Tuesday 1 December 2009

From the conference

I just came back from ANZCIES conference and there were a number of good papers presented by fantastic researcher in international and comparative education and social science. One of the best papers that impressed me immensely is 'Southern Theory and its Dynamics for Post Colonial Education' by Anne Hickling-Hudson (my all time Hero!). Anne started criticising the value (and representation) of Northern theories in most aspects of social science. The book by Connell states that it isn't a history of social thought, it does function as a critical historiography of selected social texts and their contexts. It starts by showing how the social science took their modern institutional form in the second half of the 19th century at the high tide of European imperialism.

Anne argues in her presentation that colonised and peripheral societies produce social thought about the modern world which has as much intellectual power as metropolitan social thought and more political relevance.

Actually there are a lot to be mentioned in this study and I am happy to share with you in terms of the paradigm in power and knowledge from the West-south perspective.

Natt

Thursday 22 October 2009

Australia and New Zealand Comparative Education Society Conference

Entering the Age of an Educational Renaissance: Ideas for unity of purpose or further discord?
24 - 27 November 2009


University of New England, Armidale

The theme for ANZCIES 2009 is Entering the Age of an Educational Renaissance: Ideas for unity of purpose or further discord? It is designed in response to the ever-increasing needs to advance our understanding of educational planning, behaviour, and development.

Is education perceived as a tool for peace? Can we use education to expand our imagination to explore new ways of thinking for collective action? What can we do to view education as a whole---from early childhood, primary, secondary, tertiary to lifelong learning? How can the world foster greater co-operation to offset fear of collapse, apathy, and complacency? Indeed, the world has changed, so how should education change with it? These and other related questions will be raised at the conference.

The aim of the conference is to present a series of papers that rigourously analyse discrete practical problems that help guide comparative and international research, uncover dilemmas, fallacies, myths, and/or to seek viable solutions to global and local concerns.

Tuesday 20 October 2009

International Leadership Workshop in Thailand




Dr Nattavud Pimpa from the School of Management visited Burapha University in Thailand last month to organise and run a workshop aimed at capacity building in public sector leadership among local civil servants.

The project is an affiliation between School of Management and Burapha University’s Graduate School of Commerce. In 2007, Dr Pimpa won and Emerging Research Grant (ERG) from RMIT to conduct a comparative leadership research in Victoria and Thailand. The results of the project become the contents of the workshop.

Dr Pimpa’s work in the area of research and educational collaboration in international leadership and management won him this opportunity through a grant provided by the Australia-Thailand Institute (ATI), an organisation within the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The workshop, held from Wednesday 29 September to 30 September, in Chonburi. Chonburi is one of the key strategic provinces in logistics, manufacturing and international trade and tourism in South East Asia. The workshop covered the concepts of Australian and Thai leadership characteristics, styles, effectiveness, inter-cultural leadership and team building in the Thai and Australian context. Fifteen local civil servants in the eastern Thailand participated in this workshop and created links among themselves and with RMIT.

“Leadership is a key function in all organisations and I believe that this workshop helps the participants from public health, education and local governance policy in the east of Thailand to implement the concept of leadership to their organisations” said Dr. Pimpa.

Co-organisers of the workshop included Dr. Timothy Moore from the University of Melbourne and Associate Professor Suda Suwannapirom, the Dean of the Graduate School of Commerce, Burapha University.

According to Associate Professor Suwannapirom, projects such as these are important because they ‘help create a strong academic bond between RMIT and the Thai government.’

Friday 21 August 2009

Gender and Computer in Education

Williams, Ogletree, Woodburn, and Raffeld (1993) reported that male college students, compared with females, experienced more computer involvement in their daily lives and perceived themselves as more competent with computers. However, some studies did not reveal significant gender differences. For example, Zhang (2005) found that gender was not a significant factor in terms of college students’ receptivity for distance learning. Davis and Davis (2007) reported that no statistically significant difference was found on overall perception of computer competence based on gender

