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Combined Courses of StudyEquity group access and participation at the bachelor (honours/pass) level2. MethodologyIn 1997, the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs added a ‘supplementary field of study’ code to the higher education course file to enable combined course enrolment data to be included in annual statistical returns. Combined courses of study are now readily identifiable because institutions are required to enter two values for these: one in the initial field of study (Element 311) and another in a supplementary field of study (Element 389). A combined course indicator (Element 455) serves to check the validity of such entries. As well as enabling the identification of combined courses per se, this new coding practice obviously means that enrolments in the second field are now duly recognised and thus the accuracy of field of study data has substantially improved. As previously indicated, however, the Department’s combined course definition will capture enrolment data for students who are, for example, combining a degree with a diploma. Thus whilst most ‘combined course’ students at the bachelor level are enrolled in dual degree programs, it is somewhat misleading to interchange the two terms. A combined course, then, is conceptualised by the Department as a program of study that:
Source: STATPAC, 2000 For the purposes of this study, the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs first constructed a database of combined course enrolments in all major fields of study at the bachelor (honours/pass) level between 1997 and 1999.3 This database recorded enrolments by gender for both commencing students (non-overseas and overseas) and all students (non-overseas and overseas). A second database, containing commencing and all combined course enrolment details for female and male non-overseas students at the bachelor (honours/pass) level across institutions was then constructed to permit an investigation of the following equity and general student characteristics:
Finally, the department provided a complete listing of all courses that institutions had identified as combined courses in their 19971999 statistical returns to facilitate the checking of errors and omissions. After the preliminary analysis of the databases had been completed, and staff in the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs and various institutions had been consulted, the decision to exclude the following data from further analysis was taken:
Ultimately, it was decided that other errors in the major field of study database would not be removed, either because they were minor and had occurred in the first data collection year, or because they were associated with the re-coding of courses within particular fields. These types of errors are clearly identified in relevant tables within the report. 2.1 Statistical analysesThe Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs’ publication ‘Equity in Higher Education’ (1997) contains a detailed account of the four equity performance indicators that have been used since the mid 1990s to measure and evaluate the sector’s progress toward educational equity. For the convenience of the reader, the access and participation indicator information is summarised below. Access is interpreted as the provision of opportunities for commencing students from each equity group. Access indicators show the number of commencing students in each equity group as a percentage of total commencing students.5 The access reference value for women is 50%. For all other equity groups, it is their percentage share of the general population, aged 1564, as determined by census or other survey data. Participation is the share that members of a particular equity group have of total student enrolments. Most participation indicators show the proportion of an equity group’s participation as a ratio of what might be expected given the group’s share of the general population. The participation reference value in such instances is 1. Participation indicators for the low SES equity group also have a reference value of 1 but are calculated as a ratio of the number of students from low to high SES backgrounds. Those for women in non-traditional fields of study differ again in that they are measured as a percentage of total enrolments, and the reference value is 50%. In the first stage of the analysis, then, the gender distribution of combined course enrolments within the various major fields of study was analysed. This analysis encompassed both non-overseas and overseas students who commenced or were participating in a combined course of study between 1997 and 1999. An important outcome of this analysis was a detailed picture of non-overseas women’s access and participation in those major fields of study that sit within the five designated non-traditional broad fields of study (Agriculture, Architecture, Business, Engineering and Science). Although the reference value for women’s access and participation is 50%, the two threshold targets adopted by the federal Government in 1990 (15% for Engineering, 40% for all other non-traditional fields) are typically used to evaluate institutional performance in respect of women in non-traditional fields. Hence these, together with relevant access and participation rates for all women at the bachelor (honours/pass) level in 1999 were used to evaluate the combined course indicators. Additional to women, a further five equity groups in higher education have been formally targeted by the federal Government and these formed the primary focus of the second analysis. In this stage, access and participation indicators for the five groups were calculated by institution and by gender for each year between 1997 and 1999 to track institutional performance across time. Combined course indicators were evaluated against relevant reference values, 1997 across-course level access and participation rates (DETYA, 1997) and the 1999 access and participation rates for all members of the different equity groups enrolled at the bachelor (honours/pass) level. 2.2 Focus groups and interviewsTwo pilot focus groups were conducted at the University of South Australia to explore, albeit briefly, students’ motivations for pursuing a dual degree and their perspectives of these. Dual degree programs in which students with equity characteristics were comparatively well represented were targeted, and invitations to participate were issued through the University’s electronic mail system. The target programs were as follows:
Both focus groups ran for approximately 45 minutes each and a total of 35 students participated. Questions included the factors that had influenced their decision to apply for/accept a place in a dual degree, whether a particular side of their degree appealed more or less, their awareness of employment opportunities and particular difficulties they might be encountering as dual degree students. Four institutions that were found to have high participation rates for students with certain equity characteristics (Non-English speaking background, Indigenous, rural and women in non-traditional fields) were also invited to nominate a staff member to participate in a semi-structured interview. Two face-to-face interviews were subsequently conducted with academic staff in relation to women in chemical engineering dual degrees and non-English speaking students in commerce dual degrees. 3 The Department uses a classification system comprising three levels to categorise all higher education courses to fields of study. These fields of study are grouped at three levels (Level I: broad fields of study; Level II: major fields of study and Level III: minor fields of study). A major field of study is a grouping of minor fields of study. 4 This institution did not submit combined course date in 1997. Unfortunately, the data then submitted for the years 1998 – 1999 contained substantial errors. 5 Commencing students are defined as those who enrolled in a course for the first time at an institution (or an antecedent institution). Thus access provides a measure of equity group representation at the point of entry, whilst participation measures their representation per se.
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