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In this study we investigate the conceptions of mathematics bridging courses held by students enrolled in these courses at a major Australian university. We report on the participants' responses to email-interview questions about the mathematics bridging courses to describe a two-dimensional outcome space of variations in awareness about the bridging courses. On one dimension the conceptions relate to cognitive functions: the course bridges students' difficulties with mathematical concepts, helps develop strategies for learning mathematics and extends skills in thinking and reasoning. Categories on the other dimension reflect ideas on how the bridging course advances personal goals and enhances self-development. The findings show that students are aware of the value of the bridging courses not only to ameliorate prior difficulties with mathematics and improve their approaches to learning mathematics but, less transparently, as an important opportunity to facilitate their transition into higher education, meet fellow students and help realise their potential.

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Universities in many western nations are experiencing increasing performance measures for academic accountability. This paper maps the pitted pathway that has led Australian universities from mentoring to monitoring and from performance enhancement to performance evaluation, and reviews implications for teaching and learning in higher education. We explore understandings of good mentoring and its effects and examine the social and political climate out of which quality assurance processes have arisen, to articulate the aims and philosophies underpinning these approaches. Drawing on the published literature, we critique processes that have as their main goals monitoring rather than mentoring, and performance evaluation rather than performance enhancement. From our perspectives as teachers in higher education in Australia we raise issues for consideration, including the tensions between practice and promise and the roles of mentors and monitors in promoting growth or compliance. We discuss criteria and models for evaluating mentoring and monitoring.

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