Search

This paper focuses on the challenges of transition experienced by local high school graduates of the Arabic school system in the Kingdom of Bahrain, in the Middle East, as they are shaped into the person of a professional nurse through a Western model of nursing education. It investigates the elements that comprise a Bahraini student's first-year nursing experience in transnational education, and considers how this experience is navigated by the student. Drawing on best international practice, it concludes with recommendations of how to better support Bahraini nursing students' first-year experience of transnational education, which may be usefully applied to other international contexts providing transnational nursing education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK’s Research Excellence Framework of 2014 was an expensive high stakes evaluation which had a range of impacts on higher education institutions across the country. One component was an assessment of the quality of research outputs where a major feature was a series of panels organised to read and rate the outputs of their peers. Quality control was strengthened after the Research Assessment Exercise of 2008, but questions still remain about how fair it is to rate all papers on the same scale by raters who may vary in both their reliability and their severity/leniency. This paper takes data from a large department in which 23 senior staff rated the outputs from 42 academics. In total, 710 ratings were recorded. The analyses, using the Rasch model, showed that: a single scale described the data well; most raters were reliable although two were idiosyncratic; there was, however, a noticeable variation in the severity/leniency of the raters, which should be taken into account in the overall assessment. Suggestions for future exercises include a pre-appointment procedure for panel members and statistical adjustments for the severity/leniency of raters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies published over the last four decades provide the basis for a systematic review of the impact of mentoring in higher education (HE) on student career development. We review 73 papers published between 1986 and 2023 and develop a framework to examine the relationships between mentoring approaches and career development outcomes. Here, we distinguish between different student populations (female students, under-represented groups). Notwithstanding an overall positive verdict on mentoring's career development potential, with particular emphasis on career choice and transitioning behaviour, the results are not always positive, and many nuances in the data are evident. At a time of increased concern about student transitions into the labour market, practical implications can be derived which may strengthen mentoring's benefits, e.g. the value of peer mentoring for female students, and cultural proximity of mentors for under-represented minority students pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers. Key research recommendations include:(1) developing novel impact indicators related to emotion such as career inspiration and passion; (2) examining under-researched impact indicators related to non-traditional student careers (e.g. entrepreneurial intentions), and employment and socioeconomic impact indicators; and (3) investigating the role of context and mentoring content and delivery modalities, in helping to explain inconsistent findings across the reviewed papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this special issue, we explore the opportunities and challenges of using Generative AI (GenAI), in particular, text generators in higher education learning and teaching. As GenAI has become increasingly popular with many staff and students, this special issue provides an overview of the current state of the field and offers insights into future research. This introduction paper consists of four parts. It begins by providing an overview of AI and Generative AI, identifying the gap and framing the special issue relating to the gaps. The second part explores the opportunities and challenges of GenAI in higher education, as identified in the literature. The third part provides an overview of the papers included in the special issue. The final part is the self-reflection of the lead author. The special issue aims to serve as a valuable resource for higher education stakeholders, such as students, practitioners, researchers and managers. We hope this collection will help advance knowledge and future research, encourage innovation and inform evidence-based policy and practices in the field of Generative AI in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interdisciplinary education has become increasingly prominent in the higher education landscape over the past several decades. However, it is unclear if interdisciplinary learning environments offer students an equitable learning opportunity. This research paper examines the performance of 435 undergraduate students from different disciplinary backgrounds who enrolled in and completed two interdisciplinary project-based courses. The results of this study indicate that different assessment styles in interdisciplinary courses tend to benefit students from certain disciplines while disadvantaging others. This paper goes on to consider this problem from an equity perspective, cautions educators to consider the challenges, and encourages inclusive assessment design to ensure students are presented with equal opportunity in interdisciplinary learning environments. This paper offers a substantive contribution to the field by highlighting a need for more research on inclusive assessments in interdisciplinary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In discussing the functions of education Gert Biesta distinguishes qualification, socialisation and subjectification. In subjectification higher education facilitates the evolution of students as distinctive self-determining persons. This paper foregrounds and discusses 'student self-formation', a paradigm of subjectification with fecund potentials for empirical inquiry. Self-formation emphasises reflexive agency, whereby students consciously monitor and develop themselves on an ongoing basis. The paper draws especially on Margaret Archer's discussion of reflexive agency. It argues that the core features of self-formation that are specific to higher education are engagement in disciplinary knowledge, and in activities and relations beyond the classroom that are part of student life. Student self-formation is both a norm to be achieved, with lifelong learning potentials, and a descriptor of existing practices. By its nature self-formation is never complete and its incidence is uneven among students, with some of them scarcely experiencing it. Conditions and potentials for reflexive self-formation vary on the basis of factors including the degree of immersion in higher education, the scope for agentic initiative, personal resources and support, institutional and pedagogic resources and arrangements, and existential challenges (e.g. transitions between countries and cultures) that can trigger accelerated self-reflection and transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper theorizes time, affect, and politics as entangled by foregrounding the notion of chronopolitics as affective milieus in higher education. In doing so, the analysis emphasizes how time discourses and practices are embodied and affective, sometimes becoming sedimented, while other times functioning as a means of disruption. The paper draws on existing studies in neoliberal academia to argue that changing academics' affective habits created by dominant time discourses and practices requires the disruption of affective milieus in which time is channeled, routed and molded. The paper theorizes the potential of affect to be deployed as a means of disrupting sedimented social and political formations, practices and patterns of time and temporality in higher education and cultivating new affective habits in academia. The paper suggests that understanding time-as-affect in higher education makes an important contribution to existing research and theorizing on how academics are affected by time and temporality norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a conceptual framework of spatial belonging. The aim is to enrich our conceptual understanding of space and belonging in higher education, with a provisional spatial belonging framework for researchers and practitioners to critically reflect on the different ways in which higher education spaces can facilitate and shape belonging and inclusion for students. Understanding spatial influences on student belonging is key to appreciating the nuances and multidimensionality of their experiences, especially for underrepresented students whose belonging at university is often more precarious. Drawing on theories from education, sociology and geography – especially Foucault's (1986. "Of Other Spaces." Diacritics 16 (1): 22–27) heterotopia, Lefebvre's (1991. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell) spatial production, Massey's (2005. For Space. London: Sage) spatial relations and literature on spatial justice – four dimensions of spatial belonging are proposed as a lens to better recognise the influence of multiple spaces on student belonging. The physical dimension includes the material and visible aspects of space and how that can shape student experiences and belonging, while the digital dimension considers the role of technology, especially virtual learning and hybrid spaces. The relational dimension highlights the importance of social relationships and connections, which transcends physicality and digitality, and likewise, the structural dimension focuses on the wider societal system and how dominant discourses shape the way space is experienced by different students. By examining the physical, digital, relational and structural spaces, the spatial belonging framework provides an innovative conceptual insight into student belonging in higher education. This paper lays the groundwork for future research to examine how multiple spaces intersect and contribute to student belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key responsibility of higher education providers is the accurate certification of the knowledge and skills attained by their students. However, despite an intense focus on developing relevant quality assurance regulations, academic standards in higher education have remained resistant to explication and consistent application. In this paper, we initially deconstruct and evaluate academic standards and dominant practitioner perspectives on their nature and use, including techno-rational, sociocultural and sociomaterial approaches. The limited prior research on the effectiveness of calibration and social moderation processes is reviewed, highlighting the significant challenges in sharing tacitly held understandings of assessment criteria (attributes of quality) and standards (levels of achievement). Further complications are considered that arise from the varying expertise and power relationships of assessors and the complexities inherent in the development and use of codified artefacts for capturing and sharing standards. We opine that because of the difficulties in clearly representing and agreeing standards, it is unsurprising that there is little evidence of marking consistency to be found in the literature even in contexts where carefully crafted artefacts, such as rubrics, are in use. We conclude that effectiveness would be enhanced through sharing understandings more widely and refocusing the use of assessment codifications towards how they may catalyse effective social moderation and calibration dialogues. Dialogues that foreground individuals’ positions of consensus and dissensus at significant points of interpretation in the assessment process are identified within the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reference to Knowledge Exchange (KE) in UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has become common place, reflecting the continued changing role of universities within society. Arguably, KE draws together notions of HEIs as purveyors of knowledge, with students helping to create a tripartite relationship with HEIs and the wider community as well as a civic responsibility to contribute to the wider public good. Realising the potential benefits of this inter-relationship required a problematising of the meanings of both knowledge and the notion of an exchange, drawing on the work of Dewey and Bernstein. Our paper offers an analysis of the different epistemological positions governing understandings of knowledge and how these are influenced by the performativity and neoliberal responsibilisation of modern universities. More specifically, the epistemological position encouraged by the modern university leads to a tension between measurement and evaluation of KE on the one hand and pedagogical practice on the other. Taking into account these tensions, the paper offers an alternative approach to knowledge exchange with suggested principles to underpin a future relational pedagogy for KE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflection on the meaning of the word 'tradition', and related terms such as 'traditional', is conceptually complex but has been subject to limited critical scrutiny within academic discourse. The evidence of this study, drawing on the theory of tradition and a database of all 6947 papers published in Studies in Higher Education between 1976 and 2021, is that higher education researchers make extensive use of these words in a routinised and often un-scholarly way. The language of tradition is frequently invoked as an emotive means to both resist and argue for change in higher education often framed as a dualism where the words tradition or traditional are deployed as positives or pejoratives. Despite the intensification of empirical work since the 1970s and 1980s, and the increasingly international authorship of Studies of Higher Education, use of tradition as a rhetorical device continues to play a significant role in the literature. As the paper illustrates, this has contributed to the creation and perpetuation of myths about students, universities and academic work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The massification of higher education has dramatically changed the association between credentials and jobs in advanced countries, while its impacts in transitional economies have received less academic attention. To address this research lacuna, the paper utilizes rich information from China's national surveys of college graduates from 2003 to 2019 and multiple waves of census data to explore the temporal and spatial effects of tertiary education expansion on college graduates' job sorting. Regression results from the fixed effects model and the two-stage least-squares model indicate that, on the temporal dimension, the higher education expansion has weakened ties between college credentials and quality jobs over the past 20 years. Recent graduates are more likely to work in informal, non-urban, and non-public sectors, and the college earnings premium has also declined. There is a persistent gap in employment outcomes between bachelor's and associate degree holders. On the spatial dimension, the growing enrolment size leads to skill sorting towards low skilled regions. The study argues that the dynamic effects of college credentials may be explained by labour market flexibility and cohort crowding after higher education expansion. This paper calls for a critical reflection on the merit of further massification of higher education in developing economies, regarding its potential impacts on intergenerational inequality and regional inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the experiences of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel (PAI) on entering Israeli higher education (HE). Adopting a sequential exploratory mixed methods design, seven online focus groups (n = 19) were conducted, followed by an online survey (n = 453). The findings indicate that PAI students experience academic, physical, social and cultural disorientation upon entering HE. This disorientation transforms with time into a persistent feeling of lagging behind others. Three structural barriers appear to impede PAI students' progress in HE: language, age and finances – all manifestations of larger systematic discrimination faced by PAIs in Israel. PAI students deal with these challenges by turning to one another for support and forming groups on campus. Variations across gender, parental education and institution type are explored. The paper concludes by discussing practical implications and future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from the Ability–Motivation–Opportunity (AMO) framework, this paper aims to study the influence of academic researchers’ ability, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and opportunity on their performance. We conducted an empirical analysis using a sample of 607 academic researchers to examine the relationships between the three AMO dimensions and scientific performance. The findings reveal that academic researchers’ ability, intrinsic motivation, and opportunity are positively associated to their scientific performance, whereas extrinsic motivation has a negative nonlinear association. The results also show two- and three-way interactions between ability, motivation, and opportunity. This paper makes an essential contribution to the literature by showing the linear and nonlinear effects of AMO dimensions on academic researchers’ performance. Thus, the study highlights the importance of each AMO dimension in the academic context, offering broad-scale guidance about which decisions on employee relations will advance scientific performance at universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2008, there have been a growing number of social policies placed on UK higher education institutions (HEIs) to engage in reducing carbon emissions and meet self-imposed carbon reduction targets while producing graduates, publishing research papers and attracting research income. HEI managers thus face the challenging task of having to determine the optimal level between environmental performance and economic performance – from activities that generate income, to which we refer as overall efficiency. To that