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Muddiest point and minute paper have been popular techniques to obtain feedback from students. However, focusing on the muddiest point too often can be discouraging for both students and instructors; in minute paper, students may often have off-topic comments. Here a cross and modified technique, the 'traffic light' card is introduced, to overcome the drawbacks in muddiest point and minute paper. About 2 minutes before the end of lecture, students "traffic light" the given topics on a notecard, in which their understanding is high (green), partial (yellow), or low (red). The results are used by the instructors to give appropriate review in the next lecture and help students gain better understanding in the content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College algebra fulfills general education requirements at many colleges in the United States. The study reported here investigated differences in mathematics achievement between undergraduates in college algebra classes using one of two homework methods:WeBWorK, an open-source system for web-based homework, or traditional paper-and-pencil homework. We assessed learning for 439 students in 19 college algebra classes at a large public university in the United States. Twelve classes usedWeBWorKand seven had traditional paper-and-pencil homework. Analysis of covariance revealed no significant differences in algebra performance or achievement gain by homework group, ethnicity or gender when statistically controlling for previous mathematics achievement. Results support the conjecture thatWeBWorKis at least as effective as traditionally graded paper-and-pencil homework for students learning college algebra in moderately sized lecture-based classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the second of two papers based on a study of how digital and paper diaries contribute to students' understanding of the processes of their learning within their academic disciplines. The purpose of the study was to use diary writing as a vehicle by which we would try and comprehend how students both make sense of assessment feedback and how this impacts on their emotional and motivational attitudes toward improving subsequent work. In this paper, samples are provided of diary entries for both digital and paper forms that illustrate the distinctive approaches to prospective but often highly self-critical and impromptu writing, as often characterized by the digital diary entries, when compared with retrospective and deeply reflective writing, which was common to much of the paper diary writing. The students who preferred the paper diaries seemed to have less mutable self-concepts, using their entries to craft and re-script ideas (often quite negative and potentially damaging ones) about themselves and their work. Conversely, students preferring the digital diaries were more willing to engage in reflexive criticism, and entertain the possibility of feeling very differently about themselves and their work on a day-to-day basis. This study ultimately does two things: it illuminates the complexity of students' feelings about learning and being assessed, stressing the importance of time and interaction in assisting students to contextualize and interpret the interrelation of learner identity, learner change and learner achievement; and second, it illustrates, within this small-scale study, how different types of diaries become important vehicles for expressing the variety of emotions and reflections that characterize the student learning experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceptions of the role and efficacy of written feedback in teaching and learning among teaching staff in British higher education institutions have not been extensively researched. In the present study 48 lecturers in one university and from a cross-section of disciplinary backgrounds were interviewed with respect to their lived experiences with writing assessment feedback. Like most universities, theirs has a stated commitment to academic excellence by, among other things, ensuring timely and useful feedback on assignments. The findings suggest, however, that institutional policies and departmental practices related to formative assessment in this respect are not having the intended effect. Teachers have varied perceptions and beliefs about the purposes of written feedback, and are uncertain about what it achieves and what use students make of it. Far from enhancing written feedback, innovative practices and procedures have created new problems for teachers. There is a clear need for continuing research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The few existing studies in international literature about students with learning disabilities' postsecondary persistence and academic performances show varied outcomes. Rigorous research has been limited. Moreover, in Italy there is a dearth of public data on students' careers and clearly a deficiency regarding literature on this topic. To tackle this situation, propensity score matching techniques were used in this paper to compare data about persistence and academic success of students who reported a learning disability with those who did not, all enrolled in a large University in Northern Italy. Once potential confounders were taken into account, our findings indicated that students with an attested learning disability were as likely to persist in academic context as peers without any LD. However, for what concerns academic performances, the outcomes varied according to the measures being used. Although there were no significant differences between the two groups in terms of the number of course credits (ECTS) earned, students with learning disabilities continued to lag behind their counterparts without disabilities concerning first-year grade point average achieved. This paper includes final recommendations for future research, in order to fill existing gaps in methodology and area of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When laws change the rules of the game, it is important to observe the effects on the players' behavior. Some effects can be anticipated while others are difficult to enunciate before the law comes into force. In this paper we have analyzed articles authored by Spanish accounting academics between 1996 and 2005 to assess the impact of a change in the Spanish university regulation. Results indicate a switch from publishing professional papers to academic ones and also to change research methodologies in order to meet the new requirements. This was to be expected due to the