Ontario’s colleges share the provincial government’s belief that apprenticeship must play a greater role in addressing skills shortages and contributing to innovative, high-performance workplaces that enhance Ontario’s competitiveness.
Ontario’s colleges share the provincial government’s belief that apprenticeship must play a greater role in addressing skills shortages and contributing to innovative, high-performance workplaces that enhance Ontario’s competitiveness.
The following research reports detail the results of programs or inventions designed to increase the retention of post-secondary students. This bibliography is intended as a sample of the recent literature on this topic, rather than an exhaustive list. For inclusion, articles or reports generally described experimental research studies of PSE retention programs. Preference was given to larger scale projects focused on colleges in jurisdictions outside of Ontario (in several cases, progress reports from ongoing, large-scale initiatives were also included). Where possible, links to the original research are provided.
Budget 2016 Consultations
Submission to the House of Commons Standing
Committee on Finance
August 2015
Ideas can... build Canada
The challenges facing publics, governments, and businesses in the 21st century – from managing technological change and driving job creation, to the search for low‐carbon economic strategies, and building social inclusion – require innovative, people‐centered, evidence‐based solutions. The Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences welcomes the opportunity to provide the following recommendations to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance for Budget 2016:
The University/College Applicant Study™ (UCAS™) has been surveying applicants for over 18 years to gain insights into the post-secondary education (PSE) decision-making process. The study includes the measurement of:
Applicant demographics, including socio-economic characteristics and educational profile
Key decision factors weighed by applicants when they consider a PSE institution (academic, campus, extracurricular, financial, nurturing, outcome and reputation), and the impact of these factors on their application decisions.
n November 2005, the province of Ontario and the federal government signed two historic agreements – the Canada-Ontario Labour Market Development Agreement and the Canada-Ontario Labour Market Partnership Agreement. One year later, on Nov. 24, 2006, key labour market stakeholders, including users, delivery agents and government came together to collectively take stock of progress and to explore how partners can help governments move forward with successfully implementing the agreements.
Background: Low community college completion rates are an area of concern for policymakers and practitioners. Although many students require developmental education upon entry, research suggests that even students who are deemed “college-ready” by virtue of their placement test scores or completion of developmental coursework may not earn a credential, suggesting that college readiness encompasses more than academic skill.
Background: The number of non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF), including both full-time (FT) and part-time (PT) positions, has risen to two-thirds of faculty positions across the academy. To date, most of the studies of NTTF have relied on secondary data or large-scale surveys. Few qualitative studies exist that examine the experience, working conditions, and worklife of NTTF. The study is framed by the theory advanced by Berger and Luckmann that reality is socially constructed and the broader sociological tradition of symbolic interactionism described by Blumer, Denzin, and Stryker.
Context: There is growing interest in the integration of meditation in higher education.
Purpose: Here, we review evidence bearing on the utility of meditation to facilitate the achievement of traditional educational goals and to enhance education of the “whole person.”
Research Design: We examine how meditation practices may help foster important cognitive skills of attention and information processing, as well build stress resilience and adaptive interpersonal capacities through a review of the published research literature.
Conclusions/Recommendations: We offer directions for future research, highlighting the importance of theory-based investigations, increased methodological rigor, expansion of the scope of education-related outcomes studied, and the study of best practices for teaching meditation in educational settings.
Background/Context: Very little empirical research has been conducted on the issue of educator sexual misconduct (ESM) in secondary settings. The few reports available typically treat a larger social issue, such as sexual harassment or child abuse; therefore, data on ESM specifically must be extrapolated. When such data are obtained, the focus has been on rates of incidence rather than the nature of the problem. Feminist scholars have theorized embodiment in education and debated whether and to what extent an eroticized pedagogy is desirable, but scant attention has been paid to how and why erotic pedagogy can go awry.
Background: In terms of high school graduation, college entry, and persistence to earning a college degree, young women now consistently outperform their male peers. Yet most research on gender inequalities in education continues to focus on aspects of education where women trail men, such as women’s under representation at top-tier institutions and in science and engineering programs. The paucity of research on the realms where women outpace men, namely college enrollment and completion, constitutes a major gap in the literature.
Background/Context: Since the 1970s, researchers have attempted to link observational measures of instructional process to
student achievement (and occasionally to other outcomes of schooling). This paper reviews extensively both historical and
contemporary research to identify what is known about effective teaching.
• As part of the Open Ontario Plan outlined in the 2010 Speech from the Throne and the 2010 Budget, the government announced the intention to establish an Ontario Online Institute (OOI).
• While Ontario has a strong foundation to build on including existing elearning initiatives such as Contact North/Contact Nord, elearnnetwork/ reseauelearning and OntarioLearn, it was recognized that these initiatives do not capture the full scope of elearning activity taking place at our institutions. As a result, a survey of colleges and universities was done in spring 2010.
As a result, a survey of colleges and universities was done in spring 2010.
Online delivery of courses and programmes is not a panacea. It is simply one tool in the access toolkit. For many students, particularly younger students and those who are already underrepresented in post-secondary education, online delivery is not a substitute for in-class, face-to-face education and should only be used in a way that enhances the learning experience
and accommodates the unique needs of students. Without appropriate levels of funding, it is unlikely for online course offerings to have the same academic rigour as face-to-face classes. Many learners need an intense interaction with their instructors that is difficult to achieve with online delivery. The importance of the social and intellectual interaction between students and teachers that enhances academic quality is not served well by poorly-designed online courses or programmes or with a goal of cost-saving or revenue generation.
Students, faculty and staff believe that any new initiative may be at risk of diverting the emphasis away from improving the
Any expansion to online education must addresss:
• The skyrocketing cost of attending a post- secondary institution in Ontario.