end, the current study measures the overall efficiency levels of UK HEIs from 2012/13 to 2018/19 using a slacks-based measure model that incorporates bad outputs. The study aims to determine the extent to which the optimal balance between environmental performance and economic performance has been achieved as evidenced by the efficiency of HEIs over the course of the sample period. The study also identifies factors associated with efficiency and provides policy recommendations. Over the study period, overall efficiency (incorporating the bad output of carbon emissions) initially fell and then rose in the last 2 years suggesting some optimism that carbon emissions management has improved since then. The second-stage analysis, which identifies factors associated with efficiency, suggests that the ratio of students to staff and HEIs in the Russell group is positively associated with the efficiency of inefficient HEIs. When both efficient and inefficient universities are considered, having an environmental management system is positively associated with efficiency, while the opposite is the case for having science, engineering and medicine disciplines and having carbon reduction targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has increasingly influenced higher education, notably in academic writing where AI-powered assisting tools offer both opportunities and challenges. Recently, the rapid growth of generative AI (GAI) has brought its impacts into sharper focus, yet the dynamics of its utilisation in academic writing remain largely unexplored. This paper focuses on examining the nature of human-AI interactions in academic writing, specifically investigating the strategies doctoral students employ when collaborating with a GAI-powered assisting tool. This study involves 626 recorded activities on how ten doctoral students interact with GAI-powered assisting tool during academic writing. AI-driven learning analytics approach was adopted for three layered analyses: (1) data pre-processing and analysis with quantitative content analysis, (2) sequence analysis with Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and hierarchical sequence clustering, and (3) pattern analysis with process mining. Findings indicate that doctoral students engaging in iterative, highly interactive processes with the GAI-powered assisting tool generally achieve better performance in the writing task. In contrast, those who use GAI merely as a supplementary information source, maintaining a linear writing approach, tend to get lower writing performance. This study points to the need for further investigations into human-AI collaboration in learning in higher education, with implications for tailored educational strategies and solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the influence of generative artificial intelligence (GAI), specifically AI text generators (ChatGPT), on critical thinking skills in UK postgraduate business school students. Using Bloom's taxonomy as theoretical underpinning, we adopt a mixed-method research employing a sample of 107 participants to investigate both the influence and challenges of these technologies in higher education. Our findings reveal that the most significant improvements occurred at the lower levels of Bloom's taxonomy. We identify concerns relating to reliability, accuracy, and potential ethical implications of its application in higher education. The significance of this paper spans across, pedagogy, policy and practice, offering insights into the complex relationship between AI technologies and critical thinking skills. While highlighting the multifaceted aspects of the impact of AI in education, this article serves as a guide to educators and policymakers, stressing the importance of a comprehensive approach to fostering critical thinking and other transferable skills in the higher education landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new model of integrated technology continuance model (ITCM) to explain teachers’ Continuous Use Intention (CUI) of technology in the higher education institutions (HEIs). Drawing constructs from prominent technology adoption models like TAM, UTAUT, and incorporating the theory of TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge), the new research model is developed and tested. An online survey was carried out to gather data from 573 teachers teaching in the HEIs of an emerging economy using purposive sampling method. Data collected was evaluated utilizing the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Analysis establishes applicability of ITCM model in predicting CUI of technology among teachers, with an explanatory power of 60.4%. The study also highlights the positive influence of facilitating conditions and management support on TPACK which has a favorable impact on self-efficacy, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use. Additionally, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, self-efficacy, and social influence has a major influence on the CUI of technology among teachers in HEIs. The study provides insights into factors influencing the integration of technological innovations in a teachers’ pedagogy and the classroom settings to achieve some key tasks of sustainable development goal 4 (SDG4). Future research directions and study implications have been proposed considering the research findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interdisciplinary education has become increasingly prominent as a core instrument to prepare the next generation workforce. Yet, little is known about the impacts of long-term degree-oriented interdisciplinary education on post-graduation outcomes. This paper aims to investigate the influence of long-term degree-oriented interdisciplinary education on graduates' post-graduation plan choices and labour market outcomes using unique administrative micro-data and career-tracking data from a comprehensive research university. Our results indicate that higher levels of engagement in interdisciplinary learning increase the probability of pursuing future study and employment in a field that differs from a graduate's college degree, and are also associated with a higher probability to enter the workforce. Yet, this positive association between interdisciplinary learning and the probability of entering the workforce is specific to graduates from traditional disciplinary programmes. Additionally, our findings suggest that the impact of long-term degree-oriented interdisciplinary education on early labour market outcomes is overall beneficial but varies across degree fields. The findings of our study provided partial evidence in support of the influence of long-term degree-oriented interdisciplinary education on post-graduation plan choices and early labour market outcomes. We suggest that given resource constraints, higher education institutions could consider relaxing module choice restrictions in traditional disciplinary programmes to promote interdisciplinary education. However, it is important to note that higher education institutions should carefully consider the potential trade-off between the breadth of interdisciplinary content and the depth of specialist content, in order to strike a balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates research quality criteria in the Creative Arts (CA). The CA has been introduced into the higher education and research sector over the last three decades. It is thus a relatively new research field and there is little empirical knowledge on how outputs in this field should be evaluated. Our study applies a mixed-method approach to assess the relevance of quality criteria used in performance-based research funding systems (PRFSs) in 10 countries. The results of a qualitative analysis of interviews with artists-academics (N = 67) and Joint Correspondence Analysis show that when art is evaluated in the context of academic research, both the traditional indicators of artistic quality as well as the cognitive and research-related aspects of the arts are believed to be significant. The JCA analysis also showed that the majority of our respondents found both extrinsic quality criteria (related to reputation and prestige) and intrinsic criteria (related to cognition and development) relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of quality culture (QC) development in Taiwan which has recently undergone major reforms of quality assurance (QA) policies. The implementation of internal quality assurance (IQA) initiatives has been an indispensable condition to form a QC in higher education which contributes to a fundamental and comprehensive evolution of Taiwanese higher education. To explore the government's policy strategies and transformation of QA approaches, this paper interviews policymakers, QA experts and academics. This paper identifies common features and distinct characteristics of QC in Taiwan's higher education, and its relations to QA mechanisms. These perspectives offer a different way of conceptualising QC in QA policies. Furthermore, QC development has not only served the purpose of enhancing quality in higher education but has also acted as a driver for QA and higher education changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against