Postgraduates may not have studied in a long time

It is easy to assume that because a student has completed an undergraduate degree that they will have the necessary academic skills for postgraduate study. Given many of our students may not have been at university for 10-30 years, this makes it essential to scaffold student’s academic skills and transition them back into the conventions and expectations of higher education.

Learning environments and technologies constantly change

The ways in which we engage students and the learning environments and tools we utilise have undergone rapid changes, therefore it is essential that we transition students into these environments and approaches.

Research has highlighted that postgraduates need support in using technology for learning and that it needs to be part of the curriculum (Blount and McNeill, 2011). Additionally, postgraduates want to have a sense of belonging to a community (Falloon 2011) whether learning environments are online, face to face or both.

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Postgraduates speak

I think I would've really benefited from a course orientation, you know if the course coordinator has sat us all down in a room at the beginning of the semester and said:' welcome...this is the structure of the courses, this is how it works, these are the expectations, etc' that would've been great. (Hamlin et al, 2016, p 12).

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Academics speak

One of the things that we found is that very few of the students who come into the coursework program have any learning skills. We are talking about people who have probably completed an undergraduate degree somewhere between five and 40 years ago. Even those that have done an undergraduate degree fairly recently, find now they are coming back to university and the digital environment is totally different to what they had before. (Hamlin et al, 2016, p.11).

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Building postgraduates' confidence

There has been an assumption that postgraduates are competent in higher education study and have confidence in their abilities. Recent research has found that postgraduates struggle with confidence and their sense of identity in academia (Littleton & Whitelock 2005). They need support in building confidence in themselves and their developing academic identity; this will support them in participating in their academic community.

Applying transition pedagogy to postgraduates

A ‘transition pedagogy seeks to mediate the diversity in preparedness and cultural capital of entering students’ (Kift, 2009, p.9).

Kift’s (2009) work in transition pedagogy is designed for all first year students, whether undergraduate or postgraduate. Transition pedagogy evolved from an ALTC senior fellowship grant into developing a pedagogy to scaffold and enhance the first-year student learning experience in Australian higher education.

First-year curriculum principles

As part of the project a series of guiding principles was developed to support designing the first-year learning experience.

The following provides an overview of the principles and strategies to support the postgraduate transition

Source: Principles from Kift (2009) and strategies from Cooper & Buchanan (2013).

Whole-institution approach

The transition pedagogy approach warns against transition and scaffolding solely being addressed by ‘de-contextualised, “bolt on” skills courses’ (Kift, 2009). We need to move beyond the co-curricular activities approach and focus on a whole-institution strategy. Read the following to find out more about ACU’s postgraduate strategy.

Resources

First-year postgraduate student experience

• For additional strategies read p.35 “Recommendations for educators, and learning support staff”, in Volume 1: First year postgraduate student experience, from National Research on the postgraduate student experience.

Transition Pedagogy

The following may be useful if you would like to understand transition pedagogy more.

• Read the final report,  found on the Transition Pedagogy website, Articulating a transition pedagogy to scaffold and to enhance the first year student learning experience in Australian higher education (Kift 2009).
• The checklists on this page may provide useful tips to help you to support students in their return to higher education (ALTC Kift Senior Fellowship 2009).
• A series of six (6) short videos on transition pedagogy for first-year curriculum design presented by University of Newcastle academic Rachel Buchanan (Cooper and Buchanan, 2013).

References

ALTC Kift Senior Fellowship. (2009). First year curriculum principles checklists. Retrieved from http://transitionpedagogy.com/reports-and-resources/principles-checklists/.

Blount, Y., & McNeill, M. (2011). Fostering independent learning and engagement for postgraduate students: Using a publisher supplied software programme. International Journal of Educational Management, 25, 390–404.

Falloon, G. (2011). Making the connection: Moore’s theory of transactional distance and its

relevance to the use of a virtual classroom in postgraduate online teacher education. Journal of Research and Technology in Education, 43(3), 187–198.

Hamlin, Gary; Kinash, Shelley; Crane, Linda; Bannatyne, Amy; Judd, Madelaine-Marie; Stark, Ashley; Eckersley, Bill; Partridge, Helen; and Udas, Ken, "National research on the postgraduate student experience: Case presentation on the first year postgraduate student experience (Volume 1 of 3)" (2016). Learning and Teaching papers. Paper 142. http://epublications.bond.edu.au/tls/142

Littleton, K., & Whitelock, D. (2005). The negotiation and co-construction of meaning and understanding within a postgraduate online learning community. Learning, Media and Technology, 30(2), 147–164.

Cooper and Buchanan. (2013). Prezis for Academics playlist [videos]. The Seahorse Project. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxAa0_gooEw&list=PLQxvL4PjJkJQeYmHXdRW0VrE9U86xlQRy&index=2

Tobbell, J. and O’Donnell, V. (2013). Transition to postgraduate study: postgraduate ecological systems and identity. Cambridge Journal of Education. Vol. 43, No. 1, 123-138. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2012.749215.