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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.

In the last decade, the fast technological and social transformations have been placing new demands on Higher Education (HE) systems to update their educational offers. Grounded in the broader discourse on the impact of such transformation on HE, this article relies on Text Mining (TM). We consider as a case study the Italian HE system, providing an overview of the university education in the last 10 Academic Years. We automatically analyse 54,535 learning outcomes of degree programmes to identify the relevant topics with Named Entity Recognition, a technique of TM. For each topic, we measured its trend in time and coverage on a geographical basis and in the disciplinary fields. We detected 6062 different topics, among these the most growing are artificial intelligence, sustainability, rare diseases, and ethics. The findings reveal that topics related to hard sciences register higher occurrence than the ones concerning humanities and social sciences. Furthermore, we observed that universities are overcoming the boundaries of disciplinary fields, promoting knowledge contamination and vertical specialisation. The proposed approach can advance studies in HE literature for effective and efficient analysis. The findings can inform policies and practices in HE on evolving learning outcomes and educational offerings, even across different countries and disciplines.

Academic careers are complex, diverse, and increasingly competitive. Building on previous research on selection criteria for admission to early research careers, this research expands the analytical focus to examine attributes requested in job ads at each stage of an academic career. Our data, extracted from a European job platform, draws on over 40 different disciplines, 3000 universities, and 60 countries. We developed a taxonomy from the selection criteria data and analysed 40,819 advertisements for all stages combined and posted in 2016-2021. We analysed the most prevalent and salient attributes listed in academic job ads to determine the most important attributes in the five most represented countries and disciplines, and changes by stage and across the academic career lifespan. We find that degree and achievements play a principal role in academic recruitment at each stage of career, mobility is key to progression in senior roles, teaching gains importance towards professoriate, and senior academics need to be equipped with skills and/or experience in fundraising, curriculum, and outreach. The insights inform policy and practice for institutional researcher development, capabilities framework development, human resources, and academic recruitment, and provide guidance for academic career planning and development.

Following identifications of gendered inconsistencies in higher education delivery [Ain, C., F. Sabir, and J. Willison. 2018. "Research Skills That men and Women Developed at University and Then Used in Workplaces." "Studies in Higher Education," Published online.], this work exposes unseen gender-related issues in the graduate population. With graduates prevalent as managers, developing management attributes and employability is emphasised across higher education. Meanwhile, notable disciplinary gender imbalances exist across education and this research explores employability in this context by triangulating Higher Education Statistics Agency and Higher Education Academy data with graduates' degree experiences. Findings reveal notable levels of employability-related support existing, with significant disciplinary variations in its visibility. Some remains unseen, especially in female-orientated disciplines, creating a gap populated by almost 50% more females than males. Consequently, fewer female graduates may recognise certain capabilities as being management-related, potentially resulting in slower career progression compared to male peers, as observed by the Office for National Statistics [ONS. 2019. "Overeducation and Hourly Wages in the UK Labour" Market; 2006 to 2017. London: Office for National Statistics. Accessed May 2, 2019. Opportunities exist across disciplines, especially the arts, humanities and social sciences, to enhance visibilities of employability-related support.

Significant expansions in higher education over the last few decades have raised concerns about an over-supply of graduates in the labour market, such that a degree no longer seamlessly translates into a graduate career or occupation, with the increased life chances this could bring. In this paper, we report a study of undergraduates' perceptions of graduate careers and the graduate labour market. As the data showed perceptions were shaped strongly by social class we applied a Bourdieusian theoretical lens to examine the role of capitals and hysteresis of habitus on students' expectations. The study demonstrates how the classed nature of the graduate labour market manifests itself through differences in the level of understanding and preparedness for navigating the labour market. We highlight the structural barriers 'non-traditional' graduates face when entering and navigating a volatile graduate labour market.

This paper examines students' views about the purpose of university education and its role in their future employability in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Data was gathered through focus groups with 172 undergraduate students. Findings suggest that due to socio-economic pressures, students largely see the purpose of university in terms of its economic value, namely enhanced access to employment opportunities and improved financial wellbeing. While future career prospects are key motivation to pursue a university degree, this study shows that the perceived role of university credentials in employability is declining. Due to an oversupply of graduates and limited employment opportunities, employers have raised the bar for qualifications to select job candidates. Coupled with an undergraduate degree perceived as an 'incomplete degree', students are driven to earn more educational credentials; leading to a greater supply of graduates and what appears to be a widespread occurrence of 'diploma disease'.

