Background/Context: Literacy has been traditionally posited as a primary educational goal. The concept is now understood in the literature as extending way beyond the mere technicalities of proficiency in reading and writing, encompassing a broad range of skills and practices related to comprehension, communication, and the ability to use texts in multiple settings. Cultural literacy and critical literacy are two conceptual models frequently used to understand the essence of literacy and why it is a worthy educational goal. Each model prescribes different curricular goals and preferred teaching practice in educational settings spanning all disciplines and age groups. In this article, we suggest a third conceptual model, identity literacy, based in developmental psychology’s concept of identity. We define identity literacy as readers’ proficiency and willingness to engage the meaning systems embedded within texts and to consider adopting them as part of their own personal meaning system—that system within which they define themselves and their relation to the world. Setting identity literacy as a goal of teaching
frames the practice of teaching texts differently than the other models.
The ability of postsecondary students to write and communicate proficiently is an expectation identified by many, including not only organizations such as the OECD but also other public and employer groups. There is concern, however, that students and thus employees often fail to meet expectations in these areas. To address this concern, it is necessary to understand more about the writing skills that students learn during their postsecondary education. This research project was designed to examine whether and how students are taught to write at university.
Aboriginal women living off-reserve have bucked national trends, with employment rates rising since
2007 alongside labour force participation.
The 2015 report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) provided the country with a roadmap for establishing a new, mutually respectful relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Despite the history of Canada's residential school system, the report highlighted the important role of education in the reconciliation process and called upon government and educators to reduce longstanding gaps in education and employment outcomes.
We use data for a large sample of Ontario students who are observed over five years from their initial entry into high school to study differences in postsecondary education participation. The students are grouped by average neighbourhood income and birthplace (Canadian or foreign‐born). We find substantial differences in the allocation of students based on their performance in Grade 9 courses and the types of PSE participation within achievement groupings.
We document differences in PSE participation based on the students’ birthplace. Foreign‐born students, conditioning on performance in high school, are more likely to continue onto university and college. Foreignborn students in higher income neighbourhoods are more likely to pursue a university degree than a college credential. Uniformly, Canadian‐born students are less likely to pursue a PSE credential upon the completion of high school.
During the past twenty years, the educational attainment level of Ontario’s population has increased dramatically. The number of individuals residing in Ontario with post-secondary education (PSE) has more than doubled since 1990. With such rapid expansion, there is always the concern that there are now too many PSE graduates in Ontario, leading to higher unemployment rates and/or underemployment rates. On the other hand, it has been argued that Ontario is still lacking PSE graduates with the right skill set to match labour market needs (Miner, 2010). Moreover, it is forecast that 70 per cent of new jobs created in Ontario will require PSE. In order to meet this expected need, the Ontario government seeks to increase the percentage of citizens with PSE attainment from 62 per cent to 70 per cent (Throne speech, 2010).
Is the Ontario labour market able to absorb these PSE graduates? This paper will address this concern through an examination of the early labour market outcomes of graduates in the period between 1982 and 2005. The primary dataset used in this study is from Statistics Canada’s National Graduates Survey (NGS) and Follow-up of Graduates Survey (FOG), which surveyed PSE graduates two and five years after graduation, respectively. There are a total of six cohorts available, including those who graduated in 1982, 1986, 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005. The class of 2005 does not have a FOG because this survey was terminated after the 2007 NGS. Using all six available cohorts of NGS/FOG data, the following research questions are examined:
1. What is the trend of Ontario PSE graduates’ labour market outcomes between the cohorts of 1982 and 2005?
2. How do the labour market outcomes of Ontario PSE graduates compare to the rest of Canada?
3. Do Ontario PSE graduates’ labour market outcomes improve between two and five years after graduation?
4. How do labour market outcomes differ among graduates with different levels of credentials?
Among the cohorts examined, the unemployment rate of Ontario PSE graduates ranged between 4 per cent and 9 per cent two years after graduation and between 2 per cent and 7 per cent five years after graduation. PSE graduates’ unemployment rate two years after graduation mirrored the overall unemployment rate trend in Ontario and the rest of Canada over the examined period.2 However, Ontario PSE graduates’ unemployment rate five years after graduation was generally lower than the rest of Canada except graduates with advanced degrees from cohorts 1990, 1995 and 2000.
Over the cohorts examined, neither bachelor’s degree holders nor college graduates saw consistent growth in their real earnings, while the earnings of graduates with advanced degrees increased steadily. Between two and five years after graduation, PSE graduates’ earnings increased by between 15 per cent and 35 per cent, depending on credential level and cohort. Graduates with higher credentials were rewarded with higher earnings, and the earnings gap among credentials increased between two and five years after graduation. Compared with their counterparts in the rest of Canada, Ontario PSE graduates earned more, and the earnings gap was greater five years after graduation than it was two years after graduation.