explicit mention of the law in favor of academic journals. However, we have also detected a significant decrease in the publication of professional papers. These side-effects could have a negative impact on the transmission of knowledge from university to society putting the relationship between accounting research and professional practice in jeopardy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the last two decades, universities around the world have increased the adoption of English-medium instruction (EMI) as a way to enhance internationalisation and global competitiveness. EMI adoption presents a wide range of opportunities, but it also presents some challenges, being one of them the potential impact on students' academic performance. This paper analyses the impact of EMI on the academic performance of the students in a Spanish university. The objective is to extend previous research, that shows contradictory conclusions. In the first part of the paper, using a multiple linear regression model to control key covariates, we have compared the performance of 229 EMI vs 635 Non-EMI students, corresponding to cohorts 2013–2014 to 2017–2018, considering the average grade in the 10 subjects of the first course. In the second part, we focus on the 2017–2018 cohort (49 EMI vs 116 Non-EMI students), carrying out a longitudinal study of its behaviour during two academic years in four different subjects. The results show that there are no statistically significant differences in academic performance between EMI and non-EMI students, ie language of instruction does not play a relevant role in academic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to Cotton, Miller and Kneale's 2017 paper on the current state of higher education research within UK universities. It seeks to contribute to the debate surrounding the inclusion of pedagogic research (PedR) via SoTL in the UK's Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the context of researchers who reside within a disciplinary context. The inclusion of PedR in the REF continues to be contentious, despite recommendations in the Stern Report which could make its inclusion more feasible. This paper focuses on PedR which is conducted, published and disseminated by academics situated within Life Science departments, rather than Schools of Education. The twenty-one teaching-focused academics in this study discussed their commitment to PedR integral to their academic identity, the challenges they faced in carrying out PedR, and their thoughts on REF 2014. Their opinions and conclusions give food for thought on decisions regarding inclusion of PedR in REF 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The developing structure of Omani higher education sector depends upon a culturally diverse group of international academics who outnumber their Omani colleagues. This creates a unique group composition that is inconsistent with the largely Omanising workplace context. Drawing on data gathered from a case study, this paper explores the reasons and the effects of group instability resulting from faculty's national diversity on establishing a group's social identity, the latter being an antecedent for establishing an intellectual capital. The findings of the study suggest that national diversity is associated with a number of factors that impede longevity within work groups thus affecting identification with a common group prototype. These include human resources management practices, such as outsourcing recruitment, inconsistent recruitment standards, low faculty agility and a number of personal factors that emphasise individual identity. The paper concludes by arguing that the absence of social identity in higher education hinders establishing an intellectual capital that represents a cornerstone for establishing a knowledge-based economy that fuels the realisation of Oman 2040. The findings have implications to the GCC1 contexts that are characterised by depending on largely nationally diverse workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Jackson and Mazzei's thinking with theory, this paper centers the stories of three researchers who practiced critical self-reflection while engaging in secondary analysis of data from The Pedagogy of Student Success Project, a study intended to learn about graduate students' evolving conceptualizations of student success. In particular, the researchers were interested in how their individual theoretical leanings influenced how they interacted with the data and how their collaborations in turn shaped their thinking. To explore this phenomena, the authors analyzed qualitative data from two participants, wrote reflective memorandums, and held conversations about their theoretical leanings. The three researchers addressed how the Anti-Deficit Achievement Framework, Black Feminisms, and Intersectionality shaped their analysis of qualitative data. Findings reveal how scholars' theoretical leanings inform how they analyze and interpret student success research, in addition to showing how research collaborations play a role in thinking with theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a longitudinal research project that followed the undergraduate entrants of 2013 into, and through their university time, this paper provides a novel conceptualisation of transformative transitions via looking at the four dimensions of non-linearity, multiplicity, diversity and structure. To do so, it builds on Archer's (2000, 2003, 2012) relational realist approach and work on reflexivity to show how students select and merge a diverse set of personal concerns to arrive at a modus vivendi. This capstone paper closes a series of publications from a four-year tracking study that collected interview data from a diverse group of 40 students on a yearly basis (n1=40, n2=40, n3=38, n4=33) at an English northern red brick university. The paper explores the changing focus of student experiences, from the social aspects of acclimatisation, to learning to be academic, and finally, becoming a graduate. The results presented here also point to the structural enablements and constraints that higher education institutions and policymakers should mitigate in responding to the inequalities of access and experience. In the context of a large-scale societal crisis, such as the ongoing pandemic, it is key that we understand how university can remain a transformative experience for all students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to determine the effect of parental education, as an important measure of social origin, on the expectations of 15 year olds to