The bonds that unite partner institutions in the delivery of shared transnational collaborative programmes are critical in the effective management of these education partnerships. A crucial component in this unification is social capital, where partners connect and develop networks, lubricated by trust, which facilitates cooperation and commitment to the venture, producing purposive and beneficial outputs. This paper explores this phenomenon by investigating the way social capital manifests between operational colleagues tasked in the delivery of collaborative joint-degree programme partnerships. Initially, the paper explores the relationship between 'partnership' and 'social capital'. It then analyses three sociological perspectives of social capital, the "rational," "critical" and "democratic" strains, before examining them in relation to empirical data collected from three collaborative programme partnerships. The paper concludes there is evidence of all three strains, but advocates partner institutions observe four recommendations, so to encourage the manifestation of the beneficial "critical" and "democratic" strains.

In this study, we analyse the relationship between competition and programmatic diversification in 75 Italian universities from the academic years of 2003/2004 to 2011/2012. Results show that local competition, rather than national competition, influences programmatic diversification. The relationship between local competition and programmatic diversification is found to be quadratic such that when competition increases, diversification decreases and specialisation increases, and both relationships are reversed after a certain threshold. We argue that under moderate levels of competition, universities tend to respond to local competition for students by differentiating their programmatic offerings from their competitors. However, when the level of competition is minimum or extreme, universities tend to follow an isomorphic strategy. After the reduction in student demand and the reform of the higher education system in 2008/2009, the relationship was no longer curvilinear because universities operating in extremely competitive environments began to adopt more risk-taking behaviour by engaging in diversification strategies.

Universities' reputations are built in part on graduates' assessments of the quality of education they received. What do these assessments tell us? Are graduates' judgments of quality based on their experiences as students or on their later job satisfaction, that is, on process or on outcomes? The objective of this study was to assess the extent to which Chilean university graduates' satisfaction with their professional training is associated with experiences during the degree program they pursued, employment experiences including salary level, or the prestige level or image of the university they attended. Survey questionnaires were used to collect data from recent graduates of professional programs in Primary-Secondary Teaching and Psychology in three universities that differ in prestige. A linear regression model shows that graduates' satisfaction with their degree program is a joint function of family background, program quality and university image, but not salary once graduated.

We quantify the returns to higher education for degree disciplines, namely 'professional' degrees, Medicine/Dentistry, Law, Accountancy and Psychology, within the UK from 2007 to 2015. We estimate the returns to education in the form of employment and wage premia associated with each subject. Our analysis contributes to the existing literature on the topic of horizontal mismatch by estimating the wage premia in different occupational settings and identifying the penalty associated with horizontal mismatch in each field, and relative to all other graduates. We identify how wage premia vary between employment outcomes when individuals with professional degrees are employed inside, as opposed to outside, their professional sector. A distinct difference in mismatch penalties between male and female graduates was found. Male mismatch penalties are isolated to law graduates, while female mismatch penalties appear, and persist within all fields across the duration of a female graduate's career.

Since the 1950s, the Council of Europe has established conventions and information networks to enhance student mobility and qualification recognition in Europe. In contrast, Asia did not take this issue into consideration until 1983, when the UNESCO Regional Convention on the Recognition of Studies, Diplomas and Degrees in Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific (the "1983 Convention") was adopted. The recognition of a joint degree when the schools are in two different countries is even more challenging than for a conventional degree, because they do not belong to any single national higher education system. The first purpose of this study is to describe the current situation in the recognition of foreign qualifications in higher education institutions in Europe and Asia. Next, schemes, procedures and challenges for recognizing a joint degree will be analyzed. The role of recognition bodies and quality assurance agencies in qualification recognition will be discussed at the end of the paper.

Within higher education systems, different institutions deliver different patterns of disciplines. A simple analysis of the structure of that pattern of disciplines across institutions in one higher education system uncovers a surprising relationship. That is, the key dimensions which describe that structure align nearly perfectly with dimensions discovered in a very different context: the Biglan classification scheme. This paper explains correspondence analysis as a mechanism for uncovering structure in simple contingency tables, shows the accuracy of the fit with Biglan's scheme and demonstrates that the analysis also has a measure of predictive validity in its ability to classify previously unclassified disciplines. The study not only acts as a more accurate validation of Biglan's scheme than those previously undertaken, but indicates that a scheme developed in the USA in the 1970s has current validity in a very different higher education system and suggests disciplines as a core genotype of institutions.

