Search results

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the perception of the students towards the quality and effectiveness of social work education offered by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) through open and distance learning (ODL).

The sample size consisted of 150 students, 15 academic counsellors engaged in either teaching or development sectors, or faculty members of School of Social Work of IGNOU. The methods of data collection included interviews and content analysis. Interview schedule for students, interview guide for academic counsellors and interview guide for faculty members were used.

The study centres were allotted as per student’s choice. Students were satisfied with the counsellors because of their support, availability, contact, accessibility and assisting the students to clearing their doubts. The study found that the student’s attendance in counselling sessions was found to be negligible, even a large number of respondents were not aware of the ODL system. The study also shows that students face lots of problem with regard to their field work supervision and other components of field work as were also neglected.

The findings of the study are extremely relevant for formulating necessary guidelines for improving the social work education through ODL mode. The study recommends revision of course materials translated in Hindi language, holding of individual and group conferences regularly as well as proper evaluation of field work reports.

This is first such study conducted in India to examine the effectiveness of social work education through ODL.

The paper aims to study how the present distance learning libraries can improve upon their existing services and introduce new ones to enhance quality of services to distance learners.

The paper includes a review of literature on quality assurance in open and distance education in general and student support services in particular. It studies and compares the current practices followed by libraries at open universities, which have proved trailblazers in distance education.

This paper proposes an action plan for distance learning libraries and offers suggestions for improving their library services.

This paper will be of interest to library science researchers and professionals working in distance learning libraries with responsibility for quality assurance.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the needs and aspirations of international students studying at a comprehensive university campus in the USA in comparison to domestic students represented by factors that drive students’ college choice.

The study opted for a survey design through questionnaire and employed descriptive and inferential statistics to assess differences between international and domestic students.

Findings suggest that international students are different from domestic students on seven choice factors: on-campus housing, recommendation from family, academic reputation, reputation of faculty, participation in intercollegiate sports, printed material or video and need-based financial aid.

The study was conducted at a four-year comprehensive public university campus in California. Findings and conclusions may be relevant only to such context.

International and domestic students have different preferences and their college choices are affected to different degrees by the varying choice factors. Education administrators and policy makers can have targeted strategic marketing plans that are responsive to the different types populations’ needs.

This is the first study that compares international students’ to domestic students’ needs and aspirations when choosing a university campus.

The first part considers the role of welfare in an institution of higher education, and the different (and sometimes conflicting) traditions and priorities which apply to staff as opposed to student welfare. Describes the impact of Government policy in expanding the higher education sector, and how this has led to a review of the student welfare provision and, in particular, the recognition of a need for a resource dedicated to student counselling. In the second part describes the personnel and ethical issues of recruiting a student counsellor in detail: the appropriate type of counselling to be used; “fitting” the post to a hierarchical administrative structure; defining levels of accountability and the limits of confidentiality; and discusses clarifying possible areas of role conflict with other staff.

The paper aims to report on the 30th IATUL Annual Conference held in Leuven, Belgium, 1‐4 June, 2009

The paper summarises the major themes of the conference as well as giving some specific details of developments at the Indira Gandhi National Open University in India, which supplement the author's presentation at the conference.

The IATUL conference included a wide gamut of important issues faced by the libraries in the knowledge society of the twenty‐first century. The delegates exchanged ideas and learnt of best practices prevalent in libraries across the globe. The conference provided insights into the issues of innovation, change, benchmarking, quality assurance, Web 2.0 tools, information literacy, free internet resources and so forth.

It was a conference of immense value for library and information professionals. It raised important issues; problems faced by the libraries today and offered tentative solutions.

The paper reports the feedback collected from students of the Master of Social Work (MSW) Programme of the School of Social Work (SOSW), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), through open and distance learning (ODL), in India. The paper discusses findings related to learner profile, student support services, assignments, academic counselling, fieldwork, audio/video/teleconferencing facilities, Internet access and challenges faced by the learners. The findings will be useful for researchers and practitioners, will help in improving the overall quality of the programme, in designing the delivery mechanism as per the needs of MSW learners and in preparing them to be trained professionals to work in social development sector in India.

For data collection, a questionnaire was prepared and sent to all the students of the MSW programme along with assignment, across India. Responses from 290 students were voluntarily received.

