Qin Liu | University of Toronto (original) (raw)

Publications by Qin Liu

Proceedings of the annual conference of the American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

In this paper, we have examined a major focus area of engineering education research—engineering ... more In this paper, we have examined a major focus area of engineering education research—engineering students’ experiences and outcomes, or ESEO—through a targeted literature review of 121 selected articles published by the Journal of Engineering Education from 2011 to 2021.
We drew upon a methodological taxonomy (Malmi, et al., 2018), literature on student development theories, and particularly an integrative ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1993), to guide our analysis. We have presented the findings with respect to engineering
students’ outcomes, and the contextual and individual factors in their learning experiences as exhibited in the selected articles, as well as the frameworks, methodologies and paradigms used by these studies. Based on these findings, we attempt to characterize ESEO studies in terms of
topics, frameworks, methodologies and research paradigms. Our analyses have attested that student development perspectives in the field of higher education offer scholarly and useful insights to engineering education researchers and practitioners.

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2022

This paper is situated in the recent interest within engineering education communities in adoptin... more This paper is situated in the recent interest within engineering education communities in adopting transdisciplinary practices as well as the evolving scholarship and discussions on transdisciplinarity (TD) in broader contexts over the past few decades. We first introduce a historical overview of the discussions and scholarly work on TD, from which we identify some features of a transdisciplinary orientation. Further, we examine the website information of nine TD-explicit initiatives and seven cross-disciplinary initiatives in postsecondary settings across the world-in light of two general approaches to TD (the Nicolescuian approach and the Zurich approach) and the identified TD-oriented features. Our reviews exhibit the commonalities and differences between transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary initiatives, and a notable divide between TD-related theories and practices. Our findings also reveal opportunities and challenges in pursuing transdisciplinary activities in engineering education and practice. We call for a fundamental conceptual change to enable a real transformation toward transdisciplinarity.

Proceedings of the annual conference of American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented academic disruptions to postsecondary education... more The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented academic disruptions to postsecondary education, including engineering education. A considerable decrease in student motivation became a major issue for online learning during the pandemic. This paper attempts to address these questions: How did the online instruction environment affect engineering students’ motivation and self-directed learning? How did these changes, in turn, affect their learning outcomes? We used survey data collected from a large Canadian engineering school and conceptualized self-directed learning from a
social cognitive perspective to address these questions. Our findings revealed that students’ self-directed learning capabilities mediated the effects of learning environment factors on estimated grades and perceived gains in competency development; and student motivation had both direct and indirect effects on these learning outcomes. In their comments, students ascribed lack of motivation to multiple aspects of the online learning environment and felt that decreased motivation affected
their learning. Our analysis demonstrated the significant role of student motivation in an online environment and suggested that the decrease in motivation became a major affective barrier to learning. Thus, the extensive online instruction during the pandemic offered both challenges and opportunities for producing self-directed learners. We recommend that engineering schools implement more interventions to help engineering students enhance their self-directed learning capabilities.

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA)

The global shift to online learning prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated how learnin... more The global shift to online learning prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated how learningonline alters postsecondary students’ socialization experiences and learning outcomes. In December 2020, alarge Canadian engineering faculty surveyed its undergraduate students to assess their learning experiences in the exclusive online environment during the pandemic. This paper used qualitative data from the survey, as complemented by descriptive quantitative results, to explore how the online environment impacted engineering students’ socialization processes and their perception of learning. Using Weidman’s model of socialization, this paper contributes to better understandings of the individual and particularlyenvironmental factors that have influenced engineering students’ socialization processes while they learn online during the pandemic, and the importance of social interactions to student learning in engineering education.

Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 2020

Coops and internships complement students' classroom learning and constitute important contributo... more Coops and internships complement students' classroom learning and constitute important contributors to the quality of engineering education. In light of Stephen Billett's affordance-engagement framework, we reviewed 30 selected empirical studies on undergraduate engineering students' coop and internship experiences. From these studies, we identified three themes with respect to workplace affordances and individual engagement in engineering coops and internships. Our analysis not only showed that Billett's framework offers an enlightening approach to examining engineering students' workplace learning experiences but also it made the equity dimension of the framework explicit. We call for engineering coop and internship programs and researchers to go beyond learning outcome assessment alone and shift the attention to uncovering the factors in workplace learning experiences that might have influenced the achievement of desirable learning outcomes.

Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 2020

Two trends in the evolution of quality assurance in Canadian postsecondary education have been th... more Two trends in the evolution of quality assurance in Canadian postsecondary education have been the emergence of outcomes based quality standards and the demand for balancing accountability and improvement. Using a realist, process-based approach to impact analysis, this study examined four quality assurance events at two universities and two colleges in Ontario to identify how system-wide quality assurance policies have impacted the curriculum development process of academic programs within postsecondary institutions. The study revealed different approaches that postsecondary institutions chose to use in response to quality assurance policies and the mechanisms that may account for different experiences. These mechanisms include endeavours to balance accountability and continuous improvement, leadership support, and the emerging quality assurance function of teaching and learning centres. These findings will help address the challenges in quality assurance policy implementation within Canadian postsecondary education and enrich international discussions on the accountability-improvement dichotomy in the context of quality assurance.

American Society of Engineering Education, 2020

In this theory paper, we integrate literature from different fields. We argue that efforts to exp... more In this theory paper, we integrate literature from different fields. We argue that efforts to expand engineering education research through data analytics need to be grounded in the established literature and understanding of student development. We discuss the opportunities and challenges associated with using data analytics to examine engineering students’ experiences and outcomes. We suggest that engineering schools should enhance data infrastructure, along with data governance policies, to foster a culture of collaboration among units and divisions, and better utilize existing student data sources through greater data integration. We also suggest that engineering education researchers equip themselves with knowledge on data science, in addition to knowledge about different types of student experiences, and actively explore a wider range of data sources for research. Thereby, we envision a new research landscape with expanded data sources, integrated data systems, and new analytical techniques to enable predictive analysis and more actionable findings.

Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2020

This paper reports an analysis of an integrated data set that longitudinally tracked over 14,000 ... more This paper reports an analysis of an integrated data set that longitudinally tracked over 14,000 students from Canada's largest school board (the Toronto District School Board [TDSB]) into Canada's largest university (the University of Toronto [UofT]). Our analysis showed that when controlling for high school academic records and other student demographics, immigrant students from TDSB were more likely to pursue engineering than other fields of study; math ability was a strong predictor for the TDSB-UofT Engineering pathway; and while engineering students had better academic outcomes than other students, they had lower CGPAs than would be predicted by their academic performance in high school. These findings reveal three characteristics of UofT Engineering: its selectivity and rigor, transnational character of its student population, and complex student diversity. The study also suggests UofT Engineering look into its grading practices.

Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2019

Explicit discussion of methodology is important to better understand how knowledge claims are mad... more Explicit discussion of methodology is important to better understand how knowledge claims are made in a field. In light of a methodological taxonomy, this exploratory review paper examined the research topics and methodologies that were used in a sample of 142 articles published in 2018 by four major engineering education journals. The analysis reveals that engineering education research exhibits varied profiles in different engineering education journals. It also identifies several patterns and trends in the current state of engineering education research. The findings will not only provide novice engineering education researchers with a snapshot, yet an illustrating view, of the emerging field of EER but also offer a starting point to examine critical questions in the field of EER, such as quality and rigor.

American Society for Engineering Education, 2019

Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2018

Work-integrated learning, particularly in the form of co-ops and internships, has long been an in... more Work-integrated learning, particularly in the form of co-ops and internships, has long been an integral part of many engineering programs. While recent government interest in work-integrated learning has raised its profile, it is unclear how the three main actors – the workplace, the academic institution and students themselves – interact with each other to enhance students’ learning experiences and outcomes. This paper attempts to fill this gap by examining engineering co-op and internship literature as well as programming practices at nineteen North American universities. In light of a conceptual framework foregrounding the triad that shapes co-op and internship experiences and the resulting learning outcomes, we identified four themes that respectively demonstrated the achieved learning outcomes and the roles of workplaces, academic institutions and students in the work-integrated learning process of engineering co-ops and internships. The paper contributes to the discussion on engineering education by developing a framework out of the findings for understanding the work-integrated learning process in engineering co-ops and internships.

American Society for Engineering Education, 2018

Inherent to the career trajectories of professional engineers is an expectation that they learn t... more Inherent to the career trajectories of professional engineers is an expectation that they learn to integrate communication, interpersonal and leadership skills into their technical knowledge base. While this process may feel smooth and natural to some, research suggests that others find it
challenging and require support [1-3]. Our paper examines three bodies of literature relevant to engineering leadership learning in industry contexts: industry perspectives on the skills, traits and styles of effective engineering leaders; large-scale surveys tracking engineers’ career paths and transitions; and ethnographic studies examining engineers’ professional identity development. Our primary reason for doing this is to ground the next phase of our engineering leadership project in the literature. In addition to this project-specific goal, we use the paper to document the collective, interdisciplinary process we used to review the literature. We begin by
identifying our search criteria and fleshing out three key themes in the literature. We then analyze the themes through a conceptual framework made up of four theoretical tensions relevant to leadership learning: leadership as a position/process; social action shaped by human
agency/social structure; learning as a situated/formal endeavour; and social justice as a central/peripheral concern. After discussing the significance and limitations of our interdisciplinary
literature review experiment, and highlighting a gap in the leadership learning research, we generate a list of recommendations for engineering educators, industry leaders and engineering leadership researchers.

