Student Support and Transition Through a Buddy Programme to Foster Social Integration

The University of Pretoria (UP) began offering formal academic student support in 2011 when the first faculty student advisor (FSA) was appointed. Although many more FSAs were subsequently appointed, assistance to all the students in need of support remained insufficient. However, financial assistance through the collaboration grant received from the Department of Higher Education and Training in 2018 made it possible to explore new areas of support. The UP was able to pilot four innovations due to the availability of additional funds. These included generic workshops across faculties; the creation of a hub in the library, which served as a common contact point for students requiring assistance; the appointment of peer advisors; and a Buddy Programme for first-year students. This article explains the Buddy Programme as perceived by the senior students who mentored the first-year students. The mentors are known as “big buddies”. Our work on this programme is based on Tinto’s (1975) ideas about social integration. The Buddy Programme was introduced to assist first-year students in their transition from school to university life. This paper highlights the challenges that first-year students faced and it explains how the concepts could become institutionalised once university activities have been normalised in the post-pandemic future.

Perception of Undergraduate Students Towards Implementation of Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) in India

The study was conducted to explore the perception of students towards CBCS and the challenges faced by them in the progress for successful implementation of CBCS. Convergent Parallel design of mix-method approach has been used. A total 80 students from Ravenshaw University and from affiliated urban degree colleges of Utkal University were selected as sample of the study. Self-developed perception scale and an open-ended questionnaire were administered. The collected data were analyzed by using percentage, t-test, ANOVA. The research revealed no significant difference in perception towards CBCS between boys and girls and between Arts, Science and Commerce students. Majority of student respondents (87.5%) have a favourable perception towards introduction of GPA instead of marks. Students highly recommended for the provision of credit transfer system, employment-based skill enhancement courses, internal exams, appointment of student advisor and flexibility to study at different times and different institutions to complete one course and scope to transfer credits from one institution to other. Majority of Students highly satisfied with the semester system of examination, flexibility in subject selection, continuous comprehensive evaluation and skill enhancement courses. The study revealed some problem which are faced by students in the successful implementation of Choice Based Credit System such as; overburden of course, workload, exam oriented, inadequate library and infrastructure, absence of specialized teachers and references, text books. The findings of the present study yielded the necessity of developing strategies by all the stakeholders for successful implementation of Choice Based Credit System.

Effective Student-Advisor Engagement and Relationship Building in Online Graduate Programs

The goal of this chapter is to discuss the importance of advisor-student engagement as a critical component of student success. Much has been written about advising undergraduate students and strategies for working with first generation students and other challenges specific to undergraduate students, and this chapter will focus on working with online graduate students. Heisserer and Parette noted that contact with a significant person within an institution of higher education is a crucial factor in a student's decision to remain in college. The focus on this chapter is on how advisors can be the significant person within the institution for their graduate students, and how advisors can help students successfully integrate into the institution academically and socially to increase their likelihood of retention and success.

Enlivening a Community of Authentic Scholarship

Background: Critical and engaged qualitative scholarship depends on high-quality graduate training. The need to reexamine graduate student mentorship has become particularly pressing, given the high level of mental health distress experienced by students. It is unclear whether mentorship emerging within the student–advisor relationship is sufficient to ensure comprehensive mentorship. Innovative, experiential pedagogical approaches that integrate emotional and intellectual aspects are limited but may play a vital role in mentorship. There is a critical need to develop and study creative mentorship initiatives for emerging qualitative scholars. Methods: This study used interpretive description methodology and a community of practice theoretical framework to describe a faculty-mentored experience for graduate nursing students at the 2016 Qualitative Health Research Conference (FM-QHR) hosted by the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology. Participants completed written journals elucidating their experiences throughout FM-QHR. The textual data were analyzed using a constant comparative group analysis process, leading to the development of salient and interconnected themes. Results: Six graduate students and four faculty mentors submitted journals. Three interrelated themes articulate how this FM-QHR initiative enlivened a community of authentic scholarship: Questioning the Academic Self: Unvoiced Experiences of Angst, Uncertainty, and Fear; Cocreating Authentic Community through Shared Vulnerability; and Generative and Emergent Empowerment. Conclusion: These findings provide compelling insights into the importance of assisting students to navigate the emotional experiences that are a part of qualitative graduate training. Relational, mentorship initiatives hold potential to not only alleviate emotional distress but also support student empowerment, socialization, and entrance into a community of international qualitative researchers.

Una propuesta metodológica para la evaluación del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje en un ambiente virtual

Key words: Assessment process, new information technologies, on line environment, student performanceAbstract. This article provides a methodological proposal oriented to optimize theassessment process of a student performance on an on line environment through the application of group communication techniques (advisor-student, student-advisor, studentstudent, student-chat and so on) and widespread use of the new technologies on information and telecommunication as basic tools, based one the process follow-up and statistical data collection from the student´s learning performance and behaviour to enable the construction of significant and reliable indexes thus allowing the advisor a diagnostic on the student´sattitude and performance, allowing him to take on time the adequate preventive/corrective decision measures based on a success/failure tests outputs from the student performance, on a day- to- day basis, on the line environment.Palabras claves: Aprovechamiento del alumno, entorno en línea, información tecnológica nueva, procesos de estimaciónResumen. Este artículo ofrece una propuesta metodológica enfocada a optimizar el proceso de evaluación sobre el aprovechamiento del alumno en un entorno en línea mediante técnicas de comunicación grupal (tutor- alumno, alumno-tutor, alumno-alumno, alumno-chat, programa, etc.) y el uso profuso de las nuevas tecnologías de información y telecomunicación como herramientas básicas, mediante un seguimiento y registro estadístico del aprovechamiento y actitudinal del estudiante, posibilitando así la construcción de índicessignificativos, seguros y confiables, que permitan al instructor/facilitador disponer de un diagnóstico sobre el comportamiento y actitud del aplicar y aplicar en consecuencia las medidas preventivas/correctivas sobre la conducta continuamente observada del alumno en el entorno en línea.