Challenging Performative Fabrication: Seeking authenticity in academic development practice

While extensive discussion has been devoted to internationalising the curriculum in a response to the presence of international students, little is known about how academic staff members perceive the presence of this student cohort. Using data collected through semi‐structured interviews with 80 academic staff from four different faculties in one higher education institution, this study investigates staff understanding regarding international students, with particular attention given to how disciplinary differences shape their responses. Findings indicate that staff from ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ disciplines hold different instructional beliefs, which then affect their teaching and learning practice. Discussions are provided on how these differing conceptions of teaching fit into the context of academic development with respect to international education.     

Measuring the Effectiveness of City and State Takeover as a School Reform Strategy

Social cohesion is understood as the social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from connections among individuals. When students attend higher education institutions, they go through a process of socialization, and it is vital to ensure that they acquire the core values that underpin the social cohesion. This article presents a preliminary understanding of how higher education institutions can influence social cohesion through curriculum content and the culture of their institutions, through fairness to students and faculty, and through procedures available for effective adjudication to members of the school community in order to achieve a consensus over what and how to teach. This article also presents a view on the role of higher education institutions in promoting social cohesion in local communities.     

Stigmatised learners: mature-age students negotiating university culture

Research on the socially-situated nature of learning shows how practices and identities are affected by participation in communities, but very little is known about how mature-age students experience the relational dynamics of university. Based on data from a qualitative study of first-year students, we consider written accounts by older learners to examine how they negotiate the culture of higher education. We found that mature-age students encounter a university culture dominated by younger students, who draw separating boundaries between the social and the academic and stigmatise older students because of their academic practices. Drawing on Lave and Wenger’s learning theory, we examine the way mature-age students negotiate the process of becoming legitimate members of the learning community, and the resistance they face in doing so. Knowing how mature-age students learn, and how to support them, depends on examining their negotiation of university culture, as well as their differing aspirations and needs.     

‘I am happy just doing the work …’ Commuter student engagement in the wider higher education experience

This paper reports on a large qualitative study with commuter students in England. Research on student success identifies the importance of engagement in academic and non‐academic aspects of the student experience; in this paper student engagement is segmented into academic, enhancement and social spheres. Commuter students, who often incorporate a range of equity characteristics, aim to achieve good degree and employment outcomes, and prioritise academic engagement. But commuting tempers their face‐to‐face academic engagement as they make trade‐offs between the costs of travelling and the value of the academic encounter. Engagement in enhancement and social activities is limited and is seen by many as an extraneous aspect of the higher education experience. This lack of engagement can be understood through the employment of notions of economic, cultural and social capital, and these insights inform the recommendations for higher education providers to improve the engagement and outcomes of non‐traditional students in higher education.     

Age is more than just a number! The role of age and maturity in the processes leading to early school leaving in Flanders (Belgium)

In many educational systems, age is used as a criterion to organise education. Children's age is used to group students together and indicate entry into particular programmes. The use of age for organisational purposes in education stems from the idea that age provides an indication of the development of children, which is associated with teaching and learning. However, more far‐reaching consequences of age‐related educational practices are insufficiently recognised in policy and academic research. Qualitative methods are used to study students and school personnel in diverse types of educational institutions in Flanders (Belgium) to assess how age and age‐related issues matter for the students’ educational trajectories and educational decision‐making processes leading to early school leaving. Data analyses reveal that school staff members consider age and perceived maturity during evaluation procedures. Students also consider age during educational decision‐making processes: when getting older or being too old for the grade, students increasingly weigh the costs and benefits associated with getting an educational qualification and being enrolled in school and alternative opportunities. Students’ expectations related to age shape their school experiences and feelings of belonging. The findings of this study demonstrate how these educational practices add to the reproduction of inequalities through education. These results could inform debates concerning the evaluation procedures in secondary education, compulsory education and the reduction of early school leaving in Europe.     