a background of Bologna process goals to improve employment prospects for PhD graduates, and the crisis of precarious employment conditions and prospects afflicting postdoctoral researchers – hitherto postdocs, the OECD ([2021], "Reducing the Precarity of Academic Research Careers." In OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers. Paris: OECD Publishing,) called for research into postdoctoral careers and the precarity phenomenon. This paper responds by giving attention to career breaks as these represent a prevalent but under researched aspect of postdoc precarity in the contemporary academic labor market. Utilizing a substantial international mixed-method dataset with a sample of 950 postdocs, the study examined experiences and perceptions of the professional and personal implications of academic career breaks. Results reveal significant differences between males and females in key areas: maternity was the main reason for females' career breaks, and redundancy/end of contract for males. Females resumed employment more with the same employer and males with a different employer. Support surrounding career breaks was mixed, largely inadequate, but not associated with gender. Perceptions of career breaks differed significantly across groups of postdocs that previously experienced a career break, those on a career break, and postdocs that had never had a career break. The latter two groups perceived negative career outcomes and positive personal outcomes more than postdocs who had previously had a career break, however, significant gender differences indicate females were more negative about the personal implications of career breaks. Discussion of the findings concludes that under neoliberalism postdocs represent a growing lumpen proletariat, leading to recommendations for policy, practice and further research into gender, precarity and postdoctoral careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the higher education landscape has shifted and calls for change and improvements have grown louder, researchers have turned to empirical investigations of what makes change possible in higher education. Recent studies on the impact of informal interactions for promoting change have given impetus to social network analysis as an approach to studying higher education change. However, the relationship between teachers’ social network characteristics and their disposition to adopt changes remains largely unknown. In this study, we describe the characteristics of teaching networks and explain the network characteristics of the most innovative teaching staff. By capturing whole teaching and research networks within a STEM discipline department at a Norwegian university, we show that teachers tend to speak to the same colleagues about both research and teaching, and that teaching communities are constrained by departmental sub-units (i.e. research groups). Furthermore, by combining the network data with a survey on diffusion of innovation, we find that the most innovative teachers (1) are central in the network, having the largest personal networks, (2) have a substantial reach to the rest of the network, and (3) are highly interconnected. This paper contributes to the understanding of change theories in higher education and discusses how these results can inform the practice of change agents and educational developers. In addition to confirming the presence of a research-teaching nexus, we discuss why leveraging the networks of the most innovative teaching staff would be a promising strategy for facilitating change in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the vast body of research surrounding collaborative group work (CGW) and its potential to enhance learning and engagement, questions persist in relation to the effectiveness of CGW initiatives in the development of teamwork skills amongst students in higher education. Prior studies have tended to measure the effectiveness of teamwork and group work through student grades, however, this is increasingly seen as problematic, with more researchers stressing the importance of student perceptions as a better measure of the efficaciousness of CGW. This paper presents the findings from an Australian study which set out to investigate student perceptions of the effectiveness of a technology-enhanced groupwork assessment on student learning outcomes, including teamwork skills and self-evaluative judgement skills. An unexpected event in the beginning of 2020, that being the global COVID-19 pandemic, affected learning and teaching in significant ways, with all students forced to learn online, inevitably impacting their experience with this CGW initiative. Adopting a qualitative inductive research methodology, the findings suggest that students perceive collaborative group work as beneficial in many ways, though it is not without its challenges, one of those being the global pandemic and its ripple effect of remote learning, isolation and increased difficulty with collaboration. This unforeseen event and its impact on the delivery of education elicited interesting results about CGW in the online context. Findings may advance the understanding and implementation of CGW in higher education, particularly in an online learning context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Especially in higher education – but true for any setting – what students do within a learning environment determines their learning outcomes. Given that they regulate their own learning, students do not always act in accordance with the instructions and intentions of the designed learning environment, which in turn has implications for their learning and achievement. To better understand this phenomenon, a variety of research examined factors that are presumed to influence students' learning behavior within learning environments. This paper aims to broaden this research by pointing attention to students' knowledge of micro-level education as a type of domain-independent prior knowledge. This so-called 'instructional knowledge' of students is also presumed to have important implications for learning in educational settings. An attempt was made to map this construct by thematically analyzing 91 drawings depicting Flemish higher education students' spontaneous and general knowledge of instruction. Findings confirm previous research by revealing that students' instructional knowledge is (a) very similar, and (b) rather 'classical' in nature. In extension to previous findings, it was also revealed that in addition to classical and common elements, many drawings portray new (especially digital) and individual elements. This study contributes to understanding instructional knowledge as a complex and personal set of shared and unique experiences susceptible to slow structural change. Moreover, it provides opportunities for further research and – in time – the enhancement of instructional design models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of creativity for survival in modern society is well recognised. However, the development of creative thinking skills through formal education still needs more attention, and the assessment of creative thinking skills using valid models in higher education is under-researched. Our paper presents the deficits and improvements in first-year business and economics undergraduates' creative thinking skills using an authentic assessment task (product). We assessed creativity under three broad themes: creative expression, knowledge creation and creative problem solving, as presented in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). These themes were chosen to reflect students' domain-specific expertise, motivations and creative thinking skills. Our analysis finds areas where students have deficits in creative thinking skills and how they have improved those skills through the assessment task. These findings imply the importance of providing students with opportunities to enhance creative thinking, mainly through the application of their learning. Our study provides insights into pedagogical strategies and assessment practices to enhance the creativity required from graduates in any field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to conceptualise and operationalise an Employability Capital Growth Model (ECGM) via a systematic literature review of 42,558 manuscripts from Web of Science and Scopus databases published between 2016 and 2022 from the fields of graduate employability and career development incorporating applied psychology, business, education, and management. Two research questions are addressed. (1) How can literature addressing various forms of capital in the context of preparing university graduates for the labour market be integrated to offer a new ECGM? (2) How can various actors, i.e. (a) students and graduates, (b) educators, (c) careers and employability professionals, and (d) graduate employers, operationalise the ECGM? The systematic literature review resulted in a final corpus of 94 manuscripts for qualitative content analysis. Findings led to the construction of a new ECGM comprising nine forms of employability capital (social capital, cultural capital, psychological capital, personal identity capital, health