Over the past 25 years, performance measurement has gained salience in higher education, and with the explosion of structured data and the impact of business analytics and intelligence systems, there are new angles by which big volumes of data can be analyzed. Using traditional analytical approaches, pairs of reciprocal cohorts are considered as…

In chemistry curricula, both the role of the laboratory program and the method of assessment used are subject to scrutiny and debate. The ability to identify clearly defined competencies for the chemistry laboratory program is crucial, given the numerous other disciplines that rely on foundation-level chemistry knowledge and practical skills. In…

The study described here is part of a program of research investigating the application of a theoretical course design approach to pre-service teacher education. In this study the focus was to establish the effects of the design approach on pre-service teachers' mastery of pedagogical content knowledge about inclusive education. A…

Given the lack of student research experience, the undergraduate thesis is necessarily focussed primarily on development of research skills (i.e. it is process oriented). Since postgraduate supervision is research output focussed, the lessons learnt from this field are not always directly transferable. In contrast to the vast body of work in the…

How can universities ensure that strategic aims to integrate research and teaching through engaging students in research-based experiences be effectively realised within institutions? This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative study exploring academics' perceptions of the challenges and barriers to implementing undergraduate research.…

Global initiatives and a rapidly expanding academic literature identify the responsibility that universities have to incorporate sustainability education into their curricula. This study had two aims: first, to investigate the extent to which Australian undergraduate management curricula explicitly identified a focus on sustainability and, second,…

This paper explores how a cohort of pre-service Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers from an Australian university describe and construct their understandings of health and the body. Given that the courses that these undergraduates take in their degree programme present different perspectives on health and the body, a relevant question is…

This paper explores the views of pre-service physics teachers and science teacher educators about the initial teacher education (ITE) programs in two Melbourne universities, focusing on their preparation for teaching high school physics. Using a qualitative interview approach, five pre-service physics teachers and three physics teacher educators…

In Australia, the IT workforce and employment outcomes for university IT bachelor graduates have a complex interrelationship. The likelihood of IT bachelor graduates to work in a professional IT role is infrequently discussed in the research literature. It has been suggested that "deficient" undergraduate IT curricula are one contributor…

In this article the authors analyze the written solutions of some first year undergraduate mathematics students from Victorian universities as they answered tutorial exercise questions relating to complex numbers and differentiation. These students had studied at least Mathematics Methods or its equivalent at secondary school. Complex numbers was…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the overall alignment of undergraduate accounting degree programmes from all Certified Practicing Accountants Australia and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand accredited higher education providers in Australia with the profession's minimum educational expectations (MEEs).…

Foundations studies programs (FSPs), sometimes termed pathways programs, seek to prepare international students for an undergraduate education. While enrolments in these programs continue to grow in Australia, there has correspondingly been little research exploring how FSP students experience their transition into university life and study. In…

Purpose: Sustainability within tertiary curriculum is hard to measure and often perceived to be illusive in nature. Existing higher education sustainability assessment tools rarely focus on the curriculum. This paper aims to establish and implement a tool that can measure sustainability integration within curriculum. The Faculty of Engineering and…

This paper describes the process of constructively aligning a generalist undergraduate degree using a sociological structure of professional education. Drawing largely on the work of educational sociologists like Young, Winch and Muller, the process aimed to introduce the notion of recontextualization as the curriculum driver for the constructive…

With the majority of undergraduate teaching in Australian higher education being undertaken by casual academics, ensuring adequate support for these staff to access support and professional development relating to teaching and learning is imperative. In this article, we profile the development and implementation of a university-wide strategic…