Peer-assessment in higher education – twenty-first century practices,challenges and the way forward

Peer assessment in higher education has been studied for decades. Despite the substantial amount of research carried out, peer assessment has yet to make significant advances. This review identifies themes of recent research and highlights the challenges that have hampered its advance. Most of these challenges arise from the manual nature of peer assessment practices, which prove intractable as the number of students involved increases. Practitioners of the discipline are urged to forge affiliations with closely related fields and other disciplines, such as computer science, in order to overcome these challenges.     

Change and innovation in higher education: a role for corporate strategy?

Conclusions In conclusion there are a number of points to be emphasised. Firstly, there are no definite answers to the problems of change and innovation in the management field. Admittedly there are plenty of ideas and models about strategic planning; but the trend over the last ten years or so has been away from the use of analytic techniques towards trying to manage the culture and values of the organisation directly. At the moment there is another reaction developing against this focus on culture (Barney, 1986; Thackray, 1986), but it is not yet clear what is being proposed in its place.So those in higher education should be suspicious of the management pundits who claim that they have the answer - especially if it simply involves copying management structures and systems that are believed to be commonplace in industry. Furthermore many of these systems are actually fraught with difficulty when used in industry. For example, many companies find they have to rethink their appraisal systems every four or five years, because the failure of the previous system usually becomes obvious to all about three years after its installation. In that area the current trend is towards self and peer assessment - which could conceivably be appropriate in higher education too.But there are still a number of ideas that may be gleaned from the management world, and these may eventually provide models of management and strategic change which are appropriate to higher education. Some of these ideas have been mentioned in this article. For example, there is a need to pay closer attention to the environment, especially the political one. Institutions need to think carefully about their distinctive strengths, and how they can fit best into their environments. The idea of universities as service organisations may have considerable power, and it may be as well to think of some of those services as having limited life.It is important to recognise the crucial role of those people at the lower levels of the organisation. Their contribution is not only in helping to determine the best direction to take; but their commitment to any direction is essential if it is to be implemented. Good strategies can't be rushed: it takes time for ideas to evolve. Hence the process of thinking through appropriate strategies probably needs to be fairly continuous; it certainly should not be merely an annual, or quinquennial, activity.Finally it is the values of staff and students that can be the greatest source of, and barrier to, change and innovation. Senior managers get easily excited at the possibilities of being able to manage the values of their organisations. But this is much more difficult than the popular text books would have us believe, and very dangerous. The danger is that if one simply attacks the existing values of an organisation - say those of scholarship, colleagueship and individual freedom - one runs the risk of destroying individuals' sense of purpose, and thus creating a highly demoralised organisation. If values are to be shifted, say towards a greater commercial orientation - then they must be done in a way which allows for retention of the original values in parallel. It is a kind of bridging idea that is needed. This will take time, and not a little creativity.     

Remapping French higher education: towards a multi-tiered higher education system?

Tertiary Education and Management - The global trend of increasing participation rates, coupled with regional goals to increase participation in higher education, such as the...     

Student formation in higher education: teachers’ approaches matter

Teaching in higher education encompasses more than merely helping students develop knowledge and skills. It entails engaging students in their own formation as persons, professionals and citizens. From this perspective, this article investigates how approaches to teaching academic writing contribute to formation. By analysing a case from initial teacher education in Norway, we identify and examine one teacher educator’s beliefs about writing and his approaches to teaching writing. Theoretical framework rests on six discourses of writing developed by Roz Ivani? and on the formative possibilities and constraints embedded in these different literacy discourses. Thus, we provide students’ experien-ces with this teacher’s approaches and discuss what formation his approaches seem to have initiated. The findings point to the need for more critical reflection on the formative impact of teaching approaches in higher education more generally.     