The research findings are that MSW (ODL) students are older, mostly married with the average male learners age being 35 years and that of female learners being 30 years, there are more female learners than male learners, majority of the learners are Hindu from general category, tend to be employed, mostly full-time and some part-time, with work experience. They are from urban, semi-urban, rural and tribal areas with Internet access. Most of the students preferred to read printed self-learning materials than digitally available on eGyanKosh or IGNOUmobile app especially in rural areas though with increasing access to Internet, students are gradually opting for online materials while filling up the admission form. Majority of students found the quality and standard of study materials to be very good. Though maximum respondents gave positive feedback about the student support services and their learning experiences, some of the learners faced challenges like unco-operative staff members, administrative delays, non-allotment of academic counsellor/fieldwork supervisor, irregularity, late reception of study materials, lack of staff members at study centre, far distance of regional centre/study centre from residence, etc.

The findings will help in designing and delivering the MSW programme in a more effective way. Based on the feedback received, the next revision of the programme will take into consideration the concerns of the learner. The limitation of the study is that not all learners responded to all the questions. Not all potential MSW learners filled the questionnaire and submitted it at the school. And those who responded had left some questions unanswered. Those who did not submit response may differ in their responses from what is received.

It is an original work and will be valuable in understanding the distance learner of MSW programme in India, programme delivery and challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of both the school counselor and the school psychologist in preparing students in urban school settings for college and/or the workforce. Throughout this paper, the authors discuss how collaboration is critical to ensuring students are successful at every school level (e.g., elementary, middle and high) to avail themselves of various postsecondary opportunities upon graduation. The authors give recommendations for practice and future research to implement and increase knowledge around collaboration between school counselors and school psychologists in preparing students in urban school settings to be college- and career-ready.

This is a conceptual paper on school counselors and school psychologists using the Eight Components of College and Career Readiness Framework to collaborate on preparing students for postsecondary options.

With support from key stakeholders like administrators, teachers and parents, school counselors and school psychologists can work collaboratively to increase students’ college and career readiness. For example, school counselors and school psychologists may start by creating and implementing a needs assessment, as it relates to the developmental tasks of students (i.e. self-regulation, self-efficacy, self-competence) that must be negotiated to ensure college and career readiness. School counselors and school psychologists should also examine out-of-school suspension, expulsion, school arrest and disciplinary referral data (Carter et al., 2014).

Collaboration around college and career readiness is important to the academic success and future of students in urban school settings. School counselors and school psychologists complement each other in preparing students for college and the workforce because their training has prepared both for addressing academic needs, assessment, mental health issues, career development, behavioral concerns and social–emotional needs of students (American School Counselor Association, 2012; National Association of School Psychologists, 2014). Further, school counselors and school psychologists are in a pivotal position to create a college-going culture by using evidence-based activities, curricula and practices.

This study was conducted as a result of the declining numbers of Diploma in Accountancy (DIA) students obtaining a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 2.75 and above in the Sarawak Campus of UiTM. The reason why CGPA 2.75 was identified as the cut‐off point was because this is the minimum entry requirement for students to enter the degree program in Accountancy. A questionnaire survey was carried out at UiTM Sarawak Campus with the hope of finding the root cause(s) of this problem by focusing on DIA students who were in their final semesters. A total of 65 questionnaires were distributed to selected respondents in Parts 6, 7 and 8 of the DIA program. In addition to that, these students were observed without much interference to their ordinary situation, so that a more reliable outcome could be obtained. From the survey, the researchers found that the factors that caused the decline in the numbers of students achieving a CGPA of 2.75 and above can be categorized into avoidable and unavoidable. The avoidable factors include students’ attitude, study skills and peer influence. These factors are considered avoidable because they are within the students’ control. Final exam paper difficulty is an unavoidable factor, because it is not under the students’ control. The findings show that the university, lecturers and students all have significant roles to play in helping these students obtain a CGPA of 2.75 and above. They should complement one another so that their joint effort can be optimized. Based on the above findings, the researchers conclude that the university, lecturers and students should work together to produce better results not only in terms of the CGPA outcomes but also to improve the students’ attitude.

This research study aimed to collect feedback from the learners on the usefulness and effectiveness of the online counselling sessions organised during COVID-19 lockdown through online platforms to provide academic support to the learners.

