Enrolments in graduate programs in Ontario and across Canada have grown substantially over the past 15 years. This growth has been supported and encouraged by strategic investments from provincial and federal governments. Although it has been argued that an increase in the number of Canadians with master’s- or PhD-level education is needed to support increased innovation and economic advancement, there is a growing view that many recent master’s and doctoral graduates are unemployed or underemployed. The current lack of evidence regarding the employment outcomes of master’s and doctoral graduates makes it difficult to evaluate the extent to which this might actually be the case. Several reports have highlighted the need for universities to document and report on the employment outcomes of master’s and doctoral graduates.
The purpose of this project was to pilot test the feasibility and process of obtaining information about the career outcomes of doctoral graduates and alumni of Western University. The process included two surveys, a Graduate Studies Exit Survey and a Graduate Studies Alumni Survey. The surveys were designed with the intent that they would form the basis of ongoing collection of outcome data from graduating students and alumni. Invitations to complete the exit survey were sent to graduate students completing the final requirements of their degree, and invitations to complete the alumni survey were sent to alumni who completed a graduate degree at Western between 2008 and 2013. Although master’s program graduates and alumni were invited to complete the surveys, only responses from graduates and alumni of doctoral programsare included in this report.
Background/Context:Policy discussions in the U.S. and abroad have become increasingly studded with reference to the results of international tests like PISA. Unlike most assessments, PISA is not designed to measure whether students have mastered a particular school curriculum but rather provide a measure of students ability to meet future challenges irrespective of where in the world they live. Though growing in influence, the concept of a contextless form of accountability has an important antecedent in the history of American education: the Tests of General Educational Development (GED), which were developed in the 1940s to assist the transition of American World War II servicemen and women.
THE PAUCITY OF WOMEN IN SCIENCE HAS BEEN documented over and over again. A 2012 Report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology reported that a deficit of one million engineers and scientists will result in the United States if current rates of training in science, technology, math, and engineering (STEM) persist (President’s Council
of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2012). It’s not hard to see how this hurts the United States’ competitive position—particularly if women in STEM meet more gender bias in the U.S. than do women elsewhere, notably in India and China.
A growing number of Canadian universities offer graduate student certificate programs in university teaching. This paper examines such programs at 13 Canadian universities and presents a discussion of program structures and practices. The findings suggest that most programs were offered over one to two years, and upon successful completion, participants were issued a centre-approved certificate paired with a more formalized method of recognition, such as a transcript notation. The core focus of certificate programs appears to be divided between those that emphasize practical skill development (46%) and those that offer practical skill development along with a focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning (54%). Most certificates included ac- tive and authentic assessment methods, such as dossiers (69%), and practice teaching sessions (62%). These findings help to inform the continued evolution of graduate student teaching certificate programs.
Ontario's provincial government recognizes college to university transfer as increasingly important. The challenge that Ontario faces is that its college and university systems were created as binary structures, with insufficient credit transfer opportunities for college students who wish to access universities with appropriate advanced standing. This paper discusses Fanshawe College's consequent attempt to create new pathways for its students within the European Higher Education Area, whose Bologna Process provides an integrated credit transfer system that is theoretically very open to student mobility. This unique project is intended to act as an exemplar for other Ontario colleges seeking similar solutions, and to support an articulation agreement between Fanshawe's Advanced Diploma in Architectural Technology and a Building Sciences Master's program at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
Want to make Gen Y good financial stewards? Let them learn from
each other—and be prepared to give up control.
When there are debates about the world's top performing education systems, the names that usually get mentioned are the Asian powerhouses such as Singapore and South Korea or the Nordic know-alls, such as Finland or Norway.
But with much less recognition, Canada has climbed into the top tier of international rankings.
In the most recent round of international Pisa tests, Canada was one of a handful of countries to appear in the top 10 for maths, science and reading.
A recent Globe and Mail article pointed out that Canadian universities appear to be slipping in world rankings. This is not a good thing. Higher education institutions — because of the students they teach, the research and discoveries they make, and the communities they support — are some of the most critical public institutions in Canada positioning us for a robust economy with plentiful good jobs and the quality of life and civil society Canadians want and merit.
The challenge Canada faces in higher education is best summarized in this question: How can we deliver a better education to more students with no more money?
Every year around this time, those of us on a college campus begin to engage in an ancient ritual — talking about the quality of next year’s incoming class.
