Existing studies have revealed that prior educational experience plays an important role in student learning, and many international students are encountering challenges while undertaking academic studies at Anglophone universities. However, few studies have examined how the pre-university preparation international students experience assists them…

The progressive democratisation of Australian higher education has numerous causes including the increase in the number of universities and therefore university places across the later 20th and into the 21st century, as well as initiatives by governments of different ideological hues to increase the total percentage of the population with a…

The past two decades have witnessed growing interest in Higher Education (HE) achievement standards. Globally, the English Language Teaching (ELT) sector provides students with Direct Entry (DE) English language program (ELP) pathways to university study. It has typically relied on commercially available English language tests to ensure…

The main objective of this study is to identify and discuss the motivational factors that significantly influence learners' academic success in an Australian enabling education setting. The logistic regression technique has been employed to identify the motivational factors using data collected through online surveys with 331 learners enrolled in…

Higher education participation has increased worldwide given policies devoted to widening participation for under-represented groups, including the use of alternative entry pathways to university. It is, however, unknown if students admitted via alternative pathways perform well academically. This study uses data for 81,874 students from 16…

This paper reports on the findings from an Australian study exploring how best to facilitate the success of students from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds who are studying at regional universities. Interviews with 69 successful regional students from low SES backgrounds, and 26 staff identified as experts in supporting these students,…

Australian universities are grappling with the challenge of plagiarism among students, particularly international students, with a reliance on software such as Turnitin. Measuring plagiarism in this way has limitations, with consequences for the internalisation of academic integrity by international students. An appraisal of such software…

University-led science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) outreach plays an important role in addressing declining rates of student participation in tertiary STEM programs and declining interest in pursuing careers in STEM fields (Sadler, Eilam, Bigger & Barry, 2018). One type of outreach program that is becoming more popular is…

This article presents the results of the first Canada-wide survey on how university admissions personnel view the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP) in relation to other curricula. The purpose of this study was twofold: (i) to move beyond anecdote and discover how Canada compares with universities in the UK and Australia/NZ, and…

The objective of achieving a sense of "authenticity" in an educational context is one that might have immediate appeal, though how this is defined, let alone achieved, remains contested. The concept of "authentic discussion" has traditionally been used in the context of classroom English teaching in schools, but this paper…