Transforming British higher education: A view from across the Atlantic

This article analyzes the major changes in British Higher Education during the past five years: increasing student numbers, mandated government assessment, linking funding to the assessment exercises, the modularized curriculum and the competency movement, and draws comparisons to the United States. The author then studies the impact of these policy changes on a single campus, the University of Leicester, with attention to the consequences of growth, the impact on decision-making, and challenges for staff development.     

The response of higher education to older adults: A federal perspective

This article examines and describes the responses of higher education institutions in meeting the needs of older people. Specifically, the article describes the concern of the Federal Council on the Aging for increased educational offerings for older people at American universities and colleges. It provides an overview of the demographic factors creating a graying society, discusses the challenge that aging presents to higher education, and cites, with examples, steps to be taken by higher education institutions to directly or indirectly benefit older persons.     

Achievement emotions in higher education: A diary study exploring emotions across an assessment event

An increasing number of emotions have been found to affect the way students learn and their academic achievement. However, little is known about how dynamic these achievement emotions (AEs) are, the extent to which they vary with the assessment process, and how they relate to prior academic ability and student achievement outcomes. Our intensive longitudinal diary study with tertiary students (N = 166) examined their AEs across a three week assessment period (study, test and feedback week). Overall, the results indicated that emotions during the study and test week were unrelated to both GPA and test score, but the starting level of emotions during the feedback week were related to GPA and test score. The changeability of emotions were not related to either GPA or test score. Overall, AEs seem to have a meaningful relationship to achievement only once results are known. These findings expand our knowledge about the relationship between AEs, prior academic ability and achievement and how emotions change across an assessment event.     

Moving towards multidimensional evaluation of teaching in higher education: A study across four faculties

The article investigates the issue of teaching evaluation in higher education, providing a picture of the phenomenon into the Italian specific context within a European dimension. Starting from the premise that in Italian universities, teaching evaluation is based on general indicators which reflect a simplification of a complex phenomenon, scientific research related to teaching evaluation in higher education is presented and discussed. In this perspective, it will be argued that nature of teaching evaluation is characterized by multidimensionality and complexity. Only in this way it can represent a useful instrument for the improvement of teaching process and for the comprehension of the importance of being effective teachers. Moreover, on the basis of a participative model, it seems important to involve teachers and students in the formulation of relevant questions related to teaching. The aim of the research is represented by highlighting the specific aspects of teaching process dependent from the context through a comparison among faculties. Seventy interviews have been carried out with teachers and students of the same four faculties (Humanities, Psychology, Educational Sciences, Mathematics and Natural Sciences). Qualitative analysis of the data collected are conducted using the scientific software Atlas.ti. The outcomes confirm our initial assumptions showing differences among the four faculties considering the multiple dimensions of the university teaching.

Managing collaboration across further and higher education: a case in practice

The Dearing Report highlighted the need for HE programmes to enhance students' basic skills, and one of these is numeracy skill. There is a history of low confidence and negative attitudes to learning about numbers and 'maths anxiety' in undergraduates which means that delivering 'numerate graduates' may be something of a challenge to HE institutions. This college surveyed attitudes to numeracy and learning about numbers in all first-year students (over 1000 students). Over 40% of students returned their questionnaires. This survey found considerable negative attitudes and low confidence among respondents as a whole (25% of those who returned the questionnaire), and anxiety was highest (over 40%) in students taking a Humanities programme. This raises considerable concern about how we can deliver numeracy to students in HE. The findings of the survey, gender issues and the individualised concept of 'maths anxiety' are discussed in relation to the social and cultural construction of attitudes to maths and maths confidence as empowerment (Benn, 1997). The main conclusion is that HE institutions need to consider carefully how to provide good educational opportunities for individuals with low motivation to engage in maths-related activity. There is also an urgent need to challenge cultural myths and stereotyping relating to maths learning if we want the next generation of graduates to have more confidence in their maths skills.     

Linking critical pedagogy practice to higher education in Malaysia: insights from English language teachers

This study explores whether critical pedagogy is viable for meeting the goals of the Malaysia Education Blueprint (MEB) 2015–2025. The MEB has a particular focus on societal improvement and the authors suggest that critical pedagogy should be considered as a way of teaching as it specifically aligns with the aims of government policy. However, there is uncertainty about how critical pedagogy might be enacted in the Malaysian higher education context because it is difficult to understand and practise. The authors interviewed English language critical pedagogues from various countries about their experiences and found four common themes across all cultures. These were: co-construction of knowledge between teacher and student; new levels of trust; the use of problem-posing techniques; and evaluation of teaching and the student experience. These findings provide a guide to practice and the authors conclude that for critical pedagogy to gain acceptance across Malaysia, consideration needs to be given to changing prevailing cultural norms, the strict social order, as well as the political landscape of the country.     

Change of higher education in response to European pressures: conceptualization and operationalization of Europeanization of higher education

This article focuses on change in higher education in response to environmental pressures, more specifically pressures coming from European integration initiatives with respect to higher education, e.g. the Bologna Process. Significant research attention has so far been focused on the supposed impact of European initiatives on higher education systems and organizations. However, while many of such studies would claim that what they focus on is “Europeanization of higher education”, few of them provide a clear definition of the concept of Europeanization and an explicit and elaborate theoretical approach. Therefore, the aims of this paper are: (1) to provide a clarification of the concept of “Europeanization of higher education”, and (2) to provide a systematized and robust analytical framework able to account for identified patterns of change. The article builds on the conceptualization and operationalization of the process of Europeanization developed in international relations and comparative studies literature, using two strands of neo-institutionalism: Europeanization through an external incentives perspective based on rationalist institutionalism and Europeanization through a social learning perspective based on sociological institutionalism. Exploration of the explanatory potential of the two Europeanization perspectives focuses on changes in approaches to quality assurance in European countries. An assessment of said explanatory potential, as well as a discussion about the analytical challenges related to using these two Europeanization perspectives is provided in the conclusion.     

