Australian Higher Education Sector Research Articles

A model of senior Indigenous leadership in Australian higher education: An Indigenous academic perspective

PurposeSenior Indigenous leadership positions across the Australian higher education sector has increased over the past decade. Despite this advancement, there is limited understanding in terms of how to best integrate Indigenous leadership into existing governance structures of Australian universities. In 2018 the Walan Mayiny: Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education project commenced, aimed at establishing a model of best practice for the inclusivity of Indigenous leadership in higher education governance structures. This article presents key findings from the project, namely, a model of senior Indigenous leadership within the Australian universities based on the perceptions of a group of Indigenous academics.Design/methodology/approachThrough qualitative semi-structured interviews with Indigenous academic staff, the perceived value, characteristics and challenges of senior Indigenous leadership were examined. The varying opinions held by Indigenous academics in relation to the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a senior Indigenous leadership position were also highlighted. In doing so, a model of senior Indigenous leadership within the Australian higher education system is presented. The model of best practice presented in this article is underpinned by Indigenous Institutional Theory (Coates et al., 2022), a theoretical framework developed from the Walan Mayiny study.FindingsThe research findings highlight the diverse opinions of Indigenous academics in relation to the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a senior Indigenous leadership position. The six essential components are built upon the core characteristics, values and behaviours that senior Indigenous leaders need to have according to Indigenous academics, in order to advance Indigenous success within the academy.Originality/valueGiven Australian universities are being called upon to ensure that senior Indigenous leaders are in the best position possible to forge institutional change, senior Indigenous leaders within the academy may find the contextual Indigenous leadership model beneficial. The model allows one to uphold cultural integrity and fulfil the responsibilities and obligations of their higher education institution, while being able to serve their Indigenous colleagues and communities, leading to the advancement of Indigenous higher education outcomes. Importantly, the model can be adapted to suit all First Nations Peoples globally, who also find themselves working within the shackles of Western institutions.

The Role of Trust, Respect, and Relationships in Maintaining Lived Experience and Indigenous Authority in Co-Designed Research with People Living with Disability

Co-design of research can evolve organically when the questions to be asked have their roots deep1 in the soil of partnerships based on trust, respect, and a common vision for equity and inclusion. White Questions—Black Answers, a PhD thesis research project focusing on the inclusion of Indigenous students with disability in the Australian Higher Education Sector, demonstrates this premise. Founded on Indigenous Standpoint Theory, the methodology of this research foregrounds the central role of Indigenous people with lived experience of disability—in the study design, its implementation, and in the validation of the results. This paper shares the conceptual framework and relationship hierarchy for the research, ensuring that the authority of those with lived experience was maintained and central to all research activities. It showcases a way forward for other fields of co-designed research, delivering both academic rigour and leadership by those with lived experience.

Strengthening Undergraduate Information Systems Education in an Increasingly Complex Computing Disciplines Landscape

There are concerns that even at times when overall computing degree enrollments are increasing, IS bachelor’s degree programs and enrollments continue to decline. IS programs differ from other computing programs in that they include highly interrelated business and technology components. This inherent interdisciplinarity is the source of its value but also one of its challenges. This paper uses the Australian higher education sector as a case study to examine overall computing degree offerings including IS offerings using the ACM/AIS curriculum models and classification of computing disciplines. We find that IS program offerings are indeed trending down and that computing offerings are dominated by Computer Science and Information Technology degrees. IS is not widely present as a “base” discipline, nor is it providing a platform for the integration of new technologies, such as AI and Cyber Security into “business” settings. To strengthen UG IS programs and perceptions, we recommend that higher education providers develop structure and processes that support interdisciplinary UG IS program development and delivery and that professional bodies and curriculum models be revised to reflect and recognize the business outcome focus of IS. These actions, together with clearer messaging around the value of IS competencies, will improve the image of IS.

