Formative assessment: missing in action in both research-intensive and teaching focused universities?

In this study, we analysed survey data from 386 third year undergraduate students on 14 programmes within three UK universities. The universities are characterised as teaching-focused or research-intensive: a ‘plate-glass’ and ‘red-brick’ research-intensive; and a ‘new’ teaching-intensive university. We used the Assessment Experience Questionnaire Version 4.0 (AEQ 4.0), designed to understand students’ perceptions of programme assessment environments. The AEQ contains scales constructed from theories about assessment, feedback and deep learning. We performed exploratory factor analysis on AEQ 4.0 and identified five salient domains: how students learn; quality of feedback; internalisation of standards; student effort; and formative assessment. These domains were compared across the three universities. Formative assessment was the weakest domain in all three university assessment environments, followed closely by students’ internalising standards. Students at the new teaching-focused university had significantly higher scores on scales about deep learning, student effort and the quality of feedback than students in the two research-intensives. Findings show that theories about the virtue of formative assessment have yet to play out in practice; and that the teaching-focused university seemed to be encouraging deeper approaches to learning through its feedback and assessment tasks.     

‘Luring the academic soul’: promoting academic engagement in South African universities

There is widespread pressure that universities should become more responsive and accountable to multiple demands in their local, national and global contexts. Academics grapple to identify appropriate organisational responses to the pressures of state steering and incentive programmes. The empirical focus of the paper is a survey of academics' community engagement activities, mapping their interaction with external partners at five South African universities. The paper addresses a basic question: Who are the academics that engage, and what are their main academic influences? We argue that engagement is more likely to ‘lure the academic soul’ when it is driven by substantive growth in a disciplinary field and enhances reputations. The analysis seeks to identify how disciplinary, institutional and positional attributes are correlated with engaged activities. ‘Luring the academic soul’ through an understanding of the influences on academics' propensity to engage can facilitate more effectively targeted incentives and policies.     

Twenty-first-century headteacher: pedagogue,visionary leader or both?

In recent years the UK secondary educational landscape has witnessed significant change, with the introduction of an ever-extending spectrum of competing government initiatives and policies. This has resulted in the steady erosion of the traditionally recognised role of headteacher. This paper presents the results of a practitioner-based study centred on the professional career journeys of a selected group of senior incumbent headteachers from across Liverpool, United Kingdom. The purpose of the research was to consider key features of difference in the headteacher role over a 30-year period. Five heads were interviewed about how they rose to headship and the influences and events that guided their career choices. Findings include acknowledgement of the requirement for self-directed career development, paucity of skills in preparation for headship, transformation in leadership models and the changing skills, qualities and qualifications required of contemporary and emergent headteachers.     

¡Si,se puede! Achieving academic excellence online

Twenty-first century learners in post-secondary educational environments find themselves involved in online learning. Acquiring graduate degrees, especially for working professionals, has precipitated the need for effective, rigorous, relevant, and timely coursework online. Utilizing the qualitative research method of auto-ethnographic reporting, we explored one individual’s experience acquiring an online doctor of education degree from a research university in the state of Texas. The results indicated three major components: (1) personal: including but not limited to family, work, and cultural responsibilities; (2) coursework: including but not limited to rigor, relevance, requirements, collaboration, and personal contact with instructors; (3) writing of the record of study (ROS): including but not limited to the selection of the dissertation committee, formulation of the research topic, approval of topic, researching, writing, defending, and submitting the ROS. The implications on future program development are discussed, as well as an exploration of normative boundaries associated with online learning.     

Analysis on management of philanthropic endowment in Chinese universities

Philanthropic endowment, along with government allocation, tuition fee and extra income, is one of the four major means for funding higher education in China. Research on philanthropic endowment is at its beginning stage, and so it is not yet well known. With a view to providing some useful information to our government, universities and society, this paper aims at making a brief analysis of the status quo and management of philanthropic endowment in Chinese universities.     

Citizens or cosmopolitans? Nationalism, internationalism, and academic identity in the early American republic

Historically, the changing roles of academics have often been associated with changing relations between scholarship and the state. What functions did the state expect scholars to fulfill? Using a historical–biographical approach, this essay considers the example of early nineteenth-century astronomer Ferdinand Rudolf Hassler, who immigrated to the United States from Switzerland in 1805 and whose contributions to various scientific projects during the next decade (i.e., the final decade of the Napoleonic Wars) revealed a key shift in modern academic identity—a shift from cosmopolitanism to nationalism shaped by the political anxieties and geopolitical uncertainties of his time. Hassler’s involvement with a US coastal survey and the construction of a US national observatory raised doubts about the extent to which a scholar (particularly an immigrant scholar) could be a “cosmopolitan” and a “servant of the state” simultaneously. Hassler, like others of his generation, failed to balance these competing and perhaps fundamentally incompatible roles. His case, together with his own commentary on his experiences, sheds light on similar dilemmas facing so-called global scholars today.     