Studies on the use of computers by males and females in workplace and household settings have told a similar story. Earlier studies revealed that, in general, women seem to have less experience with computers and tend to be less skilled in the use of computers (Harrison & Rainer, 1992). In addition, women seem to suffer greater levels of computer anxiety (Igbaria &Chakrabarti, 1990). The more recent studies claim that
these gender differences have shrunk. For example, Morris, Venkatesh, and Ackerman (2005) studied over a half year the reactions and use behaviors among 342 workers being introduced to a new computer application. They found that gender effects in individual adoption and use of technology differed based on age. Specifically, gender difference in technology perceptions became more pronounced among older worker, but a unisex pattern of results emerged among younger workers. Ono and Zavodny (2005) conducted a comparative study between USA and Japan. They found that there were significant gender differences in computer and internet usage in both countries during the middle 1990s. By 2001, these gender differences had disappeared in the US but persisted in Japan. However, controversy exists in regard to the recently reported smaller gender differences. Some recent studies still document fairly visible gender differences. Schumacher and Morahan- Martin (2001) found that in general, men tend to have more favorable attitudes toward computers. Ong and Lai (2006) surveyed 156 employees from six international companies in Taiwan and found that men’s rating of computer self-efficacy, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and behavioural intention to use e-learning are all higher than that of women.

Monday 27 July 2009

a new article on ipod and teaching

I have just read an article written by Crispin Dale from the University of wolverhampton on "iPods and Creativity in Learning and Teaching:
An Instructional Perspective". This article is published in the International Journal of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education which is an electronic journal. Please take some time to read this article and think about the way to be innovative in your teaching.

http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/

Saturday 25 July 2009

Business Degree- Australian Online!

Business education in Australia has gone through different stages since the open-door policy of the Australian government in 1980’s. One of the major drives for the development of business education is information communication and technology (ICT). The use of ICT and online component of the business program has different formats to let the student choose from. Business schools in Australia have been attempting to integrate ICT to their programmes in order to foster the quality of teaching and learning in business education. The common question among business schools in Australia is how ICT become the major constituents of modern business education.
Generally the online business course in Australia could fit into three major categories (Ryan, 2001):

1. Self-paced independent study. The student set the schedule and study at his/her own pace. The materials can be reviewed for as long as the student needs it. Feedback from online quizzes takes the form of pre-programmed responses. There is no one to whom the student can direct questions. This form of study requires the highest self-motivation.

2. Asynchronous interactive. The student participates with an instructor and other students, although not at the same time. The student attends the class whenever he/she likes for any amount of time. This approach offers support and feedback from the instructor and classmates. It is usually not as self-paced as independent study.

3. Synchronous learning. The student attends live lectures via computer and asks questions by e-mail or in real-time live chat. This format is the most interactive of the three and feels the most like a real classroom. Flexibility is more limited because of the set lecture schedule. There are limited course offerings in this format due to high delivery costs.
Affected by the above motivation to go for an online business course, the criteria of some business schools selection are specified. Selection differs from one student to another, but the major criteria is, first, the flexibility to enrol in the program and courses. The second criterion is the adequate time to complete the courses (Pimpa and Suwannpirom, 2008; Gerencher, 1998). The third criterion is the services and quality offered (Marsh and Dunkin, 1992).

The next criterion is the accreditation (Peltier et al, 2003). Accreditation is defined as any form of independent review of educational programs for the purpose of helping to establish that the learning offered is of a uniform and sound quality (Marsh and Dunkin, 1992). Accreditation is used to evaluate the quality of the education as determined by the accreditation body. Accreditation by internationally respected bodies, such as the AACSB, is an important selling point of programs at reputable business schools (Webster and Hackley, 1997). Some business schools that offer the online MBA or BBA are accredited by local bodies, but until now the AACSB accreditation body did not give any accreditations for the online MBA (Webster and Hackley, 1997). The accrediting agencies have a challenge in which it should develop specific standards for distance education students (Wood, 2000).
The next aspect is the reputation of the university (Gerencher, 1998). Many online institutions do not offer classes, rather they award degrees based on the candidate’s previous life experience (Online Business Education, 2001). This would be of concern for those universities, and also it could affect negatively other online universities due to the stereotyping. An example of a bad reputation is a university offering what is called a “diploma mill”, which is the name that is given to any university that operates primarily to make money or issue degrees/credentials without any thought to insuring that an education occurs (Gerencher, 1998). The final element is the ability to compensate for the lack of face-to-face experience (Feldman, 1999), which is addressed later in the paper noting the studies held to examine that feature of the online business degrees.

The development of ICT for online business education has improved the way lecturers construct the pedagogy for international business as well as the way students learning experiences can be improved (Pimpa and Suwannapirom, 2008). Previous studies have discussed the benefits of using ICT in teaching and learning in business, economics, and management (Ettinger, Holton, & Blass, 2006). In the context of learning and teaching in international business, however, researchers have proposed a number of problems and challenges when using electronic forms of education. Previous research study by Feldman (1999) claims that for online business courses to be effective, faculty and the administration need to integrate program planning, monitoring, management, and resource allocation and careful selection of learning materials. They also need to offer students pre-entry guidance, personal communication and feedback. Identification of the importance of these factors lends strong support to the belief among online educators that distance learning courses that are offered online are not a cheap or discounted method of delivery, if the courses are to be established and delivered properly (Goodyear and Jones, 1998).

