Nonresponse is a growing problem in surveys of college students and the general population. At present, we have a limited understanding of survey nonresponse in college student populations and therefore the extent to which survey results may be biased. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore three facets of nonresponse in surveys of college students in order to strengthen our empirical and conceptual understanding of this phenomenon. This dissertation seeks to contribute to our understanding of who participates in surveys and who does not, how students experience the process of being asked to complete surveys, and whether or not students’ perspectives about surveys suggest that college student surveys should be conceptualized as organizational surveys. To begin to answer these questions, I conducted three studies—a secondary data analysis that examines student characteristics associated with the odds of completing a survey, a “survey on surveys” study that asks students about their experiences with surveys, and a series of focus groups to understand how students made sense of surveys at their institutions. Taken together, these findings provide a basis for a more developed and nuanced understanding of nonresponse in student surveys.

<p> On October 1st of every year, college campuses throughout the United States are required to publish an annual security report (ASR), which provides an overview of the institution&rsquo;s security program. The ASR includes policies and procedures as well as crime statistics for the previous 3 years. The intent of the Clery Act was to provide valuable information on campus safety and security so that students, faculty, and staff can make more informed decisions as to either attend and/or work at a specific institution. This study examined how knowledgeable campus security authorities (CSAs) are with respect to these ASRs, also known as the Clery Act. Furthermore, this research examined whether or not the Act has influence on the success of the institutions&rsquo; missions. This is a qualitative study, which consists of data collected from structured interviews from 14 participants from 2 institutions representing four-year, for-profit colleges. Questions asked during these structured interviews focused on each respondent&rsquo;s knowledge of the Clery Act and its various provisions. The study revealed that the CSAs were unsure whether the Clery Act made college campuses safer; they were aware of the Act but not very familiar with the provisions of the Act; they were unable to identify resources other than additional personnel-power; and finally, they were familiar with the annual requirement of the Act and the published data but not with other provisions of the Act.</p>

This empirical study explores Chinese scholars’ conceptions of the characteristics of quality in research. It follows a phenomenology approach and uses four mixed qualitative methods (online survey, interview, focus groups and document analysis). Phenomenological coding strategies and Pierre Bourdieu’s field and cultural theory are utilised to analyse the data and achieve a theoretical understanding of the findings. It is found that the participants viewed quality via multifarious lenses and identified diverse actual criteria. They nominated many ‘normal’ criteria that were similar to the western standards of research quality, especially the methodological ones, and some ‘abnormal’ ones which were indigenous and contextual in nature (i.e., related to the particular context of educational research in China). The participants elaborated their criteria through 3 layers: methodology (technical quality criteria), contextualisation (i.e., criteria that were about the relationship between the research and the context), and criteria related to the impact of research. The contextual issues (e.g., job title evaluation system, research policy and administrative interference) generated “unscholarly” criteria, and hindered the academics’ good intention to consider and follow the conventional criteria in action. They influenced the academics’ opinions of quality and their ways of conducting research. In the participants’ eyes, doing research in China was tantamount to writing papers, and it was not about assuring quality but reflected the academics’ struggles to meet all sorts of requests at institutional and national levels. The participants looked for an impact of research at the practical level (e.g., teaching and learning), and suggested a combination of both theoretical and practical significance of research. Powerful academics have not created cultural and scholarly debates to consider and select the criteria nominated by other academics, and have not used them in the government and institutional documents. In Bourdieusian terms, quality as reflected in some aspects of the habitus of participants has been greatly influenced by the field, the capital and the symbolic power; but the habitus of most scholars has not yet managed to affect the field. There is much in the field that could be altered to enable the habitus to affect and develop the quality of educational research. This current study provides recommendations for educational research, university-teachers’ research and practice, researcher development, as well as research policy and management in the Chinese context, and/or abroad.

