Adventures in Canadian Post-Secondary Education: April 2010

Friday, 30 April, 2010

Factors influencing post-secondary participation

The latest offering of Statistics Canada's Education Matters includes an analysis of post-secondary education access in Canada using data from the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS). Academica's Top Ten provides the following summary:

In a review of research on factors influencing participation in higher education, published in the April 2010 issue of Statistics Canada's Education Matters, researchers conclude that family income, parental education, and factors such as aspirations and preparation for a post-secondary education are all significant determinants of who goes on to PSE. While parental income and education appear to be the main background factors, there are a number of other factors influencing PSE participation, such as academic success in high school and a student's score on indicators of high school engagement and academic self-efficacy. The effect of parental education decreases when such factors are taken into consideration, leading to the conclusion that the overall effect of parental education is exerted at least partly through the role parents play in encouraging stronger academic performance, better study habits, and more positive attitudes towards school.

Monday, 26 April, 2010

Early observations on higher education in Turkey

The first full day of the 2010 International Educational Technology Conference (IETC) at Bogazici University is done. Our presentation is on the agenda for tomorrow.

I haven't seen any evidence of the much debated ban on women wearing headscarves on university campuses. Perhaps this doesn't apply to conferences?

One of the much talked about non-technology issues amongst my Turkish colleagues is the recent, rather massive expansion of the university system here. There are currently 141 universities in Turkey, with 60 of these having been established in the past 4 years. The Turkish government has recently announced the creation of 7 more.

Awards for two MemorialU graduates at CSSHE Annual Conference

The Annual Conference of the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education (CSSHE) is taking place at Concordia University from May 29-31 in conjunction with the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. The preliminary conference programme is available here in .pdf format. Note that the two recipients of the annual CSSHE Masters Thesis Award, Monique Bourgeois and Albert Johnson, completed their master's degrees at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Saturday, 24 April, 2010

Travelling to Istanbul today

After a series of volcanic-ash-cloud-free flights, I should arrive in Istanbul tomorrow afternoon. I'll be there for the International Educational Technology Conference (IETC) where my long-time collaborator Dr. Dennis Sharpe and I will be presenting a retrospective of our distance e-learning studies over the past few years.

The IETC is taking place at Bogazici University but I will be staying a distance away in Sultanahmet, the historical center of Istanbul. I plan to stay a couple of extra days to engage in some academic tourism, and will do some daily photoblogging of my activities on the Bosphorus as they progress.

Friday, 23 April, 2010

Publish or perish culture distorts research

An article published by the on-line journal PLoS ONE suggests that our publish-or-perish research culture forces scientists to produce "publishable" results and distorted findings. Here’s the abstract of the article, by the University of Edinburgh's Daniele Fanelli, titled Do Pressures to Publish Increase Scientists' Bias? An Empirical Support from US States Data:

The growing competition and “publish or perish” culture in academia might conflict with the objectivity and integrity of research, because it forces scientists to produce “publishable” results at all costs. Papers are less likely to be published and to be cited if they report “negative” results (results that fail to support the tested hypothesis). Therefore, if publication pressures increase scientific bias, the frequency of “positive” results in the literature should be higher in the more competitive and “productive” academic environments. This study verified this hypothesis by measuring the frequency of positive results in a large random sample of papers with a corresponding author based in the US. Across all disciplines, papers were more likely to support a tested hypothesis if their corresponding authors were working in states that, according to NSF data, produced more academic papers per capita. The size of this effect increased when controlling for state's per capita R&D expenditure and for study characteristics that previous research showed to correlate with the frequency of positive results, including discipline and methodology. Although the confounding effect of institutions' prestige could not be excluded (researchers in the more productive universities could be the most clever and successful in their experiments), these results support the hypothesis that competitive academic environments increase not only scientists' productivity but also their bias. The same phenomenon might be observed in other countries where academic competition and pressures to publish are high.

The complete article is freely available on-line.

Thursday, 22 April, 2010

Balancing budgets, tuition fees, and accessibility

In the recently released spring 2010 issue of International Higher Education quarterly, from the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, Arthur Hauptman reviews the following four approaches to budget-balancing in post-secondary institutions:

Capping enrollments and cutting costs;
Changing the mix of enrollments;
Increasing tuition fees for existing students; and
Increasing enrollments while maintaining current tuition-fee levels.

Hauptman makes this observation about tuition fee levels and accessibility to post-secondary education:

The other misunderstanding that clouds the public discourse on cost recovery is that the debate typically focuses on how tuition fees affect demand—namely, the lower the price the more that people will demand to enroll. But the reality is that tuition fees do not just reflect demand. They are also key in defining supply—the lower the fees, the fewer seats can be provided at any given level of government funding. This (over) emphasis on demand considerations contributes to the view that lower fees will result in more access. But the data suggest the opposite: countries that charge higher fees often have greater levels of participation because of the larger number of seats that are made available.

Wednesday, 21 April, 2010

Quebec gov't cautions McGillU on fee hike plan

From CTV News:

McGill University's plan to raise tuition fees for its MBA program has run into a major roadblock: the Quebec government.

The university wants to hike the annual cost of the program for Quebec students from about $1,700 to nearly $30,000 -- to help better fund the management department.

McGill has argued that the tuition increase would put the program on the pathway to becoming the best in Canada.