Development and validation of a questionnaire measuring teachers’ motivations for teaching in higher education

A lot of research has been done into the motivations in teachers in primary/secondary education and into student motivation. However, teachers’ motivations for teaching in higher education are rarely studied. A growing interest exists though in the professional development of teachers in higher education, of which motivation is an important aspect. This article, therefore, focuses on the development and validation of a Dutch questionnaire for teachers’ motivations for teaching in higher education. The questionnaire is based on three earlier developed questionnaires, including the following motivational aspects: efficacy, interest, and effort. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted with the data of 231 higher education teachers. The results of our explorative study showed that after modifications, including the removal of two out of three efficacy-aspects (‘outcome efficacy’ and ‘teaching efficacy’), this instrument is sufficiently reliable and valid to use in educational practice and research. Future research into the use of the questionnaire in different contexts is desirable.     

Teaching in higher education: Good teaching through students’ lens

This study explored 2475 Israeli students’ conceptions of good teaching and examined the relationship between these conceptions and students’ background characteristics. Data were collected using an internet survey designed to measure students’ conceptions regarding five teaching dimensions referring to goals to be achieved, long-term student development, teaching methods, relations with students, and assessment. Results indicate that students perceived assessment as the most important of the five teaching dimensions and long-term student development as least important. Only gender and field of study made a salient difference in students’ perceptions of good teaching. Implications for the evaluation of teaching are discussed.     

Preparing beginning teachers for technology integration in education: ready for take-off?

The overall aims of this study are to explore (1) how beginning teachers integrate technology in their practice and (2) the connections between teachers’ technology uses and their pre-service education programmes. Data of this follow-up study were collected through in-depth interviews with beginning teachers. The results reveal that all beginning teachers used a wide range of technological applications, mainly for structured learning approaches, while few created opportunities for student-centred technology use. Further, pre-service learning experiences that impact graduate teachers’ technology use are identified. While teacher educators modelling technology use are an important motivator for beginning teachers to use technology in their own teaching, field experiences seem to be the most critical factor influencing their current practice. Based on the results of this study, recommendations about how to prepare and support pre-service and beginning teachers for technology integration are discussed.     

How do students prepare an application for a place in higher education?

Sources of help used by students when preparing an application for a place in higher education using the UCAS procedure were investigated, including how they may use Records of Achievement (RoAs). 178 sixth‐form students at three mixed comprehensives and one independent girls’ school were surveyed. In general, students consulted a good range of sources of help in preparing their application. Where a specialist careers adviser was available, this service was viewed very favourably. However, regard for the usefulness of RoAs was mixed. The major implications for those involved in student guidance with sixth‐formers are discussed.     

Skills for sale: what is being commodified in higher education?

‘Commodification’ is a sociological term that has become widely adopted as part of the higher education lexicon. It has been argued that an increased emphasis on the commercial relevance of university courses is anathema to the values of the academy, resulting from the widespread adoption of neo‐liberal policies towards education. This article will discuss the use of the word commodification in this context, with particular emphasis on its economic roots. It will identify three models of commodification derived from the literature and use these to attempt an understanding of what it is that universities are selling. Finally, the article will examine the use of the term commodification within the broader debate about the purpose of higher education.     

Producing multiculturalism in higher education: Who's producing what for whom?

This essay explores ways in which multiculturalism is institutionally produced in a small liberal arts college. When the offices of admissions or student life deploy the categories multiculturalism and diversity, they are likely to seek academic expertise from humanities or African American, Latino, or Women's Studies Programs, the disciplines most closely matching identity slots on the college applicationforms. In doing so, they recreate the presupposed categories of person that shape U.S. perceptions of race. This leaves little room for an anthropological perspective that examines the bases on which concepts of person and social identities are constructed.     

Authenticity work in higher education learning environments: a double-edged sword?

Higher Education - Educational authenticity occupies a strong position in higher education research and reform, building on the assumption that correspondence between higher education learning...     

The hidden benefits of part-time higher education study to working practices: is there a case for making them more visible?