Policy Reviews in Higher Education, 2018

During the past two decades community colleges and technical institutes in several jurisdictions,... more During the past two decades community colleges and technical
institutes in several jurisdictions, including parts of Canada, the
United States and Australia, have been given the authority to
award bachelor degrees. One of the motivations for this addition
to the mandate of these institutions is to improve opportunities
for bachelor degree attainment among groups that historically
have been underserved by universities. This article addresses the
equity implications of extending the authority to award
baccalaureate degrees to an additional class of institutions in
Canada’s largest province, Ontario. The article identifies the
conditions that need to be met for reforms of this type to impact
positively on social mobility and inequality, and it describes the
kinds of data that are necessary to determine the extent to which
those conditions are met. Based on interviews with students,
faculty, and college leaders, it was found that regulatory
restrictions on intra-college transfer from sub-baccalaureate to
baccalaureate programs and lack of public awareness of a new
type of bachelor degree may be limiting the social impact of this
reform.

Quality in Higher Education, 2018

Amidst the international movement toward establishing more rigorous external quality assurance, t... more Amidst the international movement toward establishing
more rigorous external quality assurance, the recent quality
assurance reform within the Ontario public university sector
involves a shift of focus from external to internal quality
assurance. This paper explores to what extent organisational
learning was occurring at three comprehensive Ontario
universities while they managed institutional change for
assuring the quality of graduate programmes in response
to the system-wide quality assurance reform. Drawing upon
Senge’s framework for building a learning organisation, the
study found that certain levels of organisational learning
were taking place, albeit to different extent and in different
pace, at the three Ontario universities during the initial years
of transition. The findings also illustrate that institutional
change and organisational learning are inextricably linked
and that organisational learning is occurring as a result of the
interactions between the organisational domain of action and
the individual domain of learning.

Innovative Higher Education, 2017

We investigated how learning outcomes of students majoring in interdisciplinary fields differ fro... more We investigated how learning outcomes of students majoring in interdisciplinary fields differ from those of students in discipline-based majors. We found that students in interdisciplinary majors report less change in Critical Thinking and Need For Cognition than their peers in disciplinary majors, but no difference in change in Positive Attitude Toward Literacy. Students' gains in Critical Thinking and Need For Cognition do not vary by the Innov High Educ (2017) 42:337-353

Oxford Bibliographies, 2016

Higher Education Evaluation and Development, 2015

The period of 2010 to 2014 marked a relatively stable stage in the evolving quality assurance sys... more The period of 2010 to 2014 marked a relatively stable stage in the evolving quality assurance system for Ontario postsecondary education, particularly following massive changes after 2000. The current system consists of three frameworks overseen respectively by three quality assurance agencies-the Ontario Universities Council on Quality Assurance, the Ontario College Quality Assurance Service, and the Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board, each serving different purposes. This paper uses van Vught and Westerheijden's (1994) general model of quality assessment and Jeliazkova and Westerheijden's (2002) Phase Model of quality assurance systems development as heuristic tools for the analysis. The following four areas are discussed: formalized quality mechanisms with diversity; the arms-length tripartite relationship with a distinction between self-regulation and government regulation; mixed phases of quality assurance development and the maturing process; and gaps in the system. It is argued that within fifteen years, a comprehensive and relatively mature quality assurance system with diverse but rigorous mechanisms has been developed for Ontario postsecondary education although a few deficiencies exist, including the continued lack of coordination within the system. The evolution of the system appears to reflect a path trajectory of governance structure development of the Ontario postsecondary education system as well as be a result of interactions between the local and the global.

Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2015

Proceedings of the annual conference of the American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

In this paper, we have examined a major focus area of engineering education research—engineering ... more In this paper, we have examined a major focus area of engineering education research—engineering students’ experiences and outcomes, or ESEO—through a targeted literature review of 121 selected articles published by the Journal of Engineering Education from 2011 to 2021.
We drew upon a methodological taxonomy (Malmi, et al., 2018), literature on student development theories, and particularly an integrative ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1993), to guide our analysis. We have presented the findings with respect to engineering
students’ outcomes, and the contextual and individual factors in their learning experiences as exhibited in the selected articles, as well as the frameworks, methodologies and paradigms used by these studies. Based on these findings, we attempt to characterize ESEO studies in terms of
topics, frameworks, methodologies and research paradigms. Our analyses have attested that student development perspectives in the field of higher education offer scholarly and useful insights to engineering education researchers and practitioners.

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2022

This paper is situated in the recent interest within engineering education communities in adoptin... more This paper is situated in the recent interest within engineering education communities in adopting transdisciplinary practices as well as the evolving scholarship and discussions on transdisciplinarity (TD) in broader contexts over the past few decades. We first introduce a historical overview of the discussions and scholarly work on TD, from which we identify some features of a transdisciplinary orientation. Further, we examine the website information of nine TD-explicit initiatives and seven cross-disciplinary initiatives in postsecondary settings across the world-in light of two general approaches to TD (the Nicolescuian approach and the Zurich approach) and the identified TD-oriented features. Our reviews exhibit the commonalities and differences between transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary initiatives, and a notable divide between TD-related theories and practices. Our findings also reveal opportunities and challenges in pursuing transdisciplinary activities in engineering education and practice. We call for a fundamental conceptual change to enable a real transformation toward transdisciplinarity.

Proceedings of the annual conference of American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented academic disruptions to postsecondary education... more The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented academic disruptions to postsecondary education, including engineering education. A considerable decrease in student motivation became a major issue for online learning during the pandemic. This paper attempts to address these questions: How did the online instruction environment affect engineering students’ motivation and self-directed learning? How did these changes, in turn, affect their learning outcomes? We used survey data collected from a large Canadian engineering school and conceptualized self-directed learning from a
social cognitive perspective to address these questions. Our findings revealed that students’ self-directed learning capabilities mediated the effects of learning environment factors on estimated grades and perceived gains in competency development; and student motivation had both direct and indirect effects on these learning outcomes. In their comments, students ascribed lack of motivation to multiple aspects of the online learning environment and felt that decreased motivation affected
their learning. Our analysis demonstrated the significant role of student motivation in an online environment and suggested that the decrease in motivation became a major affective barrier to learning. Thus, the extensive online instruction during the pandemic offered both challenges and opportunities for producing self-directed learners. We recommend that engineering schools implement more interventions to help engineering students enhance their self-directed learning capabilities.

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA)

The global shift to online learning prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated how learnin... more The global shift to online learning prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated how learningonline alters postsecondary students’ socialization experiences and learning outcomes. In December 2020, alarge Canadian engineering faculty surveyed its undergraduate students to assess their learning experiences in the exclusive online environment during the pandemic. This paper used qualitative data from the survey, as complemented by descriptive quantitative results, to explore how the online environment impacted engineering students’ socialization processes and their perception of learning. Using Weidman’s model of socialization, this paper contributes to better understandings of the individual and particularlyenvironmental factors that have influenced engineering students’ socialization processes while they learn online during the pandemic, and the importance of social interactions to student learning in engineering education.

Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 2020

Coops and internships complement students' classroom learning and constitute important contributo... more Coops and internships complement students' classroom learning and constitute important contributors to the quality of engineering education. In light of Stephen Billett's affordance-engagement framework, we reviewed 30 selected empirical studies on undergraduate engineering students' coop and internship experiences. From these studies, we identified three themes with respect to workplace affordances and individual engagement in engineering coops and internships. Our analysis not only showed that Billett's framework offers an enlightening approach to examining engineering students' workplace learning experiences but also it made the equity dimension of the framework explicit. We call for engineering coop and internship programs and researchers to go beyond learning outcome assessment alone and shift the attention to uncovering the factors in workplace learning experiences that might have influenced the achievement of desirable learning outcomes.

Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 2020

Two trends in the evolution of quality assurance in Canadian postsecondary education have been th... more Two trends in the evolution of quality assurance in Canadian postsecondary education have been the emergence of outcomes based quality standards and the demand for balancing accountability and improvement. Using a realist, process-based approach to impact analysis, this study examined four quality assurance events at two universities and two colleges in Ontario to identify how system-wide quality assurance policies have impacted the curriculum development process of academic programs within postsecondary institutions. The study revealed different approaches that postsecondary institutions chose to use in response to quality assurance policies and the mechanisms that may account for different experiences. These mechanisms include endeavours to balance accountability and continuous improvement, leadership support, and the emerging quality assurance function of teaching and learning centres. These findings will help address the challenges in quality assurance policy implementation within Canadian postsecondary education and enrich international discussions on the accountability-improvement dichotomy in the context of quality assurance.

