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The article focuses on the use of the question and comment paper (QCP) in higher education in the U.S. to achieve feedback. QCP is a short informal report that develops the questioning, writing, and research abilities of students. The author says that the benefits of a QCP include providing a feedback loop between the student and the teacher and offering an avenue for shy students to ask questions. It is important that a QCP be returned immediately in order to provide for more effective feedback.

In this paper, we theorize the intersectional gendered impacts of COVID‐19 on faculty labor, with a particular focus on how institutions of higher education in the United States evaluate faculty labor amidst the COVID‐19 transition and beyond. The pandemic has disrupted faculty research, teaching, and service in differential ways, having larger impacts on women faculty, faculty of color, and caregiving faculty in ways that further reflect the intersections of these groups. Universities have had to reconsider how evaluation occurs, given the impact of these disruptions on faculty careers. Through a case study of university pandemic responses in the United States, we summarize key components of how colleges and universities shifted evaluations of faculty labor in response to COVID‐19, including suspending teaching evaluations, implementing tenure delays, and allowing for impact statements in faculty reviews. While most institutional responses recenter neoliberal principles of the ideal academic worker that is both gendered and racialized, a few universities have taken more innovative approaches to better attend to equity concerns. We conclude by suggesting a recalibration of the faculty evaluation system – one that maintains systematic faculty reviews and allows for academic freedom, but requires universities to take a more contextualized approach to evaluation in ways that center equity and inclusion for women faculty and faculty of color for the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As universities around the world have begun to use learning management systems (LMSs), more learning data have become available to gain deeper insights into students' learning processes and make data‐driven decisions to improve student learning. With the availability of rich data extracted from the LMS, researchers have turned much of their attention to learning analytics (LA) applications using educational data mining techniques. Numerous LA models have been proposed to predict student achievement in university courses. To design predictive LA models, researchers often follow a data‐driven approach that prioritizes prediction accuracy while sacrificing theoretical links to learning theory and its pedagogical implications. In this study, we argue that instead of complex variables (e.g., event logs, clickstream data, timestamps of learning activities), data extracted from online formative assessments should be the starting point for building predictive LA models. Using the LMS data from multiple offerings of an asynchronous undergraduate course, we analysed the utility of online formative assessments in predicting students' final course performance. Our findings showed that the features extracted from online formative assessments (e.g., completion, timestamps and scores) served as strong and significant predictors of students' final course performance. Scores from online formative assessments were consistently the strongest predictor of student performance across the three sections of the course. The number of clicks in the LMS and the time difference between first access and due dates of formative assessments were also significant predictors. Overall, our findings emphasize the need for online formative assessments to build predictive LA models informed by theory and learning design. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Higher education institutions often use learning analytics for the early identification of low‐performing students or students at risk of dropping out.Most predictive models in learning analytics rely on immutable student characteristics (e.g., gender, race and socioeconomic status) and complex variables extracted from log data within a learning management system.Prioritizing prediction accuracy without theory orientation often yields "black‐box" models that fail to inform educators on what remedies need to be taken to improve student learning.What this paper adds Predictive models in learning analytics should consider learning theory, pedagogy and learning design to identify key predictors of student learning.Online formative assessments can be a starting point for building predictive models that are not only accurate but also provide educators with actionable insights on how student learning can be improved.Time‐related and score‐related features extracted from online formative assessments are particularly useful for predicting students' course performance.Implications for practice and/or policy This study provides strong evidence for using online formative assessments as the foundation for predictive models in learning analytics.Student data from online formative assessments can help educators provide students with feedback while informing future formative assessment cycles.Higher education institutions should avoid the hype around complex data from learning management systems and instead rely on effective learning tools such as online formative assessments to revolutionize the use of learning analytics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student borrowing is a major higher education public policy issue, with students in both England and the United States increasingly relying on loans to finance postsecondary education. Our paper examines prospective higher education students' attitudes towards debt in England and the United States. It exploits a unique dataset which allows us to compare students' responses to similar surveys conducted in both countries during the same time period. Our study is the first of its kind to explore how students' borrowing attitudes differ across the two countries. It confirms widespread loan aversion among prospective higher education students in both countries. But students in the United States are more debt averse than their peers in England. These debt averse