Tertiary College Research Articles

’The Cream Team’: an ethnography of BTEC National Diploma (Catering and Hotel Management) students in a tertiary college

This is an ethnographic study of vocational students in a tertiary college in England who intend entering a service industry which expanded in the 1980s and is predicted to expand into the next decade. The students are outwardly highly conformist with upward mobility aspirations. They are ‘labour market‐wise’ and know the importance of educational qualifications. At this level they are highly committed to the course. However, they are also very critical of the college provision. In such a situation they are highly instrumental, they want the Diploma without ‘the education’. The students are obsessed with getting good grades and passing the examinations. Paradoxically, although college is ‘boring’ and ‘a waste of time’, the students do not reject education/training/credentials and the majority go on to higher education. This overall lived experience is an ideal preparation for work in their chosen industry and life.

Factor structure of the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire (MDQ): Exploratory and LISREL analyses

The Menstrual Distress Questionnaire (MDQ) is the most frequently used self-report instrument for measuring menstrual cycle symptomatology. However, its internal structure has been criticized. In an extensive review of the psychometric properties of the MDQ covering over 50 studies from 1968 onwards, Spalding and Oei concluded that “the MDQ appears to measure constructs unrelated to the menstrual cycle,[that] its definition of the premenstrual syndrome may be inaccurate and the factor structure of this instrument may be unreliable.” In order to clarify the structural dimensionality of the MDQ, exploratory, congeneric and confirmatory factor analyses of the MDQ item intercorrelations were undertaken on a sample of 369 Australian tertiary college students. Congeneric analyses suggested that a number of the MDQ subscale items were not functioning efficiently and might best be removed from subsequent versions of the instrument. Nevertheless, results using the full LISREL 7 model generally supported the claimed structure of the MDQ instrument, with acceptable adjusted goodness of fit index and root mean square residual estimates being obtained.

Innovation and Commitment in Physical Education Teaching

Abstract Based on a theory of organisational socialisation, this study aimed to investigate physical education teachers’ orientations towards teaching. These orientations were also compared with lesson objectives and the methods by which teachers coped with their school environments. Ten male physical education teachers were selected by a tertiary college teaching practice coordinator. Five were identified as innovators and five as custodial or non‐innovative teachers. Each teacher was interviewed at length by one of the two researchers. The results from this exploratory study indicated some support for the organisational theory in the career patterns of the innovative teachers significantly differed from the custodial physical educators. For examle, the custodial teachers had experienced very stable career histories and had showed little inclination for study leave or other substantive breaks from teaching. The analysis also indicated links between lesson objectives and coping behaviour; while the custod...

Developing careers education and guidance in a tertiary college

Abstract The growing number of tertiary colleges presents careers education and guidance with challenges different from and additional to those of secondary schools, sixth-form colleges and further education. This article describes and analyses how one tertiary college, founded four years ago, has responded to these challenges. The background to the setting up of the college, and of careers education and guidance within it, is described and some areas of difficulty and ambiguity are identified. The emergence of principles (comprehensiveness, time-tabling, timing, identification of need, and curriculum negotiation) underlying the organisation of careers education is documented. Four types of careers course (Introductory, Exploratory, Focusing and Practical Guidance) are described and examples of how they are used are given. Particular attention is drawn to the innovatory use of ‘Careers Workshops’.

Developing careers education and guidance in a tertiary college

Developing careers education and guidance in a tertiary college

Factor Structure of the Differential Emotions Scale and the Eight State Questionnaire Revisited

The Differential Emotions Scale (DES-IV) and the Eight State Questionnaire (8SQ) are two separately developed multidimensional instruments purported to index simultaneously a number of fundamental emotional/mood states. The two instruments combined quantify some 20 primary mood states, which. in practice, may provide too complex a picture to be of benefit in many applied and research settings. Attempts to derive higher-order mood-state factors from both the DES-IV and the 8SQ have yielded somewhat inconsistent results. In this paper an attempt was made to resolve this issue by reanalysing data collected from 450 Australian tertiary college students. The results indicated that there are at least four major typological mood-state dimensions within the normal state domain. These higher-order factors include the mood states relating to Extraversion, Neuroticism, Hostility and Arousal-Fatigue.

Differential use by male and female students of the Counselling Service of an Australian tertiary college: Implications for service design and counselling models

In conclusion, the operation of systematic data gathering procedure in the RMIT Counselling Service has provided a body of data from a number of years, enabling analysis of sex differentials in utilization of the Service. Some differentials have been indicated and further lines of research suggested to ensure that the advertising strategies and counselling models employed by the Service are better matched to the gender characteristics of its client population.

Integrated Science as a Preparation for ‘A’ Level Physics, Chemistry and Biology

Abstract The study seeks to compare the performance in ‘A’ level science examinations of two groups of students; one group previously studied an integrated science course (SCISP) whilst the other studied the separate subjects of physics, chemistry and biology to ‘O’ level standard. Data were collected from a tertiary college where students assemble from a number of 11‐16 feeder schools. Some of these schools teach SCISP whilst others offer the separate subjects of physics, chemistry and biology. College policy is to mix students and to conceal their origins as much as possible. Different patterns were shown in the two years of students studied but overall no significant differences emerged between the performance of the two groups of students despite the fact that SCISP students must have spent considerably less time per science subject in their feeder schools. In the one feeder school studied where all the SCISP teaching was done by former physics teachers, there was no evidence to suggest either that st...

Sex, Religion and Factor Analytically Derived Attitudes towards Homosexuality

SynopsisUsing the Heterosexual Attitudes Towards Homosexuality scale with 560 tertiary college students, 2 factors were identified: Social-Personal Acceptance and Perceived Normality, thus indicating that attitudes towards homosexuality involve multidimensional rather than unidimensional concepts. The ANOVA analysis indicated that in general, respondents agreed moderately with concepts on both factors. As church attendance increased, the respondents’ attitude on both dimensions of homosexuality became less liberal. Females were found to hold more liberal attitudes than males, again on both factors. A number of possibly applicable theoretical propositions were examined to account for the findings. It is suggested that further studies using multidimensional instruments be conducted with non-student populations as findings would be relevant to the homosexuality debate.

Promoting self-control of learning

The process of learning with understanding was investigated by case study of three male students learning genetics at a tertiary college. Five conclusions regarding the process arise from the study. These conclusions are: (1) Learning outcome is determined by decisions made by the learner. These decisions are influenced by learner perceptions and interpretations. (2) Inadequate learning is due to ineffective decision-making. This ineffective decision-making is associated with specific, recurring learning deficiencies. The main types of deficiency, deficient processing tendencies and misconceptions, cause inadequate performance and preclude learning with understanding. A total of seven tendencies was observed. Each learner applied tendencies idiosyncratically. Tendencies also generated particular misconceptions which further inhibited learning. (3) It takes energy to learn with understanding, or to unlearn a misconception. (4) Learners often are unaware of their deficiencies. This lack of awareness generates inappropriate attitudes. (5) Increased learner awareness of the nature and process of learning changes attitudes and procedures. The major implication of this study relates to promoting self-control of learning. It is proposed that improved learning will result from increasing learner awareness of the nature and process of learning, and by training learners in procedures for enhancing self-evaluation and decision-making.

The case for the tertiary college

The case for the tertiary college