capital, scholastic capital, market-value capital, career identity capital, and economic capital), external factors, and personal outcomes. Twenty-three opportunities for the operationalisation of the ECGM were also identified. The theoretical and conceptual contribution comes from constructing a new ECGM to bridge the fields of graduate employability and career development in the context of preparing individuals for the transition from university into the labour market. The practical contribution comes from operationalising the ECGM at the education-employment nexus. Consequently, developing various forms of capital and an awareness of external factors and personal outcomes can improve students' and graduates' employability, benefitting all actors operating in a career ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of many emergent challenges facing higher education institutes (HEIs), this paper investigates the role of student empowerment in achieving desirable academic and experiential outcomes. Drawing on the self-determination and ownership theories, the study explores how students' satisfaction and perceived learning can be improved through their involvement in various activities within and beyond classrooms. It is further posited that such involvement encourages empowerment and fosters psychological ownership, which is critical for meeting the aforementioned holistic outcomes. The study deploys a mixed-method research design and uses Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to analyse the data collected from the sample of 428 students. Besides supporting the majority of the proposed hypotheses, the results establish psychological ownership to be a crucial link between student empowerment and educational outcomes. More significantly, the findings demonstrate the importance of carefully considered and planned involvement practices in achieving such outcomes. To this end, the paper discusses and offers several recommendations and implementation pathways that could potentially serve as a playbook for the instructors and administrators at various HEIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication skills are highly sought after by employers, as industry reports repeatedly show. At the same time, those reports also reveal that many employers are dissatisfied with their newly hired graduates' communication skills. In addition, increasing globalisation has led to the call for 'global graduates' who can function well in culturally diverse contexts. Considering both aspects, it is important, to explore which factors help foster students' global communication skills. This paper investigates this issue, testing the impact of potential factors identified from previous literature. Data was collected from 2359 students in seven different institutions located in five different countries. A linear regression model was tested to identify those factors which most contribute to global communication skills development. Results show that motivation to improve communication skills and the experience of social and academic integration into the campus community made the most significant contribution to participants' higher levels of global communication skills development. Besides, students who were presented with relevant opportunities and support from their respective institution and those engaged with foreign languages also demonstrated higher levels of global communication skills development. The paper concludes that for students to acquire the communication skills needed for working successfully in diverse contexts, and hence to become 'global graduates', it is essential that they venture out of their comfort zones and engage with the diverse campus community. At the same time, this engagement requires universities' guidance and support to help maximise the learning gains from such intercultural encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how self-management work groups are formed in higher education institutions and how this affects the effectiveness of the teams. For this, we investigated the experiences of 560 students who were members of self-management learning teams, using factorial analysis, cluster analysis and ordinal logit regression. We focus on self-management teams, where students form work groups autonomously, and making decisions with whom to collaborate. Thus, students influence the composition of their groups, which will condition the internal dynamic of teams, and its subsequent effect on the effectiveness of the groups. Our paper contributes to the literature on student-centred perspectives highlighting how the formation of self-management teams has an impact on their satisfaction and effectiveness. Moreover, we identify four criteria (competencies, academic level, social relationships, and ad hoc) during the formation of self-management teams that have a differential impact on the effectiveness and potential conflict in the team. Additionally, our results reveal three groups of students, regarding the formation criteria of self-management teams: a first group where the academic level criteria prevails, a second group based on competencies, and finally, a group that combines social relationships and ad hoc criteria. Moreover, we find that self-management teams based on the competencies and academic level criteria have a higher level of effectiveness and satisfaction than the formation of self-management teams based on social relations and ad hoc decisions. Moreover, the results show that the exclusive use of academic level as a formation criteria is potentially a source of conflict in the self-management team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the predictors of gender-specific literature production in the field of social sciences and humanities (SSH). The research used bibliometric information on 1132 gender-related articles by authors with Romanian affiliations. Binary logistic regression shows the individual and institutional factors of a paper's likelihood of including gender-related words in its title. Weak institutionalisation of Gender Studies marks this national context, reflected in the marginal and discontinuous integration in the curriculum of higher-education institutions. Our findings suggest that the female gender of the first or a single author, as well as the authors' affiliation with Romanian universities running master's programmes in Gender Studies, are positively associated with the outcome variable. Likewise, single-author articles have greater odds than co-authored articles of including a reference to gender in their titles. Conversely, articles published in journals in the JIF third quartile of the JCR hierarchy have less chance of having a title that conveys an orientation towards gender-specific research. The implications of our findings suggest that the decision-makers at the level of faculties and research institutes in SSH must focus on creating a facilitating environment for scholarly interest in feminist research. We propose tackling the negative stereotypes regarding feminism's ideological underpinnings and its ostensible lack of epistemological foundation. Romania is a country still facing significant domestic violence and poor gender equality, so these findings have further implications at the societal level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States has widely experimented with merit-based financial aid to make college more accessible and affordable for its youth. Varying in design and benefits, these state-run programs subsidize college costs for academically meritorious high-school graduates. While broadly linked to higher college attendance the distribution of aid benefits depends critically on the eligibility criteria. States often make post-adoption changes to merit requirements to lower program costs, but little is known about their impact on youth’s college decisions. This paper evaluates the effects of such eligibility revisions using West Virginia’s PROMISE scholarship, which, unlike its peers, frequently hardened merit rules post-inception. We leverage the discontinuities in the timing of the scholarship’s adoption and its successive modifications to estimate the policy-induced changes in students’ college choice. We use two robust inference models – difference-in-difference and synthetic control, on institution-level enrollment data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Systems (IPEDS). We estimate a 6.5% growth in college enrollments immediately following PROMISE that fades rapidly once aid eligibility narrows. We find that this initial enrollment jump is attributable to an aid-induced improvement in the average youth’s college readiness which is confined to the high achievers after the program scope narrows. Additionally, enrollments shift from 4-year to 2-year colleges post eligibility revisions. Our results show that the stiffer criteria redirect the aid benefits toward youth with already better access to college. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of gendered practices in academia by further exploring the embodiment of gender; we do so by comparing these practices between the experiences of female and male respondents concerning gender stereotypes and the individual embodiment thereof in academics within research universities in the Netherlands. Our analysis includes interviews with 26 female and male associate professors – thirteen pairs matched at the department and discipline levels – which enabled us to compare academic experiences of each gender. A significant proportion of the interviewed academics perceived the Dutch academic context as a gendered and embodied professional setting and implied women are not only considered less eligible for promotion because of their gender; notably, some male respondents were blind to these stereotypes. Several of the reported stereotypes refer to the appearance of the female body and the behaviour of women and provided clarification of different career progressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have highlighted the major challenges faced by managers in the higher education sector and shown the contradictory demands which foster paradoxical tensions. Previous works have also underlined some specific tensions and rigidities that business school deans regularly face in their role. Yet, few studies have empirically explored which paradoxical tensions deans face and how they cope with them. Our paper addresses this gap. Using a qualitative study, we explore the simultaneous and interrelated contradictions faced by deans in French business schools and address how they manage the tensions related to these conflictual and complicated situations. Our work reveals five main tensions that deans have to face and two individual categories of responses to these tensions. It underlines two types of cognitive mindsets (paradox mindset and dilemma mindset) adopted by deans to deal with paradoxical tensions and highlights how deans have become academic entrepreneurs with hybrid profiles in a paradoxical system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust is an essential underpinning foundation of effective functioning amongst all staff in higher education. However, there is limited knowledge on the ways in which trust operates, including the extent to which it exists, is recognised, can be built, or lost. This article systematically scopes the international literature on trust amongst staff in higher education institutions, the value of that literature, the research methods used, areas of research focus involved, and overall findings. A systematic scoping literature review, combining descriptive synthesis and textual narrative synthesis, was undertaken. As far as we are aware, this is the first review of this type to be undertaken on trust amongst all types of personnel in the higher education workforce. The review followed a data-based convergent synthesis design, identifying qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods studies in a single search, integrated throughout analysis, synthesis, and presentation. PRISMA and ENTREQ reporting guidelines were followed: 512 records were identified in two search phases (2020, 2022). Findings revealed relatively little research on trust amongst all types of staff in HE, with a surprising lack of research on trust relating to remote working during COVID. The heterogeneity of papers was striking, yet a wide variety of perspectives on trust tended to be located in single institutions or situations and provided little robust empirical evidence linked to theoretical definitions of trust. Qualitative papers were generally more thoughtful in investigating the complexity of trust. Further research on the relatively neglected but essential field of trust amongst staff in higher education is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of widening participation initiatives internationally, including those in Australia, much has been written about equity policies in education. There is a growing body of research related to the outcomes of such policies and the experiences of non-traditional students, including those from low socio-economic status (LSES) backgrounds and students who are First Generation and/or First in Family, as well as other equity groups. This paper presents data related to a less researched effect of widening participation: the experiences of and impact on academic staff and those providing support services to students. We focus particularly on students from LSES backgrounds. Qualitative data were collected through focus groups with academic and student support staff in a large regional Australian university, with several themes emerging. In this paper, we investigate staff experiences related to diversity in student cohorts, drawing on Bourdieu's concept of capital. Results show that the academics are supportive of LSES students and sensitive to the range of student backgrounds in their courses, including differences in cultural capital and students experiencing extreme hardship, but the support provided is affected by staff gender. It is evident that staff endeavour pedagogically and pastorally to support students, often at personal cost. There are workload and welfare implications evident for staff, institutions and funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of studies on students' intercultural interactions and learning in higher education contexts have placed cosmopolitanism and agency at the centre of conceptual and empirical inquiry. The concept of 'cosmopolitan agency' has been proposed as a hallmark of intercultural relationships, such as friendships, between international and domestic university students, which are found difficult to develop in many countries. However, the literature has not established the conditions necessary for the (non-)emergence of this student agency. This paper fills this knowledge gap by presenting an ecological and person-in-context conceptual framework of cosmopolitan agency in intercultural student interactions on campus and beyond. Drawing on multidisciplinary literature (e.g. higher education, psychology, sociology, cosmopolitanism, urban and disability studies), the paper submits a theoretical proposal that cosmopolitan agency (as present practice) emerges at the dynamic experiential interface between cosmopolitan capital (as an individual resource built on past experience) and affordances in convivial proximity (as the environment triggering future projection). This proposal is elaborated through the empirical illustration of four (i.e. amicable, critical, latent and inactive) states of cosmopolitan agency that manifest different forms of intercultural interactions. The paper is expected to advance theoretical inquiry into the issues of power, privilege, morality and reflexivity in students' engagement in intercultural interactions, and to support a third option for interactions between passive presence and fully-fledged relationships. The directions for future conceptual and empirical research that are ultimately expected to serve for the improvement of student experience are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it possible to measure how critical soft skills like leadership or teamwork are from the viewpoint of graduate studies offerings? This paper provides a conceptual and methodological framework that introduces the concept of a bipartite network as a practical way to estimate the importance of soft skills as socio-emotional abilities trained in graduate studies. We examined 230 graduate programs offered by 49 higher education institutions in Colombia to estimate the empirical importance of soft skills from the viewpoint of graduate studies offerings. The results show that: (a) graduate programs in Colombia share 31 soft skills in their intended learning outcomes; (b) the centrality of these skills varies as a function of the graduate pro- gram, although this variation was not statistically significant; and (c) while most central soft skills tend to be those related to creativity (i.e. creation or generation of ideas or projects), leadership (to lead or teamwork), and analytical orientation (e.g. evaluating situations and solving problems), less central were those related to empathy (i.e. understanding others and acknowledgment of others), ethical thinking, and critical thinking, posing the question if too much emphasis on most visible skills might imply an unbalance in the opportunities to enhancing other soft skills such as ethical thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research examining privacy in a higher education setting tends to focus on the student perspective whilst largely overlooking the academic perspective. Moreover, it fails to fully conceptualise the social, relational, and contextual complexities of privacy and the vital role it has on academics’ ability to form their identity. To address these knowledge gaps, this paper draws on the social theory of privacy to examine how academics socially negotiate privacy boundaries and the influence these negotiations have on their identity. Data were gathered through a qualitative case study analysis of a higher education institution in the United Kingdom (UK). The findings reveal how academic preferences and context-dependent social meanings influence the construction of dialectical privacy boundaries that allow academics to create and maintain various personal boundaries. These negotiated boundaries are influenced by the nature of the relationship between