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This study examines academic staff's perceptions of a university-wide, top-down curriculum reform in terms of the management of the reform, the support provided by the university's administration, and the utilisation of the university's guidelines. Differences between faculties are also scrutinised. The study was conducted at a multidisciplinary public research university in Finland using the survey method. The data (n = 394) consisted of academic staff's responses to multiple-choice and open-ended questions. Correlation coefficients, exploratory factor analyses, and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were utilised to analyse the quantitative data. Responses to the open-ended questions were analysed using thematic analysis. The academic staff expressed discontent with the management and support provided by the university even though they had proceeded according to the university's guidelines. Significant differences concerning the perceived management and support and reported utilisation of the university's guidelines were found between the personnel of different faculties. The results indicate that a top-down curriculum reform creates conflict between the academics' own ideas regarding curriculum planning and those of the senior management and university administration.

Current global drivers have challenged higher education and increased institution-wide top-down managed reforms, including curriculum reforms. As academics are vital in curriculum development, listening to their voices is essential for understanding actors' experiences of curriculum change processes in top-down managed reforms. The present study examined spectrum and qualitative differences in academics' experiences by analysing seven group interviews (n = 35). Using phenomenographic analysis, four different ways of experiencing the curriculum reform process were identified: (1) stilted adoption, (2) conciliation, (3) active development and (4) collaborative renewal. The categories differed according to six dimensions of variation. The study shows that top-down managed and supported curriculum change was rather well accepted by the academic staff, but several features in the function of the university administration aroused criticism and resistance among academics. By revealing the critical aspects of the curriculum development process, the study provides both a theory of curriculum development from the participants' point of view and conceptual tools for the management and guidance of curriculum reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work in academia is changing, and research suggests that not all the changes are desirable. Higher education is developing in a direction heavily criticized, especially in relation to the concepts of neoliberal and academic capitalism. In this article, we explore meaningful work in a university context. Our focus lies on individual lecturers' positive opportunities to make work meaningful and the university a better place to work for both students and faculty. We examine meaningful work as a relational phenomenon: how meaningfulness is constructed through features such as dialogue, expertise, interaction and sharing of ideas. Our empirical findings are based on analysis of qualitative and quantitative data collected in a business school management course deliberately developed to promote cooperation, interaction and shared learning as central tenets of meaningful work. Both faculty members' and students' perspectives on meaningful work are discussed.

Previous research has identified a well-established link between teachers' beliefs and the practical implications of technology-enhanced learning (TEL). Until recently, there have been few studies of teachers' beliefs regarding their own role as developers of TEL in higher education. In this study, 18 university teachers' reflective writings on their role as developers of TEL were analyzed. All the teachers had developed their teaching methods for the instructional use of information and communication technologies (ICT). The findings of qualitative thematic analysis indicated four divergent teachers' roles: (1) active developers, (2) adaptive developers, (3) cautious developers, and (4) reluctant developers. These findings can be used to train teachers in educational change.

This article examines how Finnish universities and other higher education institutes have responded to the challenges posed by rapid changes in the world of work and societies all over Europe, particularly with reference to the development of generic skills. The data were collected by means of individual and group interviews at three Finnish higher education institutes, including two universities and one university of applied sciences. The interviews involved 63 persons in charge of management, development and teaching at these institutes. As a result of the qualitative data analysis, we distinguished four models to represent the development of generic skills, which we named (1) Specialist Model, (2) Science-based Renewal Model, (3) Project-based Integrative Model, and (4) Model of Networked Culture. These models serve as analytical tools that help higher education institutes to examine their existing practices and to develop new ones.

This study examines university teachers' beliefs about the role of technology in achieving the pedagogical aims of learning within teaching development initiatives at a Finnish university. The initiatives targeted technology adoption in teaching and learning and were enhanced within teacher groups, with support from a university-level network program. Thematic interviews were conducted with the members of 11 initiative groups, covering 18 teachers from various disciplines. The qualitative content analysis revealed diverse belief groups. Technology was perceived as a tool for the promotion of self-paced studying without explicit learning aims; for active and interactive learning; for integrative learning with continuous assessment; and for meaningful learning. The study highlights the need for a more systematic explication of teacher beliefs and the acknowledgment of alternative ways of thinking in teacher developmental programs.

Fostering agency as a core component of professionalism is seen as a critical task of higher education. However, the tools for assessing university students' agency, and the pedagogical and relational resources needed for its development, are lacking. The present study describes the theoretical foundations and factor structure of the newly developed Agency of University Students (AUS) Scale, which assesses students' course-specific agency. In the factor analysis, 10 factors emerged. Four of these--Interest and motivation, Self-efficacy, Competence beliefs and Participation activity--are seen to represent individual resources of agency. The other four factors--Equal treatment, Teacher support, Peer support and Trust--represent relational sources of agency. Finally, Opportunities to influence and Opportunities to make choices represent contextual sources of agency. The psychometric properties and uses of the scale are discussed.

