Australian Universities’ Review - Students flourish and tutors wither - A study of participant experiences in a first-year online unit

Oct 15, 2026

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Contemporary higher education in Australia is shaped by policy pressures around “flexibility”, expanding online delivery and widening participation while tightening funding and increasing regulatory demands. A qualitative case study of a first-year online unit (ATU100) examines how non-traditional students engage and gain empowering, transformational learning, while tutors experience disempowerment and devaluation. The study frames these outcomes as effects of three pressures: broader participation, growth of flexible online delivery, and the casualisation of academic teaching.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Challenges of online study

Academic transition unit (ATU100)

Participant experiences and findings

A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W Students flourish and tutors wither A study of participant experiences in a first-year online unit Andrea Dodo-Balu Murdoch University School of Education Contemporary higher education has been affected by policy pressures built around ‘flexibility’. The policies of widening student participation and expanding flexible online delivery combine to provide the opportunity for a university education to students hitherto largely excluded. Flexible employment policies have increasingly placed university teaching into the hands of casual tutors without permanent academic positions. This article contextualises and outlines initial findings from a qualitative case study of a first year, online unit which is a representative microcosm of the teaching and learning conditions produced by these pressures. While the students in the study felt able to enter the academic community successfully and experience empowering and transformational learning, the tutors felt disempowered and devalued with little hope for a future in the academy. Keywords: Online learning, higher education policy, non-traditional students, first-year, casualisation, sessional academics Introduction Flexibility is a key word in the contemporary higher education system in Australia. Flexible and diverse entry and exit points, as well as flexible forms of recognising learning, open up the possibility of attaining a university degree for students ‘ …hitherto largely excluded from university attendance’ (Birrell & Edwards, 2009, p. 8) . Flexible modes of course delivery centring on online learning allow a further widening of access to university studies for students unable or unwilling to travel to and from campus (Norton, 2014), often due to location, employment and/or family commitments, or for medical reasons. An increase in university enrolments of ‘nontraditional’ students, particularly those classified as mature-age, regional or remote, low socio-economic status or with disabilities, has been one result. At the same time, government funding for higher education has 4 Students flourish and tutors wither Andrea Dodo-Balu been tightened and regulatory pressures have increased, requiring universities to adopt flexible workplace models (Percy & Beaumont, 2008).This has changed employment patterns at universities, with a decrease in permanent academic positions and a rise in the number of casual teaching staff, both in actual numbers and as a proportion of all teaching academics. In 2010, the proportion of teaching only positions taken by casual staff was put at 86.5 per cent while 52 per cent of all university teaching was performed by casuals (National Tertiary Education Union, 2016) . Australian higher education is therefore experiencing some of its most substantial growth in two groups which can be regarded as being on the periphery of the academy: non-traditional students and casual academic teachers. This article explores the literature on these trends, and contextualises and outlines findings from the initial stage of a case study into a first year, online unit, vol. 59, no. 1, 2017 A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W pseudonymously named Academic Transition Unit or ATU100 for research purposes. This unit can be seen asa representative microcosm of the conditions produced by three major policy pressures centred on flexibility: the widening of student participation; the growth of flexible online delivery;and the casualisation of academic teaching. Using qualitative methods, the overall aim of the research is to develop an in-depth picture of how the participants in ATU100 experience contemporary higher education learning and teaching within the unit, and thus allow the effects of these pressures to become more apparent. ATU100 is a compulsory first year unit focusing on academic conventions,offered online by a majorAustralian university through Open Universitie

FAQs

What policy pressures frame the study of ATU100?

The article links outcomes to flexibility-driven policy pressures: widening student participation, growth of flexible online delivery, and the casualisation of academic teaching.

How do students in the study experience the first-year online unit?

Students felt able to enter the academic community successfully and described empowering, transformational learning experiences.

What challenges do tutors report in the ATU100 context?

Tutors reported feeling disempowered and devalued, with little hope for a future in the academy.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Ben