• Ontario’s student-faculty ratio and class sizes that are the largest in Canada.
• The lack of space at institutions to achieve the provincial government’s projected 70 percent post-secondary attainment rate and the shortfall in deferred maintenance.
• The increasing reliance on private sector services and funding and the subsequent impact on
academic freedom and quality of education.
On-line, blended and other forms of web enhanced learning are becoming increasingly popular as a means of delivering post-secondary education. According to a recent report completed by the Higher Education Strategy Associates, 57% of
Canadian university courses make use of some online component (Rogers, Usher & Kaznowska, 2011).
The decision of Mohawk College to move to blended learning was part of a strategic plan begun in 2008 that focused on “advancing educational outcomes through the strategic integration of learning technologies” (Mohawk College 1). To this end the college formulated a committee composed of faculty, administration and management to examine the various learning platforms current at that time (FirstClass, WebCT) and tasked with deciding which learning management system the college
should adopt. They selected Desire2Learn (D2L) as the learning management system to be adopted, and a further plan was developed to have all courses fully blended within five years of the initial start-up of D2L in 2009. Blended learning is defined as using the web “to deliver substantial course materials accompanied by a strategic reduction in face-to-face contact. Online and
face-to-face learning spaces are thoughtfully integrated, maximizing the unique characteristics of each, in order to enhance the quality of the learning experience” (Mohawk College 2).
In the summer of 2012, the Administration Committee proposed and agreed to the creation of a working group whose mandate would be to set recommendations on online teaching and learning based on the University’s particular situation. The Working Group on E-Learning was created in the fall and started meeting in November 2012.
The E-Learning Working Group met twice a month and heard the views of different people. It also undertook detailed research to learn about the benefits of e-learning and blended learning and reviewed what other institutions are doing on e-learning.
This paper presents the findings of a research study on a complete course re-design of a large first-year class, which changed the learning environment and reduced boundaries to allow for more meaningful student engagement and improved student learning. The specific purpose of this study was to determine if a blended course design can increase student engagement and influence students’ approach to learning in a large first-year course.
The 2012-13 Senate Academic Planning Task force was asked to explore "virtualization and online learning" at Queen's. In the early days, we became familiar with the history of the discussions and identified a number of controversies that had made it difficult to reach a consensus on the role of online learning at Queen's. As new and familiar themes emerged, we realized that the issue of online learning is far more complex than it had seemed, reaching into areas such as course quality, curriculum
planning, staffing, resource allocation, unit autonomy, and academic freedom. We hope that the report provided will address many of the issues about online learning that have been raised within the community. Recognizing that some of our recommendations will fall short of unanimous agreement from the community, we hope that the report will be received as balanced and progressive.
The purpose of this study was to examine whether a set of instructional practices commonly prescribed to online faculty in the higher education setting were consistent with the expectations of a group of experienced online student participants. Online faculty performance conventions were collected from 20 institutions of higher learning located in the United States. The collective practices yielded three primary domains related to administrative faculty performance expectations in online instruction: Communication, Presence/Engagement,and Timeliness/Responsiveness. Undergraduate participants representing a cross section of colleges and universities in the United States were surveyed to determine their expectations for online faculty as compared to scaled items derived from the lists of participating institutions. The results of this investigation offer practitioners insight into how administrative instructional guidelines relate to the user demands of an informed group of undergraduate online studentsThe purpose of this study was to examine whether a set of instructional practices commonly prescribed toonline faculty in the higher education setting were consistent with the expectations of a group of experiencedonline student participants. Online faculty performance conventions were collected from 20 institutions ofhigher learning located in the United States. The collective practices yielded three primary domains related toadministrative faculty performance expectations in online instruction: Communication, Presence/Engagement,and Timeliness/Responsiveness. Undergraduate participants representing a cross section of colleges anduniversities in the United States were surveyed to determine their expectations for online faculty as comparedto scaled items derived from the lists of participating institutions. The results of this investigation offerpractitioners insight into how administrative instructional guidelines relate to the user demands of an informedgroup of undergraduate online students
The primary goal of this study was to identify a wide range of characteristics of college students that may influence their decisions to select online courses. The motivation underlying this study is the realization that online courses are no longer exclusively being taken by non-traditional students (for undergraduates, that would be students age 25 years and older with career, family, and/or social obligations). In fact, there are recent reports indicating that traditional undergraduate students (on-site students that are age 18-24) are now including online courses in their course curriculum. To accomplish the goal of this study, an ordered logit model was developed in which a Likert scale question asking students how likely/unlikely they were to take an online course was used at the dependent variable. The independent variables were based on a wide range of responses to questions regarding student demographic, experience, and preference information (these are the students’ characteristics). The data for this study is from a 2010 Oklahoma State University campus-wide student survey. The results of the study have identified a number of considerations that may be helpful to administrators wishing to improve and/or expand online course offering, as well as areas that can be further investigated in future studies. For example, undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in business majors were more likely than those in other majors to select online courses. On the other hand, undergraduate students(traditional and non-traditional) enrolled in engineering majors and graduate students enrolled in anatomy,biochemistry, biology, and botany major were the least likely groups of students to select online courses.Freshman and sophomores were found to be more likely than juniors and seniors to select online courses, and were much more likely than graduate students to select online courses. With respect to residency, out-of-state/non-residents (not including international students) were the most likely to select online courses, while international students were the least likely to select online courses. Finally, a significant and positive relationship was identified between some web 2.0 technologies, such as online social networking (e.g.Facebook) and live video chatting (e.g. Skype), and students’ likelihood of selecting online courses.