The Influence of Administrative Intensity on Efficiency: An Empirical Analysis of Australian Universities

While a voluminous empirical literature has investigated university efficiency, much less attention has focused on the impact of administrative intensity on university performance. In this article, we seek to contribute to the empirical literature by examining the relationship between operational efficiency and administrative intensity in the Australian higher education sector over the period 2009/10–2018/19 using a second stage bootstrapping Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) fractional regression model. We find that administrative intensity positively affects the performance of universities for both the standard and bias‐corrected efficiency models. Moreover, administrative intensity exhibits an inverted U‐shaped relationship with university efficiency. We also find that administrative intensity has a differential impact on the efficiency of the different types of university. Various public policy implications are considered.

Disability and Australian higher education: The case for an Accessible model of disability support

This article explores a century and a half of supporting students with disabilities in Australian higher education, spanning the introduction of mass public education legislation in 1872 through to 2022. The article documents the transition from a paradigm in which disability was not integral to universal public instruction to systemic approaches to provision of reasonable adjustments. This transition has opened opportunities for persons with disabilities in some regards yet impedes full inclusion in others. Theoretically, we draw upon multiple paradigms of disability to explore how disability support has evolved in the Australian higher education sector, including ‘charitable’, ‘inspiration porn’, ‘medical’, ‘social’, ‘prosthetic’ and ‘ecological’ models. We offer qualitative and quantitative examples across time to illustrate these evolving paradigms. We then explore an alternative model of disability, which we define as an ‘Accessible’ model of disability support.

Australian Indigenous early career researchers: unicorns, cash cows and performing monkeys

ABSTRACT Data from the Developing Indigenous Early Career Researchers (ECRs) project reported that efforts of Indigenous ECRs are often undermined by examples of micro-racism. Shared personal experiences revealed racist attitudes and assumptions held by some non-Indigenous academics. This draws critical attention to the fact that while many institutions have developed Indigenous strategies to address disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff and student’s, racism is prevelant in higher education institutions across Australia. In this study, Indigenous ECRs metaphorically described their presence in the academy as unicorns, cash cows or performing monkeys. These terms illustrate the way in which Indigenous ECR attendance in the Australian higher education sector has been viewed, devalued and/or undermined by non-Indigenous academics and the institutions in which they are employed. Specifically, the notion of behavioural racism is used to critique the level of engagement and commitment of non-Indigenous academics to the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges and worldviews.

Stress, distress, disorder and coping: the impact of anonymous student evaluation of teaching on the health of higher education teachers

Anonymous student evaluation of teaching (SET) is a universal practice in higher education. We conducted a mixed-methods approach to investigate the nature and impact of anonymous SET commentary in the Australian higher education sector. Respondents shared a range of detailed SET exemplars, which revealed the extent of hurtful, defamatory and abusive commentary made by students. This paper reports the self-perceived impact of these on the health and wellbeing of academics. The majority of respondents reported that anonymous narrative comments contributed to workplace stress. There were no significant differences for gender. Younger academics were more likely to report the process of SET as stressful. Four themes were identified from the narrative responses: stress, distress, disorder and coping. These themes highlight the mental distress and impacts on well-being from repeated exposure to uncivil commentary made in SET by students. This distress was exacerbated by the failure of many employing universities to take substantial action to remedy or limit exposure to uncivil behaviour. The current system of anonymous SET has little validity and instead may operate as a vehicle for unfettered incivility directed towards teaching staff. The mental health impacts are significant for some and may impact the recruitment, retention and renewal of academic teaching staff into the future.

Career development for female academics in Australian and South African universities

South African and Australian higher education sector is facing challenges of fewer females in leadership positions despite policies in place in both countries. The main purpose of this integrative literature was to analyze and compare journal articles related to career development for female academics in South African and Australian higher education institutions to ascertain the challenges faced by women in both countries. South Africa and Australia were chosen for this study due to the differences in cultural background and legislation. Females are still underrepresented in leadership positions both in Australia and South Africa, hence this study investigated the reasons and provided recommendations to improve female academics representation in higher education institutions. A literature review of 15 research papers and journals articles published from 2010-to 2020 was conducted. The keywords “career development for female academics” were searched in three databases namely, Google Scholar, Ebsco-host and Emerald. The results from the literature showed that female career development in Australia is moving at a faster pace than in South Africa. The results also show that in both countries glass ceiling and limited female representation in leadership positions are rife in both countries. Female-only career development programs are essential to promote female development in higher education. As this study is focusing on two different countries on different continents, both countries have a lot to learn from each other in terms of policy implementations to enhance female career development. This article provides an analysis of the trends of female career development in South Africa and Australia. Therefore, from the existing literature for a period of 10 years, a conceptual career development model was developed.