Changes in public policy, such as the Bologna Process, require students to be equipped with multifunctional competencies to master relevant tasks in unfamiliar situations. Achieving this goal might imply a change in many curricula toward deeper learning. As a didactical means to achieve deep learning results, the authors suggest reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT); as a conceptual framework the authors suggest the SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes) taxonomy and constructive alignment as suggested by Biggs and Tang. Our study presents results from the introduction of RPT in a large course. The authors find that RPT produces satisfying learning outcomes, active students, and ideal constructive alignments of the seminar content with the exam, the intended learning outcomes, and the requirements of the Bologna Process. Our data, which comprise surveys and evaluations from both faculty and students, suggest that RPT fosters deeper learning than does teacher-led instruction. Based on these findings, the authors also offer guidelines regarding how to implement RPT and how to overcome barriers.

The article aims to empirically verify the impact of educational capital on the success or failure of higher education graduates' transitions. The paper uses the example of geography graduates in Poland who took part in a nationwide survey in 2012, six months after their graduation. This allowed the author to collect detailed data on the characteristics of the respondents' educational capital and their situation in the job market. Discriminant function analysis was used to establish that the following variables are best predictors of one's situation in the labour market: specialisation and study cycle (BA or MA). Other variables, including the final grade of the degree and the self-assessment of one's competences were found not to be statistically significant in discriminating between the group of working and unemployed graduates.

Motivated by an increasing number of international students in UK higher education, this study investigates the effect of year-long placements on the academic performance of 268 accounting and finance students enrolled between 2006 and 2009. The results show differences between UK and international students although both statistically and significantly increase their final-year marks and their chance to obtain a good degree (first or 2.1) following placements. UK sandwich students outshine international sandwich students in the final year, while UK full-time students significantly underperform international full-time students in the first year only. The academic performance of UK students can be partly explained by prior academic achievement and gender but that of international students is not related to any of these individual factors. There is evidence of self-selection among UK sandwich students since they outperform UK full-time students at all levels, while no such a pattern is found among international students.

The paper analyses employability as a floating signifier--a construct that accommodates different and often contending meanings. A preliminary analysis of scholarly literature identifies two opposed interpretations of employability--an individual responsibility versus a comprehensive context-aware construct. These are subsequently applied to the discourse of the major interests in the Bologna Process: policy-makers; institutions and academics; students; and employers. Their standpoints are examined from two dimensions: How far is responsibility for employability individualised? and What is higher education's role in fostering employability? As a concept, employability commands little consensus. Rather, it is interpreted in the light of each interest group's concerns. As to higher education's role, utilitarianism characterises all but academic actors' views. Applying the concept of a floating signifier to employability as it is debated within the Bologna Process--a policy arena for competing interest groups to dispute meaning--reveals a finer, more nuanced understanding of how policy comes to be and, in particular, the importance of discourse and conflicts over meaning as factors intrinsic to it.

Peer-assisted study session (PASS) programs have been shown to positively affect students' grades in a majority of studies. This study extends that analysis in two ways: controlling for ability and other factors, with focus on international students, and by presenting results for PASS in business statistics. Ordinary least squares, random effects and quantile regression models have been used to model data from first-year business statistics students. The findings indicate that the impact of PASS has remained highly significant in both years for both local and international students but is more pronounced for international students. We also find that lower-achieving students derive a higher marginal benefit from attending PASS than higher-achieving students using quantile regression. These findings are significant for institutions implementing similar programs as well as institutional efforts to enhance student performance and improve student retention, or specifically to support international students more effectively.

The literature has suggested that students' progress at university is influenced by their personal characteristics; this article examines whether these factors act differently according to the study fields of degree courses in which students are enrolled. In particular, the factors influencing the various outcomes of the university programme (withdrawals, course changes, delays, completion of degrees) in three-year degree courses in a large Italian university are analysed from the perspective of study fields. The authors examined the records of over 32,000 students enrolling from academic years 2002/3 to 2005/6 in 84 first-cycle degree courses, grouped in four different fields of study. Analyses were conducted by considering the time dimension within the methodological approach of survival analysis, by means of individual longitudinal data from university administrative archives. A discrete-time method for competing risks event history analysis was applied to study the determinants of university outcomes in the various fields of study.

