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Australian higher education is expanding rapidly. Yet about a quarter of students going to university on lower entry scores never complete their degrees, and a lot of money, time and talent goes to waste. One vital response is to improve the quality of teaching, which has long been neglected in Australian universities. A new scheme to create 2,500 teaching-focused positions across 12 universities would double the number of such positions in Australia and begin to spread a culture of high-quality teaching in our higher education system.
As part of the research for Taking university teaching seriously, Grattan conducted a study based on two student surveys to investigate the effects of research on the student experience. A summary of this research appears in chapter 5 of Taking university teaching seriously. The background report, The teaching-research nexus in higher education, contains more detail on theories around the ‘teaching-research nexus’, detailed findings, and the methodology used in the study.