The end of winter and the emergence of spring is when I start to overhear, or participate in, conversations with my peers or with admissions staffers about how smart our next year’s students will be. Our admissions office ranks prospective students on a numerical system, and everyone wants to know the new numbers: How many 1s and 2s are we getting? How many 7s or 8s? We cock our heads and consider the ratios, hoping for the best possible batch of students.
Online education has the potential to make higher education more accessible, and it has the ability to overcome the financial, social and geographic barriers faced by some students via their pursuit of a post- secondary education. It also has the potential to enhance student learning, both inside the classroom and within distance education context. However, if implemented in the wrong way, it has the potential to be disengaging, impersonal, and costly. Broken down into sections based on OUSA’s mandate of seeking accessible, affordable, accountable, and quality post-secondary education for all willing students, this paper addresses some of the major concerns that surround fully-online learning, and provides possible solutions for these issues. There is currently a lot of potential for growth in this area, but a lot of questions remain as
well. The following summary presents some of the topics discussed in this paper.
Abstract Since the 1990s, enrolment in postgraduate programs has increased significantly in Canada. In more recent years, this has led to concerns regarding overproduction and the labour market outcomes of those with postgraduate education. Women have played an important role in this growth, but questions remain as to whether women’s progress into the highest levels of education has helped ameliorate their wage disadvantage relative to men. Using the 2011 National Household Survey, this study finds large wage premiums for completing master’s and doctoral degrees for both men and women, especially in younger cohorts; however, there are important differences by field of study. The gender wage gap is smaller for women with master’s degrees than for those with bachelor or doctoral degrees. Occupational differences account for more of the gender wage gap than field of study, suggesting that after degree completion, university-educated women sort into occupations that are lower paid than their male counterparts’.
Résumé Depuis les années 90, les inscriptions aux programmes de deuxième et de troisième cycles universitaires ont augmenté de façon importante au Canada. Récemment, des inquiétudes ont été exprimées quant à la surproduction de diplômés et à ses conséquences sur le marché du travail. Bien que les femmes aient occupé un rôle important dans l’augmentation de ces inscriptions, il est encore impossible de savoir si l’avancement de celles-ci vers les niveaux académiques les plus élevés a contribué à l’amélioration de leurs conditions salariales, par rapport à celles des hommes. À l’aide de l’Enquête nationale auprès des ménages 2011, la présente étude conclut que les salaires des femmes, tout comme ceux des hommes, sont bonifiés après l’obtention d’une maîtrise ou d’un doctorat, surtout chez les cohortes plus jeunes. Par contre, d’importantes variations existent en fonction du domaine d’étude. Pour les femmes possédant une maîtrise, l’écart salarial entre sexes est moindre que pour les femmes possédant un baccalauréat ou un doctorat. L’écart salarial est davantage dû aux variantes sur le plan professionnel que celles des domaines d’étude, postulant donc qu’après avoir obtenu un diplôme universitaire, les femmes se lancent vers des professions moins rémunérées que ne le sont celles de leurs homologues masculins.
Student success in post-secondary education is an ongoing concern, however, research has focused on relatively homogeneous university samples. Moreover, Canadian research on predictors of student success is limited. Following
recent trends, we examined non-cognitive, personal qualities, rather than cognitive predictors (e.g., IQ), of student success. Relying on a psychosocial model, we examined age, gender, perceived stress, maternal education, identity style, perseverance, and student engagement as predictors of student success in a multi-site sample of students attending a CEGEP in Quebec (N = 239; Mage = 18.6 years; 68.2% female) and a polytechnic school in Ontario (N = 209; Mage = 20.6 years; 71.3% female). Maternal education and perseverance emerged as significant predictors in both samples. Links between informational identity
and cognitive engagement and student success differed by location. Our findings suggest the need to focus on student perseverance, and to consider identity and cognitive engagement dependent on the educational context.
Studies of faculty development efforts at a liberal arts college and a landgrant university suggest the programs can have an impact on student outcomes.
Intuitively, it makes sense that professors who spend time developing their teaching skills will become more effective instructors -- and that that will eventually translate to better student outcomes. Practically speaking,
though, the challenges of (and the variables involved in) tracing the effects of professional development on student learning are myriad. That’s probably why the research on the matter is patchy, relying largely on self-reported measures. But a new book based on data from two very different institutions purports to show that faculty members can learn to become more effective teachers.