The Experiences of Students with Mobility Disabilities in Cypriot Higher Education Institutions: Listening to their voices

This article explores the experiences of students with mobility disabilities in Cypriot higher education institutions. In order to obtain relevant information, in‐depth semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 10 Cypriot students with different forms of mobility disabilities, who attended different Cypriot higher education institutions and a variety of courses. This study yielded interesting results in terms of provision (e.g., accommodation for examinations and assignments, note‐taking services, tutorials, counselling services) as well as lecturers’ and students’ attitudes towards disability, raising interesting issues of social inclusion and rights. The quality of their experiences was affected by physical access, provision availability, positive responses by fellow students without disabilities, and the level of awareness among the members of the academic staff or the rest of the staff (e.g., cleaners, administrative officers, and accommodation staff). The findings of this study have implications at an institutional level for rethinking and refining policy and practice on disability.     

Non‐Career Teachers in the Design Studio: Economics,Pedagogy and Teacher Development

As the economic pressure to teach more students with fewer (and less costly) instructors has increased in higher education, the utilisation of non‐career teachers has become more prevalent. Design education has not escaped this phenomenon; non‐career teachers, such as graduate and undergraduate students or design practitioners, have become commonplace in design education, including the design studio. The studio, however, is a unique teaching and learning environment in higher education. It poses distinct socio‐academic challenges for both students and teachers. The utilisation of non‐career teachers in studios raises a number of ethical and pedagogical questions. Teacher development is one serious concern. Here, the authors articulate the major challenges confronted by non‐career studio teachers, especially student teaching assistants, and strategies for their development.     

‘Fitting in’ or ‘standing out’: Working‐class students in UK higher education

Drawing on case studies of 27 working‐class students across four UK higher education institutions, this article attempts to develop a multilayered, sociological understanding of student identities that draws together social and academic aspects. Working with a concept of student identity that combines the more specific notion of learner identity with more general understandings of how students are positioned in relation to their discipline, their peer group and the wider university, the article examines the influence of widely differing academic places and spaces on student identities. Differences between institutions are conceptualised in terms of institutional habitus, and the article explores how the four different institutional habituses result in a range of experiences of fitting in and standing out in higher education. For some this involves combining a sense of belonging in both middle‐class higher education and working‐class homes, while others only partially absorb a sense of themselves as students.     

The challenge of Improving Teaching in a Globalizing World

The USA has served as a beacon of hope for thousands of foreign students and academics with its diverse and superior opportunities created by a system of meritocracy unparalleled in the world. In keeping with other industries, academia is increasingly becoming a global village and foreign‐born professors constitute a large proportion of university faculties. As higher education is increasingly accessible to students with varying levels of academic preparedness, faculties have become more aware of the importance of the opinions of students – the system’s consumers – on teaching. Bearing in mind the ‘similarity‐attraction paradigm’, this study sought to examine whether teaching evaluations are affected by cultural similarity or difference between students and instructors. Our data are based on teaching ratings from the largest Israeli public college. The analysis relates to 42,874 teaching ratings of 768 instructors, of whom 602 are Israeli‐born and 166 are immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU). The findings indicate that FSU immigrant students awarded higher evaluations to FSU immigrant faculty members than their native‐born peers. Similarly, Israeli‐born students awarded higher evaluations to Israeli‐born faculty than the FSU immigrant students. We conclude by discussing the educational and managerial implications of these findings for higher education institutions with ethnically diverse faculty and students.     

A new look at big history

As the education for citizenship agenda continues to impact on schools in the UK and with the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) in conjunction with the Scottish Government introducing its Lessons From Auschwitz (LFA) project for students and teachers in Scotland, this article focuses on the Scottish context and investigates the school processes by which students are chosen to participate in the LFA project, the impact the LFA project has on student personal growth, and the range of follow‐up activities in their schools and communities. The methodology employed online questionnaires and face‐to‐face interviews which were designed to ascertain student perceptions of the LFA project and the impact that this project had on student participants, their schools, and their communities. Findings demonstrate that the student cohort were highly academic students who took their responsibilities on return to their schools very seriously and organized a wide range of events, both in their schools and in their communities. There was clear evidence that the LFA project had led to extra teaching and awareness of the Holocaust, racism, and human rights; and that students’ citizenship values had been enhanced.     