Role of internal marketing in Australian higher education sector: age, gender and job level as moderators

ABSTRACT While internal marketing is used by the higher education sector to improve academics’ commitment toward their university employer, the impact on senior academics compared to junior academics may differ. Considering ‘intelligence generation, dissemination and responses’ as part of internal marketing, this study explores its impact on affective commitment using social exchange theory and also used gender, age and job level as moderators with surveys on senior and junior Australian university academics. Findings from structural equation modelling with multi-group analysis suggest that university’s vision and communication are highly motivating for senior academics but not for juniors. Junior academics place greater emphasis on training and the rewards system. Moderation analysis reveals the rewards system is considered more by older senior academics, whereas older junior academics are more interested in training. University human resources and administrators can develop effective strategies to increase commitment, positive word of mouth and brand image.

Great expectations: Senior Indigenous leadership positions in higher education

ABSTRACT Higher education has existed in Australia for 170 years, yet Indigenous Australians have participated for only half a century. One key change the Australian higher education sector has witnessed over the last decade is the steady increase of people occupying senior Indigenous leadership roles. These positions are indeed relatively new and have not been empirically investigated until now. Reporting on findings from an Australian Research Council funded study on Indigenous leadership in higher education, this paper highlights some of the discrepancies in how the skills of Indigenous leaders are interpreted by the academy, with a hope to challenge the sector’s next senior non-identified appointments to ensure that Indigenous people become integral architects in designing the future Australian higher education sector.

The challenge of learning analytics implementation: lessons learned


 
 
 Despite broad interest in learning analytics across the Australian Higher Education sector, there remains few examples of institution-wide implementations. Learning analytics implementation is currently under-theorised with little knowledge of the complexities that mediate the systemic uptake required for an institution-wide implementation. It has been established that approaches to learning analytics that are exclusively top-down or bottom-up, are insufficient for successful implementation across an enterprise. Drawing upon an award-winning and institution-wide learning analytics intervention that has been used across almost 5,000 unit offerings, this paper formulates an initial set of theory informed design principles that can help learning analytics practitioners mediate the complexities of institution-wide implementation.
 
 

‘You’ll Never Get Cultural Competence in Science’: An Australian Perspective on Integrating Cultural Competence into Science Teaching Via Cultural Accountability

In the last decade, the Australian higher education sector has championed the inclusion of cultural competence (CC) as a key graduate quality. Diverse disciplinary learning and teaching approaches requiring careful consideration about how best to achieve the end goal of supporting graduates on their individual, life-long pathways to engage with CC. Science can be viewed as an inflexible and immovable discipline. This perception seems particularly prevalent with respect to scientists acknowledging epistemes outside of a western cultural frame. It follows that eliciting curriculum reform with respect to CC broadly, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives more specifically, was perceived to be a significant challenge. Through interviews with eleven non-Indigenous academics across the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney, we uncovered several strategies for including multiple knowledges in science, with academics traversing these new horizons by building on the work of and collaborating with Indigenous Elders and academics to create enriched learning spaces. Alongside these strategies are staff reflections on their CC journey, which indicate that this endeavour entails necessary and vital discomforts that ultimately enable transformation. This process while guided by CC, led to experiences of cultural humility and a conviction in the role of cultural accountability.