The development of a capacity to engage in critical reflection is central to higher education. However, students vary in this capacity and its development requires students to move from an absolute towards a contextual way of knowing. Using 32 semi-structured interviews, this study identifies the ways of knowing of 17 business and accounting students at a large new United Kingdom (UK) university. In this study, absolute and transitional ways of knowing were found to be predominant. This appears to be significantly related to: (1) an extrinsic motivation for studying for a UK business or accounting degree and the desire to obtain a "good degree"; (2) a strong focus on the organisation of learning, rather than on what is learnt; and (3) a strong focus on, and an unquestioning attitude to, assessment. The implications of these findings for further research and pedagogy within higher education are discussed. (Contains 4 tables.)

The inclusion of research experiences as core components of undergraduate curricula implies that students will be exposed to and situated within the research activities of their university. Such experiences thus provide a new prism through which to view the relations between teaching, research and learning. The intentions and actions of academics supervising these activities will be strongly influenced by their beliefs regarding the nature of research, and the relation between research and learning in the undergraduate context. Surveys of academics supervising such experiences reveal a range of intentions, only some of which address the higher order and critical thinking skills associated with research or independent learning. This may indicate a lack of deep reflection on the purpose of exposing undergraduates to research, but may also be due to the predominance of a hierarchical view of the process by which one makes the transition from student to researcher. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Governments are aiming to expand the intake to higher education, so it is important to understand what motivates students to enter university and choose a particular programme. The aim of this study was to see whether a motivational orientation framework, developed to explain motivation to study, could also be applied to motivation to enrol in a selected university programme. Data were collected through individual open interviews with 36 undergraduate students at three universities in Hong Kong. Analysis used a grounded theory approach. The motivational orientation framework consists of six continua, labelled: compliance, individual goal setting, university lifestyle, sense of belonging, career and interest. It was possible to interpret data on decisions to go to university and to pick particular programmes with the framework. Students could be allocated to a position on each continuum, which then characterised their initial motivation for study. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Research on students' attendance rates has focused mainly on the effects of personality variables and cognitive ability, rather than on the impact on degree outcomes. More specifically, there is scant information relating to the question of whether male and female undergraduate students have differential practices in relation to attendance, whether any such differences are significant or not in terms of eventual outcomes for undergraduates, and on why such differences might occur. The results of two studies conducted at the University of Sussex are presented and discussed in this article. The importance of attendance in determining final degree outcome is confirmed in these studies; indeed the rate at which a student attends emerges as the strongest predictor of degree outcome amongst a number of variables examined. The existence of differential attendance rates between male and female students is also confirmed. The results provide a context within which a range of possible underlying reasons for gender differences in this regard can be explored.