American Society of Engineering Education, 2020

In this theory paper, we integrate literature from different fields. We argue that efforts to exp... more In this theory paper, we integrate literature from different fields. We argue that efforts to expand engineering education research through data analytics need to be grounded in the established literature and understanding of student development. We discuss the opportunities and challenges associated with using data analytics to examine engineering students’ experiences and outcomes. We suggest that engineering schools should enhance data infrastructure, along with data governance policies, to foster a culture of collaboration among units and divisions, and better utilize existing student data sources through greater data integration. We also suggest that engineering education researchers equip themselves with knowledge on data science, in addition to knowledge about different types of student experiences, and actively explore a wider range of data sources for research. Thereby, we envision a new research landscape with expanded data sources, integrated data systems, and new analytical techniques to enable predictive analysis and more actionable findings.

Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2020

This paper reports an analysis of an integrated data set that longitudinally tracked over 14,000 ... more This paper reports an analysis of an integrated data set that longitudinally tracked over 14,000 students from Canada's largest school board (the Toronto District School Board [TDSB]) into Canada's largest university (the University of Toronto [UofT]). Our analysis showed that when controlling for high school academic records and other student demographics, immigrant students from TDSB were more likely to pursue engineering than other fields of study; math ability was a strong predictor for the TDSB-UofT Engineering pathway; and while engineering students had better academic outcomes than other students, they had lower CGPAs than would be predicted by their academic performance in high school. These findings reveal three characteristics of UofT Engineering: its selectivity and rigor, transnational character of its student population, and complex student diversity. The study also suggests UofT Engineering look into its grading practices.

Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2019

Explicit discussion of methodology is important to better understand how knowledge claims are mad... more Explicit discussion of methodology is important to better understand how knowledge claims are made in a field. In light of a methodological taxonomy, this exploratory review paper examined the research topics and methodologies that were used in a sample of 142 articles published in 2018 by four major engineering education journals. The analysis reveals that engineering education research exhibits varied profiles in different engineering education journals. It also identifies several patterns and trends in the current state of engineering education research. The findings will not only provide novice engineering education researchers with a snapshot, yet an illustrating view, of the emerging field of EER but also offer a starting point to examine critical questions in the field of EER, such as quality and rigor.

American Society for Engineering Education, 2019

Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2018

Work-integrated learning, particularly in the form of co-ops and internships, has long been an in... more Work-integrated learning, particularly in the form of co-ops and internships, has long been an integral part of many engineering programs. While recent government interest in work-integrated learning has raised its profile, it is unclear how the three main actors – the workplace, the academic institution and students themselves – interact with each other to enhance students’ learning experiences and outcomes. This paper attempts to fill this gap by examining engineering co-op and internship literature as well as programming practices at nineteen North American universities. In light of a conceptual framework foregrounding the triad that shapes co-op and internship experiences and the resulting learning outcomes, we identified four themes that respectively demonstrated the achieved learning outcomes and the roles of workplaces, academic institutions and students in the work-integrated learning process of engineering co-ops and internships. The paper contributes to the discussion on engineering education by developing a framework out of the findings for understanding the work-integrated learning process in engineering co-ops and internships.

American Society for Engineering Education, 2018

Inherent to the career trajectories of professional engineers is an expectation that they learn t... more Inherent to the career trajectories of professional engineers is an expectation that they learn to integrate communication, interpersonal and leadership skills into their technical knowledge base. While this process may feel smooth and natural to some, research suggests that others find it
challenging and require support [1-3]. Our paper examines three bodies of literature relevant to engineering leadership learning in industry contexts: industry perspectives on the skills, traits and styles of effective engineering leaders; large-scale surveys tracking engineers’ career paths and transitions; and ethnographic studies examining engineers’ professional identity development. Our primary reason for doing this is to ground the next phase of our engineering leadership project in the literature. In addition to this project-specific goal, we use the paper to document the collective, interdisciplinary process we used to review the literature. We begin by
identifying our search criteria and fleshing out three key themes in the literature. We then analyze the themes through a conceptual framework made up of four theoretical tensions relevant to leadership learning: leadership as a position/process; social action shaped by human
agency/social structure; learning as a situated/formal endeavour; and social justice as a central/peripheral concern. After discussing the significance and limitations of our interdisciplinary
literature review experiment, and highlighting a gap in the leadership learning research, we generate a list of recommendations for engineering educators, industry leaders and engineering leadership researchers.