complete higher education in the Netherlands. More importantly, the paper tests specific explanations for this effect. For the empirical analysis, Dutch data from the PISA 2018 survey were used. The results revealed that there is a considerable impact of parental education on the likelihood of expecting to complete higher education in the Netherlands. To a large extent, this social origin effect refers to secondary effects of stratification: students with the same school performance have different expectations regarding higher education that are strongly correlated with their social origin. Parental resources explain only a small part of the direct social origin effect net of school performance. The secondary effects remain largely unexplained after taking parents' economic, cultural and educational resources into account, suggesting that relative risk aversion drives social differentials in educational expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous student completion rates remain very low relative to non-Indigenous students. Some universities have higher Indigenous student completion rates than the national average but research-based evidence of these universities as 'success models' is limited. Drawing on findings from interviews with Indigenous university graduates and staff as part of a National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE) funded research project, this paper discusses findings relating to one success factor that supports Indigenous student completions: Indigenous centres/units as key places to build a sense of connection and belonging for Indigenous students. The paper discusses the importance of Indigenous centres/units in providing a space where Indigenous students can connect with each other, with staff, and with their own cultural identities. The paper then discusses the development of strategies that can be adopted by all universities across Australia to strengthen and improve the completion rates of Indigenous students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trans children have become more visible in primary schools in recent years. Arising from a qualitative study with twelve parents of trans children (aged 5–13) and six primary school educators in Ireland, this paper explores how trans children experience two very different forms of celebratory rituals that are entangled with life in primary schools: birthday celebrations and religious rituals. These rituals are experienced as moments of affectively intense rupture for trans children, moments that shunt the violence of the disciplinary framework of gender into view. Informed by theorizing on gender norms and affect, this paper makes visible the cruel conundrum of navigating a gender frame that acts violently but at the same provides the very terms through which trans identities can be asserted and apprehended. Ultimately, this paper provides an empirical illustration of the messiness of gender and argues for the necessity to complicate the framework of gender in primary schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the emotional responses towards research assessment reflect both social position and strategy in the struggle for scientific authority. This is examined through interviews with humanities researchers conducted as a part of a study on the implications for research practice of the Danish Bibliometric Research Indicator (BFI). Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of practice and Scheer and Matthäus' conceptualisation of the affective habitus and emotional practices, our research suggests that emotions can be conceptualized as strategic practices closely tied to the hierarchical position of the researchers. Established researchers deployed emotional practices as a form of resistance against compliance-based research assessment to retain their scientific authority and autonomy, while early-career researchers generally wanted to resist but their precarious positions did not afford them the possibility to do so. The study thus highlights the potential of studying emotions in relation to resistance and reproduction of dominance in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, student assessments of courses are being conducted online as opposed to administered in class. A growing body of research compares response rates and course ratings of courses evaluated online versus on paper. The present study extends this research by comparing student course assessments before and after the University of South Florida made online evaluations mandatory for all courses. This change only directly affected courses taught on-campus, as online courses were already being assessed online. However, we examine the effect of this change on courses taught on-campus and online, because we expect this change in policy to have differential effects. We hypothesise that by making online assessments mandatory for all courses, online assessments went from a novel method of evaluation to the norm; and, therefore, increased response rates for online courses, but had the opposite effect for on-campus courses. We find mixed support for our hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the life and educational histories of sixteen high-achieving, working-class girls applying to high-tariff universities, this paper rekindles debates about the role of agency within the decision-making process of young people who might not otherwise be expected to apply to such institutions. It draws on Margaret Archer's theorising to tease out the interplay between structure and agency in the form of reflexivity and show how this shapes the girls' educational trajectories, rather than pre-determining them. The paper highlights how social class powerfully influences working-class applicants' university plans, in the form of constraints and enablements, but also argues that the girls in this paper are not simply passive young women to whom things happen. As active agents, they are instead becoming increasingly skilled in reflexively navigating their own pathways through education and advance their applications to high-tariff universities in strategic and deliberative ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the tension between professional and liberal education by revisiting The Idea of the University (1852), the seminal mid-nineteenth century treatise of John Henry Newman. In returning to Newman's classic text, we are interested in the significance of his lectures for a contemporary Higher Education increasingly under pressure to be 'useful:' on this understanding, 'useful' denotes an arguably limited and utilitarian sense where