‘The degree is not enough’: students’ perceptions of the role of higher education credentials for graduate work and employability

The UK Government is calling upon higher education students to see their learning as an investment that will give them direct benefits in the labour market. At the same time, the relationship between educational credentials and their returns in labour market has been changing in recent times. Based on a qualitative study with 53 final‐year undergraduate students in a pre‐1992 university, this article examines the way higher education students understand the role of their educational credentials in relation to their future employability. It shows that students perceive their academic qualifications as having a declining role in shaping their employment outcomes in what is perceived to be a congested and competitive graduate labour market. While academic credentials are still seen as a significant dimension of their employability, students increasingly see the need to add value to them in order to gain an advantage in the labour market.     

Using collaboration to foster academic integrity

Abstract

For students new to higher education, the task of developing their academic writing skills, and particularly the principles and practices of source-referencing, can be daunting. Although institutions and teachers can and do provide positive guidance on this score, all too often students veer into inadvertent plagiarism through lack of confidence and confusion. This case study identifies opportunities through collaborative work to help students approach referencing with greater clarity and confidence. A project with first-year Arts students engaged in collaborative writing encouraged them to attend to their recording and writing-up of source references using individual ‘reading and referencing’ logs and then passing on completed references to their group’s designated bibliographer. Checks on later, solo, assignments by these students indicated that they were less likely to stray into inadvertent plagiarism, whilst feedback from the students themselves pointed towards improved confidence in their academic writing skills and development of study habits conducive to effective self-monitoring.     

Stories from school: dyslexia and learners' voices on factors impacting on achievement

Students with dyslexia often experience low self‐esteem and, linked with this, low academic achievement. Our research, commissioned by the Higher Education Academy, was carried out by academics in two universities, one in the south‐west of England and one in the north‐west, over 2009–2010. It set out to address ‘transitions and questions of “access” to higher education for students with identified disabilities’. While we accessed interesting material in this area we were also impressed by the wealth of material provided by our respondents with dyslexia on their school experiences, in particular factors that had impacted on their self‐esteem and academic achievement. Thus this article, while not an intended outcome from our work on matters of transition to higher education, emerges as a story telling a rich and illuminating tale of student success and failure and lifting the curtain on factors impacting on self‐esteem and academic achievement for students with dyslexia at school.     

Friends,peers and higher education

Theorists of friendship in contemporary society have suggested that our relationships with peers are characterised by their emphasis on openness, disclosure and emotional communication. Moreover, Beck and Beck‐Gernsheim argue that friendship, as a deliberately sought, trusting partnership between two people, can play an important role in countering some of the negative consequences of a market‐driven society, ‘acting as a shared lifeline to take the weight of each other’s confusions and weaknesses’. However, drawing on a series of in‐depth interviews with students from nine different higher education institutions, this paper will argue that such theorists overlook significant complexity in the ways in which young adults choose to ‘order’ their friendships. Indeed, it will suggest that highly individualised and ruthlessly competitive approaches to academic study can be maintained alongside more socially cooperative relationships with friends and peers, played out in non‐academic arenas. The paper will discuss the implications of this for both sociological theorising about friendship, and policy and practice within the higher education sector.     

Student engagement with feedback and attainment: the role of academic self-efficacy

Abstract

Academic self-efficacy, the belief that one can achieve desired academic goals plays an important role in learning. This study aimed to determine the extent to which academic self-efficacy mediates relationships between students’ perceptions of feedback and their academic attainment. An opportunity sample of 232 students (123 female) in their first year of higher education reported their academic self-efficacy and evaluated their assessment experience, including the perceived quantity and quality of feedback and the extent to which this feedback elicited an active response. Positive associations were observed between academic attainment and students’ confidence that they could achieve their desired grades and adopt appropriate study behaviours. A negative association was identified between attainment and confidence to talk about their studies. Attainment was not related to the perceived quantity or quality of feedback, but did bear a significant association with the reported use to which feedback was put. Positive associations were generally identified between academic self-efficacy and perceptions of feedback. Path models revealed that inter-relationships were best represented by a model wherein academic self-efficacy mediated links between students’ perceptions of feedback and academic attainment. The findings highlight the need to incorporate characteristics of the individual into an understanding of student engagement with feedback.     