Policy Reviews in Higher Education, 2018

During the past two decades community colleges and technical institutes in several jurisdictions,... more During the past two decades community colleges and technical
institutes in several jurisdictions, including parts of Canada, the
United States and Australia, have been given the authority to
award bachelor degrees. One of the motivations for this addition
to the mandate of these institutions is to improve opportunities
for bachelor degree attainment among groups that historically
have been underserved by universities. This article addresses the
equity implications of extending the authority to award
baccalaureate degrees to an additional class of institutions in
Canada’s largest province, Ontario. The article identifies the
conditions that need to be met for reforms of this type to impact
positively on social mobility and inequality, and it describes the
kinds of data that are necessary to determine the extent to which
those conditions are met. Based on interviews with students,
faculty, and college leaders, it was found that regulatory
restrictions on intra-college transfer from sub-baccalaureate to
baccalaureate programs and lack of public awareness of a new
type of bachelor degree may be limiting the social impact of this
reform.

Quality in Higher Education, 2018

Amidst the international movement toward establishing more rigorous external quality assurance, t... more Amidst the international movement toward establishing
more rigorous external quality assurance, the recent quality
assurance reform within the Ontario public university sector
involves a shift of focus from external to internal quality
assurance. This paper explores to what extent organisational
learning was occurring at three comprehensive Ontario
universities while they managed institutional change for
assuring the quality of graduate programmes in response
to the system-wide quality assurance reform. Drawing upon
Senge’s framework for building a learning organisation, the
study found that certain levels of organisational learning
were taking place, albeit to different extent and in different
pace, at the three Ontario universities during the initial years
of transition. The findings also illustrate that institutional
change and organisational learning are inextricably linked
and that organisational learning is occurring as a result of the
interactions between the organisational domain of action and
the individual domain of learning.

Innovative Higher Education, 2017

We investigated how learning outcomes of students majoring in interdisciplinary fields differ fro... more We investigated how learning outcomes of students majoring in interdisciplinary fields differ from those of students in discipline-based majors. We found that students in interdisciplinary majors report less change in Critical Thinking and Need For Cognition than their peers in disciplinary majors, but no difference in change in Positive Attitude Toward Literacy. Students' gains in Critical Thinking and Need For Cognition do not vary by the Innov High Educ (2017) 42:337-353

Oxford Bibliographies, 2016

Higher Education Evaluation and Development, 2015

The period of 2010 to 2014 marked a relatively stable stage in the evolving quality assurance sys... more The period of 2010 to 2014 marked a relatively stable stage in the evolving quality assurance system for Ontario postsecondary education, particularly following massive changes after 2000. The current system consists of three frameworks overseen respectively by three quality assurance agencies-the Ontario Universities Council on Quality Assurance, the Ontario College Quality Assurance Service, and the Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board, each serving different purposes. This paper uses van Vught and Westerheijden's (1994) general model of quality assessment and Jeliazkova and Westerheijden's (2002) Phase Model of quality assurance systems development as heuristic tools for the analysis. The following four areas are discussed: formalized quality mechanisms with diversity; the arms-length tripartite relationship with a distinction between self-regulation and government regulation; mixed phases of quality assurance development and the maturing process; and gaps in the system. It is argued that within fifteen years, a comprehensive and relatively mature quality assurance system with diverse but rigorous mechanisms has been developed for Ontario postsecondary education although a few deficiencies exist, including the continued lack of coordination within the system. The evolution of the system appears to reflect a path trajectory of governance structure development of the Ontario postsecondary education system as well as be a result of interactions between the local and the global.

Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2015

This discussion constructs a survey data quality strategy for institutional researchers in higher... more This discussion constructs a survey data quality strategy for institutional researchers in higher education in light of total survey error theory. It starts with describing the characteristics of institutional research and identifying the gaps in literature regarding survey data quality issues in institutional research and then introduces the quality perspective of a survey process and the major components of total survey error. A proposed strategy for inspecting survey data quality is presented on the basis of five types of survey error and the characteristics of typical institutional research survey projects. The strategy consists of identifying quality measures for each type of survey error, and then identifying quality control and quality assurance procedures for each of the quality measures. The discussion concludes with the implications of the strategy for institutional researchers and some closing thoughts. A checklist for inspecting survey data quality is provided in the app...