This article investigates the relevance of local selectivity in study programmes for the probability of attaining a first academic degree. Empirical selectivity can be the result of both selection procedures of study programmes and self-selection of potential students. From higher-education research, complemented by prominent arguments from school effectiveness research, various competing hypotheses are derived regarding the impact of individual academic ability and the contextual impact of local selectivity. While all hypotheses expect individual ability to be positively related to degree completion, they differ in expectations about local selectivity. The subsequent empirical analysis expands the existing international state of research by covering not only the institutional level but also fields of study. Using data from an undergraduate cohort of the German National Educational Panel Study, results from two-level linear probability models fit best with the composition hypothesis, which predicts a positive correlation between degree completion and local selectivity that purely reflects the composition of the student body. In contrast to results in the mostly U.S. context of whole universities, own ability seems more important than selectivity of the context in the form of study programmes in German higher education, at least in terms of surrounding peers’ ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Degree apprenticeships offer a new route to a degree in UK higher education, with policymakers emphasising their social mobility potential to widen access to graduate professions. In this context, this article compares the employability perceptions and strategies of aspiring solicitors on traditional university and degree apprenticeship routes in England. Following Bathmaker, Ingram, and Waller (2013), we adopt the analogy of 'playing the game' to explore how aspiring solicitors negotiate opportunities and barriers as they seek to succeed in higher education and progress into the legal profession. Drawing on interview data with 23 aspiring solicitors, we consider how participants developed and mobilised existing and acquired capitals to position themselves for success in their future career. A novel typology of employability strategies is presented, expanding on the work of Brown, Hesketh, and Williams (2004) and Hancock, Hughes, and Walsh (2017). The typology reveals distinct understandings of the role of higher education, meritocracy and social mobility; and divergent strategies for enhancing employability. As degree apprenticeship routes expand in UK higher education and beyond, the typology provides a useful framework to compare transitions through higher education and into other competitive and historically elite graduate professions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Degree apprenticeships in the UK represent a shift in approach to degree-level study. As the model matures, it is important to hear perspectives of apprentices. Using Q methodology, the study aims to identify the different apprentices' viewpoints of the apprenticeship, exploring aspects of belonging, support, challenges and views of the learning experience. Thirty-five second-year computing apprentices at a UK university participated in the study. Centroid factor analysis revealed three perspectives: aligned student-workers, busy professionals, and the cast adrift. Aligned student-workers were balancing work and study effectively, finding value in both. Busy professionals were already consolidated as professionals, using this degree apprenticeship to upskill. Finally, the cast adrift, reported a lack of support in the workplace that was affecting their view on the apprenticeship. This exploratory study, resulting in a new research instrument and approach, contributes apprentices' perspectives to research and practice, as apprenticeship models expand in the UK and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores STEM doctoral student agency with respect to funding as it relates to degree completion and career preparation. We interviewed 39 graduate students in chemistry, physics, and engineering at two large, public, research-intensive institutions in the USA. Although STEM doctoral students have a high expectation of full funding, instability of funding and unavailability of desired funding types limit the agency of some students. When several types of funding are available, advisors can encourage student agency in pursuing opportunities to gain skills or networking connections through teaching assistantships, research assistantships, or internships. However, students were not able to articulate specific ways that assistantships prepared them for nonacademic positions, which is an important direction for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