Goals for Effective Schools: The View from the Field

This paper reports on findings related to the perceptions held by members of school communities with respect to the tasks and role of effective schools. The data are from a study conducted in Melbourne, Australia in 1990‐91. Findings from this research indicate that members of school communities: principals, teachers, school council members, parents and students believe that the tasks of an effective school are more than those related to the academic program and include the development of citizenship and self concept, personal development and employment skills and a concern for the educational development of all members of the school community.     

An Examination of College Students' Problem‐Solving Self‐Efficacy,Academic Self‐Efficacy,Motivation, Test Performance,and Expected Grade in Introductory‐Level Economics Courses

This study investigated whether self‐efficacy influenced students’ educational outcomes in introductory‐level economics courses. First, this study investigated the correlations between problem‐solving self‐efficacy, academic self‐efficacy, and motivation. Second, this study investigated whether problem‐solving and academic self‐efficacy served as predictors of students’ motivation, test performance, and expected grade. Correlational analyses suggest that problem‐solving and academic self‐efficacy are correlated with student motivation. Results show that problem‐solving self‐efficacy was a predictor of student motivation and test performance. Academic self‐efficacy and problem‐solving self‐efficacy were also predictors of their expected grade. Implications and future directions for economics education are also discussed.     

Easing the transition of first year undergraduates through an immersive induction module

Entry into higher education (HE) is recognised as a challenging time for undergraduates as they negotiate the norms and practices of new academic communities and foster relationships with peers and academics. Given the significance of this time period, our University has piloted a new four-week module that immerses students in their discipline and provides them with the academic skills and networks to support them through this period and beyond. Here we report a comprehensive evaluation examining academic and student experience of this immersive module. We explore its impact on essential aspects of the transition experience e.g. social integration, academic literacies and the sense of preparation for HE. Whilst this new approach did have positive impacts on students’ sense of integration, questions were raised around the extent to which it matched or even raised expectations, and the extent to which this prepared students for the rest of their studies.     

Amerikanische „Elitehochschulen“

The system of higher education in the USA comprises the undergraduate programs of the colleges and the graduate programs in research universities. This distinction has no equivalent in Germany. The idea of elite education is connected exclusively with the colleges. Its meaning and functions are demonstrated with an analysis of the criteria which are used for the ranking of higher education institutions. The ranking of the colleges is addressed to the students and is based on indicators, which give expression above all to the educational priorities of the students and the alumni. The ranking of the graduate programs focuses on specific academic programs and is addressed to the members of the various academic fields and to their prospective students. A few rankings cover whole educational institutions and serve to inform the higher educational management. We use these data to identity the specifics of outstanding research universities and their role in American higher education.     

Provision of public educational services and access to higher education among the Negev Bedouin Arabs in Israel

This paper deals with the provision of educational services and access to higher education of the Negev Bedouin Arabs in Israel, in the context of the social change this community is undergoing. The Negev Bedouin have been transformed from semi‐nomads and agriculturists to urban town dwellers. Education in general, and higher education in particular, are crucial to their adjustment and development. As members of the Arab minority in Israel, they face a number of inequities in the provision of educational services, access to higher education and access to job opportunities. The Negev Bedouin schools face additional problems related to the lack of qualified teachers and proper facilities. These schools have the highest drop‐out rates and the poorest success rates on the matriculation exams in the country. As of the 1993‐94 academic year, there were only 135 Bedouin Arab university graduates and 163 university students. Their higher education ratio is 2 per 1000, which is far below the Israeli national average of 80 per 1000. Recommendations are offered for improving the access of Negev Bedouin Arabs to higher education and their subsequent absorption into the Israeli labour market.