Thursday 9 July 2009

Dissemination of the project

I am currently in Thailand for several reasons. One o them is to present my paper at the national conference at the graduate school of commerce, Burapha University and to collect more data from the participants in Thailand. So far, I realise Thai students are very keen to use online resources and need to incorporate e-techniques in all forms of learning and teaching in international business. The institutional encouragement seems to contribute much more significantly than any other factors in this country. Why? this is because the variety of quality in 'investment in e-business education' among the Thai universities. From the first interview, I realise this huge differences in budget and level of commitments among universities in Thailand (in investment for e-education).

Monday 11 May 2009

The next plan for this project

The next plan for this project is to collect more data from accounting and finance students in order to compare their views on online engagement with students from international business. I do plan to contact them before the end of this semester because they might go away during the semester break in June-July and that may pose some technical problems for this project.

See how we go?!?!?!?!?

Friday 8 May 2009

ANZIBA conference

The conference was held at the University of Queensland, one of the fantastic looking uni. in this country. what impressed me most was the very first keynote speech delievers by Prof. Lar, a visiting Professor at the UQ. He's Swedish and has long been working in the international business for a long period. What inspired me about his speech was regarding the way we conduct research and the culture of research in international business at global level. I do agree with him that lecturers are forced by the publication culture and some of us have been struggling to survive in this culture.

The rest of the conference was mediocre, due to the limitation in number of speakers and time of the conference. I particularly feel that the theme on teaching and learning in international business should be emphasized at the next year ANZIBA conference. This year, I only found 4-5 researchers and academics in this area talked about their work regarding learning and teaching, which is truly insufficient. Maybe we need more delegates to support the governance of ANZIBA.

Tuesday 14 April 2009

ANZIBA Conference -Part 1




This weekend will be another 'interesting' time for me. Not because of a recovery from a long Easter break or a time to visit another country towns. In fact, I am going to the Australia and New Zealand International Business Academy (ANZIBA) conference. Of course, I plan to disseminate some of the findings from this project at the the conference and expect to receive some feedback from my ANZIBA colleagues. TWell, this is my second experience with ANZIBA and I"m not pretty sure if I have already fallen in love with the organisation. Unlike ANZIECS that I previously lamented about in early 2009, ANZIBA is larger and can be more complex.

The paper that I plan to disseminate at the conference is entitled "The Nature of the Online Education Engagement in the International Business Programme: A Phenomenographic Study" I think the last part of the title is very exciting ...at least to me! I talked to my colleague (and.. a-hem.... boss) Dr. Carlene Boucher about the title of the paper and Carlene has suggested a more sophisticated title...a phenomenography concept..which is one of the most interesting qualitative approaches to study people's learning experiences.

I will come back with a full report by next weekend!

Sunday 5 April 2009

Trade in Education Service: China


This project is all about international education, due to a strong demand for Australian higher education from overseas market. China has retained in top position as a major 'sending country' to Australia. However, the role of China in international education is in transformation..from sending to receiving. Trade in higher education in China developed rapidly since China's adoption of its Open Door policy in 1979. The rise of a market-oriented economy has transformed China from an overwhelmingly agricultural economy towards a more industrialized and information-based economy that puts a premium on human capital (knowledge) development. The nation's overall strength is thus believed to depend significantly on the quality of its human resources. In the face of the great need to speed up the nation's economic growth and national development, China began to send students abroad to study in 1979. Since then, China has become the leading country in the enrollment of students in industrialized nations.



But China's higher education market has been opening itself up to the outside world as well. While many Chinese students are eager to apply to study in
foreign universities, education officials in China are vowing to provide higher quality services for a growing number of foreign students pursuing higher education in China. Statistics show that some 62,000 foreign students were enrolled in over 360 Chinese colleges and universities in 2002 (China Institute of International Education Report, 2002).In addition, according to a rough estimate by the Ministry of Education, there were 721 joint programs in China at the end ofyear 2002, an increase of more than nine times over 1995.