the university guarantees its students a well-paying job on graduation. In pressing on this distinction between 'the useful' and 'the useless' – a distinction that continues to plague discourse on the contemporary university – our paper focuses on the experiential and pedagogical aspects of education that find recurring emphasis in Newman's classic work: aspects of place, of community, and of the teacher–student relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper examines the successes and challenges of a Supplemental Instruction/Peer Assisted Learning (SI/PAL) scheme at an Irish Higher Education Institute that was the outcome of a co-working approach between academic staff and the Students' Union. It considers how novel approaches can enhance student experience, support student learning and develop inter-disciplinary skills. The paper reviews three years of data, including student surveys, result outcomes, attendance data and input from representatives of the programme to evaluate the success of this SI initiative. The paper also provides recommendations for other Higher Education institutions seeking to provide, and sustain, Supplemental Instruction within a resource-limited environment through collaborative approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the viva being an essential component of all PhD and other doctoral qualifications in UK universities, there is little research into their accessibility for autistic students, or the process of adjusting them to individual students' needs. Autistic student voices about the viva are almost completely absent from the literature. This paper is the first to employ a collaborative, ethnographical case study to explore the doctoral viva voce experience of an autistic student, directly from their perspective and from the perspectives of non-autistic academics central to the process. The experiences we share highlight the limitations of 'reasonable accommodation' plans, if they offer only generic support based on a diagnostic label, rather than taking account of the individual needs, and the importance of recognising the unique role that the viva voce holds within doctoral studies. We present a 'reasonable accommodations' discussion document, to facilitate autistic student-centred discussions and ensure the viva process is fair and accessible. We further assert that accommodations should be formally noted within the examination report as to their use and impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to unpack policy evaluation and measurement of creating world-class universities in China from an integrated policy analysis. Specifically, an integrated policy analysis of policy evaluation of creating world-class universities concentrated on exploring the world class evaluation index released by the university rankings organization and the scholars' views on the assessment criteria for world-class disciplines. The characteristics of policy evaluation of creating world-class (First-Class) universities included adhering to diversified comprehensive evaluation; clear educational objectives and positioning; taking students as the foundation and cultivate first-class talents and paying attention to scientific research and produce first-class achievements. In the meanwhile, problems existing in the policy evaluation of creating world-class universities were also explored in this study. The suggestion and implications were offered to deepen theoretical research and enhance the practical effect of third-party evaluation and improve the evaluation system for "Double Tops" construction and balance the two characteristics of "Chinese characteristics" and "world-class" and respect the development rules of universities and disciplines and create a systematic ecology of orderly competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant issue in the teaching, learning and summative assessment of practical science is that the underpinning model of scientific methods is based on a fairly simplistic and linear account that does not represent how scientists actually do practical work. In this paper, we examine how science teachers in England and Wales view scientific methods included in teaching and summative assessment of practical science. Following on a survey of 51 secondary teachers' views, we focus on the outcomes of a professional development programme where science teachers were introduced to a framework called Brandon's Matrix that presents a diversity of scientific methods in the context of Project Calibrate. Through in-depth qualitative analysis, we investigated how three teachers engaged with this framework having taught it to their students. The findings illustrate that teachers conceptualise practical science as a mainly hands-on activity, while they express the need for the inclusion of more minds-on skills in the high-stakes assessment of practical science. In addition, the findings show that teachers are quite receptive to adapting new frameworks, such as Brandon's Matrix, for their teaching. Although the teachers did not see a significant departure of the assessment questions from the regular high-stakes tests taken at age 16, they did recognise that there was a valuable element of thinking skills embedded in them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies debating the applicability of conventional human resource management to higher education institutions relating to particular characteristics of academic staff members and their roles have not considered Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan. This research explores challenges to incorporating effective human resource management in Jordanian higher education institutions based on in-depth interviews with 21 academics with experience working in public and private universities in Jordan. Five major challenges were identified: (1) the lack of a comprehensive evaluation system for academics; (2) the negligence of the significant role human resources departments may play; the nature and characteristics of academic institutions themselves; (3) the underdevelopment of human resource management practice in Jordan; (4) the ethos of academic staff members; and (5) the role of wasta (a local variant of nepotism) in influencing various human resource-related decisions. This paper provides unique insights on the successful management of human resources in academic institutions locally, regionally, and possibly internationally, giving due consideration to contextual factors (e.g. national culture) that affect operations. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are presented at the end of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities continue to evolve and adapt to changes brought about by external events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, shifts in government policy, technological advancements, and geopolitics. A significant body of research has focused on negative workplace conditions within universities that contribute to psychosocial hazards. In contrast, this paper reports on the experiences and perceptions of 36 fulltime, continuous, academic staff to explore how they and their colleagues found and/or experienced joy in work set against the backdrop of crisis and change as their universities responded to the impacts of COVID-19. Responses clustered around four key dynamics: joy/student, joy/teaching, joy/research, and joy/colleague. Despite being in work environments characterised largely in negative terms, where agency and voice are constrained, these joys sustained and evoked feelings of purpose, belonging, and connection. This research highlights the need to reconsider how to provide and support healthy work conditions to optimise opportunities for the academic workforce to experience greater joy in their work. The implications for future research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interest in Professional Development (PD) in learning and teaching in Higher Education (HE) has seen an increase in the last few years owing to the evolving role of HE teaching academics in the futures of students and their employment. In Australia, while there is evidence that research in learning and teaching PD is growing, these studies appear sporadic and confined to predetermined disciplinary boundaries. From a practice perspective, the fragmented nature of the literature confounds the issues related to the uptake of learning and teaching PD by academics. It is proposed that a scoping literature review of studies of learning and teaching PD in Australian universities is necessary in identifying attributes within the sector, and will illustrate the gaps in the literature related to professional practice. A typology of the interrelated patterns of the attributes that emerge from the scoping review is presented. This typology has practical implications for both teaching academics and academic developers who respectively engage with and implement PD strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performance assessment is permeating increasingly diverse domains of higher education, even in areas previously perceived to be too complex and idiosyncratic to quantify. The UK's attempts to assess 'research impact' within the Research Excellence Framework (REF) are illustrative of this trend and are being closely monitored by several other countries. A fundamental rationale for employing narrative case studies to assess impact within REF, rather than taking a (less resource intensive) quantified approach, was that this would allow for the variation, complexity and idiosyncrasy inherent in research impact. This paper considers whether this promise of narrative flexibility has been realised, by analysing a combination of REF impact case study reports and interviews and focus group discussions with actors involved in case study production. Informed by this analysis, our central argument is that the very quality which allows narratives to govern is their ability to standardise performance (albeit whilst retaining a degree of flexibility). The paper proposes that REF impact case studies position narratives of impact as technologies of governance in ways that restrict the 'plot line' and belie the far more complex accounts held by those working to achieve research impact. This is partly because, as research impact becomes institutionalised within universities' measurement infrastructures, higher education institutions become impact gatekeepers, filtering out narratives that are deemed overly complex or insufficiently persuasive, while perpetuating particular approaches to recounting tales of impact that are deemed likely to perform well. Crucially, these narratives not only describe impact but actively construct it as an auditable phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumerist views have increased in English higher education. At the same time, the wellbeing of university students is of growing concern. Some research suggests that consumerist views amongst students link to lower wellbeing and achievement. This prompted the current paper which speculates that the concept of autonomy (as depicted in self-determination theory) might provide a useful lens through which to analyse consumerist attitudes in UK higher education and their possible effects on students. Self-determination theory posits that people are fulfilled and have optimal motivation when their basic needs for competence, relatedness and autonomy are met. These three basic needs are complementary. Each could provide a lens for examining the facilitators or barriers to optimal motivation within higher education. This paper focuses on autonomy and explores possible links between a consumerist orientation and student wellbeing and achievement in English universities. Using self-determination theory, autonomy-enhancing ways of framing policy and managing the student experience and teaching and learning are outlined. The concept of autonomy offers a useful framework for potential enhancement of student motivation and wellbeing at policy, institutional and programme levels. Further empirical work could usefully explore and refine the hypotheses advanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Findings from interviews with mid-career academics in English and Australian universities elucidate how academics interpret and navigate complex institutional contexts in shaping academic jobs. The paper argues that how they do this is a function of what they notice and respond to as well as the mode of reflexivity they employ. Three core areas are seen to affect academics sense of agency as they shape their own jobs: how they orient themselves to the world around them including the academic institution and department; their underlying goals and purposes as they seek to have a fulfilling role; and how they relate to structural conditions of the workplace. The paper argues that understanding academics' differing foci of awareness in these areas is helpful to institutional policies and strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst the rapidly evolving Higher Education (HE) landscape, this paper provides a systematic review of Academic Development (AD) work, the roles and responsibilities of Academic Developers (ADs) in