individuals, the levels of trust between colleagues, and the social norms governing workplace relationships. The findings also reveal how these negotiated privacy boundaries provide an intimate territory within which academics co-construct their identity through a complex series of social interactions occurring over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is considerable focus on finding effective governance approaches. This article examines experiences with using more collaborative approaches to developing new governance instruments in the context of higher education. The specific empirical case focuses on the introduction of multi-annual performance agreements between the ministry and the higher education institutions in Norway. Specific focus is on the pilot process, during which the instrument was developed in collaboration between the ministry and representatives from the higher education institutions. The article takes a starting point in a contingency model for collaborative governance, and examines starting conditions, institutional design and leadership models, and the characteristics of the collaborative process itself, including the role of face-to-face dialogue with good faith negotiation, a trust-building phase, a commitment process, followed by a shared understanding of the problems, values and goals, and intermediate outcomes. The data consist of approximately 50 qualitative interviews with representatives from the ministry and the higher education institutions and a range of document data. The paper analyses how the collaborative design process in Norway shaped policy outputs, and highlights critical factors of the process, including the consequences of the temporal sequencing of the process, the interaction of the new governance instrument with the existing instrument mix, and the role of various other concurrent policy developments. The analysis also points out that while collaborative approaches can provide ways to strengthen legitimacy of governing, they also involve a number of dilemmas and challenges, and therefore require careful design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we contribute to the emerging literature on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gender gap in research productivity. We extend previous studies by considering men and women academics from science and non-science disciplines through an analysis of data from academics at 14 universities across two countries (seven in Australia and seven in Canada) and focusing on the role of primary caregiving. Our empirical approach used logistic regressions and the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition technique. The latter enabled us to ask: 'How much of the gender gap in perceived productivity during the pandemic is due to gender differences in primary care responsibilities?' Within the sample (N = 2,817) of academics, 33% of women and 25% of men reported that their perceived publication ability decreased a lot during the pandemic. This is an eight percentage-point gender gap in perceived publication ability. Statistical analysis revealed that two-fifths (40%) of this gap may be explained by gender differences in having primary responsibility for the care of children. Gender differences in other characteristics such as age, discipline, and increased teaching and administrative work were not, as a group, significant. There were also no differences between Australia and Canada. The findings are important, particularly for the pursuit of gender equality within academia. In the absence of specific mitigating interventions, research disruptions in 2020 may have long-lasting career scarring effects (e.g. hiring, promotion, tenure) and, as a result, see women further disadvantaged within the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on Higher Education (HE) documents a plethora of applicable teaching practices and improvements focused on better instructional planning. Yet, what happens when carefully crafted plans must be abandoned due to something unforeseen? This study documents teaching situations when things do not work as expected, where moments of breakdown alter a planned pedagogical course of action. Analysing these moments and their aftermath directs attention to empirical events rendering visible some overlooked, but revealing aspects of HE teaching. We conducted a qualitative study into the characteristics of breakdowns and how teachers handle such situations. University teachers from different disciplinary backgrounds and academic positions were interviewed about teaching experiences they found challenging. From our nine semi-structured interviews, three were selected for this paper. Inspired by methodology from Science and Technology Studies (STS), breakdowns are theorised as analytically generative moments for understanding ways in which technology, subject knowledge, and teacher-student relations, are intertwined. We offer terminology for discussing breakdowns and how elements of teaching practice can transmute and recombine into novel forms of practice. The study provides evidence relating to how breakdowns manifested in multiple ways, and despite abruptness and threats of disjointedness, gave rise to improved interaction, methodological development, and long-term learning. Three key phases are identified: breakdown, remobilisation and re-stabilisation. Further, rendered visible are ways in which teaching relies on material complexities and interdependencies. Breakdowns were sources of trouble, tension, and discouragement, but also facilitated instructional creativity opening space for unanticipated and inventive approaches to teaching (breakthroughs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the diversity of higher education (HE) systems is a widely debated topic in literature, this has been rarely examined considering multiple levels of analysis. This article adopts both a multilevel and longitudinal perspective to study which dimensions of horizontal diversity diversified the English HE system most. Diversity, and how this has changed over time, is investigated at the level of the HE system (macro-level) at the level of homogeneous groups of universities, i.e. mission groups (meso-level), and at the level of individual universities (micro-level). The comprehensive multivariate quantitative analysis performed across the three levels of analysis shows the polarization between research and teaching orientation emerges as the dimension on which the HE system and universities horizontally diversify most together with the internationalization of the student body. The analysis furtherly suggests that mission groups well represent the diversity of the English HE system and universities' membership in one of these groups emerged as an element that restrains distinctive institutional positioning patterns of universities. Younger universities and those not affiliated to any mission groups are indeed those that present changes in their strategic positioning paths over time, and thus affect more the diversity of the HE system. However, while the horizontal diversity of the HE system has slightly increased over time, this paper also suggests that competition has concurrently contributed to reinforcing the hierarchical stratification of English universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding students' college enrollment decisions is critical because the admission outcome can affect the school's quality and its reputation. In this paper, we study how students consider their relative academic ability compared to their potential peers. Drawing from social comparison theory, we posit that there are asymmetric effects due to deviation from peers' ability, depending on the deviations' direction. Using a rich data set of college applicants, we find that while the applicants negatively evaluate their deviations below their potential peers, they value positively those above their peers (the 'big fish, little pond' effect). Moreover, students who applied to many universities are more susceptible to these psychological effects. Further analysis points to the level of the individual student's self-confidence as a possible explanation. Finally, we derive suggestions for college administrators to improve the yield of admitted students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-pandemic, many universities are seeking ways to better engage students and support them to stay with and succeed in their studies. Immersive scheduling, whereby students complete units over shorter time periods than the traditional 12–15 week semester or trimester, may be a way to do this and improve academic outcomes at scale. This paper focuses on the impact of an immersive scheduling model at a public Australian university where higher education is being delivered over 6-week terms using active learning pedagogy. Student grades (N = 9,655) and unit feedback survey responses (N = 3,267) were collected from a suite of non-award pathways, sub-bachelor and Bachelor units offered in the immersive scheduling model in 2021 and the traditional trimester model in 2019. Results were compared across the two models for commencing, continuing, pathways, undergraduate, on-campus, online and mixed-mode students. Success