Higher education calls for reform, but deeper knowledge about the prerequisites for teaching development and pedagogical change is missing. In this study, 51 university teachers' experiences of supportive or constraining factors in teaching development were investigated in the context of Finland's multidisciplinary network. The findings reveal that the supportive factors in teaching development arise from the nature of the development itself, i.e. from the teachers' opportunities to act as active agents in an authentic development process. Furthermore, the circumstances of the development also play essential roles (both constraining and supportive) in teaching development. Such support, at its best, will come when teachers and others view teaching development in the university context as being valuable and rewarding, and when teachers are encouraged by management and are supplemented with the necessary equipment, tools, and networks they need to do their job. Increasing interaction between the institutional levels can make educational development successful.

The use of seamless learning environments that have the potential to support lifelong learning anytime and anywhere has become a reality. In this sense, many educational institutions have started to consider introducing seamless learning environments into their programs. The aim of this study is to analyze how various educational university programs implement the design elements for seamless learning environments with mobile devices. For that purpose, three cases involved in a Finnish teaching development project are explored by conducting semi-structured interviews with key participants. The themes of the interviews were related to the theoretical background for (mobile) seamless learning environments from previous literature. This paper describes the findings of the three cases as common aspects for designing mobile, seamless learning environments; and it proposes a research agenda on challenges related to designing seamless learning environments with the integrated use of mobile devices in the curricula.

The high value accorded to the research-based development of education in higher education communities means that researchers in the field have an important role in determining the foci of such efforts. However, it is important to ask whether higher education research is providing answers that satisfy practical educational needs. In this study, themes in higher education research published in Finland during 2000-2008 were compared to those addressed in non-refereed writings published by higher education teachers and students. The thematic analyses, (n = 1,298) focusing on topics related to learning, studying, and their promotion revealed the need for a broader life-wide framework for developing student-centred pedagogy and guidance practices in higher education.

The pervasiveness of technical systems in our lives calls for a broad understanding of the interaction between humans and technology. Affinity for technology interaction (ATI) scale measures the tendency of a person to actively engage or to avoid interaction with technological systems, including both software and physical devices. This research presents a psychometric analysis of a Finnish version of the ATI scale. The data consisted of 796 responses of students in a Finnish university. The data were analyzed utilizing factor analysis and both nonparametric and parametric item response theory. The Finnish version of the ATI scale proved to be essentially unidimensional, showing high reliability estimates, and forming a strong Mokken scale. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that men had a slightly higher affinity for technology than women when controlling for age and field of study; however the effect size was small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel approach and a method of learning analytics to study student agency in higher education. Agency is a concept that holistically depicts important constituents of intentional, purposeful, and meaningful learning. Within workplace learning research, agency is seen at the core of expertise. However, in the higher education field, agency is an empirically less studied phenomenon with also lacking coherent conceptual base. Furthermore, tools for students and teachers need to be developed to support learners in their agency construction. We study student agency as a multidimensional phenomenon centring on student-experienced resources of their agency. We call the analytics process developed here student agency analytics, referring to the application of learning analytics methods for data on student agency collected using a validated instrument. The data are analysed with unsupervised and supervised methods. The whole analytics process will be automated using microservice architecture. We provide empirical characterisations of student-perceived agency resources by applying the analytics process in two university courses. Finally, we discuss the possibilities of using agency analytics in supporting students to recognise their resources for agentic learning and consider contributions of agency analytics to improve academic advising and teachers' pedagogical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work in academia is changing, and research suggests that not all the changes are desirable. Higher education is developing in a direction heavily criticized, especially in relation to the concepts of neoliberal and academic capitalism. In this article, we explore meaningful work in a university context. Our focus lies on individual lecturers' positive opportunities to make work meaningful and the university a better place to work for both students and faculty. We examine meaningful work as a relational phenomenon: how meaningfulness is constructed through features such as dialogue, expertise, interaction and sharing of ideas. Our empirical findings are based on analysis of qualitative and quantitative data collected in a business school management course deliberately developed to promote cooperation, interaction and shared learning as central tenets of meaningful work. Both faculty members' and students' perspectives on meaningful work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Finnish universities and other higher education institutes have responded to the challenges posed by rapid changes in the world of work and societies all over Europe, particularly with reference to the development of generic skills. The data were collected by means of individual and group interviews at three Finnish higher education institutes, including two universities and one university of applied sciences. The interviews involved 63 persons in charge of management, development and teaching at these institutes. As a result of the qualitative data analysis, we distinguished four models to represent the development of generic skills, which we named (1) Specialist Model, (2) Science-based Renewal Model, (3) Project-based Integrative Model, and (4) Model of Networked Culture. These models serve as analytical tools that help higher education institutes to examine their existing practices and to develop new ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fostering agency as a core component of professionalism is seen as a critical task of higher education. However, the tools for assessing university students’ agency, and the pedagogical and relational resources needed for its development, are lacking. The present study describes the theoretical foundations and factor structure of the newly developed Agency of University Students (AUS) Scale, which assesses students’ course-specific agency. In the factor analysis, 10 factors emerged. Four of these – Interest and motivation, Self-efficacy, Competence beliefs and Participation activity – are seen to represent individual resources of agency. The other four factors – Equal treatment, Teacher support, Peer support and Trust – represent relational sources of agency. Finally, Opportunities to influence and Opportunities to make choices represent contextual sources of agency. The psychometric properties and uses of the scale are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]