HE. Beginning from the perspective that HE institutions, as publicly funded organisations, have responsibility to contribute to the public good, more than 100 peer-reviewed papers (1995-2015) are interrogated under five themes. These are: a review of reviews, technology and AD work, their status and identity, assessment of AD work and impact, and the leadership roles of ADs and their impact on institutional leadership. Critical to the evolution of their work has been a more mainstream and public contribution. Their emerging responsibilities in collaboration with institutional leaders, as 'brokers' and 'bridge-builders' position them more strategically within institutions - with potential to be compromised in terms of their espoused values and dispositions while potentially more influential in shaping the futures of their organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an insight into the use of poster presentations as a means of helping students prepare and develop their arguments for their final project work to be submitted for assessment. The five students, all from a Masters in Social Work course in Gothenburg, Sweden participated in an international conference in Bratislava, Slovakia. The use of poster presentations, understood in this paper from a constructionist theory of education perspective, also created the opportunities for building student’s self-confidence and helping them develop their own academic voice. Furthermore it is argued that this process helped scaffold their knowledge building before the final submission of their course work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A system has been developed for measuring the performance of faculty members at Middle East Technical University (METU) in 1998. This system has been designed to provide feedback for improving the quality of academic work. It involves a separate set of criteria and measures for each college within the university. The criteria used for the College of Engineering include publications, editorial work and translation, professional and other research activities, educational activities, memberships and awards, and other activities. Faculty members are recruited based on these criteria. They report their activities and works annually as required by this system, and they can access their measurement results through the university Intranet. These results play a significant role in promotion of the faculty members. Awards are given to faculty members who demonstrate superior performance. This system has also been utilised to measure the efficiency of engineering departments, and guide and support departments in improving their efficiency. Since the beginning of implementation of this system, significant changes have been observed in preferences and activities of faculty members, and their performance. The paper discusses impact of this system on performance of the Engineering College. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on how people learn to become teachers. It draws on the experiences of student-teachers and tutors at a College of Education in the south of Ghana who engaged with an iterative data-generation process over one academic year. While increasing attention is given to the learning experiences of children in Sub-Saharan Africa, teachers' learning experiences remain under-explored, under-documented and under-theorised. It makes an original contribution to the study of pre-service teacher education by combining a sociocultural lens on learning and becoming with an analytical framework based on the capability approach. This illustrates how student-teachers' freedom to learn is facilitated and constrained by structured and social contexts within a pre-service programme. The paper shows how understanding different perspectives on valued 'beings and doings' of teaching can help re-interpret and re-imagine processes for 'becoming' a teacher, which has practical application at policy and institution level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research that evaluated first year students' transition into university found that the values of 'being, belonging and becoming' were important in particular within the first few months and within the first year of university. From our previous work, we reported that three things matter to students: the academic staff they work with, the nature of their academic study and the feeling of belonging. This paper provides a further illumination to our work by reporting on the qualitative data collected in the same study. The study included 530 students from five cohorts over a five-year period. As part of the Student Experience Evaluation instrument, open-ended questions probed students about their early experiences of belonging and transition into university. This original research uses rich data to illuminate the scales and items from previous quantitative data analysis to explore 'belonging', triangulated with research from the field. This paper is timely due to increased emphasis placed on learning and teaching with the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework. Student satisfaction is not a simplistic measure and this study articulates the complexity of student belonging in Higher Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares Anglo-American and Chinese approaches to the outcomes of higher education, primarily but not solely collective outcomes, by examining the Western domain of 'public good' and 'public goods' and parallel or near parallel activities in China. It reviews scholarly discourses of society, state and higher education in the respective political cultures ('traditions'), including individualism and collectivism, university autonomy, the critical function, higher education in civil society, and global tianxia and global common good. A key issue in symmetrical cross-cultural comparison is the position from which it is made; and as well as elucidating similarities and differences the paper develops what Sen calls a 'trans-positional' view based on integrating the two positional views. The two traditions are not closely aligned. However, aside for the Anglo-American public/private dualism in economics (which occludes collective outcomes), all ideas in both traditions can contribute to transpositional understanding of the individualised and collective outcomes of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers aspects of local academic knowledge generation in Uzbekistan by focusing on the mentor – mentee relations and the 'ustoz' and 'shogird' mindset of supervisees concerning their mentors. By doing so, it analyses how these perceptions