attitudes also predict lower intentions to pursue higher education, potentially exacerbating existing inequalities in access. We consider how these attitudes to borrowing are likely shaped by each country's distinctive student loan system. We conclude that the design of loans matters. England's income‐contingent loan repayments, in contrast to North America's mortgage style repayments, make borrowing less risky and reduce the impact of loan aversion on participation decisions, while borrowing is more common, and the system less complicated, in England. Thus, there are lessons for other countries considering introducing student loans or reforming their provision. We contribute to the extant literature on the determinants of, and socioeconomic differences in, higher education participation and the overlooked role of student debt aversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments in the UK and many other countries have long sought to promote the diversity of their higher education institutions. However, diversity is hard to define, harder to measure and even more difficult to compare between countries. Most empirical analyses of the diversity of higher education systems use categorical variables, which shape the extent of diversity found. This study examines continuous variables of institutions' enrolment size and proportions of postgraduate, fulltime and international students to find the extent of variation amongst doctoral granting and all higher education institutions in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia. The study finds that there is less variety amongst all higher education institutions in the United Kingdom than in Australia, which in turn has much less variety than the United States. The paper argues that the extent of government involvement in higher education is not so important for institutional variety as the form that it takes. More tentatively, the paper suggests that the more limited the range of institutions for which government funding is available the stronger government involvement is needed to have variety among the limited range of institutions for which government financial support is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Fligstein and Mc Adam's (2012, 2011) theory of the strategic action field, or ' SAF,' to highlight the ways in which individuals can act within cultural and material constraints to shape social processes. It applies these concepts to the Mercer University heresy trial of 1939, in which a group of students backed by fundamentalists from the conservative Protestant movement accused members of the University's faculty of unbelief. By understanding the organization, the social movement, and the higher education industry as ' SAFs,' the theory explains how the trial reached its unusual outcome, and suggests implications for broader understandings of organizational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adds to earlier reviews by the author of the changing roles and identities of contemporary professional staff in UK higher education, and builds on a categorisation of professional staff identities as having bounded, cross-boundary and unbounded characteristics. Drawing on a study of 54 professional managers in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, it describes a further category of blended professionals, who have mixed backgrounds and portfolios, comprising elements of both professional and academic activity. The paper goes on to introduce the concept of third space as an emergent territory between academic and professional domains, which is colonised primarily by less bounded forms of professional. The implications of these developments for institutions and for individuals are considered, and some international comparisons drawn. Finally, it is suggested that third space working may be indicative of future trends in professional identities, which may increasingly coalesce with those of academic colleagues who undertake project- and management-oriented roles, so that new forms of third space professional are likely to continue to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Absent from assessments of feminism's influence on the academy and the disciplines is an evaluation of the impact of feminist thought on policy research. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate feminist scholarship's presence in the core policy and higher education journals. The first section of the paper explains why it is important to consider the influence of feminism on the policy literature. This is followed by a discussion of what is meant by feminism in the context of this paper. The third section presents the methodology used in evaluating the literature. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings and implications [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the objectives of engineering ethics? How is it being taught and how might instruction be more effective? The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) annual conference proceedings (1996-1999) contain 42 papers that treat engineering ethics as a coherent educational objective. Some of these papers disclose small components that seem to be part of a larger ethics curriculum. Other papers discuss engineering courses that are clearly the department's major ethics commitment. While it would be inappropriate to assume that the 42 papers represent the only means by which engineering students receive ethics instruction, these papers do present a variety of more-or-less defensible approaches and certainly the major intentional approaches of engineering curricula. This paper will develop an analysis of the 42 articles, including a discussion of where ethics is being taught (from both a chronological, and disciplinary perspective), and the six pedagogical approaches used to transfer an understanding of ethics to the student. These approaches include professional codes, humanist readings, theoretical grounding, ethical heuristics, case studies, and service learning. These six approaches will also be analyzed in terms of their promise to develop the ethical competencies needed by engineers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context There exists a disparity between the views of physicians and the views of their patients on end-of-life decisions. However, the timing of when the end-of-life