With projections from the Australian federal government indicating an impending exacerbation of the teacher shortage by 2025, it is timely to explore potential approaches that could help mitigate this imminent national crisis. In teaching, there is an historical tendency for the teaching profession to attract more women than men and this study…

Expansionary policies to widen participation in higher education have led to a growth in alternative entry pathways into university. This study considers the experiences and retention outcomes of those entering Australian universities through different pathways, and how these vary across diverse student groups. Data were drawn from linked student…

Employability skills and capabilities are equally important as academic and technical knowledge in the current job market. Consequently, universities are increasingly focusing on providing employability skills to their students. While universities in Australia are experimenting with various methods for employability embedding, we could not find…

Science undergraduates' timely degree completion (TDC) has become increasingly important for students themselves, universities, and society, due to issues such as cost, efficiency, and productivity, respectively. This study investigated the potential effect of several variables on TDC of Bachelor of Science (BSc) students at an Australian…

This article presents a longitudinal study, over eleven years, of the academic progress of a cohort of design students (n = 475) at a major Australian university. The students were from four different spatial design disciplines: architecture, industrial design, interior design, and landscape architecture. The article identifies cognitive variables…

For institutions intent on improving their research student outcomes, it is important to identify the variables most strongly associated with timely or tardy completions, which the university has the potential to influence or amend. For this to occur the analyses of doctoral completion times need to be conducted at an institution or discipline…

The Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) show that most young people aspire to some form of post-school education or training. According to data on young Australians who were aged 24 in 2018, the majority of young people achieve their post-school educational aspirations. This paper explores the noticeable differences in aspirations and…

The Thesis by Publication (TBP) is an approach to doctoral education that offers the advantage of achievement of a doctoral degree while at the same time facilitating development of transferable knowledge and skills necessary to enter and sustain a career in contemporary academia. There is a need to build deeper understanding of the demands of the…

Australia is following a global trend in doctoral education policy to improve PhD completion times and rates. It is widely believed that accurate data on PhD completion are needed to assess the success of reforms and drive changes in doctoral education. In this article, new national completion data (2005-2018) provided by the Australian Department…

In this paper we deconstruct hegemonic conceptions of time in higher education. Drawing on a recent project, we argue that limiting assumptions about time dominate notions of student capability and prospects of success. The paper reveals how the conceptualisation of time is constituted within a framework that individualises and decontextualises…

Drawing on demographic data collected from interviews with 50 Indigenous Australians with a doctoral qualification and 33 of their supervisors, this paper provides the first detailed picture of Indigenous doctoral education in Australia, with the focus on study modes, age of candidates, completion times and employment. It also analyses data…

The emergence of academic development in Anglophone higher education was linked to post Second World War massification and concerns about student failure. These concerns were driven by increasing statistical investigations into student attrition and degree times to completion, particularly in Australia and Aotearoa, New Zealand. There was a…

Participatory action research (PAR) carries the promise that academics can make a difference, an appealing prospect for many postgraduate students. This paper is written by an early career researcher who "survived" a PAR PhD. Despite acknowledging the unique challenges faced by students attempting PAR, it argues that these have been…

Completing a PhD on time is a complex process, influenced by many interacting factors. In this paper we take a Bayesian Network approach to analyzing the factors perceived to be important in achieving this aim. Focusing on a single research group in Mathematical Sciences, we develop a conceptual model to describe the factors considered to be…

Purpose: Doctoral candidates are now located within a research context of performativity where the push to successfully complete in a timely manner is central. The purpose of this paper is to develop a model of completion mindset within a completion context to assist research students and supervisors. Design/methodology/approach: The research was…