In June 2008, the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) released a Request for Proposals (RFP-006) offering funding for Ontario universities and colleges to evaluate existing programs or services intended to promote access, retention and educational quality among postsecondary students. Brock University was successful in their proposal to evaluate two services offered through the Student Development Centre’s Learning Skills Services:
1. the Online Writing Skills Workshop (OWSW) (later known as Essay-Zone (EZ), an online writing course designed and operated by Learning Skills Services; and 2. the learning skills workshops and one-on-one/drop-in services offered by Learning Skills Services. The evaluation of the Online Writing Skills Workshop was completed in fall 2010 with the assistance of Higher Education Strategy Associates (HESA), formerly Education Policy Institute (EPI) Canada. This report, published separately by the HEQCO, is based on the evaluation of other learning skills services, including workshops on critical thinking, math, science and essay writing skills (see Appendix A), as well as the individualized assistance provided through the one-on-one/drop-in service. In evaluating these services, we have sought to answer two broad questions. First, are the services offered being delivered effectively and what improvements can be made? Second, what effect do the identified learning skills services have on academic outcomes? The responses to these questions will be presented in two parts: first, a formative evaluation of program delivery and second, a summative evaluation focusing on student outcomes.
The formative evaluation will examine the delivery and image of the learning skills services. Using student survey and focus group data, we will evaluate the perceived efficacy of the services among participants, participants’ satisfaction with aspects of the services and the success of overall communication about the services, as well as recommending changes. The evaluation of communications will examine how students learn about services offered and why students decide not to enroll in the services.
The summative evaluation focuses primarily on the impact of the learning skills services provided. Two measures of academic success will be examined: academic performance (i.e., marks) and student retention. The administrative data concerning three cohorts of students will be used to determine whether participants in learning skills workshops and other learning skills services experience greater academic performance and higher levels of retention compared to other students. In addition, we will examine whether certain categories of services are more effective and whether frequency of service use affects outcomes. As the learning skills workshops and other services are very limited interventions requiring little time of students,strong results were not expected; however, even minor improvements would be impressive given the relatively small time investment required of students.
A college degree has replaced the high school diploma as a mainstay for economic self-sufficiency and responsible citizenship. In addition, earning a bachelor’s degree is linked to long-term cognitive, social, and economic benefits to individuals —benefits that are passed onto future generations, enhancing the quality of life of the families of college-educated persons, the communities in which they live, and the larger society.
Over the past decade or so, the bachelor’s degree has undergone major changes in much of the world. The most important set of changes was brought on by the adoption, across Europe,
of the Bologna Process. This led not only to the introduction of bachelor’s degrees in countries where no such qualification had previously existed, but also to a pan-continental harmonization (more or less) of the length of the degree, at three years. More recently, a number of universities in the United States – where a four-year degree has been sacrosanct for decades – have started experimenting with shorter degrees. At the same time that systems have been altering the length of degrees, there has also been a trend for systems in Europe and elsewhere – including Ontario and other parts of Canada – to open up degree provision to non-university Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). This has broken the centuries-long monopoly of
universities over the provision of granting degrees. These two major experiments in changing times and changing places are the subject of this report, which was undertaken by Higher Education Strategy Associates for the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO).
Our approach to this project is not simply to look at global trends in the development of the bachelor’s degree and to collect the views of key Ontario stakeholders regarding these developments. For purposes of organizing material on a very complicated topic, we have chosen to look at the material within two main categories. In Chapter 1, entitled “Changing Times,” we look at how the lengths of bachelor’s degrees have been changing, while in Chapter 2, entitled “Changing Places,” we deal with the provision of higher education in non-university settings. Each chapter begins with an in-depth description of global trends in the area (with a particular focus on recent developments within Canada). These global discussions are then augmented by adding data about the views of two key sets of Ontario stakeholders. In order to understand the views of students, we conducted a survey of over 850 Ontario students in university bachelor’s degree programs (who were members of our student research panel1)about degree lengths and loci. Relevant results from this survey are included in both chapters, and the methodology behind the survey is included as Appendix A. We also solicited the views of key stakeholders concerning the lessons Ontario can learn from global changes – via a multistakeholder seminar held in Toronto on March 21, 2011. A list of attendees is included in this report as Appendix C, and a summary of their discussion can be found in each of the two chapters in this report.
