as undergraduate ones, the study described in this article is both timely and of use to us all, as it looks at how different forms of digital engagement are perceived by postgraduate students and also how these students are engaging with it, whether ‘official’ or ‘unofficial’ in nature/type. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the study tells us that as ‘official’ technologies such as learning management systems and online libraries are now pretty much mandatory in higher education, they are the ‘basics’, that there is likely no university without these, it is the case that our postgraduate students the world over are now fully engaged with such technologies throughout their studies. Indeed, when we hear of an academic colleague in another department or university who still accepts coursework being handed in, hard copy, to their office or to an administrator somewhere in the department, it is met with some puzzlement as we think ‘is that still going on, today?’. To be fair, this is more likely to be heard from those of us teaching large classes, that is, some 400 plus (1000 students in one classroom is not uncommon) and the thought of some 400 students, or even a mere 150 students, trying to submit a piece of coursework to our office, all at the same time (in the last hour before a deadline) is something to be avoided at all costs, not least for the safety of all concerned (the students themselves, our colleagues, our colleagues in adjoining offices)! Today, in the last hour before a coursework submission deadline, all is quiet, in the corridors at least, although our email inbox might not show the same picture given that some students will be emailing us to tell us that they have not been able to submit or are having difficulties with submission, perhaps. Email might be ‘old technology’ these days, but much of our ‘business’ is still carried out that way, at least at the moment. However, as this study shows, our postgraduates are now making use of websites such as YouTube, where they find videos, which they use to supplement what we ourselves, as educators and as an institution, provide. While this study reveals that iPads and other tablet computers did not seem to be core for the majority, some might argue that it is only a matter of time before this is the case, unless some other, better, technology comes along in the meantime, which is always a possibility.

The study reveals some fascinating insights into the use, or otherwise, of Twitter and Wikipedia and that differences in their use or otherwise could be attributed to aspects such as their discipline, whether they are full time or part time and whether or not they are ‘home’ or international students, among others. Of note is what the authors discuss at the end of their article, as it raises issues of fundamental importance, not only into what is meant by ‘learning’ but also how we, educators, create and shape the learning environment of which we are a part. Here, they discuss the issues around how we, as universities, have models which reflect that learning is for ‘passive consumption’ rather than what they describe as being ‘more fluid, networked, connected or creative-driven forms of learning’, that is, that the technologies are certainly more convenient and useful from a practical perspective but that what they are doing, and what we ourselves are encouraging them to do to a certain extent, is to see higher education as ‘instructivist’, as they neatly call it. So, for example, our students find it useful to search online databases of academic literature, say the authors, and as educators we would not disagree that this is a useful thing to do, and we encourage (if not force) them to do so. There is merit in the authors’ claim that this kind of activity should more accurately be described as “involving the passive consumption of knowledge rather than more active, connected and/or creative practices. This is not to say that postgraduate scholarship is being ‘dumbed down’ or devalued through digital technology use, but neither is it being notably transformed or revolutionised”. Whatever you feel about that, whether you agree with this or not, the article makes for compelling reading when it comes to thinking beyond the technologies themselves, which is an appropriate note to end on here.