How important is the social experience of learning in the postgraduate classroom? This thesis explores what eight postgraduate students judged to be their ‘best’ classroom experiences within one New Zealand university. The researcher started from the assumption that the students’ ‘best’ classroom experiences would correspond with what the literature characterises as ‘communities of learners’ in which the students felt that their past experiences were valued and personal relationships were respectful and relatively equal. This assumption was, for the most part, accurate. Problematic areas, such as assessment, were also identified. International students’ experiences were a key part of the research. Six of the students were studying in their second language yet that alone was not the main indicator of classroom participation as personality (such as shyness)also affected how students engaged with the course content, the lecturers, and with each other. The case study approach raises possibilities and questions as well as recognising trends that suggest that postgraduate students value interactive learning within meaningful classroom contexts.

This research is an exploratory study into gender dynamics in an engineering classroom in a Faculty of Engineering at an Australian University. It has concentrated on understanding and presenting students perceptions of their learning environment in an engineering classroom and their experiences within it to determine the extent to which gender affects different classroom experiences. A first year engineering subject ‘Introduction to Engineering Computing’ was the environment used for this study. The research employed an ethnographic research methodology drawing on semi-structured interviews and observations. It also used surveys to triangulate the data for improved reliability and validity. Gender has clearly been highlighted as a determinant of students’ experiences from a students’ perspective in an engineering classroom. The most noticeable differences between female and male student experiences found in this study stemmed from four factors: their previous experiences; their learning approaches; the language used within the classroom and the lack of role models. In these areas there were found to be various levels of advantage and disadvantage experienced by women and men. These are presented in Chapter 5 & 6 of this thesis. The resulting understanding begins the process of providing a framework in which strategies can be developed to more effectively engage female and male students in engineering education. / Masters Thesis

How important is the social experience of learning in the postgraduate classroom? This thesis explores what eight postgraduate students judged to be their ‘best’ classroom experiences within one New Zealand university. The researcher started from the assumption that the students’ ‘best’ classroom experiences would correspond with what the literature characterises as ‘communities of learners’ in which the students felt that their past experiences were valued and personal relationships were respectful and relatively equal. This assumption was, for the most part, accurate. Problematic areas, such as assessment, were also identified. International students’ experiences were a key part of the research. Six of the students were studying in their second language yet that alone was not the main indicator of classroom participation as personality (such as shyness)also affected how students engaged with the course content, the lecturers, and with each other. The case study approach raises possibilities and questions as well as recognising trends that suggest that postgraduate students value interactive learning within meaningful classroom contexts.