rates improved in the immersive scheduling model compared to the traditional trimester model to a statistically significant degree for all cohorts, with particularly strong achievement enhancements observed for online students. These improvements exceeded results for a control group of units delivered in the traditional model in both years. Strong improvements in the pathways units, which were delivered using active learning pedagogy before and after the implementation of immersive scheduling, demonstrate that the more focused way of learning created through the model may be an important factor underpinning improved academic success. High levels of unit and teaching satisfaction were maintained in the immersively-scheduled units, indicating that the model supports high student satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With current social, environmental and economic challenges, there is an increasing need to encourage more sustainable business models, which include social entrepreneurship, in the education of our future leaders and entrepreneurs. This has resulted in significant research and practice towards improving students' social entrepreneurial intention with higher education programmes. We used survey data collected from 220 university students in Brazil. These students participated in the Enactus programme, which exposed them to social entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial education. Our findings highlight the importance of experience-based programmes in forming empathy, essential to self-efficacy development, and in improving the ability to identify social opportunities, which together are indispensable for developing social entrepreneurial intentions. This paper contributes to social entrepreneurship education literature by emphasising the need to integrate experience-based opportunities into higher education programmes. It confirms that social entrepreneurial actions are contextually driven and should be addressed and developed closer to the needs. This results in empathic individuals who can see opportunities others do not see and become social entrepreneurs. In regard to public policy support and the encouragement of social entrepreneurship models, our findings emphasise the need to help universities and encourage experiential programmes to develop students. In this way, universities which develop social entrepreneurship education programmes have the opportunity to act as agents of change, developing human capital to address the social/environmental challenges and create a fairer society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education and elite professional occupations are considered to be key sources of social mobility. In this paper, we suggest that examining patterns of admission into professional undergraduate programmes, a key route for entry into elite professional occupations, may provide important insights into social mobility through higher education. We analyse university admission offer data and assess the impact of ethno-racial, gender and class intersection on relative likelihood of student admission to six elite professional programmes (medicine, law, accounting, architecture, engineering and business management), in comparison to non-professional programmes. Our exploratory analysis provides several interesting results; though they present a generally pessimistic picture of potential social mobility through higher education. We find that higher class background is a key factor in admissions to elite professional programmes, especially evident in the exemplar traditional professions of medicine and law; presumed gender effects on entry into technical math-based professional programmes, such as engineering and accounting, are substantially moderated by class background; and ethno-racial background may mitigate some of the class penalties for women, but leads to double penalty for black men. Our findings contribute directly to the current research on impact of class origin on social mobility, especially that on class ceiling. Further, we respond to recent calls for fuller inclusion of class in intersectionality-based research by showing how class may work both through and against other social factors, such as race and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on the dominant employability model by Dacre Pool and Sewell – CareerEDGE model by developing an extended CareerEDGE model for embedding, evaluating and monitoring employability skills relevant to undergraduate students. Drawing on the current literature on employability, the 'Extended CareerEDGE Model' is developed by formulating a measurement framework. Elements of the extended model and framework are discussed and their inclusion is justified on the basis of existing research. The model extends the CareerEDGE model by facilitating the inclusion of entrepreneurship knowledge and skills as student entrepreneurial orientation to engender the requisite entrepreneurial mindset to address the need for intrapreneurial and entrepreneurial skills required to operate in the business environment. The study validates the Extended CareerEDGE Model of graduate employability with responses from 947 students engaged in a core employability-embedded business school undergraduate programme. The study confirms a positive relationship between student entrepreneurial orientation with employability reflection and evaluation. Also, the results confirm a positive relationship between Students' Achievement Orientation with Career Development Learning. A similar positive relationship was established between Students' Achievement Orientation and Degree Subject Knowledge as well as the acquisition of Generic Skills. Additionally, student Learning Orientation positively influences Career Development Learning, Degree Subject Knowledge and Generic Skills acquisition. The extended CareerEDGE model succinctly informs the planning of programmes and structured interventions on employability essentials for students, administrators and academics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic impact student learning in higher education? Everywhere, Sars-CoV-2 struck hardest in the most disadvantaged communities. This paper asks whether the virus's disproportionate effect on more vulnerable groups is replicated among college and university students. Data come from approximately 3800 students studying at nine higher education institutions located in six different countries around the globe. Conventional imagery of the 'Ivory Tower' treats colleges and universities as cloistered academic spaces beyond the 'real world.' Such imagery suggests that the patterns of COVID-19 inequity seen in the general population might not hold within higher education. However, the composition of the post-secondary student body has become more diverse and more representative. This could mean that patterns of inequity from the general population might hold, although perhaps at muted strength, among college and university students. We investigate the higher education context, asking how the characteristics of students, such as their gender or family background, their digital access, and their living arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic, impacted their self-reported ability to learn. The paper finds that students in more difficult situations – no study space, too much noise, and poorer health – reported greater disruption to their learning than did their peers who experienced fewer challenging living arrangements. Vulnerability, as measured by students in traditionally marginalized positions, had smaller impacts on student's confidence in learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been sustained criticism of current practices of higher education internationalisation in wealthy industrialised countries. This criticism is underpinned by an increasingly broad range of theoretical perspectives, resulting in calls for change which range from the minimal to the radical. In this paper, I reflect on the current state of the 'critical internationalisation studies' literature, arguing that existing critiques suffer from a number of shortcomings. In particular, I highlight that much of this work causes a 'problem of displacement' whereby issues of (mis)recognition eclipse issues of distributive justice. As such, the potential of internationalisation to contribute to solving practical issues is underplayed. The argument is made that in problematising arguments for the use of internationalisation activities to contribute to solving practical issues in the Global South, this literature has the potential to demoralise those seeking action. The second part of the paper makes a case for the utility of normative global justice theory in critical internationalisation studies, outlining an alternative vision of two internationalisation activities through the lens of Nancy Fraser's Scales of Justice. The analysis highlights how current practices create injustice through 'misframing', as international student recruitment and global partnerships are framed at the nation-state level, denying representation to those affected by the actions of universities and by government policy in wealthy countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]