Campus sustainability in the Australian higher education sector: divergence and convergence in planning, reporting and tactics

PurposeThis study provides a country-specific and sector-wide study of campus sustainability. Campus sustainability is a key consideration for the higher education (HEI) sector, and campus sustainability officers and managers manage its reporting and planning. Global and country-specific studies to date have focussed on individual organisation narratives, interviews with faculty and management and content analysis of reports and plans. Findings show wide divergence on scope and scale of formalised planning and reporting, few references to sustainability officers and managers’ perspectives and limited reference to organisational theory to explain tactics and strategies adopted. As a result, there are a few country-specific and sector-wide studies. The purpose of this paper is to address the scarcity of country-specific and sector-wide studies into campus sustainability practices in HEI by combining qualitative and quantitative analysis.Design/methodology/approachThe authors provide the first sector-wide overview of formal campus sustainability commitments for the Australian public sector HEI (n = 41) in terms of several key indicators – plans, reports and other indicators. Second, the authors use reflexive thematic analysis of interviews (n = 21) with current and former sustainability officers and managers to examine sector organisational reasons for such variation. Third, the authors analyse HEI sector isomorphism and divergence on planning and reporting of campus sustainability from the perspective of institutional theory of organisations.FindingsThis study finds some convergence on the need for plans, reporting and other engagement elements, albeit without any sector-wide standards being followed. The authors observe a trend towards carbon-neutral (CN) declarations before 2030 although with nuances on emissions scope and increasing inclusion of renewable energy. Interviews identify a range of strategies and tactics adopted for campus sustainability relative to internal and external organisational pressures. Overall, the sector still exhibits weak institutionalisation of sustainability.Research limitations/implicationsThis study interviews a specific and limited cohort (n = 21) and presents an overview of sector reporting, planning and target setting although not a detailed content analysis. Other interview cohorts may have different views on the strategic and tactical purposes of reporting practices, and more in-depth analysis of formal plans and reports should be conducted in the future.Practical implicationsThis study concludes that the Australian HEI sector should consider greater public transparency of its data and reporting actions. Common standards and a benchmarking platform for the sector would improve overall engagement with all internal and external stakeholders. At present, the HEI sector’s message to its key internal and external stakeholders is mixed and needs to change towards a more in-depth institutionalisation of sustainability on campus.Originality/valueParticular insights are the value of organisational strategies and tactics as an interpretive framework for HEI campus sustainability and how interviewees attribute sector competitors and self-different motives and tactics. Albeit limited, this is the first mapping of sector approaches to sustainability reporting and planning.

Undergraduate international students’ challenges in a flipped classroom environment: An Australian perspective

ABSTRACT Flipped classroom approaches have increasingly been adopted in the Australian higher education sector. However, current research on this approach is predominantly quantitative and focused on domestic students. Little is known about the flipped classroom learning experiences of undergraduate international students in Australia. This paper sets out to investigate undergraduate international students’ challenges in a flipped classroom environment, based on thirty-two semi-structured interviews with undergraduate international students at an Australian university. We identified several challenges, including language issues, barriers to autonomous learning, as well as technical and technological challenges. International students in our study also provide constructive recommendations to improve the design of the flipped classroom. This paper contributes new insights into the nuances of undergraduate international students’ challenges in a flipped classroom environment.

Islands in the stream: Indigenous academic perceptions of Indigenous senior leadership role

ABSTRACT While the number of Indigenous people holding senior positions across the Australian higher education sector is steadily increasing, understanding the value and subsequent contribution of senior Indigenous leaders is an area that has not been investigated in significant detail previously. Commencing in 2018, the Walan Mayiny: Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education project set out to examine the roles and responsibilities of senior Indigenous appointments. This article outlines the value of such positions through centring the voices of Indigenous academic staff. More specifically, findings reported in this article pertain to the perceived value, perceived characteristics and the perceived challenges of Indigenous leadership across the sector. Three sets of values are identified by Indigenous academics to be critical to Indigenous leadership: ‘visibility, voice and advocacy’, ‘decision making and action’, and ‘institutional accountability’. In terms of characteristics, Indigenous academics believe senior Indigenous leaders need to be resilient, be committed to the wider Indigenous community and also have the ability to create and communicate a vision. There are a number of key challenges facing senior Indigenous leaders such as the significant scope of the role, racism, and in some cases the value of the role is not understood and considered tokenistic. Through better understanding the nuances associated with these positions, the sector can best serve Indigenous staff and students, as well as the broader academy.