may represent the challenge in improving the research quality among young Uzbek faculty members. Drawing on a survey of young university teachers, this study argues that the obstacles are not just policy-related but also cognitive and culture-related. This study uses a Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) to identify metaphors associated with the apprenticeship in Uzbekistan and how these relate to images and expectations of supervisors among supervisees in contemporary Uzbekistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the role of management programmes in students' development of management competences. Data were drawn from supervisors' assessments of the actual achievement of these competences among students on the IQS Undergraduate Programme in Tourism and Hospitality Management. The results over a sample of 121 students show that students develop management competences excellently. Furthermore, mean comparison analyses carried out to explore possible differences in students' achievement of management competences show that students' gender and internship subsector are in some cases significant. These findings indicate that the degree programme's academic curriculum fulfills its core objective of adequately preparing future leaders for management roles in the sector. [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]

This paper adds to the literature on the relationship between procrastination and academic performance. We measure procrastination as the speed with which students do an online math course on the ALEKS learning platform. This pre-admission course is mandatory for students that are weak in math. Using a large dataset of undergraduate students at a Dutch school of economics, we estimate linear probability models for dropout and graduation rates. Controlling for students' background characteristics, we find that procrastination increases dropout rates and decreases graduation rates. The coefficient estimates indicate that the influence of procrastination on dropout and graduation rates is sizable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses and compares the prevalence of plagiarism across different student and assignment characteristics at a university in Vietnam, using the similarity index reported by the text-matching software Turnitin as a proxy measure of plagiarism on a sample of 681 student papers. The findings present a level of match higher than reported in earlier studies at universities outside of Vietnam, with an average similarity index of 29.06%. Controlling for the gender and major of the students, the extent of plagiarism is implied to be negatively correlated with the students’ academic performances and with the likelihood of being caught, and positively correlated with the length of the assignments. Thus, this study, relying on actual text-matching data rather than self-reported surveys, provides the first empirical test of two theoretical plagiarism models proposed in the literature. The explanatory factors confirmed by this study illustrate the potential benefits of the use of software tools to detect plagiarism and can help refine academic integrity policy formulations for universities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses admission decisions when students from different high school tracks apply for admission to university programmes. I derive a criterion that is optimal in the sense that it maximizes the graduation rates of the university programmes. The paper contains an empirical analysis that documents the relevance of theory and illustrates how to apply optimal admission procedures. Indirect gains from optimal admission procedures include the potential for increasing entire cohorts of students' probability of graduating with a higher education degree, thereby increasing the skill level of the work force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inequality in students' degree outcomes has been a concern for the higher education sector and the UK government for more than a decade. Since its inception in 2018, the Office for Students in England has prioritised the need for evidence of causality through requiring institutions to evaluate the effectiveness of their initiatives as set out in Access and Participation Plans. This policy development responds to several reports which identify a dearth of evidence-based interventions and scant knowledge of 'what works'. This paper traces the interplay between policy and research, focusing on the assumptions they make about causality. It concludes that unwarranted positions are taken in both spheres of practice, making progress unlikely. A conception of causality situated in extant formal theory on evidential pluralism and that draws on current practices would help us address inequality more effectively. Alternative framings of the problem of inequality in students' degree outcomes is offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the changing landscapes of higher education, a large body of research has studied how scholars make sense of academic identities and careers. Yet, little is known about how academics actually 'work' on their identities to navigate normative demands and complex career structures. This paper explores how scholars negotiate career scripts trough identity work. Drawing upon 35 interviews with early career academics in political science and history, the analysis discerns four patterns of identity talk through which academic identities are constructed: achievement talk (signalling achievement and competitiveness), authenticity talk (signalling genuineness and being true to self), loyalty talk (signalling loyalty and willingness of helping out), and personation talk (adjustment to privileged identities). Defining what to display and how to correctly embody its corresponding values, these patterns convey different ways in which scholars manage their identities according to the perceived rules of recognition. Identifying several contrasting understandings of what it means to act and to represent worth, the study shows that successful identity management requires a certain feel for the game of recognition. Involving the symbolic struggle of 'fitting in' and 'standing out,' strategies for identity work are shaped by scholars' social class background and gender. In demonstrating how the prevalence of project-based work accentuates the importance of identity performances on academic markets, the findings suggest that the concept of identity labour may open up new avenues of investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies in higher education have attempted