The Ontario university sector is already somewhat differentiated. A policy decision to increase the differentiation of the postsecondary system brings the following benefits:
• Higher quality teaching and research programs
• More student choice with easier inter‐institution transfer and mobility
• Greater institutional accountability
• A more globally competitive system
• A more financially sustainable system
Ontario’s postsecondary system can transition seamlessly and incrementally to greater differentiation with the judicious and strategic use of funding strategies already familiar to government. This transition to a more differentiated university sector is guided by principles including:
• Equal value on the teaching and research functions of universities
• Forging a contemporary relationship between Ontario’s colleges and universities
• Linking the differentiation policy to funding decisions
• More effective use of multi‐year accountability agreements and performance
indicators to evaluate whether universities are meeting expected goals and targets.
I was one of 17 students who started the University of Toronto’s Ph.D. program in English in the fall of 2010. The nominal schedule for earning the degree is five years, and all 17 of us received guaranteed financial support for that period. Six years later, with our funding exhausted, only three of us had finished our degrees — a completion rate of 18 percent — and none of us had finished within five years. Another three had left the program entirely — an 18 percent attrition rate — while the remaining 11 were still at it.
The scientific study of human learning and memory is now more than 125 years old. Psychologists have conducted thou- sands of experiments, correlational analyses, and field studies during this time, in addition to other research conducted by those from
neighboring fields. A huge knowledge base has been carefully built up over the decades.
Given this backdrop, we may ask ourselves: What great changes in education have resulted from this huge research base? How has the scientific study of learning and memory changed practices in education from those of, say, a century ago? Have we succeeded in building a translational educational science to rival medical science (in which biological knowledge is translated into medical practice) or types of engineering (in which, e.g., basic knowledge in chemistry is translated into products through chemical engineering)?
The more than one million undergraduate students heading to Canadian universities this fall will benefit from innovative
approaches to teaching and learning, including more opportunities for experiential learning. After graduation, they’ll enjoy
higher earnings and better employment outcomes than those without degrees.
OUSA’s LGBTQ+ Student Experience Survey was a mixed methods research project conducted in Novem-ber 2014 designed to gain understanding of the opinions and experiences of Ontario university students who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Questioning, or other orientations or identities that do not conform to cisgender and heterosexual paradigms (LGBTQ+). The purpose of the survey was to identify any gaps that might exist in university services, programming, and supports that can diminish or negatively impact university experiences for these students.
I. Introduction
Entering a (first) postsecondary education (PSE) program represents a critical transition in a person’s life, but it is just the beginning of a whole new set of dynamics that can take many different forms. Some students continue in their programs until graduation, proceeding at faster or slower rates. Others switch to another program at the same institution, at an institution of the same kind (college or university) or at a different level of study. Still others abandon their studies, some to return at a later date.
Those who persist in their initial programs directly through to graduation could be considered cases where the system has successfully helped students realize their PSE aspirations and then move into the labour market, go on to further schooling or pursue other life goals. In short, they could be considered student “success” stories as far as the PSE system is concerned.
Those who obtain a diploma/degree after moving across different programs, institutions or levels of study
– perhaps with a break in their studies along the way – may have taken, to some extent, a wasteful diversion on the path to their preferred postsecondary credential. This may result from an initially flawed program choice or a PSE system that has somehow not served these students as well as it could have.
However, such pathways could also represent the student’s acquisition of necessary learning about different programs and the careers they lead to, or they could reflect developments in the student’s personal life apart from his or her schooling, or they may result from an individual’s change of plans. In at least some of these cases, the postsecondary system and the postsecondary institutions with which the individual was involved may have performed as well as could be expected despite the time required and the circuitous pathway that the student took to complete the program. Finally, although individuals who fail to complete their postsecondary studies may be regarded as being part of a system that is not working as it should, such pathways may again represent necessary learning experiences or be related to personal factors that have little to do with the PSE system. In fact, the system may have performed as well as could be expected, including providing an initial opportunity for the individual to pursue or explore their PSE ambitions.
Underlying many of these dynamics are policy issues relating to ways in which these pathways and outcomes could be improved. Could better information provided in more effective ways help students make more informed and appropriate program choices at an earlier point during their studies? In the case of students who struggle in their PSE studies, could certain interventions help these individuals or targeted groups of students overcome those challenges and complete their programs in a more timely fashion? Are there means of reducing the need for some students to take breaks from their studies or are such pauses a necessary part of the PSE experience for at least some individuals? Answering such questions, and developing the appropriate policy response, could potentially result in more satisfied students, reduced costs for the PSE system and higher graduation rates. Before addressing these issues, however, more information on PSE pathways is needed, including program retention, drop-out and completion rates and student transfers within, between and across programs, institutions and levels of study.