International experience,universities support and graduate employability – perceptions of Chinese international students studying in UK universities

Recent policy developments in English Higher Education have resulted in employability placed in the spotlight, whereby the success of universities will be measured based on graduate employment. This represents the latest focus placed on employability in the sector, as universities are increasingly expected to provide employment-ready graduates to meet the demands of a global economy. In response universities have invested considerable energy into initiatives and services to enhance the employability outcomes of graduates. However, institutions have largely been UK-centric on their focus, with limited attention paid to the employability needs of international students. In this paper, we report the outcomes of a study centred on the largest group of non-EU domiciled international students in the UK, those from Mainland China. Drawing on survey data we examine Mainland Chinese students’ attitudes to their employability and the support they engage with through their UK University. We pay specific attention to the opportunities presented through the ‘international’ nature of the HE experience, and consider how these are utilised by both the students, and their institutions, to develop their future employability. We conclude by proposing recommendations for universities and institutions to enhance the support offered to this often overlooked, but significant group of students.     

Informal Mentors and Education: Complementary or Compensatory Resources?

Few studies have examined the impact that mentoring (i.e., developing a special relationship with a non-parental adult) has on educational achievement and attainment in the general population. In addition, prior research has yet to clarify the extent to which mentoring relationships reduce inequality by enabling disadvantaged youth to compensate for a lack of social resources or promote inequality by serving as a complementary resource for advantaged youth. Results from a nationally representative sample of youth show (1) a powerful net influence of mentors on the educational success of youth and (2) how social background, parental, peer, and personal resources condition the formation and effectiveness of mentoring relationships. The findings uncover an interesting paradox-that informal mentors may simultaneously represent compensatory and complementary resources. Youth with many resources are more likely than other young people to have mentors, but those with few resources are likely to benefit more from having a mentor-particularly teacher mentors-in their lives.     

The technical baccalaureate: providing excellence in vocational education?

Proposals for a technical baccalaureate have received cross-party support in England. The technical baccalaureate is intended to deliver the necessary training to enable young people to fill the UK’s skills gap in intermediate-level occupations in STEM and other sectors. This paper explores how to design and implement a high-quality technical baccalaureate and identifies some of the challenges that are likely to be encountered. We argue that the curriculum of the technical baccalaureate should aim to strike a balance between providing young people with skills needed to enter specific sectors whilst also providing a component of general academic education to help keep options open. We argue that the assessment needs to be both reliable and valid. We also suggest that hurdles – additional criteria that students must meet (e.g. must pass a maths exam) – to gain the Tech Bacc should be avoided, as should aggregating qualifications together to grade the technical baccalaureate. We conclude by discussing the challenges of implementing the technical baccalaureate, including obtaining the necessary employer engagement and provision of information advice and guidance.     

Constructing the academic category of teacher educator in universities’ recruitment processes in Aotearoa,New Zealand

An examination of recruitment materials and interviews with personnel involved in the employment of teacher educators to positions in university-based New Zealand initial teacher education (ITE) courses reveals three constructions of teacher educator as academic worker: the professional expert, the dually qualified, and the traditional academic. However, this study’s analysis shows how these constructions allow universities to pursue a bifurcated approach for the employment of teacher educators, an approach that maintains binaries within teacher education and hinders development in the field. Furthermore, as the spectre of a major cultural shift in the provision of New Zealand ITE arises, the extent to which the professional expert and traditional academic constructions of teacher educator might serve the scope of work required of postgraduate ITE going forth is questioned.     

Move or perish? Sticky mobilities in the Swiss academic context

Higher Education - This article uses a context of increasing institutional demand to be geographically mobile to examine how early-career researchers move across borders. I explore the case of...     

Investigating academic dishonesty among Chinese undergraduate students: does gender matter?

The high rate of academic dishonesty reported among Chinese college students has created challenges for practitioners in both domestic and Western universities. Following two contrasting yet complementary scholarly approaches, this study explored the relative importance of predictors indicative of students’ intention to cheat (moral attitude, subjective norm and penalty enforcement) and of their educational preparedness for academic integrity (integrity engagement) in explaining academic dishonesty, with an emphasis on gender differences. We administered a questionnaire survey to a sample of 2009 Chinese undergraduate students. The results indicated that moral attitude and integrity engagement were the major predictors, that subjective norm accounted for marginal variations of academic dishonesty, and that the influence of penalty enforcement was insignificant. Some gender differences on both the mean score and effect levels of the four predictors were revealed. The effects of grade, year and area of study on academic dishonesty (and particularly their joint effects with gender) were noteworthy. These findings are discussed relative to the results of prior studies and the Chinese context.