As governments around the world struggle with doing more with less, efficiency analysis climbs to the top of the policy agenda. This paper derives efficiency measures for more than 8,600 schools in 30 countries, using PISA 2012 data and a bootstrap version of Data Envelopment Analysis as a method. We estimate that given current levels of inputs it would be possible to increase achievement by as much as 27% if schools improved the way they use these resources and realised efficiency gains. We find that efficiency scores vary considerably both between and within countries. Subsequently, through a second-stage regression, a number of school-level factors are found to be correlated with efficiency scores, and indicate potential directions for improving educational results. We find that many efficiency-enhancing factors vary across countries, but our analysis suggests that targeting the proportion of students below low proficiency levels and putting attention to
students’ good attitudes (for instance, lower truancy), as well as having better quality of resources (i.e. teachers and educational facilities), foster better results in most contexts.
The community college is one of many providers of postsecondary and adult education in Canada. In making decisions about how the community college should allocate its efforts among various possible programs and activities, it is important to understand its relationship to other providers of postsecondary and adult education. This article describes and analyzes the relationship between Canada's community colleges and other providers of postsecondary and adult education in Canada. It attempts to identify the comparative strengths and weaknesses of community colleges relative to other providers with respect to particular types of activity, and from that analysis it offers suggestions regarding the emphases that colleges might place on certain of their activities.
Le collège communautaire est un des nombreux fournisseurs d’enseignement supérieur et d’éducation aux adultes au Canada. En prenant des décisions concernant la manière dont les collèges communautaires devraient allouer leurs efforts parmi différents programmes et activités, il est important de comprendre leurs relations avec d’autres fournisseurs d’enseignement supérieur et d’éducation aux adultes. Cet article décrit et analyse la relation entre les collèges communautaires du Canada et les autres fournisseurs d’enseignement supérieur et d’éducation aux adultes au Canada. Il tente d’identifier les forces et faiblesses des collèges communautaires comparativement à d’autres fournisseurs relativement à certains types d’activités, et à partir de cette analyse, il offre des suggestions concernant l’importance que les collèges peuvent accorder à certaines de leurs activités.
That was the theme of third annual reconciliation forum, held at University of Manitoba.
More than 350 leaders from universities, colleges and Indigenous communities gathered at the University of
Manitoba for the third annual Building Reconciliation Forum. The theme for this year’s event, held on November 8
and 9, was “The Journey Toward a Reconciled Education System.”
In response to the 94 calls to action issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2015,
educational leaders, academics, students and Indigenous people from across the country came together to share
what is currently being done at postsecondary institutions to make reconciliation a reality, and to discuss what still
needs to happen at the institutional level.
As international linkages are more and more visible in everyday life and work, many countries have articulated an ambition to expose students more extensively to an international experience during their studies.
Evidence indeed indicates that spending a semester or a year abroad tends to increase inter-cultural understanding and sensitivity of students. It tends to lead to internationally oriented careers. Furthermore, students themselves are overwhelmingly positive about their experiences abroad, claiming personal growth and development through the experience.
Two institutions with major diversity initiatives have their work cut out for them in terms of improving campus climate for minority graduate students. Studies released by a student group at Yale University and by a graduate school at the University of Michigan suggest ongoing concerns that could have implications for retention as they work toward diversifying the Ph.D. pool. And since many minority undergraduates are pushing colleges and universities to find and hire more minority Ph.D.s as faculty members, these findings could have an impact at all the places that might do so.
This CERIC-funded study sought to establish the importance publicly funded universities and colleges place on the provision of career development services and to highlight particularly impressive models of career service provision across the country.
Specifically, CERIC’s interest in conducting this project was two-fold:
1. To understand the landscape of career service models across Canada
2. To examine the level of institutional commitment to the provision of career services to students
The focus of this project is on the assessment of transferable skills, and specifically resilience. Resilience has been defined as “the capacity of the person, family, or community to prevent, minimize, overcome, or thrive in spite of negative or challenging circumstances” (Wagnild & Young, 1993). In this report, Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) investigates the most appropriate measures to assess resilience as a learning outcome of Ontario’s postsecondary education (PSE) system. The long-term aim is to support the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) in its efforts to determine the role of PSE in enhancing resilience as a transferable skill.