Class size effects in higher education: Differences across STEM and non-STEM fields

In recent years, many countries have experienced a significant expansion of higher education enrolment. There is a particular interest among policy makers for further growth in STEM subjects, which could lead to larger classes in these fields. This study estimates the effect of class size on academic performance of university students, distinguishing between STEM and non-STEM fields. Using administrative data from a large UK higher education institution, we consider a sample of 25,000 students and a total of more than 190,000 observations, spanning seven cohorts of first-year undergraduate students across all disciplines. Our identification of the class size effects rests on within student-across course variation, thus controlling for any unobservable difference across students, albeit other forms of bias stemming from selection of elective courses may still be present. Overall, we find that larger classes are associated with significantly lower grades (effect size of −0.08). This overall effect masks considerable differences across academic fields, as we find a larger effect in STEM subjects (−0.11) than in non-STEM subjects (−0.04). We further explore the heterogeneity of the effect along the dimensions of students’ socio-economic status, ability, and gender, finding that smaller classes are particularly beneficial for students from a low socio-economic background, and within STEM fields for higher ability and male students.     

ServiceNation: A call to higher education

The Serve America Act was signed into law in April 2009. Here's what Barbara Jacoby thinks the higher education community needs to do next.     

Creativity and higher education: A review

Some recent literature is reviewed to argue that institutions of higher education have made little adjustments to either their admission practices or their curricula to help nurture varied talents among their students. Diversity seems to be lacking throughout the academic community from the undergraduate level to the professional circles. The need for renewed spirit of experimentation and of tolerance of pluralism is pointed out.     

Learning outcomes across disciplinary divides and contrasting national higher education traditions

In many quarters, attempts are underway to identify learning outcomes in higher education which are context-neutral or ‘generic’; such measures could provide new ways to assess and compare outputs from higher education. This paper considers potential challenges in using such broad learning outcomes across contrasting disciplinary and national settings. An empirical contribution is provided by an analysis of data from the international REFLEX survey for Norwegian and English bachelor’s degree graduates. This sheds some light on the relationships between graduates’ broad learning outcomes (general competencies), their national contexts and their disciplinary area. It finds variations in competencies across subjects and countries, suggesting that general competencies of the type often suggested as generic learning outcomes may be unstable and problematic to compare across contrasting settings. It highlights the need for comparative research into variations in learning outcomes and graduate competencies considering disciplinary and national factors.     

Decomposing financial inequality across U.S. higher education institutions

The level of financial inequality among U.S. higher education institutions has important implications for students and society, yet few scholars have examined this topic using established methods for measuring inequality. This paper updates and extends previous work while introducing decompositions that shed light into key trends that we observed for the 2004–2017 period: increasing inequality in total expenditures and decreasing inequality in per-student expenditures. The results of our decomposition highlight how these opposing trends related to rising differences in enrollments and an increasingly positive correlation between an institution's enrollment level and its expenditures per student. Our decomposition results also show that both between-group differences and within-group differences contributed to the observed trends. Further examination of within-group differences reveals that inequality patterns differed meaningfully by institutional type, with doctoral universities and private baccalaureate colleges possessing higher levels of inequality and a more positive correlation between per-student expenditures and enrollments than master's institutions and public associate's colleges.     

Use, updating and integration of ICT in higher education: Linking purpose, people and pedagogy

In this article the use, updating and integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for teaching and learning purposes is discussed. Based on an empirical study using interviews and document analysis of the implementation of ICT in five Norwegian universities and colleges, the article analyse a number of factors that are of importance for the implementation of ICT in higher education. The analysis discloses that Norwegian higher education institutions often have adequate economic resources and a rather well developed technical infrastructure and support structure related to the use of ICT. However, attempts to link ICT initiatives to organisational development issues and to human resource management have not been very successful. In the conclusion it is argued that pedagogical issues and organisational and human development aspects must be better linked if ICT is to play a more effective role in teaching and learning in Norwegian higher education.     

高职教育“产业—专业”双链接发展的“坚守”与“跟进”方略——以宁波为例

＂产业—专业＂双链接的立足点和落脚点总是地域。通过对宁波传统优势产业和新的产业发展机会的剖析表明,对前者的＂坚守＂是高职教育生存的根本前提,对后者的＂跟进＂则是高职教育持续发展的根本保障。     

Modular instruction in higher education: A review

The principles and purposes of modular instruction (MI), its advantages for both students and instructors, and a comparison between the conventional and modular approach are presented. Separate sections deal with implementation and management of MI and include a discussion of evaluation and cost. Several examples of modular formats in use at North American universities are described.Present evidence suggests that MI meets the needs of today's students more adequately than traditional instruction both with respect to the quality of learning and the content. However, certain problems may arise in implementing MI. These are presented from the perspective of the student, instructor, and administrator. Given its emphasis on individualized learning and its adaptability to large numbers of students, MI has emerged as one of the most promising alternatives in higher education today.