preferences of physicians and non-medically-trained individuals diverge is currently unknown. The objective of this paper is to characterise how preferences for medical interventions change throughout medical education and residency or fellowship training when confronted with scenarios of critical or terminal illness. Methods This is a single-centre cross-sectional study that enrolled medical students at Sidney Kimmel Medical College and residents and fellows at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Through an online survey we determined the preferences of medical trainees for specific interventions throughout medical training when presented with different clinical scenarios. Interventions were organised into three categories: standard, intermediate and aggressive. We analysed responses to questions regarding different scenarios in separate repeated measures logistic regression models. The probability of declining medical interventions was modelled, and significant predictors of refusal of interventions were identified. Results Years of training was a significant predictor of declining interventions for several scenarios. When faced with permanent physical disability, increased years of training led to a higher rate of refusal of intermediate ( OR = 1.14 [1.02-1.28], p = 0.02) and aggressive interventions ( OR = 1.15 [1.03-1.28], p = 0.01). For the scenario of terminal illness with associated physical disability, years of training significantly influenced refusal of intermediate ( OR = 1.14 [1.04-1.26], p = 0.006) and aggressive ( OR = 1.20 [1.08-1.34], p = 0.001) interventions. For the scenario of permanent cognitive impairment, increased years of training led to a higher rate of refusal of standard ( OR = 1.14 [1.01-1.29], p = 0.03), intermediate ( OR = 1.30 [1.13-1.50], p < 0.001) and aggressive ( OR = 1.38 [1.14-1.66], p = 0.001) interventions. Conclusion Changes in end-of-life preferences occur throughout medical training. Years of training influenced the likelihood of declining medical interventions when faced with scenarios of terminal illness and physical or cognitive disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International students have long comprised an important part of U.S. higher education. However, little is known regarding the factors that encourage students from across the world to enroll in U.S. colleges and universities each year. This paper examines the relationship between international enrollment and the openness of the United States' skilled labor market, currently regulated by the H- 1B program. Gravity regressions reveal that H- 1B visa issuances to a country are positively and significantly related to the number of international students from that country. Causal estimates of the impact of labor market openness are achieved by exploiting a dramatic fall in the H- 1B visa cap in October 2003. Triple difference estimates show that the fall in the cap lowered foreign enrollment by 10%. ( JEL F22, I21, J11) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The understanding of core concepts and processes of science in solving problems is important to successful learning in biology. We have designed and developed a Web-based, self-directed tutorial program, SOLVEIT, that provides various scaffolds (e.g., prompts, expert models, visual guidance) to help college students enhance their skills and abilities in solving problems in science. An initial version of SOLVEIT was used in this study. This paper details the features of SOLVEIT that are contextualized within the biological domains of evolution and ecology. A qualitative case study was conducted to evaluate the usability of the program. Selected students were recruited from an introductory biology course at a large public university in the south-eastern United States. Data for this study were collected through the SOLVEIT database and semi-structured interviews. The findings of this study demonstrate the potential of the program for improving students' problem solving in biology. Suggestions for the use of SOLVEIT and its further improvement and development are discussed, along with suggestions for future research. This study also provides more general guidance for researchers and practitioners who are interested in the design, development and evaluation of Web-based tutorial programs in science education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper examines the effects of state merit-based student aid programs on college attendance and degree completion. Our primary analysis uses microdata from the 2000 United States Census and 2001-2010 American Community Survey to estimate the effects of exposure to merit programs on educational outcomes for 25 states that adopted such programs by 2004. We also utilize administrative data for the University System of Georgia to look more in depth at the effects of exposure to the HOPE Scholarship on degree completion. We find strong consistent evidence that exposure to state merit aid programs have no meaningfully positive effect on college completion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context The accreditation of medical school programmes and the licensing and revalidation (or recertification) of doctors are thought to be important for ensuring the quality of health care. Whereas regulation of the medical profession is mandated in most jurisdictions around the world, the processes by which doctors become licensed, and maintain their licences, are quite varied. With respect to educational programmes, there has been a recent push to expand accreditation activities. Here too, the quality standards on which medical schools are judged can vary from one region to another. Objectives Given the perceived importance placed by the public and other stakeholders on oversight in medicine, both at the medical school and individual practitioner levels, it is important to document and discuss the regulatory practices employed throughout the world. Methods This paper describes current issues in regulation, provides a brief summary of research in the field, and discusses the need for further investigations to better quantify relationships among regulatory activities and improved patient outcomes. Discussion Although there is some evidence to support the value of medical school accreditation, the direct impact of this quality assurance