British university students from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds are less likely to achieve a 'good' degree classification than white students, despite taking prior attainment into account. To examine this gap, the current study conducted focus groups with 17 BME students studying health and social care related subjects to understand their experiences of learning and teaching. This was theoretically informed by self-determination theory, which proposes that achieving one's full potential for learning, alongside experience of wellbeing, is supported by environments that help individuals to meet their needs for relatedness, competence, and autonomy. Thematic analysis revealed that BME students encountered many obstacles that inhibited their experience of fulfilment of these three needs, which often undermined their initial desire to achieve their full potential. The findings are discussed in light of how universities can support BME students to achieve their full potential, and in doing so, address the BME attainment gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at an experience within the context of distance higher education, which has incorporated the reading of two novelettes (short novels, commonly known as novellas) created on an ad hoc basis for two subjects of a Criminology degree course. The goal of this research is to analyse students' perceptions of their validity as a study material, assessing learning, motivation and design-related aspects, correlating them with the degree of transportation, which is the readers' perception that they are being conveyed from their world of origin into the narrative world. Data gathering was performed by sending 2 questionnaires to 347 students. The results confirm that they perceive them as valid learning material and that they foster interest in the study of the contents, even more than traditional materials. It also has helped them to understand the concepts better, in terms of exemplification and contextualisation. This has been influenced by the potential of the transportation processes. It was also seen that design aspects of the novelettes have helped with the learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities are increasingly engaging with non-academic professionals in facilitating performance outcomes, reaffirming themselves as purposive organisations, i.e. institutions with the ability to organise strategically in the pursuit of goals and standards. However, there is little empirical evidence for the impact of professional staff on university performance. Drawing on a sample of 100 British universities, the author assesses whether the changes in the ratio of professional staff to students (from 2003 to 2011) influence subsequent university performance. The author finds that universities that are moderately increasing their share of professional staff display higher levels of degree completion, but no significant differences can be observed in terms of research quality, good honours degrees and graduate employability. University performance is largely determined by reputation, prestigious universities performing higher in all dimensions. The findings contribute to the emerging empirical research assessing the impact of professional staff in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed a surge of studies examining the scope of professional responsibility. Building on these efforts, this conceptual inquiry explores whether Nussbaum's notion of a 'decent society', grounded in the premises of equal respect for persons and different conceptions of the good, and thus aspiring to afford all its members a threshold of capabilities that allow for a good life, could usefully inform the idea of a 'decent profession' and professionals' role in contributing to social justice. The first aim is to develop a theory-based rationale for the claim that a 'decent profession' strives for capability expansion, thereby identifying capability expansion as a professional ideal. The second aim is to outline how this ideal may be promoted in professional degree programmes drawing on Nussbaum's twofold argument that our rational ideals require appropriate emotions to be sustained and that these 'stabilising emotions' can be cultivated through art and symbols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Government provides basic operating grants to universities, which are used to teach domestic undergraduate students. It imposes a productivity offset on the grants to encourage improvements in university productivity. But it is not transparent and does not vary across universities. Thus, universities have little incentive to improve performance. This paper develops an alternative framework that uses incentive regulation to allocate these grants to universities, which provides stronger incentives for universities to improve productivity. Regulators often use a similar framework to set prices for natural monopoly services such as utilities and public transport. Under incentive regulation, the basic operating grants could be reduced, on average, by 1.76% per annum over 5 years, which is about $100 million per annum. This finding is contrary to several recent Australian Government inquires that suggest the basic operating grant is inadequate and that this compromises the quality of undergraduate teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyzed 50 faculty interviews to explore the function of colleagueship across different types of institutions. Our findings highlight that colleagueship served toward the improvement of teaching, disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning, securing one’s research agenda, career management, and friendship. We attend to the nuances of our findings within distinct institutional types, and offer several suggestions for practice and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution is based on an analysis of recent changes in doctoral education that can be observed in Europe and China. It traces the policies having led to these changes and discusses related policy transfer. The contribution is divided into five parts. It begins by sketching recent changes in doctoral education in the framework of the European Bologna Process and the framework of Chinese higher education reforms looking at similarities and differences in the underlying rationales. The second part will elaborate on the extended policy field for doctoral education which is no longer regarded as an exclusively academic affair but has become an object of institutional management, national policy-making and – at least in Europe – supra-national agenda setting. The third part will take a closer look at the multiplication of purposes and models for doctoral education. While in Europe, altogether, nine different types of doctoral education and training can be identified, China has just started to diversify its doctoral training by adding professional degrees and (in engineering) joint doctoral programmes to the traditional pathway. The fourth part will discuss two overarching issues which are equally in the centre of debates and policy-making in Europe and in China-quality management and internationalisation of doctoral education. In the last and concluding part, we will reflect on the implications of the extended policy field and the diversification of doctoral education models in terms of the question of how this reflects on quality assurance mechanisms, who is qualified to convey the extended skills set and whether academic careers remain sufficiently attractive to attract the best and the brightest talent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognition of the huge variation between professional graduate degree programmes and employer requirements, especially in the construction industry, necessitated a need for assessing and developing competencies that aligned with professionally oriented programmes. The purpose of this research is to develop a competency mapping framework (CMF) in this