The future potential of China as an exporter of higher education services appears to be challenged by China's entry into the WTO, at least in the view of many officials in the Chinese higher education sector. China became a formal member of the WTO on December 11, 2002, but negotiations began much earlier. China's economic reforms qualified China for membership in a number of international economic organizations and the country became an observer of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT)in 1952 and formally applied for full GATT membership in July 1986.The 8th International Trade Round, the so-called Uraguay Round (1986-94) replaced the GATT by the WTO. GATT Member-States had determined that international trade could be increased by structuring agreements similar to the GATT that focus on trade in areas other than goods, such as services (e.g. education and health) and intellectual property rights. Thereupon, three multilateral agreemenis became the pillars within the framework of the new World Trade organization: the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the General Agreement on Trade-related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.(TRIPS)

Thursday 26 March 2009

Findings and Diseemination

At this stage, I aim to collect more data from accounting and finance students who are two main groups for this study.I think I'm done with IB students since the findings of this study from this cohort seem to be quite repetitive now.

Next month, after Easter break, I will present some findings from this research project at the 2009 Australia-New Zealand International Business Academy in Brisbane. This annual conference is a significant event among researchers and academics in international business and globalisation in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. Hopefully, I'll have some more interesting stories to share with you.

Tuesday 3 March 2009

One finding from my study

At this stage, I am still preparing some data and playing with them in terms of creating themes and concept from the data. One of the emerging theme that I have found so far is the nature of international business course that stimulate student's participation in online education in international business.

Participants expressing the conception of nature of international business are distinguished among themselves. International business, as an area of study, is perceived as a highly engaged course whereby learners need to bring their previous life experiences as consumers, members of society, or observers of the world to understand the phenomenon of international business. Online learning is perceived as a platform to share and exchange their academics and life experiences (in the form of personal opinion) while they are learning in the formal education system. Furthermore, various forms of online education, such as webblog, discussion boards, or wiki, encourage them to be highly interactive in the learning process. As international business courses aim to create an understanding of the international aspects of management, for formulating and implementing effective strategies in an increasingly complex world economy, personal experiences and the roles of individual students as observers of changes in global and local factors were useful for the contribution in the online discussion and knowledge exchange among students in this study.

In three cases research interviewees referred to the nature of international business courses as “real-world” (NIB-1) and “tangible” (NIB-2), when compared to other disciplines in business and economics. In the first case, the participant identified his experience on “arguing” with his team mates on the discussion board regarding the effect of political ideology in China in choices of entry mode. He felt that he was less compelled to identify his “Asian” background in the discussion board, and that made him feel freer in setting lines of arguments to support his choice of entry mode and to criticise the role of Communist Party in China. The issue of race and ethnicity and other “sensitive” issues (NIB-3) in international business courses can be freely and openly discussed using online platforms because the identity of the students is not explicitly demonstrated as in the traditional face-to-face learning.

Monday 16 February 2009

Stories from the field (2)

In this study, I decided to utlise the research methodology of phenomenography to explore the experiences and stories of international business students, and how did they interact with other students in the online forum. Last month, I interviewed an 2exchange students from Mexico and Korea in an effort to 'listen' to their stories. To be frank, I am sick of previous studies that keep reporting stories such as:

"overseas students are passive learners"
"American are more proactive in the class"
"Students of Chinese background are quiet, polite, and studious"

You don't need any more research to create this kind of stereotpe in international education. Although sopme of that facts may be true, it may not be applicable in the sense of international business disciplines because in this class the context is worldly and the language of discusson can be more flexible. Futhermore, the geographical and cultural boundaries are not perceived as a barrier but the vitality of international business and trade.
Some of the findings from both students' stories are very intereting but I'll let you know more about ti next time :)

Thursday 29 January 2009

A story from the fieldwork (1)

It's been a while since I updated this blog. As I've been traveling and collecting data, writting another application etc. I intend to update more stories from my interview cases and share it with the readers. In fact the case that I interviewed was a while ago but I've been listening to the story from the case which is very interesting for an educator like me. The student mentioned the use of online resources as a usual place to dump info. and non-textbook message to the students. Furthermore, some (not all) teachers frequently said "It's all there in the web! you just log in and will find it" to the students and that was directly reflected by the first participant in this study.

I also listen to the story of a business lecturer who refused to co-operate with the students in the online platform. What I heard is he/she would never accept any forms of online submission because it's never been good enough for the traditional academic! Strange but very interesting story. The students tried to negotiate but it seem to be really difficult to convincet this lecturer to change his/her mind. Strangely, this is the case of student at one of the top institutions in Australia, where almost all primary school kids in this country submitted their homeworks electronically!