The general objective of this report is to provide new and unique empirical evidence concerning the patterns of “persistence” (or what is sometimes alternatively referred to as “retention,” especially when viewed from the perspective of individual institutions), as well as educational pathways more generally, of PSE students in Ontario. We present an analysis of the frequency of various trajectories and graduation rates and use both descriptive statistics and econometric modelling to show how pathways and outcomes vary by students’ individual characteristics, family background and educational outcomes at the high school and PSE levels.1 Throughout, the focus is on Ontario, but comparisons are made with the rest of Canada.
This report documents the central role of the college-educated workforce in improving labour productivity across the economy and supporting an innovation culture in the workplace. It describes critical “enabling occupations” that play a key role in allowing companies to build a culture of innovation in the workplace which they need if they are to continually restructure for success. It develops a “Prosperity Cycle” model and demonstrates the importance of college graduates in building a culture of innovation in a dozen key Ontario industries.
Ontarians work hard and build for the future, hoping that rising prosperity will improve the quality of life for their families. A higher standard of living seems hard to achieve these days – especially for young people leaving school. Government, businesses, researchers and others believe that Ontario’s prosperity depends on rising productivity that improves the competitiveness of industry. But how is this achieved and how do young people share in the benefits?
Seamless Pathways: A Symposium on Improving
Transitions from High School to College gathered prominent Ontario educators, policy-makers and government leaders in Toronto on June 6, 2006. The purpose of the symposium was to bring together an expert group of education leaders to:
learn about other jurisdictions approaches to building meaningful pathways that contribute to higher success rates in secondary school and higher participation in post-secondary education discuss what has been learned from current research; the School/College/Work Initiative projects; and the unique role of colleges and apprenticeship pathways in student success
• identify systemic issues and develop policy advice for creating better school-college linkages in order to raise both participation and success rates for post-secondary students.
There was a clear need for a high-level strategic discussion on the future of transitions in order to: follow up on the recommendations in Ontario: A Leader in Learning (the Rae report on postsecondary education) respond to the Ontario government's Learning to 18 and Student Success strategies, such as dual credits and high-skills majors.
Abstract Although the literature on institutional diversity suggests that quality assurance practices could affect institutional diversity, there has been little empirical research on this relationship. This article seeks to shed some light on the possible connection between quality assurance practices and institutional diversity by examining the arrangements for
quality assurance in higher education systems that include two distinct sectors, one of which having a more academic orientation and the other a more applied orientation. The article explores the ways in which quality assurance structures and standards in selected jurisdictions provide for recognition of the differences in orientation and mission between academic and applied sectors of higher education systems. The research identified some features of quality assurance systems that recognize the characteristics of applied higher education, such as having different statements of expected learning outcomes for applied
and academic programs or requiring different qualifications for faculty who teach in applied programs. It is hoped that the results might be of interest to policy makers and quality assurance practitioners who are concerned about the possible impact of quality
assurance on institutional diversity.
Because innovation is an inherently social process – requiring people to make connections, develop ideas, and orchestrate implementation – colleges have built relationships to help their clients increase their scope of innovative practices. Each college is directly involved with many local economic development and innovation networks.
Abstract
The demand for quantitative assessment by external agencies and internal administrators can leave post-secondary instructors confused about the nature and purpose of learning outcomes and fearful that the demand is simply part of the increasing corporatization of the university system. This need not be the case. Developing learning outcomes has a number
of benefits for course design that go beyond program assessment. This article clarifies some key aspects of the push toward using learning outcomes and introduces a tripartite nomenclature for distinguishing among course outcomes, outputs, and objectives. It then outlines a process for instructors to use these three categories to develop and design courses
that meet institutional assessment demands while also improving overall teaching effectiveness.
Résumé
L’évaluation quantitative que demandent les agences externes et les administrateurs internes peut confondre les instructeurs de niveau postsecondaires quant à la nature et à l’objectif des « résultats d’apprentissage », et leur faire craindre que cette demande ne fasse simplement partie de la privatisation croissante du système universitaire. Ce n’est pas forcément le cas. La création de résultats d’apprentissage présente de nombreux avantages sur le plan de la conception de cours, avantages qui vont au-delà de l’évaluation de programme. L’article clarifie quelques aspects principaux de la poussée vers l’utilisation de « résultats d’apprentissage » et présente
une nomenclature tripartite pour faire la distinction entre les résultats de cours, le rendement et les objectifs. Il décrit ensuite un processus pour que les instructeurs emploient ces trois catégories afin de concevoir des cours qui répondent aux exigences en évaluation de l’institution, tout en améliorant l’efficacité de l’enseignement dans son ensemble.