case for quantity surveying honours degree programmes. The graduate competency threshold benchmark (GCTB) is a key component of the CMF. Therefore, the CMF contains the mapping process, the template documents and the benchmark. The research adopted literature review, pilot study, case studies (including semi-structured interviews) and expert forum in developing the framework. The framework developed in this research provides new insight into how degree programmes map against competencies. Thus, the framework can be applied more widely, to other professional degree programmes, for monitoring and improving the quality and professional standards of construction degree programmes by accrediting bodies. This should connect construction graduates more effectively to the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little research has been undertaken on student experiences of combined degrees. The few studies report that a considerable number of students experienced difficulty with the contrasting epistemic/disciplinary demands of the component programmes. A mixed-methods approach was employed to explore the experiences of graduates from four double degrees that combine criminology with a second degree. While participants experienced epistemological uncertainties, most worked out ways, individually and in groups, to accommodate the tensions associated with combined degree study and to make sense of their experiences. A common means of coping was to enlist the disciplinary perspectives of one field as a lens to make sense of the other. At the same time, participants reported that there was little in the way of curriculum and pedagogical provisions to help them to establish connections between their degrees. As one participant stated, ‘it was all [done] on our own'. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the importance of goals in educational theories, goals in master's thesis projects are rarely investigated. Therefore, this study explores how goals play a role in master's thesis supervision in terms of: defining the goals (up-component); locating where the student stands in relation to the goals (back-component); and how the student can more closely reach the goals (forward-component). Twelve supervisors and students were interviewed and the adaptive approach of supervision emerged as a recurrent theme. Applying qualitative content analysis, findings indicated that the role of goals can be described as: aiming to reach the goals (up-component) by adapting supervision strategies (forward-component), based on students' specific needs and where they stand (back-component). This was termed 'adaptivity'. Providing adaptive supervision can also involve tensions concerning the level of regulation and the severity of their critique (ranging from mild to heavy-handed). Findings are discussed in relation to other studies concerning research supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine how a collective knowledge-creation-oriented approach to doctoral education is being adopted in research within the field of education. The authors interviewed nine leaders of national centres of excellence in science research and 12 education professors whose research communities cultivate collective practices of doctoral education. In order to examine how the collective practices differ from the individual ones, the authors also interviewed nine education professors from well-known Finnish and other European universities engaged in supervising traditional monograph theses. Three principal features of the collective model (CM) of doctoral education were distinguished: (1) pursuit of collectively shared research objects; (2) pursuit of externally reviewed co-authored journal articles; and (3) focus on collective supervision. The results indicated that the principal features of the CM can be productively implemented in research in the field of education despite certain challenges and constraints addressed in this report. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the dynamic transitions that college leavers make to university. It draws on qualitative research with a group of students who took direct entry to the second or third year of a degree programme at university, to show that successful transitions depend on the students becoming independent learners. It argues that the students who adapt best to the new learning environment are those who understand what independent learning entails, and who are good time managers. While the transitions experienced by direct entrants are comparable to those of students entering the first year of a degree more generally, the article recognises that there are differences. The difficulties experienced by many new students – including learning how the university works – may be exacerbated amongst direct entrants because they have less time in which to adapt to the new regime and their needs are often less visible at the institutional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent policy in England has advocated the introduction of fast-track degrees to provide an alternative, shorter route to a bachelor’s degree. It has been argued that this will widen participation in higher education and increase labour market flexibility by providing an option in which undergraduates spend one fewer years out of the labour market. Critics have suggested that the outcomes from this new undergraduate option will be worse than those for students following the standard length of undergraduate degree (which is three years for most subjects studied at universities in England). This criticism is based on a belief that students on the shorter degrees will be encouraged to ‘cram’, having less opportunity for reflection that will foster a deep understanding. These arguments are evaluated using data which compare students following two and three year degrees in the same subjects at the same university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of group supervision within doctoral education, offering an exploration of the experience of group supervision processes through a small-scale study evaluating both student and staff experience across three cohorts of one professional doctorate programme. There has been very little research to date exploring mechanisms which might facilitate reflection on such programmes, such as group supervision and cohort-based pedagogies. The article raises important questions concerning what constitutes group supervision, and the opportunities it offers for wider learning opportunities beyond existing models of supervision by developing an enriched learning environment through peer learning. This pedagogical approach enables professional doctorate students to engage reflexively with discursive processes around their identity as researching professionals. Discussion of the findings will explore the impact of peer learning on the doctoral student journey, and whether any benefits of group supervision may have applicability across other kinds of doctoral programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to examine the attributes which influence students’ selection of electives as part of their university degree programme. Marketing students at a public university in Malaysia participated in the research. Conjoint analysis was used to understand the trade-offs between three attributes when selecting elective subjects. These are perceived difficulty, perceived interest and future career skills. The results suggest that students are most concerned about the perceived difficulty of the elective and will avoid enrolling in such an elective. The results have significant implications for educators in the design of electives, and in the communication of their offerings, as well as for university administrators in the allocation of space and teaching resources. The article also discusses the implications of the results and offers future research direction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is well established that year-long