Grants won 2008
Congratulations to the following successful applicants in obtaining a teaching and learning grant.
LTPF grants - UTS:Business
Andrew Litchfield & Tracy Taylor, Work-ready project: integrated into the curriculum contextualised by profession, $100,000
Stewart Clegg & Martin Kornberger, Strategy as Practice: Developing Video Case Studies, $49,582
Chris Bajada, Developing an Effective Strategy for Integrating Teaching and Research at an Undergraduate Level, $38,000
Chris Bajada, Further Strategies for Enhancing the Effectiveness of the Peer-Assisted Learning (PAL) Program, $10,000
Suzanne Benn, Developing innovative, practice-based assessment activities for cross-disciplinary teaching programs in partnership with industries, $7,518
Kylie Redfern, The Influence of Culture on Attitudes Toward Plagiarism in Chinese and Australian students, $3,075
UTS:Business teaching and learning grants
On-Line Examinations Project
Investigator: Dr Hugh M. Pattinson
The project explored possibilities and challenges associated with running on-line examinations using UTSONLINE. Potential benefits for running online examinations include fast and efficient delivery, assessment and feedback to students, sustainability effects through minimal paper use, and increasing student preferences for completing online assessments. Security issues associated with running online examinations were also explored in the project. Project findings highlighted that the current e-learning application underpinning UTSONLINE does not provide sufficient "lock-down" security for browsers used to running online examinations or tests. Other universities have addressed this issue through adding "Lock-Down" browser applications, of which the Respondus LockDown Browser is currently the most popular application. Dedicated servers for managing online examination data are also recommended. The UTSONLINE Team has been working on both of these recommendations in 2008. A further recommendation is for exploration and evaluation of Open-Source and Web 2.0 applications that also could be potentially used for online assessment.
Peer Assisted Learning and Support for Postgraduate Students
Investigators: Ms Deborah Cotton and Mr Rowan Trayler
The PAL sessions were voluntary for the students enrolled in Financial Management and were conducted as small drop-in style classes run by the PAL instructors, who were more senior students. Regression analysis of the results as the dependent variable and attendance of PAL Sessions as the independent variable was conducted and the sessions were found to be a statistically significant factor in the students overall results. Student feedback indicated a positive view of the usefulness of these sessions. Predominantly the view was a feeling of support in their studies even by those students who did not attend any of the PAL sessions.
Industry Connections Portal project
Investigators: Dr Carmel Foley, Dr Jennifer Small and Dr Bruce Hayllar
Students from the School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism benefit from industry connections through their involvement with internships, industry projects, field visits, industry guest speakers, and industry advisory committees who assist in developing their courses. It is our vision to develop these links further through the provision of an interactive website, the Industry Connections portal, to facilitate access for students to industry information and resources (projects, jobs, internship opportunities) and enhance industry engagement by providing log on access to authorised industry partners. The project aims were to scope the possibilities for the provision of an online information and administrative site for students, staff and industry. In practice the project went beyond the original scope and has the basic framework in place to implement the portal in the second half of 2009. The portal will be linked to the School web page and will make use of advanced features of UTSOnline.
Fin-assist: A program to help students develop analytical learning skills
Investigators: Dr Chris Terry, Dr David O'Toole and Mr Danny Yeung
The T&L grant was used to develop and offer a program of weekly sessions with the aim of helping students, especially those articulating from Insearch, to improve their learning performance by developing their analytical learning skills. The program was run for students in The Financial System, a stage 3 subject within the Finance Major. The sessions conducted by "fin-pals" - successful later-stage finance students - who were able to provide students with their perspectives on the subject's curriculum. Evidence from student surveys and other sources indicate that student learning skills were enhanced by the program.
The impact of writing programs on student writing and student attitudes to writing
Investigators: Dr Peter Docherty
This project extended previous work done on the impact that writing programs in economics and business subjects can have on student writing outcomes. Previous work examined the extent to which grades received by students in a written assignment were explained by a series of variables including whether students attended a series of targeted writing workshops and whether they accessed a series of online writing-support resources. The 2008 project organised a large collection of additional data relevant to student writing including a series of variables about student language background and educational performance, breakdowns of results on series of written assignments into content and writing components, and qualitative data from a sample of 30-45 minute interviews about student writing experience and attitudes. The outcome of the project is that this large collection of data is now in a form that can be used to answer a more comprehensive set of questions than previously possible about the factors that affect student writing outcomes. This feeds into the fourth stage of an ongoing educational development project.
A comparison of student expectations and perceptions of the demands of a practice based subject and the reality, in terms of their learned skill set
Investigators: Ms Lynne Freeman, Prof Louise Young, and Ms Daniela Spanjaard
This research sought to understand student expectations of the demands of a practice based subject, particularly in terms of their learned skill set. Students were monitored throughout the semester as they undertook one of three "real-world" client based projects, one a qualitative project, one a quantitative involving choice modeling and a mix method project. At the start, in contrast to the increasing demand in industry for qualitative skills, students were more confident about their quantitative skills and desirous of working on a quantitative project but at the end having been exposed to a variety of qualitative techniques those having a qualitative element recorded greater satisfaction and confidence in their research abilities.
Using interactive student-response systems to improve student engagement and teaching quality
Investigators: Assoc Prof David Michayluk
Individual student response devices (clickers) were implemented in a large undergraduate class and in smaller postgraduate classes in order to test whether the devices would improve student engagement and subject quality. The main findings from the research are: (1) there is a substantial start up cost to add effective multiple choice questions throughout lectures, (2) students in large classes are more attentive as the clickers are perceived as a 'game' by some students, (3) students in post-graduate classes were forced to participate when many (especially ESOL) students would typically be passive learners, and (4) administrative headaches regarding clicker losses made implementation more difficult. Ongoing research is attempting to resolve (4) by new techniques for administration including scanning devices and assigning clickers for an entire semester.
Turning theory into practice: MDC film project
Investigators: Ms Heidi Sundin and Assoc Prof David Brown
The objective of this project was to develop a series of short films for the subject Management Decisions and Control. The films were based on interviews of a range of staff from the Accounting firm KPMG, and highlighted how management accounting systems are used in practice. They cover the topics: budgets and human behaviour, performance measurement systems, compensation systems, organisational structure and business decision making. The films are used in lectures and on UTS Online and support the UTS 'Forward thinking, work ready' mission via demonstration. Pilot films were developed for the 2008 semesters and positive feedback was received by students. The full series of films will be available to students in the autumn 2009 semester and the learning outcomes will be monitored. The investigators of the project thank Marcus Gale for doing most of the production work for the project.
Implementation of Business Intelligence Practises and Applications in Undergraduate Accounting
Investigators: Assoc Prof Bernhard Wieder, Assoc Prof Peter Wells, Dr Maria-Luise Ossimitz
Business Intelligence (BI) is the fastest growing business application category in Australia and world-wide and most BI solutions directly or indirectly support the accounting department (e.g. scorecards, budgeting tools and activity-based costing). The key objectives of this project were to gain a better understanding of the BI skill requirements of today's and future accounting graduates, and to implement BI applications in the undergraduate accounting curriculum. During the year, the COGNOS BI suite was installed and various scenarios have been tested for subject 22421 'Management Decisions and Control'. The final 'roll-out' is planned for April 2009.
