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Purpose: To explore young peoples' motivation for engaging in agricultural education. Autonomous and controlled forms of extrinsic and intrinsic regulation are discussed regarding young peoples' decision to pursue an agricultural education. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative research approach was applied comprising of purposive and snowball sampling for 28 face-to-face, in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Findings: An understanding of the motivational regulations which mobilise young people to engage in agricultural education is provided. This paper sheds light on the psychological processes energising individuals to engage with agricultural education. Practical implications: The research highlights the importance of understanding motivation for engaging in agricultural education, and subsequent impacts on education programmes and educators. Theoretical implications: This paper contributes to pragmatic insights which demonstrate the importance of understanding young peoples' motivation for engaging in agricultural education. The paper builds on previous studies by using S.D.T. as a framework for understanding motivational processes within agricultural education. Originality/value: This paper supports an understanding of the motivational regulations which mobilise young people to engage with agricultural education.

Colleges are important providers of vocational education and training and in some countries they are the major provider. Although the international literature on colleges has grown considerably in the past two decades, it still consists primarily of qualitative descriptions of college sectors in different countries. Quantitative studies of differences in the activity mix of colleges in different countries could improve knowledge of international variation in the roles of colleges and provide a stronger foundation for study of the sources and consequences of variation in college roles. After reviewing different methodological frameworks for comparative analysis of college activity, the research reported here employs one of these frameworks to analyse differences in the activity mix of colleges in five countries. In addition to finding some noteworthy differences among the five countries, the paper also identified several problems of comparability of college data from different countries. The paper concludes that the development of internationally comparable data on colleges would require leadership by international organisations and agencies and is an undertaking well worth pursuing both for the benefits that it could bring to those whom colleges serve and for its contribution to the advancement of comparative study of vocational education and training.

Despite the potential for mutual learning, improvement of service provision, and the advancement of policy, research on first-generation migrant students and research on international students have remained stubbornly separate. This paper makes the case that education research would benefit from leveraging data on international students and that internationalization research and practice should more often include first-generation migrant students. To explore the benefits of this proposition, this article explores differences in the experiences of Irish-born domestic students, first-generation migrant students, and international students at Irish higher education institutions, using Eurostudent VI data collected in 2016. These comparisons show that first-generation migrant students report lower levels of preparation for the domestic labor market than both Irish-born domestic students and international students. International students are faring well on other indicators too, as they report higher levels of academic satisfaction and feeling more prepared for the international labor market than both first-generation migrant students and domestic students. Results also suggest that the academic satisfaction of the three groups of students is shaped by both common as well as divergent factors, indicating that interventions aimed to support each group may require additional tailoring. However, limitations of both quantitative and qualitative approaches to documenting the experiences of international students need to be considered as findings from this study and similar studies are used. By comparing the experiences of the three groups of students, this paper highlights the experience of first-generation migrant students, often overlooked in international higher education studies.

Purpose: Microteaching is a teacher training method based on microclasses (groups of four or five students) and microlessons lasting no more than 5-20 min. Since it was first explored in the late 20th century in experiments at Stanford University, microteaching has evolved at the interdisciplinary level. The purpose of this paper is to examine the networks found via an analytical bibliometric study of the scientific output related with microteaching in teacher training, through a study and examination of the Web of Science database. Design/methodology/approach: This research was conducted with the VOSviewer tool for content analysis through data mining and scientific network structure mapping by means of the normalisation technique. This technique is based on the association strength indicator, which is interpreted as a measurement of the similarity of the units of analysis. Findings: Two hundred and nine articles were thus obtained from the Web of Science database. The networks generated and the connections among the various items, co-authorship and co-citation are presented in the results, which clearly indicates that there are significant authors and institutions in the field of microteaching. The largest cluster is made up of institutions such as Australian Catholic University. The most often-cited document is by Rich and Hannafin. Allen (1968), who defines microteaching as a technique based on microclasses and microlessons, is the author most often cited and has the largest number of connections. Research limitations/implications: This research's limitations concern either aspects that lie beyond the study's possibilities or goals that have proved unattainable. The second perspective, which focuses on skill transfer, contains a lower percentage of documents and therefore has a weaker central documentary structure. Lastly, the authors have also had to bear in mind the fact that the scientific output hinges upon a highly specific realm, the appearance and/or liberalisation of digital technologies and access to those technologies in the late 20th century. Originality/value: This research shows that microteaching is a promising area of research that opens up vast possibilities in higher education teacher training for application in the realm of technologies. This paper could lead to several lines of future research, such as access to and the universal design of learning from the standpoint of different communication and pedagogical models based on microteaching.