industrial placements can bring workplace knowledge and increased employability. A body of recent studies has attempted to discern any effect on academic performance following the return to university, using a number of different data analysis approaches. This study discusses the difficulties of ascertaining differences in scores for students that have undertaken placement. The results of 417 students who graduated from property management and development courses are analysed, using an approach to correct for previous academic performance. A statistically significant enhancement in the final-year marks for students returning from placement is identified. Some evidence is also found to suggest that placement effects on academic performance may vary according to gender and age at course commencement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although the coursework master's degree is becoming the principal conduit for the delivery of continuing education to the professions, it is one of the least understood or researched academic levels in higher education. Furthermore, little is known of coursework master's graduates' experience of research or research supervision following the completion of a thesis as the final assessment of their degree. This article measures graduates' experience of research and research supervision following the completion of a master's degree. The article also examines the relationship between coursework master's graduates' experience of research supervision, completing a research thesis and their development of research capabilities. The findings are considered in the context of the appropriateness of a thesis as the most suitable form of assessment for coursework master's degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on research exploring the extent to which a group of Malaysian students in a British university expect to secure a competitive edge in the positional race for jobs, income and status. It explores the students' understandings of a good job and success, as well as their perceived chances of fulfilling their aspirations. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 students. Interviewees assumed a direct link between a prestigious UK degree and better material and status incentives. Felt obligations to ensure inter-generational mobility shaped their life projects. Private sector work and global labour mobility were particularly attractive for participants from ethnic minority backgrounds. While interviewees were confident of achieving their goals, some uncertainties were felt. The article concludes with suggestions for future research on middle-class practices of distinction in the global education marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the factors influencing student choice at six contrasting universities in Scotland to establish if there is value in developing a model for predicting institutional choice for Scottish undergraduate entry. It is based on a survey of 651 students in two undergraduate disciplines, accountancy and engineering, across the six universities. The findings indicate that the choice decision is complex and multi-factorial. Whilst there was variation across universities, disciplines and genders, the evidence illustrates consistency in respect of the top three factors: academic reputation, distance from home and location. Suggestions for change are formulated on the basis of the main findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes and analyzes an alternative supervision model at the Master of Education Programme at the University of Bergen aimed at improving research supervision. A three‐pronged approach was introduced, combining supervision groups, student colloquia and individual supervision. The supervision groups consisted of two supervisors and their Master’s students, while the student colloquia consisted of the same students without teachers. The case study of this alternative supervision practice is based on sociocultural perspectives on knowledge and learning, combining theoretical concepts from Lave and Wenger and Bakhtin. The three arenas were found to supplement one another: while student colloquia provided personal support, and served as a first filter for ideas and texts, the supervision groups provided multivoiced feedback on student texts and enculturation into the discipline. Individual supervision provided more specific advice. Critical factors for supervision groups were regular attendance, mutual obligation, structure and clear rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African higher education is currently implementing a curriculum restructuring policy aimed at the development of degree programmes that are 'coherent and integrated' and typically 'trans-, inter- or multidisciplinary'. This requirement presents a considerable challenge for faculties which have allowed students to 'mix-and-match' from a wide range of disciplinary offerings particularly the explicit assumption that academics will work in teams to develop, deliver and evaluate these programmes. The policy anticipates significant shifts in the nature of academic practices, academics' identities, and in the forms of authority used to regulate curriculum decisions. In particular, it anticipates a weakening of the insulations between disciplines, and that academics will participate in collectives which cross disciplinary boundaries, and which are predicated on serving external accountabilities. This article presents a case study of how the science faculties of two universities in South Africa have interpreted the policy in launching their respective programmes in biotechnology. The case study shows how-in spite of a strong, common field of practice as a reference-academics at the two institutions draw on differing legitimating claims to justify curricular choices, demonstrate differing orientations towards disciplinary and institutional identities, and engage in cross-boundary negotiations in fundamentally contrasting ways, giving rise to significantly different curriculum structures and differing social relations between academics. The author concludes by suggesting that what emerges from the case study has implications for those who assume that interdisciplinary collaboration within outcomes-based programmes will unproblematically provide a base for quality assurance practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As modular degree courses assess students at regular intervals, changes in their performance during the course of their first degree can be studied. This article presents the findings of a longitudinal study of undergraduate achievement within a modular first-degree course, based on analyses of the academic records of a cohort of students who graduated from the modular degree programme at Oxford Brookes University. The typical pattern of progress featured a fall in achievement at the end of the first year and the beginning of the second year, leading to low mean achievement at the beginning of the second year. This was followed by linear, term-by-term improvement during the second and third years, when results potentially contribute to degree class. There is also a 'step up' in the mean level of achievement between the second and third academic years. Variations in the pattern of progress, linked to age and social class were identified, and further variations were observed in the patterns of progress followed by individual students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of professional doctorates in Australia and elsewhere in the 1990s has led to a reconsideration of the nature of the doctoral award. There is evidence in Australia for the emergence of what has been called a second generation of professional doctorates. In this inductive article, the features of the latter are developed from three case studies. Research into an EdD and its subsequent development from a first to a second generation programme are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]