Higher Education Community Research Articles

Student’s Cultural Experience in Higher Education in England, Germany and Lithuania as a Preco

Higher education today faces intensive transformation processes more than ever before. The Bologna Process program has been a big boost for student self-identification as a particular academic member of the community. It is reasonable to assert that young people studying in higher education institutions should be the most active in the changes affecting the higher education system, responding to the general public. The real situation is different, and the lack of student response raises the question of student identity and self-identification as specific members of higher education communities. This leads to the discussion whether in the case of uncontrolled dispersal of higher education one of the negative consequences can be seen as the weakening of students’ academic identity. This determines the problem formulated by the article – the significance of the surrounding socio-cultural environment and the public discourse on the formation of students’ academic identity in different countries (England, Germany and Lithuania). In order to understand behavioural patterns of students in Lithuania the comparative analysis, based on the methodological approach of R. Budd was made. Data of 14 interviews from Lithuanian classical and specialized universities were analysed and statements were made, when summarized giving the overall thinking concept of Lithuanian students that emerged as a result of interaction between particular, specific to Lithuanian social discourse to high education and inner cultural and behavioural models.

Doing Understanding in Transient, Multilingual Communities in Higher Education

This article analyzes interactions taking place in two transient communities involving local and international actors at a Catalan university. In scenarios in which established norms for language use are less available, people from different language backgrounds face the practical issue of establishing a common means for accomplishing understanding. This study examines how participants in the encounters establish a plurilingual medium of interaction, despite other solutions being available to them. It further proposes the notion of “doing understanding” to refer to the situated, jointly constructed and embodied performance of sharing repertoires. The results demonstrate how participants locally construct and challenge norms and possibilities of language use in transient communities in international higher education, supporting more critical consideration of how languages should be categorized by universities in their internationalization pursuits in seeking harmony with linguistic diversity.

Mental Health on University Campuses and the Needs of Students They Seek to Serve

Background: The mental health of college students in the U.S. has become an undeniable concern to university administrators, service providers, and the higher education community at large. While universities seek to educate future great minds, their current policies and infrastructure do not unanimously prioritize mental health, thus, they often cannot meet the holistic needs of students and struggle to uphold their central mission.Aim: To outline the literature surrounding mental health in postsecondary education and the holistic needs of university students in order to target the national discussion of mental health toward actionable system change.Methods: A comprehensive review of the literature on college student mental health in the U.S.Results: The literature demonstrates that policy change is necessary to fully support students with psychiatric disabilities and mental health concerns.Conclusions: Mental health is a critical issue for young adults, and college presents a prime developmental context to equip students with the skills for a lifetime of mental health and wellbeing. Further research is needed to explore the impact of implementing innovative programs, curricular changes and supported education programs to support college students.

An Empirical Examination of the Bennett Hypothesis in Law School Prices

Whether colleges increase tuition in response to increased federal student loan limits (the Bennett Hypothesis) has been a topic of debate in the higher education community for decades, yet most studies have been based on small increases to Pell Grant or undergraduate student loan limits. In this paper, I leverage a large increase in Grad PLUS loan limits that took place in 2006 to examine whether law schools responded by raising tuition or other living expenses and whether student debt levels also increased. Using data from 2001 to 2015 across public and private law schools and both interrupted time series and difference-in-differences analytical techniques, I found rather modest relationships across both public and private law schools. I conclude with some possible explanations for the lack of strong empirical support for the Bennett Hypothesis.

Exceeding Statements: How Students and Faculty Experience Institutional Missions

While the importance of institutional mission is acknowledged within the higher education community, there is a lack of empirical evidence investigating how missions are experienced. Using survey data from students and faculty, this study investigates perceptions of mission engagement at religiously affiliated and independent institutions. Implications for practice are discussed.

Mixed Method Study Examines Undergraduate Student Researchers’ Knowledge and Perceptions About Scholarly Communication Practices

A Review of:
 Riehle, C. F., & Hensley, M. K. (2017). What do undergraduate students know about scholarly communication?: A mixed methods study. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 17(1), 145–178. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/pla.2017.0009 
 
 Abstract
 
 Objective – To examine undergraduate student researchers’ perception and understanding of scholarly communication practices and issues. 
 
 Design – Mixed method study involving a survey and semi-structured interviews. 
 
 Setting – Two major undergraduate universities in the Midwest region of the United States. 
 
 Subjects – Undergraduate students who participated in or had completed undergraduate research experiences with faculty mentors. 
 
 Method – The method was first approved by Institutional Review Board offices at both campuses involved in the study. Then, students received invitations to participate in a survey via email (Campus 1 = 221 students; Campus 2 = 345 students). Identical online surveys ran separately on each campus; both remained open for a period of three weeks. All respondents received a reminder email one week before the survey closed. 
 
