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AbstractIntense competition among universities with its negative consequences has necessitated the investigation of students’ academic experiences as it influences students’ university choices. To bridge this gap, this study seeks to examine students’ satisfaction with their educational experience at two selected universities in Ghana. Utility Maximisation Theory was deployed to guide the study. Relevant research ethics principles were duly observed. We used a cross-sectional survey of 309 students to estimate an ordered probit econometric model as well as cross-tabulation descriptive and graphical analyses. Based on the robustness of the results, we found that male students are quantitatively more satisfied with their academic performance than female students. The results also demonstrate consistent and significant associations between instructional delivery and feedback, and students’ academic satisfaction; there was a positive and statistically significant relationship between enabling conditions and the level of student satisfaction across both males and females; furthermore, the results indicate a positive and statistically significant relationship between learner support systems and the level of students’ satisfaction among both males and females; additionally, females have shown that they demonstrate a quantitatively greater appreciation for instructional delivery and feedback compared to males. Policymakers and educational institutions can better target support and intervention programmes for students with satisfaction scores that are close to the average by identifying these students. It is also suggested that universities focus on and keep improving upon the services and educational facilities they provide, as well as correcting any inefficiencies in the services so as to meet students’ satisfaction.

Urban agriculture (UA) has been adopted as a strategy for food security in urban areas. This study identified the conditions for development of UA through a systematic review of UA case studies. It classified the enabling and constraining conditions within the three compositional elements of UA – necessity, ability, and opportunity – and determined the primary and secondary conditions for UA design by the country income group. The following conditions are required for both high-income and low/ middle-income countries: Motivation/public awareness; labour/human resources; policy and institutional infrastructure; social capital; and arable land and resources for farming. Agricultural education/training and research and technical development are needed for low and middle-income countries as the key secondary conditions. In high-income countries, a lack of farmers’ knowledge and urban development are the main challenges to UA implementation. Therefore, the research findings could be meaningful evidence for making decisions and designing UA policies for sustainable food production.

Urban agriculture (UA) has been adopted as a strategy for food security in urban areas. This study identified the conditions for development of UA through a systematic review of UA case studies. It classified the enabling and constraining conditions within the three compositional elements of UA – necessity, ability, and opportunity – and determined the primary and secondary conditions for UA design by the country income group. The following conditions are required for both high-income and low/ middle-income countries: Motivation/public awareness; labour/human resources; policy and institutional infrastructure; social capital; and arable land and resources for farming. Agricultural education/training and research and technical development are needed for low and middle-income countries as the key secondary conditions. In high-income countries, a lack of farmers' knowledge and urban development are the main challenges to UA implementation. Therefore, the research findings could be meaningful evidence for making decisions and designing UA policies for sustainable food production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of political and policy scientists have utilized institutional theory to explain how the purposeful actions of agents shape and are shaped by structural, institutional, and agential factors. Most current studies, however, have conflated and/or combined the fundamental concepts of structure, institution, and actor, overlooking how their interactions shape policy and institutional outcomes. Furthermore, such research lacks an approach that allows a more comprehensive means to integrate the various dimensions of such interactions. By studying these distinct but interdependent causal factors through an integrative approach, we provide a richer, more comprehensive understanding of contingent conditions, agency, and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-intellectualists claim that knowledge-how requires at least a corresponding ability or performance success that includes non-intellectual components. They argue that an insistence on the close relationship between knowledge-how and performance success is needed to account for our intuitions on the practical aspects of knowledge-how. In this paper, we examine three main anti-intellectualist proposals for what constitutes performance success, those of Hawley (), Noë (), and Kumar (), and argue that all of them are non-informative in a practical manner. We further point out that the problem of non-informativeness is dominant in anti-intellectualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]