With the use of social media for academic purposes gaining in popularity, the underlying motivation for this study was to seek a detailed understanding of its impact on students' academic performance. A survey of 334 first-year students in accounting courses at five Australian higher education institutions was undertaken to evaluate the different…

The present study aims to determine the relative efficiency of 28 countries participated in PISA 2015 and TALIS 2013 based on student performance and teacher quality, and to sort the countries according to their efficiency scores by using a super efficiency model. Moreover, this study attempts to reveal important improvements countries must make…

The effects of school starting age and relative age effects (RAEs) have generated much interest from parents, teachers, policymakers, and educational researchers. Our 10-year longitudinal study is based on a nationally representative (N = 4,983) prospective sample from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. The primary outcomes are results…

With most students around the world having experienced remote learning over the past year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of teachers and schools has become all the more evident. Temporary school closures underline how richly students benefit from being in school with their teachers and classmates. "Positive, High-achieving…

This paper addresses the important and linked questions of how to manage academic performance and workload effectively. It highlights the need in a modern, corporatised university to consider the nature of academic work and optimal ways to develop workload allocation and performance management processes. This paper complements two previous papers…

This paper reports on implementing learning plans at an Australian university and their perceived use in supporting doctoral candidates' professional and academic development. The implementation of individualised learning plans for doctoral candidates was the outcome of university-wide discussions regarding coursework in the PhD. Based on a review…

Evidence from around the world shows low university participation among young people from low socioeconomic status backgrounds. A common concern is that disadvantaged young people may be unable to afford higher education costs. Using data on government benefits intended to support students from low income households in high school, we identify…

Since 2010, the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP) has provided funding for Australian universities to 'raise aspiration' among under-represented groups. Underpinned by utilitarian discourses of human capital and individual capacitation, these resources have transformed the ways that universities seek to engage…

This paper argues that a component of increasing the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and youths completing their secondary education is having parents and teachers maintain heightened expectations of these children in achieving this goal. To understand this phenomenon, we investigate the importance of, and discrepancies…

Indigenous students, a subgroup of the Australian student population, produce poorer educational outcomes and continue to produce persistently lower attendance rates than non-Indigenous peers. Currently, governments collect and monitor student attendance as an indicator of students' educational achievement and a key performance measure of schools…

The expression 'student success' has gained traction in the university sector and has been applied to various aspects of the higher education (HE) learning trajectory. Yet, 'success' is an amorphous term that means distinctive things to various stakeholders in any educational undertaking. When the literature on this field is examined, it is…

Skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are promoted by the Australian government as pivotal for Australia's economic prosperity. Research on equity groups suggests that group membership is associated with several factors linked to 'leakage' from the STEM pipeline of school, university and transition to work. In this…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to build on the foundational theories of personality and motivation to explore the role of competitiveness and of ethnicity in relation to student academic performance. Survey data from 328 students across four sites (Australia, Denmark, Hong Kong and Korea) provided self-rated responses to items measuring…

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…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a measure of soft skills suitable for use in a large survey of Australian adolescents. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted with N = 4,704 Australians aged 15-19 over 2 years. Principal components analysis was performed on 14 self-report items, followed by generalised linear mixed…