 Participants answered twelve questions related to demographics and scholarly communication practices. The survey examined knowledge and experience across five areas: the peer review process, author and publisher rights, publication and access models, impact of research, and data management. All students who completed the survey were entered in a drawing for a $50 Amazon card. The response rates were 34.8% (Campus 1) and 18.6% (Campus 2). 
 
 Surveys on both campuses were administered using different software: campus 1 utilized Qualtrics survey software while campus 2 used an institution-specific survey software. Data sets were normed and merged later in the study to enable comparison and identify broad themes. 
 
 Survey respondents were also invited to participate in a 15 to 20 minute follow-up interview and were compensated with a $20 Amazon gift card. The interviews consisted of four open-ended questions that further examined students’ knowledge of scholarly communication practices. The researchers coded interview transcripts and identified themes. Qualitative software was used to analyze the surveys and assess coder agreement. Finally, connections and anomalies between survey and interview results were explored. 
 
 Main Results – Quantitative and qualitative data collected during the study indicate that students were most confident in their understanding of the peer-review process and data management but felt less confident in their knowledge of author and publisher rights, publication and access models, and determining the impact of scholarly research publication. In addition, they value instruction related to scholarly communication topics like the peer-review process, publication models, and data management. However, few students feel confident in their current level of knowledge or ability surrounding the previously mentioned topics. Study findings suggest that this knowledge gap is based on a lack of training or discussion of scholarly communication topics in relation to students’ research activities. 
 
 Results also suggest that undergraduate students have difficulty articulating their rights as authors and their scholarly communication practices. In many cases, skill sets like data management are learned through trial and error while students progress through the research process. In some cases, faculty mentors have misperceptions and assumptions about undergraduate students’ knowledge and abilities regarding scholarly communication practices. This can create challenges for undergraduate students as they attempt to make informed decisions about research activities based on a limited foundation of experience or information. 
 
 Finally, results indicate that undergraduate student researchers do not currently view the library as a place to learn about scholarly communication practices. The authors suggest that by forming strategic relationships with undergraduate research program directors, faculty, and graduate student mentors, librarians are in a prime position to incorporate scholarly communication practices into information literacy sessions or provide point-of-need coaching. 
 
 Conclusion – The researchers conclude that academic libraries are in a unique position to support overarching research, teaching, and learning goals within the academic community. By developing programs that support information literacy and scholarly communication, libraries demonstrate value and align goals with teaching and learning priorities within the higher education community as a whole. Through this work, librarians support students as knowledge creators and advocate for training that emphasizes data literacy, copyright and authors’ rights, and the impact of research within specific disciplines.

Site License Initiatives in the United Kingdom: The PSLI and NESLI Experience

This article examines the development of site licensing within the United Kingdom higher education community. In particular, it looks at haw the pressure to make better use of dwindling fiscal resources led to the conclusion that information technology and its exploitation was necessary in order to create an effective library service. These conclusions, reached in the Follett Report of 1993, led to the establishment of a Pilot Site License Initiative and then a National Electronic Site License Initiative. The focus of this article is these initiatives and the issues they faced, which included off-site access, definition of a site and perhaps mostimportantly, the unbundling of print and electronic journals.

Engaging Indigenous Communities in Higher Education: An Analysis of Collaboration and Ownership in Alaska Native Teacher Preparation

In 2008, our institution was awarded an Office of Indian Education pre-service teacher preparation grant intended to increase the number of Alaska Native/ American Indian teachers in Alaska. Our research examines grant objectives and outcomes, specifically related to the institution’s stated focus on “culturally responsive teacher preparation” and “preserving and advancing” Alaska Native languages and cultures. We also explore challenges and opportunities encountered during the development of a cultural mentoring community for Alaska Native pre-service teachers, facilitated through collaboration with two Alaska Native teacher community organizations. Our work is informed by foundational literature in Indigenous culture-based pedagogy (Demmert & Towner, 2003), Indigenous higher education (Brayboy, 2012), and culturally responsive/ culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1994). Decolonizing methodologies and TribalCrit (Castagno, 2012) are particularly significant in our analysis, as the institution’s mission, vision, and strategic directions initiatives appear to be at odds with outcomes that suggest a continuation of top-down, colonized practices that perpetuate marginalization of Alaska Native students.

The Paradox of Faith: White Administrators and Antiracism Advocacy in Christian Higher Education

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of White administrators in Christian higher education within the United States who were active in antiracism advocacy. A team of researchers employed narrative inquiry borrowing from grounded theory approaches and interviewed eight administrators from four member institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) in the Midwest region of the United States. Data analysis indicated that the participants' faith both hindered and helped in their antiracism advocacy. The process of politicizing racial justice issues and participants experiencing a fear of suspicion from institutional leaders because of their antiracism advocacy were identified as being hindrances to their antiracism efforts. However, the administrators cited their interpretations of Christian scriptures and their personal faith commitments as motivators for their antiracism work. Implications for practice include the encouragement of higher education communities to make systemic (rather than individual) changes, and to approach racial justice first and foremost from a biblical and theological perspective.