Within the UK, part-time study is now seen as important in meeting wider government objectives for higher education (HE) and for sustainable economic growth through skills development. Yet, measures to capture the impact of HE may not be wholly appropriate to part-time study. In particular, the continuing focus on tangible, economic measures may be down-playing, or even completely overlooking, other gains. Data from a longitudinal study of part-time students show that irrespective of whether graduates had changed job or employer, or had stayed in the same job, individuals reported substantial work-related gains from their HE studies. We suggest that current research questions that focus on job moves and progression within the labour market, may well be the wrong questions to ask to gauge measures of benefits/returns to HE. Further research is needed to develop measures to fully capture the social returns of skills acquisition through part-time study.     

Changes in visual art education – a challenge for Estonian kindergarten teachers?

The meaning and role of teaching visual art in kindergartens has changed significantly during the last decades. In addition to practical activities, responding to art is also essential component of nowadays visual art education. In Estonian kindergartens, however, teachers still tend to follow traditions from Soviet times when dictated programmes and schemes had to be followed. This article gives an overview, based on the results of three separate researches, of the situation in Estonian kindergartens. Proceeding from there, the most important aspects in the process of improving visual art education are characterised and a set of guidelines is suggested.     

Course quality in higher education teacher training: What matters for pre-service physics teachers’ content knowledge development?

This study examines the impact of course quality on pre-service physics teachers’ content knowledge (CK) development. Teachers’ CK is one prerequisite to effective teaching. To support teachers in developing CK, the quality of higher education content courses plays a major role. Yet, models of course quality for higher education vary in their dimensions and it is hence not clear how course quality is best conceptualized. To address this issue, we analyzed data from N = 107 pre-service physics teachers’ CK over one year. We used confirmatory factor analysis to determine the number and nature of dimensions for course quality. Next, we used path models to investigate the impact on CK development. Our results show that a four-dimensional model described CK course quality best and that the cognitive support dimension in particular supports CK development. This highlights the importance of focusing on cognitive support for improving pre-service physics teachers’ CK development.     

Preparing teachers for professional learning: is there a future for teacher education in new teacher induction?

Today the quality of teachers is held to be increasingly important yet there continue to be doubts about whether teacher education programs graduate teachers ready to meet the challenges of their initial years of teaching. In some jurisdictions, other agencies (Ministries of Education, school districts, and private providers) are supplementing the work of teacher education through the introduction of new teacher induction programs which have become favoured policy initiatives to enhance new teacher transition, retention and quality. Evidence suggests that induction and mentoring increase teacher retention and ensure more effective socialisation of new teachers into the school culture. In spite of their growing popularity, the degree to which induction programs complement teacher education and/or impact new teacher professional learning remains unclear. In this paper the authors report a secondary analysis of data from an evaluation of the New Teacher Induction Program in Ontario, Canada to consider the implications for the future of teacher education by asking: What are the challenges facing new teachers? In what ways does the induction program support new teacher professional learning? What are the major implications for the future of teacher education?     

Should contentment be a key aim in higher education?

Higher education institutions are major concentrations of political, social, economic, intellectual and communicative resources. They reach freely across populations and cultures and connect to government, professions, industry and the arts. The neoliberal logic of markets has entered the realm of (higher) education. This leads to discourse on the benefits of education being positioned almost exclusively in terms of their effect on income. The perspective taken in the paper is the development of a happiness motive that asks education to challenge what it is to be a member of society: What moral and ontological stance one will seek to take in developing one’s future? The satisfied student perpetuates the current lifeworld in which they find themselves, seeking to improve the quality of the services provided. It is proposed that an overly emphasised desire satisfaction culture inhibits the edifying mission of universities. This is not to argue against high-quality service provision but to differentiate it from the edifying role of personal challenge, determination and social responsibility, conceptualised here as profound happiness or contentment, and the university’s role in its development. It calls for a different and more refreshing approach to higher education.