initiative on patient care is not yet known. For both licensure and revalidation, some investigations have linked specific processes to quality indicators; however, additional evaluations should be conducted across the medical education and practice continuum to better elucidate the relationships among regulatory activities and patient outcomes. More importantly, the value of accreditation, licensure and revalidation programmes around the world, including the effectiveness of specific protocols employed in these diverse systems, needs to be better quantified and disseminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the growth of Systems-Centric Systems Engineering (SCSE) graduate programs in the United States and the status of full-time non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) members within these programs. Growth is measured by the number of master's and PhD students who graduated from those programs. The annual production of master's degree graduates has grown by a factor of 5 during the period, increasing from 312 in 2001 to 1535 in 2010. Furthermore, the six largest SE programs accounted for more than half of those graduates. The annual production of PhD degrees has risen as well, though not as dramatically. In spite of such growth, less than 50% of SCSE programs hire NTTF, and, among them, the majority of the programs (65%) have four or fewer NTTF. Only 24% of the total faculty employed by SCSE programs in 2010 are NTTF, and most of them (67%) spend the majority of their time teaching; 65% of the respondents identified industrial experience as the most attractive reason for hiring them. Among SCSE programs that produced a high number of master's degree graduates, the ones that started between 2001 and 2005 employed a higher number of NTTF compared to those that started before 2001. The roles of NTTF are compared to those of tenured and tenure-track faculty (TTTF). This paper concludes with recommendations on how to best use NTTF. ©2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 16 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the conservative critique of higher education in the USA. I argue, first, that the right's call for greater 'intellectual diversity' in American higher education should be understood as an attack on the professional self-regulation and disciplinary autonomy that are central to academic freedom in this country. Second, I suggest that the right's politicization of politics in the academy brings to light the importance of our developing a vision of the university that accounts for rather than disavows the political nature of the work we do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the polarization of the early 21st century political atmosphere in the U.S., intergroup dialogue has emerged as a unique alternative setting, with intentions of facilitating a more productive and thoughtful citizen engagement. Although cross-partisan dialogue efforts are underway in community contexts, they have been slower to reach academic settings. This paper is an exploratory study of our own liberal-conservative dialogue course at the University of Illinois–the first of its kind, to our knowledge. After describing basic features of the course, we identify themes from student journals and final evaluations suggesting both dialogue benefits and challenges. Finally, we discuss the growing literature around dialogue, questions of its long-term impact, and larger potential barriers to participation in liberal-conservative dialogue, specifically. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education is a driving force in improving the health and welfare of communities globally. Doctoral education of nurses has been identified as a critical factor for provision of leadership in practice, scholarship, research, policy and education. Since the genesis of doctoral education in nursing in the USA in the 1930s, this movement has burgeoned to over 273 doctoral programs in over 30 countries globally. The present article seeks to identify the issues and challenges in nursing doctoral education globally, and those encountered by doctoral program graduates in meeting the challenges of contemporary health care systems. Information was derived from a comprehensive literature review. Electronic databases and the Internet, using the Google search engine, were searched using the key words 'doctoral education'; 'nursing'; 'International Network for Doctoral Education in Nursing'; 'global health'; 'international research collaboration'. Doctoral education has been a critical force in developing nurse leaders in education, management, policy and research domains. An absence of consensus in terminology and of accurate minimum data sets precludes comparison and debate across programs. The complexity and dynamism of contemporary globalized communities render significant challenges in the conduct of doctoral programs. Addressing funding issues and faculty shortages are key issues for doctoral programs, especially those in developing countries, to achieve an identity uniquely their own. These challenges can also afford considerable opportunities for discussion, debate and the formulation of innovative and collaborative solutions to advance nursing knowledge and scholarship. In spite of discrete differences between countries and regions, the similarities in the issues facing the development of doctoral programs internationally are more striking than the differences. The harnessing of a global collective to address these issues will likely serve to not only forge the future viability of doctoral education of nurses but to improve the health and well-being of communities. This paper proposes international collaborative strategies to address a number of the challenges identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to 1940, the presence of married undergraduate students on the majority of college and university campuses was an unusual occurrence. Today, married undergraduate students compose approximately 21 percent of the undergraduate population at institutions of higher education in the United States, and it appears very likely that the percentage will increase. This paper reviews over 30 years of research dealing with the adjustment differences of married and single undergraduate students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]