Background: Despite the growing diversity among students in higher education, nonprogression to postsecondary education persists for many students with intellectual disabilities with low completion rates for those who do progress. Research suggests that occupational therapy (OT) support can be extremely beneficial in assisting students. Less is known however about the impact of OT in higher education. This study aims to examine the use of OT embedded in a postsecondary programme for students with intellectual disabilities. Methods: This study uses a scoping review of relevant literature and a qualitative analysis of OT working in a higher education programme specifically designed for students with intellectual disabilities in Ireland. Findings: This paper highlights how the OT support within this programme uses a four-fold collaborative approach supporting students, staff, business partners and wider organisational structures in the university. Conclusion: The analysis highlights the opportunities for collaboration between OT and curriculum developers, teaching and ancillary staff and students in higher education along with the significant OT input into work placements and internships with business partner mentors. Challenges in educating stakeholders to understand OT in the higher education environment would suggest a substantial need for further research.

Futures research is gaining increased prominence in educational research and development (Tesar, 2021), and particularly now as we emerge from the global COVID-19 pandemic, which has provided a lever for change and an opportunity for innovation in learning, teaching and assessment (Hall et al., 2020; Jandric et al., 2022; Tesar, 2020). Designing Futures (DF) is an initiative that aims to transform the student learning experience at university, including through promoting student entrepreneurship and enhanced interaction with enterprise, industry and the innovation sector, supported by a national employability policy agenda, and concomitant, significant government funding. Ireland's Higher Education Authority has invested €7.57 m in the DF programme at University of Galway for a period of 5 years, 2020-2025. However, introducing such a programme as DF within higher education raises problematic tensions around the purpose of higher education today, as set amidst the current policy futures perspective. Specifically, how do we balance policy imperatives to work more closely with enterprise and industry, while at the same time protecting the essential role of higher education, which must be to provide a formative context for all students to reach their fullest potential as active citizens? This paper helps to position the concept of student engagement, taking DF as an exemplar initiative, and examining the concept as it is construed and deployed in an innovative, futures-oriented educational programme. This review is critical for DF, to ensure we remain fundamentally focused on education, and not just for the world of work, which is of course important, but beyond enterprise and industry: to ensure students' readiness for the complex and challenging world of today and tomorrow. Furthermore, this constitutes an important contribution to the literature, at a time when the identity of the university and purpose of higher education are the focus of an educationally problematic neoliberal agenda (Mintz, 2021).

In early 2020, Initial Teacher Education providers were forced to reimagine many long-established practices due to pandemic restrictions. One post-primary concurrent Initial Teacher Education programme in the Republic of Ireland responded by conceptualising and developing an initiative to engage pre-service teachers in an authentic assessment task through the preparation of a classroom-based assessment from the perspective of the pupil. They then engaged in peer review and peer feedback on these classroom-based assessments and partook in a Subject Learning and Assessment Review meeting. This required the professional development of assessment literacies on the part of pre-service teachers, as well as disturbing their personal assessment beliefs at a cognitive and affective level. This paper finds that the collaborative assignment experience challenged pre-service teachers' previous conceptions about the purposes of assessment while providing them with insight and preparation for formative assessment processes in use throughout Irish post-primary schools.

In the context of the COVID-19 restrictions and the pivot to online teaching and learning, teacher educators were forced to consider new spaces for School Placement and the assessment of these new sites of practice. This paper explores the process of the redesigning of the assessment of school placement components from the perspective of ten teacher educators across five teacher education programmes in one university. Hybridity theory, 'third space', and figurational sociology allowed us to understand who and what influenced the redesigning of assessment practices. The three themes relating to assessment included: (i) A network of interdependent relationships influencing teacher educators' reimagining of assessment processes; (ii) The influence of external interdependent relationships and context(s); and (iii) The role(s) of assessor for the teacher educator. We explicitly argue for the need to continue to advocate and advance these practices to 'build Initial Teacher Education back better'.