The link of a questionnaire designed in a Google Form sent to IGNOU learners of the January 2020 session enrolled under the jurisdiction of IGNOU Regional Centre (RC) Chandigarh through email as well as SMSs. Total responses received were 487, out of which 445 responses were complete, roughly 8% of the total registered learners during the January 2020 session. The questionnaire contained questions on a cross-section of online counselling issues, besides questions on the learners' profile.

Majority of the learners were satisfied with the input provided while organising online counselling sessions during COVID-19 lockdown in India. A significant proportion of learners (88%) used smartphones for attending counselling sessions. Facebook page of the RC rated as a relatively better option than other online platforms. However, more than 50% of learners faced Internet connection problems and found them a significant hurdle for smooth viewing of online counselling sessions. The proportion of learners who encountered difficulties in handling electronic devices was insignificant. The learner's feedback on many attributes such as usefulness and effectiveness of the online counselling sessions, interaction with the academic counsellors, e-content used in the counselling was significantly positive. A significant proportion of the learners have reported that face to face counselling could be replaced with online sessions in future, considering its flexibility in terms of place and schedule of learning and availability of recording of such sessions.

The research study was conducted under Chandigarh region of IGNOU which has a predominantly urban population. Thus the results of the study are limited to Chandigarh region and the region with similar socio-economic settings. This certainly limits the scope of the study.

The study certainly provides valuable feedback to the ODL policymakers to consider replacing face-to-face counselling with an online mode in a phased manner. Online counselling options will be highly cost-effective, easily manageable, and provide flexibility for learners and resource persons, resulting in addressing learners' non-attendance related issues in the face-to-face counselling sessions.

In the analysis of our finding it is clearly stated that the Internet connectivity and availability of electronic devices is an important issue to provide online counselling support to socially and economically disadvantaged groups. Therefore, the research study also identifies such social issues as a major challenge for providing online counselling support to the learners.

This is an original empirical research study and data collected is used in the analysis for the first time. This analysis is based on the feedback gathered from the learners registered at IGNOU RC Chandigarh during the January 2020 session. The data and derived results not used in any other study.

The purpose of this study is to offer original analysis to examine the prevalence of publication titles, subtopics and methods present in peer-reviewed articles containing the search term “resume content” in ProQuest Central.

As a means for understanding better the scope of empirical studies in resumes, a limited search was conducted in ProQuest to build a data set of research articles under the limited search heading of “resume content”. Using ProQuest Central, a popular repository of peer reviewed, indexed articles for database searches in academic and institutional settings, the researchers queried a 34-year period, from 1984 to 2018. The qualitative content analysis included recording the respective scholarly disciplines populating the articles, the publication subject titles, identification of subtopics that inhabit the empirical works in the data set across time and recognition of the methodologies evident in the 47-article population set.

The analysis revealed six subtopics, which included content, gender, recruitment, social, branding and ethnicity. The highest concentration of articles appeared in psychology, business and management publications, with the highest subtopic concentrations published in the areas of content and recruitment. Evidence of methodologies was also observed. The 34-year population consisted of 30 works using quantitative methods, seven with qualitative methods, six with mixed methods and four with no evidenced method – only offering instructional content. These findings offer insight to resume content articles on the ProQuest Central databases.

Although highly accessed and respected as an initial source for searching academic knowledge bases, using ProQuest Central created the limitation of one aggregate database search, with limited indexes, coupled with a focus on specific terms which limited the data set and breadth of the study. In addition, this study was limited in building a data set using one set of specific terms, rather than testing and comparing more search terms, which could be a strategy for future studies.

These findings outline the need for empirically grounded advice to inform teachers, professors and career counselors tasked with helping students with resume content creation, whether formally or informally. Understanding the disciplines and domains that are publishing resume content research provided a window into seeing how future studies can delve deeper into these search terms to harvest pinpointed articles that can benefit practitioners and researchers with interdisciplinary opportunities to marry resume content research with other domains. This has practical implications for the depth of scientifically drawn knowledge available on resume content and creation.

Resume creation and the teaching of resume content and design can be rooted better in research-based data rather than anecdotal suggestions from faculty, staff, teachers and advisors.

This original study illuminates that the evolution of resume research is slow on ProQuest, with a small group of disciplines yielding a majority of the research articles. This knowledge may help drive future studies and build a greater conversation on the need for empirical work in teaching and mentoring students in resume development at the secondary and post-secondary levels.