to study the impact of quality management practices on organisational innovation processes and outcomes in higher education institutions (HEIs). However, there is relatively limited research examining the impact of multidimensional quality management practices (QM-practices) on academics' innovative behaviour and performance. This paper aims to explore the relationship between QM-practices and academics' innovative work behaviour and examine how innovative behaviour affects academics' innovative work performance. A total of 586 responses were collected from public and private universities with self-accreditation status in Malaysia. The results indicated a significant and positive relationship between Social QM-practices and academics' innovative work behaviour. Also, a significant and positive relationship was found between innovative work behaviour and work performance. However, there is no direct impact between Social and Technical QM-practices on academic work performance. The relationship between Social QM-practices and work performance is indirectly established through innovative work behaviour. The findings signified the importance of innovative work behaviour on academic's work performance and highlighted the indirect impacts of Social QM-practices on innovative performance through innovative work behaviour in Malaysian HEIs. Efforts to improve Social QM-practices especially in promoting leadership for quality management, developing strategic vision, and providing effective educational support, as well as training may facilitate innovative work behaviour and enhance work performance at Malaysian HEIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital footprints (DF) offer relevant information about educational activities and processes related to strategies of academic assessment, identification of skills and psychological traits of students, and permanence and dropout trends, etc. This study analyzes scientific evidence on the use of DF in education, and shows the results of a systematic mapping of literature carried out based on the analysis of documents published in the last fifteen years (2005–2019) in two databases: Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). Findings reveal that educational research on DF is focused on learning analytics, the study of digital presence and psychometric modeling. Likewise, the article reports on the scarce investigation of DF in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) environments and highlights the multiple meanings of DF as an action and as a service, beyond the generalized conception of data. These findings suggest the importance of preparing educational institutions to implement DF use and management practices in order to favor processes that range from DF curation, to cognitive evaluation, digital equity, prediction of school success and/or failure, etc. Hence, DF meanings (data, action and service) could aid to generate proper administration and policy-making actions, placed at the service of all students and their educational communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is currently much interest in the interconnections between research and teaching in Higher Education. This relationship is usually termed 'the research/teaching nexus' (RTN). However, within this wide body of literature, there has been little attempt to explore the emergent experiences of students across the entire length of their degree programme. Drawing on the results of a three-year qualitative study that followed 40 students through their whole student lifecycle, this paper explores how undergraduates in an English university experienced the RTN, how those experiences developed over time, and how these changes can be variously enabled or constrained. Situating the findings in the context of the 'post-truth' society and the uncertainty of employment futures, the paper highlights how the nexus can also often serve to exclude students as much as it includes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we evaluate the extent of the causal effect of parental education on the education of their children. We review this empirical literature and propose a multivariate meta-regression analysis. Our database is composed of a large set of both published and unpublished papers written in the period 2002-2014. The articles considered differ in the data sources, explanatory variables, econometric strategy applied, and the type of publication. In spite of the large heterogeneity of studies and evidence for publication bias, we find a transmission of education from parents to their children that amounts to 0.15. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an international culture of performance-based funding systems for higher education institutions (HEIs), research productivity and output are essential for the ability of HEIs to continue. While many institutions have performance targets for the next performance assessment, few institutions have an operational strategy for how staff are to produce research publications. A transactional and systems approach to academic writing may be helpful in identifying how academics' structures and beliefs influence their writing productivity. This paper aims to provide an overview and analysis, using a transactional and systems approach, of a selection of theory-based writing programmes available for academics. The authors summarise the strengths and weaknesses of each these programmes and demonstrate the gap in academic writing programmes which currently exists, based on the transactional and systems approach. The paper provides recommendations in terms of strategic development to support academic to increase their research and scholarly output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasingly dynamic and complex higher education (HE) environment calls for high levels of boundary-spanning skills from leaders. The importance of boundary spanning is raised by the need for leaders to engage across internal and external boundaries to formulate new strategic responses to a complex set of forces and pressures facing the sector. This paper investigates the salience of boundary spanning leadership (BSL) practices through qualitative research on a group of leaders in one UK HE institution. The paper finds varying evidence for the range of boundary-spanning activities proposed in previous literature and concludes in the present case that leadership achieves the 'managing boundaries' stage of the BSL nexus, but has more limited achievement at the highest 'discovering new frontiers' stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]