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The study itself seeks to look at cross sections between different groups , enrolment status , geography , employment , English as a second or an additional language , and the sort of support that students receive and what they expect to receive .
I guess , one of the notable differences that we had in 2020 is that we had fewer international students . Either because they were not studying online , or that they were unable to access the survey , or they were unavailable to respond to the survey .
One of the important things the data highlights is students ’ concerns with timebased pressures , and deadlines in managing life commitments around study . Is this something you think universities need to look at closely , especially given that we can expect more online study ? Well , let me put the structure of courses into context . The Australian quality framework and TEQSA have requirements around credit point value , assessment and time . So they ’ re usually pretty consistent . But it seems to me that in order to respond to some of the known exigencies that emerged during last year , changes were made just in time to try to provide a student experience that might not necessarily have suited many students .
But given that , I know that every course has asked students to provide feedback . We need to encourage students to provide feedback so that we can improve or so that universities can improve the quality of the student experience , the appropriateness of workload , and the support that ’ s provided for students for them to be successful . Because at the end of the day , it ’ s within the interests of students and the universities for students to be successful and to have a positive experience at university .
The whole nature of many practical programs had to change quite substantially . I was talking to a colleague who is a professor of medicine in an Australian university . Their final year students didn ’ t have their usual clinical experience . Teacher education students weren ’ t able to go out into schools to do their teacher education in situ . And I ’ m sure that there are other sorts of professional areas where that didn ’ t happen .
So for many of these students , they felt that they were a little ill-prepared to go out into practise . While they had the skills that they learnt on campus and that sense of confidence that you have when you ’ ve got to go out into the field , work in a uninterrupted and consistent way in your field of study , may have had an impact on some students feeling a lack of confidence in going into the field upon graduation .
Hopefully last year was a year that is not going to be experienced again . But there ’ s probably some value in universities doing a bit of follow-up on how graduating students of last year have managed in terms of their levels of confidence . ■
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