2022 HEPPP Higher Education and First Nations Students: The CDU Story

Approved research project funded through the HEPPP scheme. This project will address issues retention and completion, requiring data collection over time.
Harnessing the team’s collective expertise in Indigenous and international education, this project undertakes the first Charles Darwin University (CDU) investigation of the engagement of undergraduate Indigenous students in Higher Education. CIs Woodroffe, Hill and Golebiowska presented the results of a desktop literature review on this topic at the Australian Association for Research in Education conference 2021. They found that published research has taken place in southern institutions with minimal discussion of student experiences of engagement in the NT. Considering engagement of students in a regional setting is ground-breaking and will deliver informed lessons.
We will investigate the experiences of Indigenous students striving to progress from enrolment to completion, exploring the assumptions of Western education. We will harness their knowledge, with lecturer and professional staff also perspectives explored, to create practical guides to completion for this student cohort. By providing information about lecturer/institutional cultural competency, our work will not only support positive outcomes for Indigenous students and CDU and shine a light on the struggles as a regional and low SES cohort; equally importantly it will support reflexive practice for CDU staff.
This is a mixed-methods study. We will combine student surveys, and interviews with lecturers, and professional staff. Interviews with lecturers will provide a deeper understanding of student engagement, impact of course content, lecturer pedagogy and cultural competency, while surveys will capture a broader response. The deliverables will be in various formats.

Find out more https://firstnationssuccess.cdu.edu.au/higher-education-experience-for-first-nations-students-at-cdu/