Internationalization, Regionalization, and Soft Power: China’s Relations with ASEAN Member Countries in Higher Education

Since the late 1980s, there has been a resurgence of regionalism in world politics. Prospects for new alliances are opened up often on a regional basis. In East and Southeast Asia, regionalization is becoming evident in higher education, with both awareness and signs of a rising ASEAN+3 higher education community. The quest for regional influence in Southeast Asia, however, has not been immune from controversies. One fact has been China’s growing soft power. As a systematically planned soft power policy, China is projecting soft power actively through higher education in the region. Yet, China-ASEAN relations in higher education have been little documented. Unlike the mainstay of the practices of internationalization in higher education that focuses overwhelmingly on educational exchange and collaboration with affluent Western countries, China’s interactions with ASEAN member countries in higher education are fulfilled by “quiet achievers,” mainly seen at the regional institutions in relatively less developed provinces such as Guangxi and Yunnan. This article selects regional higher education institutions in China’s much disadvantaged provinces to depict a different picture to argue that regionalization could contribute substantially to internationalization, if a variety of factors are combined properly.

A Systematic Literature Review of Students as Partners in Higher Education

“Students as Partners” (SaP) in higher education re-envisions students and staff as active collaborators in teaching and learning. Understanding what research on partnership communicates across the literature is timely and relevant as more staff and students come to embrace SaP. Through a systematic literature review of empirical research, we explored the question: How are SaP practices in higher education presented in the academic literature? Trends across results provide insights into four themes: the importance of reciprocity in partnership; the need to make space in the literature for sharing the (equal) realities of partnership; a focus on partnership activities that are small scale, at the undergraduate level, extracurricular, and focused on teaching and learning enhancement; and the need to move toward inclusive, partnered learning communities in higher education. We highlight nine implications for future research and practice.

Intermediate Skill Development in British Columbia: Policy Options for a Post-Industrial Era

As British Columbia's economy is increasingly shaped by post-industrial circumstances, it becomes necessary for that province, like others in Canada, to ensure that it has an adequate supply of workers with "new economy" knowledge and skills. How best to prepare people for "inter- mediate" skill work, requiring less than a university degree but more than secondary schooling, is the focus of this paper. An explanation of the need for different skills is followed by an analysis of recent interme- diate skill development policy and practice in B.C. That analysis draws particular attention to the roles of public and private training providers and concludes that these roles have been more overlapping than comple- mentary. The paper concludes with the presentation of five policy choices for government and the higher education community to consider as they address new labour force needs in a context of funding con- straints and changing social policy priorities. The need to design and develop a much more sophisticated, policy-oriented information base on intermediate skill development is presented as a major recommendation for follow up action.

The Functions and Dysfunctions of College Rankings: An Analysis of Institutional Expenditure

College rankings have become a powerful influence in higher education. While the determinants of educational quality are not clearly defined, college rankings designate an institution’s standing in a numerical order based on quantifiable measurements that focus primarily on institutional resources. Previous research has identified the “functions” of rankings: higher ranking positions benefit institutions via admissions outcomes, resource attainment, and future reputation. On the other hand, this positive association between rankings and resource attainment has increased concerns among higher education community about “dysfunctions” of rankings. Rankings may encourage colleges and universities to spend more, moving resources from educational activities to research, amenities and facilities, and administrative expenditures. Filling the gap in the literature in empirically evaluating this hypothesis, this study examined the effect of ranking systems on resource allocation using U.S. News and World Report’s Best Colleges rankings. The numerical ranking resulted in an expansion in both educational and noneducational activities expenditures, including the escalation of student and academic services expenditures. Instruction expenditure was the major area in which institutions altered resource allocation in response to the distinctive nature of ranking systems, the numerical rankings and arbitrary groupings. These patterns were manifested differently among schools categorized as National Universities and those categorized as National Liberal Arts Colleges. The findings from this study provide important implications for understanding the role of college rankings that reinforce the resource-based view of institutional quality and institutional responses, as well as its ramifications to the missions of higher education.

Introducing veteran critical theory

Research on student veterans is in an infant state. As veterans continue to enroll in institutions of higher education, researchers must explore new ways of knowing student veterans. It is not enough to only describe and model this growing demographic, researchers must also have a tool for criticism and question. The next in an important tradition of emancipatory paradigms, this article suggests a critical theory built on current critical conversations but adapted for the unique characteristics of the student veteran. The article defines the need for a critical theory (Veteran Critical Theory), explains 11 tenets for this new theory, and discusses how these tenets could be used by administrators, faculty, student affairs professionals, and students in the higher education community.