This study was originally undertaken to change and improve the way I do my practice at Walter Sisulu University as a Research Associate whose responsibility is to facilitate research capacity development and research excellence within the University, amongst academics and postgraduate students. The success of the Research Resource Centre that I manage depends on the way I promote research culture and research productivity amongst academics and postgraduate students. According to Leedy and Ormrod (2013, p. 2), research is a systematic process that is used to collect, analyse, and interpret data in order to increase my understanding of the phenomenon about interest and concern about a given/identified phenomenon. In this case my own practice changed and improved for the better. The main objective of this study, therefore, was to examine the reasons behind the decline in research productivity in terms of research output and how this could be reversed through action research study intervention in order to enhance research productivity at Walter Sisulu University (WSU). The Department of Higher Education and Training’s (DHET) allocation of research output units for WSU indicated that there was a decline in research output from 2005 to 2010. The extent to which my practice improvement could contribute towards changing or improving research productivity was a question which this study addressed through a quantitative, qualitative and self-reflective action research cyclic inquiry. I organized sample strategies of this study as follows: For quantitative data, I used 120 lecturers as my respondents through questionnaires (females = 47 and males = 73) who were randomly selected; For qualitative data, I used 24 lecturers as respondents who were randomly selected with whom I conducted interviews; and For self-reflective action research cyclic inquiry I used 7 Transformative Education/al Studies (TES) project group members as my focus group. My research findings concluded that the heavy teaching workload at WSU was problematic and lecturers/academics could not devote time to do research. My recommendation is that research should be made compulsory so that academics become aware that at least one or two published articles are required from them, for the benefit of annual university research productivity. Some research participants also recommended that the Research Resource Centre must include programs that focus directly on active participation in research in order to increase the capacity of individual researchers so as to build a critical mass of competent researchers, perhaps by even including incentives as a reward for doing research. According to Koshy (2010), action research is a specific method of conducting research by professionals and practitioners with the ultimate aim of improving practice. My new knowledge, therefore, in respect of how a concerned Research Associate, from a Historically Disadvantaged Institution (HDI), provided the impetus to create a collaborative practice in a higher education institution which was forced to merge with two former technikons (which lacked understanding of what a university means by research productivity and research output). I consequently developed the Nkosinathi Sotshangane’s cyclic practice improvement model through self-reflective action research, from which I believed other research practitioners could learn by doing something similar in their own context.

Shifting from traditional face-to-face education to online mode of education (or online learning)  presents several challenges, such as increased difficulty for students to get immediate feedback and  lack of social interaction. To tackle these challenges, supporting learners' self-reflection process is  seen to be crucial to help students achieve academic success. Students in higher academic institutions  are generally not exposed during their education to self-reflection, and it is a skill that teachers  consider many students lack. However, there is a lack of studies that focus on self-reflection in online  environments. In this paper we aim to investigate in what ways can online learning platforms support  university students’ self-reflection. In this study a self-reflection tool was developed for an online  environment and evaluated through a set of iterations in a mixed method approach. A total of three  iterations were conducted, with their respective evaluations. Results show that participants perceived a  clear improvement of their learning process through self-reflection. Findings also show that there are  a few requirements not present in traditional self-reflection tools, which suggest a clear need for  self-reflective methods tailored to learners' needs. / Skiftet från traditionell salsundervisning till nätbaserad kunskapsförmedling innebär många  utmaningar, t.ex. det är svårare för elever att få omedelbar feedback och de saknar socialt utbyte. För  att komma tillrätta med de här utmaningarna anses det viktigt att den som studerar får stöd genom  självskattning, för att målen för studierna ska kunna uppnås. Den som studerar på högre nivå får sällan  tillfälle till kunskapssjälvskattning under sin utbildning och lärare anser att det är kunskaper som  många studenter inte besitter. Samtidigt saknas det studier som fokuserar på självskattning i en  nätbaserad studiemiljö. I den här uppsatsen så undersöks hur utbildningsplattformar online kan främja  universitetsstuderandes självskattning. För undersökningen har ett verktyg för självskattning inom  nätbaserad undervisning utvecklats, ett verktyg som utvärderats genom en serie iterationer och  tillämpning av mixad metod. Totalt har tre olika iterationer genomförts med respektive utvärdering.  Resultaten visar att deltagarna upplevde att deras inlärningsprocess tydligt förbättrades med hjälp av  självskattningen. Svaren visar också att vissa förutsättningar saknas i traditionella  självskattningsverktyg och det i sin tur pekar tydligt på att det behövs metoder för självskattning som  är anpassade efter elevernas behov.

Yes / It is an increasingly acknowledged fact that one of the most effective ways universities in war-affected countries can be functionally relevant to the everyday needs and challenges of their immediate environment is by promoting peacebuilding through peace education. This paper explores the role of universities in fostering peace education in diverse post-conflict and conflict-prone countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, the research investigates the contending models and strategies (notably the Bradford Model and the Centralized Unitary Model) of conflict-sensitive peace education in the context of universities in post-conflict and volatile societies in Africa. The study also analyses the problems and challenges associated with promoting peace education in Sub-Saharan Africa and recommends policy-relevant intervention measures designed to strengthen the process. Data for the study have been generated from secondary sources, as well as a raft of conflict intervention, regional security and peacebuilding projects the researcher has taken part in across a number of conflict-prone and war-affected African countries (notably, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and South Sudan).