This paper explores how the concept of social capital developed by Bourdieu and Coleman as well as the Chinese concept of "guanxi" ([foreign characters omitted]) or relationships facilitates students' access to postgraduate education in a case study of a university in southeast China. The study comprises an initial survey of 381…

In this article, I offer a story, rendered in creative nonfiction, of my experience as a young and flustered college professor challenged by a defiant and disruptive graduate student. The story is followed by a critical reflection of the experience where I examine the role of communication and culture in regard to classroom disruptions and assess…

The aim of this study is to examine graduate students' opinions regarding marriage and premarital education programs. The participants of the study are 22 graduate students (12 female and 10 male) attending different programs at a public university in Izmir, Turkey. The data for the study were collected through a standardized interview form…

Teaching introductory statistics to postgraduate students from multidisciplinary background and with diverse mathematics ability is a huge challenge that many statistics lecturers do not deny. The large ability range can make it very difficult for lecturers to fine tune the right level for effective course delivery. Even though an introductory…

In this article, we present a case study review of an educational, semi-collaborative role-playing game designed to provide participants the opportunity to practice soft skills identified by industry leaders as vital to one's success in the business sector. We discuss the successes of using theatre techniques as a gymnasium for social emotional…

Several factors have been attributed to learners' underachievement in postgraduate programmes. Two of such factors are gender and entry background of postgraduate distance learners which previous studies have identified in isolation of one another. No previous studies have been reported to have investigated a combination of gender and entry…

Background: It has long been recognized that tracheoesophageal speech (TES) rehabilitation after laryngectomy is a specialized area of practice for speech and language therapist (SLTs) due to the complex nature of patient presentation and the invasive components of the SLT's role in this area. Therefore, postgraduate experience and training is…

With the rapid growth of online learning and the increased attention paid to student attrition in online programs, much research has been aimed at studying the effectiveness of online education to improve students' online learning experience and student retention. Utilizing the online learning literature as a multi-faceted theoretical framework,…

Journal clubs are widely used as an educational tool in graduate life science programs. In journal clubs, students are assigned to read specific journal articles to achieve a broad knowledge in their field of study and to gain competence in reading and assessing scientific publications. However, students often show low motivation to read assigned…

This study focused on student-content interactions and engagement in an online graduate course. Student descriptions of their experiences and learning processes in relation to digital course resources were examined to understand how and why resources were used. Fourteen students provided detailed explanations of their use and perceived value of…

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) often lead laboratory and tutorial sections in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), especially at large, research-intensive universities. GTAs' performance as instructors can impact student learning experience as well as learning outcomes. In this study, we observed 11 chemistry GTAs and 11…

In the past two decades, researchers and educators have always tried to explore the effects of social media on academic engagement and performance in higher education settings. The present study examines the effect of the adoption of Telegram on academic engagement and performance of graduate students in two Iranian universities. The structural…

This article describes and evaluates the concept of project studies in the part-time master's degree course "Professional IT-Business" at the HTW Berlin. The concept contains several elements which are intended to enable and support work process-integrated learning, or learning in real work processes and projects in companies. The…

Dynamic written corrective feedback (DWCF) is a pedagogical approach that offers meaningful, manageable, constant, and timely corrective feedback on student writing (Hartshorn et al., 2010). It emphasizes indirect and comprehensive written error correction on short, daily writing assignments. Numerous studies have demonstrated that its use can…

Online group debates hosted in asynchronous threaded discussions can facilitate critical thinking between discussants (and increase deeper understanding of complex problems) by eliminating the need for turn-taking while formulating and presenting premises to support and challenge claims. Yet to be determined is to what extent does the current…