Peak bodies: Indigenous representation in the Australian higher education sector

The number of Indigenous Australians engaged in the higher education has risen steadily in recent years. Since the 1970s, several groups have been established to represent issues impacting Indigenous staff and students across the Australian higher education sector. Despite the deep passion and commitment by Indigenous leaders to advance Indigenous education in general, no single group currently provides adequate representation and advocacy on these issues. This article reports on findings from an Australian Research Council-funded study on Indigenous leadership in higher education. In doing so, it shares the perspectives of senior Indigenous leaders, university executive such as Vice-Chancellors and Indigenous academics. Ultimately, this article purports that it is necessary for the Federal Government and Universities Australia to work collaboratively with Indigenous People if we are going to see collective advancement across the sector and that this needs to occur in a more meaningful way than currently exercised.

Disruptive Changing Higher Education Ecosystems: Have University Academics Been Gazumped?

Continual reforms in the Australian Higher Education Sector result in ongoing significant changes to the experiences of the Australian academic. As a result, massification, internationalisation and corporatization form the landscape of academia in Australia. The Australian University Accounting Academic (AUAA) faces ongoing challenges and opportunities within this dynamic academic environment, and this study explores these challenges in relation to teaching themed issues that confront the AUAA. By using a questionnaire and interviews with AUAAs, three themes emerged, being curriculum, teaching workload, and the impact of online teaching. The “ASSET” support framework is developed from these conversations with the AUAA’s to help them become an “asset” to the university during these times of disruptive change instead of allowing the system to “gazump” them.

Two sides of the same coin? Internationalisation and employability - students’ perceptions of employability and career outcomes from International Studies

The Australian higher education sector has promoted internationalisation opportunities for students, including through international studies (IS) courses that entail language and culture study and international exchange. Educators promote internationalisation for many reasons, including enhanced employability, and international studies degrees are increasingly offered in combination with professional courses. Students, however, do not necessarily share in the belief that international opportunities and language study will increase their employability. A thematic analysis of statements (n=223) supplied on student applications to withdraw from combined international studies courses in favour of single professional degrees, reveals that students fail to see employability benefits and may even perceive their international studies course as a professional liability. Understanding these beliefs can allow educators to more effectively promote the value of not only international studies degrees, but also language and culture study and exchange opportunities, and to counter some of the myths that prevent students from undertaking international opportunities.

‘Teaching shouldn’t feel like a combat sport’: how teaching evaluations are weaponised against minoritised academics

ABSTRACT In the Australian Higher Education sector, the gendered, racialised, and heteronormative culture of neoliberalism means that for minoritised teachers the university classroom is always a contested, and often hostile, space. Our gendered and racialised bodies become objects under the gaze of our students and the deafening headwinds of post-truth anti-intellectualism render our stories difficult for our students to hear. This paper probes our experiences as minoritised educators who through a decolonial framework, actively challenge deeply entrenched narratives through critical teaching and consider how that translates into student feedback. We employ a collaborative autoethnographic approach to offer an understanding of how Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) are used as a tool of disciplinary control in the neoliberalised university. We argue that SETs are racialised and gendered tools of power that can be hostile and biased towards minoritised teachers, and urge reconsideration of their overuse in higher education.

Examining Indigenous leadership in the academy: A methodological approach

Formal Indigenous leadership within Australian universities has expanded significantly in the last decade. Given this advancement, understanding how to integrate Indigenous leadership into existing institutional governance structures is an area that requires investigation. Recognising the need to further examine Indigenous leadership in the higher education governance structure, the Walan Mayiny: Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education project commenced in 2018. This Australian Research Council funded project specifically aims to examine the roles and subsequent responsibilities of senior Indigenous appointments within the Australian higher education sector and senior Indigenous higher education roles across Canada, New Zealand and the United States. In doing so, it investigates the responsibilities, impacts, key advantages and barriers of senior Indigenous appointments within Australian universities from an Indigenous perspective. The article provides details of the theoretical framework and research methods adopted within the Walan Mayiny: Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education project. Preliminary findings and demographic information pertaining to the participants who have currently contributed to the study will be presented in order to help us gain a better understanding of the role and subsequent value of Indigenous leadership within the higher education sector.