But Education Minister Michelle Courchesne said McGill did not get permission from the government to make such changes, which would limit the program's accessibility for some Quebec students.

Courchesne said if McGill decides go ahead with the tuition increase in the fall, it will lose its government subsidies -- which would amount to about $28,000 per student .

Monday, 19 April, 2010

Abstracted: Who benefits the most from PSE?

An article in the current edition of American Sociological Review reports on a study which found that individuals from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, who are least likely to obtain a university education, benefit most from a university education. Here’s the abstract of the article titled Who Benefits Most from College? Evidence for Negative Selection in Heterogeneous Economic Returns to Higher Education:

In this article, we consider how the economic return to a college education varies across members of the U.S. population. Based on principles of comparative advantage, scholars commonly presume that positive selection is at work, that is, individuals who are most likely to select into college also benefit most from college. Net of observed economic and noneconomic factors influencing college attendance, we conjecture that individuals who are least likely to obtain a college education benefit the most from college. We call this theory the negative selection hypothesis. To adjudicate between the two hypotheses, we study the effects of completing college on earnings by propensity score strata using an innovative hierarchical linear model with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. For both cohorts, for both men and women, and for every
observed stage of the life course, we find evidence suggesting negative selection. Results from auxiliary analyses lend further support to the negative selection hypothesis.

The full article can be accessed here in .pdf format.

Friday, 16 April, 2010

Noted whale researcher Dr. Jon Lien dies at 71

As reported by the CBC News:

Jon Lien, a St. John's scientist who earned international renown for his work with whales, has died.

Lien, who died Wednesday in St. John's, was 71. He had been ill for several years.

A professor at Memorial University, Lien spent years researching whales in the waters around Newfoundland and Labrador, and worked for decades with fishermen on freeing whales that had become trapped in gear.

Thursday, 15 April, 2010

Toughest exam in the world?

From Not-So-Foreign:

Almost half a million Indians wrote a six hour exam on Sunday, with just two percent of test takers getting a chance to claim a precious seat as a first year student in an Indian Institute of Technology. The IITs as they are known, are India's jewel universities, offering world-class science and engineering as good as found in any country. IIT graduates are positioned in the world's leading universities as professors, or in top positions in global leading companies. The number taking the IIT entrance exam has doubled in number in the last decade. Half of the ten thousand entrance spots up for grabs are reserved for India's lower castes and classes.

The Joint Entrance Exam (JEE), is the only hope for hundreds of thousands of students to get a top education. After its 15 IITs, engineering education in India is typically mediocre, and not near acceptable world-class standards. Thus if a family can not afford the tens of thousands of dollars required to study abroad, students who excelled in high school can not continue to develop at top levels. The pressure is enormous, and many students spend months and even years in coaching centres to train to "crack" the JEE.

Tuesday, 13 April, 2010

Podcast on assessment in U.S. higher education

This month's podcast from the Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice at the University of Southern California features a discussion of assessment in higher education with Wayne Camara, Vice President for Research and Development at the U.S. College Board. Camara discusses assessment standards in the U.S. education system including K-12 student achievement, the K-12 common core state standards in English-language arts and math, and readiness for post-secondary education. Click here to listen (podcast runs 34:04).

Monday, 12 April, 2010

Developments at home and abroad

After a week of much needed R+R in Cuba, I am happily back at the university and ready to settle into marking a sizable mound of end-of-term papers.

Sifting through my email, I noted a number of notable post-secondary developments in recent days including the following:

Developments at home. . .

Not enough bang for Ontario bucks: Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has rapped post-secondary institutions in that province for not delivering "qualitative improvement" in exchange for increased public investment in recent years.

Alberta tuition rising: With tuition fees increasing in some Alberta post-secondary programs, there are continuing calls for a freeze on fees in the province.

YorkU under fire: Academics at York University are questioning whether senior officials violated academic freedom last year by interfering in a planned Israel-Palestine academic conference.

And, developments abroad. . .

Europe's post-secondary education crisis: Time Magazine recently published an article on the funding challenges and rising post-secondary costs across Europe. This must read starts with a neat demolition of the Irish "free fee" myth.

Finland must reform universities: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has recommended that Finland introduce tuition fees, replace grants with repayable loans, and enact a number of other university reforms.

Bosnian institutions attract Turks: Hundreds of Turkish students are opting to study at universities in Bosnia where costs are lower and, unlike in Turkey, women are permitted to wear headscarves at university.

Thursday, 1 April, 2010

Apprenticeship completion and discontinuation

On Wednesday, Statistics Canada released a report that reviews the completion and discontinuation rates amongst registered apprentices who began an apprenticeship program in 1994 or 1995.

This study tracked apprentices over an 11-year period and examined completion and discontinuation in relation their age, individual trades and major trade groups, program duration, time spent in the program, and whether or not the trade was covered by the Red Seal Interprovincial Standards Program.

The study found that only about half of the apprentices who started a program in 1994 or 1995 completed their training within the subsequent 11 years. The industrial and mechanical trades posted above-average rates of completion, and, among the 6 provinces reviewed for the study, Manitoba and Alberta had the highest completion rates.

The full report, Registered Apprentices: The Cohorts of 1994 and 1995, One Decade Later, may be accessed here in .pdf format.

Adventures in Canadian Post-Secondary Education