Feedback can be powerful, but its effects are dependent on what students do. There has been intensive research in recent years under the banner of 'feedback literacy' to understand how to help students make the most of feedback. Although there are instruments to measure feedback literacy, they largely measure perceptions and orientations rather than what learners actually do. This paper documents the development and validation of the Feedback Literacy Behaviour Scale (FLBS), which is a self-report instrument intended to measure students' feedback behaviours. A framework for feedback literacy was constructed with five factors: Seek Feedback information (SF), Make Sense of information (MS), Use Feedback information (UF), Provide Feedback information (PF), and Manage Affect (MA). An initial set of 45 questions were reviewed in an iterative process by feedback experts, resulting in 39 questions that were trialled with 350 student participants from four countries. Our final survey of 24 questions was generally supported by confirmatory factor and Rasch analyses, and has acceptable test-retest reliability. The FLBS provides a more robust way for educators and researchers to capture behavioural indicators of feedback literacy and the impact of interventions to improve it.

Despite existing empirical work that explores the multiple ways in which students develop a sense of belonging in higher education, there is a dearth of comparative research about the extent to which the concepts of community and belonging are central to what it means to be a student and how students in different national contexts (beyond Anglophone countries) construct community and belonging. Drawing on qualitative data from students from six European countries, we provide an account of conceptualisations of community and belonging. Specifically, this paper extends discussions around community and belonging in higher education through comparative inquiry. Notwithstanding the individualised and consumerist framing of students accompanied by market reforms in higher education across Europe, it shows that the notion of community and/or belonging features prominently in students' narratives. We also demonstrate how a sense of community and belonging is experienced on different levels. Crucially, the emphasis placed on community in students' sense of belonging varies by the country, pointing towards the continued influence of distinctive national traditions, structures and norms of higher education. Our analysis contributes to wider debates about the development of a European Higher Education Area and its impact on European homogenisation.

Today, higher education (HE) faces new challenges, such as incorporating consideration of diversity and inclusion into its operations. Such challenges, many of which are part of strategic institutional plans, offer teachers an opportunity to introduce new practices in the classroom. In this paper, we look at introducing language students to the task of audio description (AD) -- that is, making visual content available to blind and visually impaired people by verbal means. We first present a framework for evaluating the learning that might derive from such an activity in the context of FL study, and then use this framework to evaluate a sequence of five tasks undertaken with Irish learners of Spanish. The tasks provided opportunities for the students to reflect on the communication needs of blind and visually impaired people and to understand how these could be addressed effectively in AD. The students practised AD in various contexts: both "improvised" or "spontaneous" AD as well as more carefully prepared AD, and undertaking AD in both the L1 (English) and the FL (Spanish). The pedagogic approach investigated here was inherently multidisciplinary and aimed to help learners become self-reflecting agents and mediators in their L1 and FL.

In 2022, a national study titled The DUHEI (Drug Use in Higher Educationin Ireland) was conducted to determine the prevalence and problem of drug use among students in institutes of higher education. The findings of the DUHEI revealed that drug use is prevalent among college students in Ireland, with over half reporting they use or hadused drugs in the past.The study also uncovered a subpopulation of students who have recovered from a previous problem with drug or alcohol use in thepast, known as students in recovery. These students were identifiedas a unique and vulnerable population in need of specific support on college campuses. The authors of the report recommend the establishment of collegiate recovery programs in institutes of higher education in Ireland to support these students in active recovery from addiction. Collegiate recovery programs are well established in the U.S and are emerging in the UK and Canada. This perspective article echoes, and extends upon the DUHEI recommendationto implement CRPs in Ireland, by highlighting the evidence base which demonstrates the efficacy of collegiate recovery programs. Itis important that Irish colleges and Universities follow international best practice by establishing collegiate recovery program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]