Development of animals ecology module for macrozoobentos community at higher institution

Development of animal ecology module with a material of macrozoobenthos community in higher education aimed to develop teaching materials based on the needs of students of Biology Education. The study was conducted from January to March 2014. This research is a development research of module material. Module development is based on study results at the stage of Structure of Macrozoobenthos Community in the Mangrove area of Bukit Batu Beach of Bengkalis Regency. Research and development of animal ecology module are conducted by following 4D model steps. The results of module material development of macrozoobenthos community are used as teaching materials of animal ecology at Biology Education Dept., FTTE- Islamic University of Riau. Results of animal ecology module development obtained was based on expert validation of animal ecology material expert, teaching material, and field practitioners which amounted to 92.59%, 94.86%, and 92.4%, respectively with qualification of excellent and unnecessary to be revised. A test result of small group which was conducted by 30 respondents of students of Biology education, FTTE- Islamic University of Riau amounted to 78.4% with qualification of good and unnecessary to be revised. Module of animal ecology can be used as proper teaching materials by Biology Education student.

What the higher education community can expect from a Trump presidency

The election of President Donald Trump will mean change for the world, the country, and, by extension, higher education. There were few clues given by President Trump during the campaign about his preferred higher education policies.

A mixed-method exploratory study of interprofessional education in social work at historically Black colleges and universities: A faculty perspective

ABSTRACTA mixed-method approach was used to capture social work faculty experiences in integrating interprofessional education (IPE) in the social work curriculum at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Questions measured attitudes, needs, preparation, and readiness of HBCU faculty to participate in preprofessional and graduate IPE courses. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were used. The 23 participants indicated that there was strong interest and endorsement for participation in IPE as an educational tool to improve interdisciplinary team work and social care outcomes. However, faculty had limited previous involvement with IPE courses. Many partners were identified for IPE courses with almost all endorsing alcohol and substance abuse counseling, mental health counseling, public health, early childhood education, nursing, rehabilitation counseling, school of divinity, and school of psychology. The following IPE teaching methods were endorsed by almost all of the faculty: seminars, IPE common tools, case analysis, collaborative assessment, role playing, and experiential activities. Qualitative analysis of the open-ended questions yielded five themes: designing/evaluating IPE programs, embedding IPE courses in the social work curriculum, facilitating trust among faculty, removing negative IPE stereotypes, and IPE courses sustainability. The study contributes vital information about an important group of stakeholders whose participation in IPE, heretofore not mentioned in the IPE literature, needs to be integrated. We recommend that the IPE higher education community work with HBCUs to implement IPE.

The Politics and Ethics of Extensão Universitária in Brazil: Engaging Communities in Teaching and Scholarship

Teaching community requires more than transmitting a set of skills or technical knowledge. It is perhaps one of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century. This paper contributes to the pedagogy of community in higher education through the analysis of university extension in Brazil. Three elements are crucial to the success of the Brazilian university extension model to teach community. The first is the historical commitment to ethical and political principles and values aimed at social justice, inclusion, and transformation, as well as a shared critical understanding of the complexity of social, economic, and political inequality. Second, the method is derived from critical theory, primarily in the form of Freirean pedagogy, as well as participant and action research. Third, the institutionalization of university extension through the Ministry of Education has provided the necessary means and support at the local, regional, and national levels. Latin America has a unique model of university extension that was developed in the twentieth century, with significant contributions from student movements. Liberation theology and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy are also noteworthy historical undercurrents that have shaped Brazil's 2012 National Policy of University Extension. Community is achieved through ongoing interactions based on reciprocity among faculty, staff, students, and the general public; the dialogical method; and the common goal and commitment of prioritizing the needs of socially excluded segments of the population.

The alchemy of facilitation revealed through individual stories and collective narrative

Facilitation is a key ‘ingredient’ in the success and sustainability of communities of practice. Yet, little attention has been given to in situ experiences of facilitators of these communities. This paper takes up the challenge to explore these experiences using reflective stories written by seven TATAL (Talking about Teaching and Learning) facilitators (the authors) from different disciplines in five different Australian universities. The authors’ collaborative analysis of their experiences suggests reframing the role of facilitator to include the role of alchemist, a promoter of transformation. This reframing has the potential to change the way higher education community of practice facilitators think about and enact their role. The story-based reflective process used in this self-study could also be used by facilitators to investigate their own practice, as a component of facilitator education programmes or by academics and researchers in other contexts who seek a participatory, collaborative approach to evaluate their practice.

Putting threshold concepts to work in health sciences: insights for curriculum design from a qualitative research synthesis

ABSTRACTThe idea of threshold concepts (TC) has been well received across the higher education community. However the concept’s framework is still evolving and the literature uses the framework in different ways. Just over a decade since the idea first captured interest, it is opportune to explore the nature of that discourse, and the kinds of enquiry undertaken to date. This article reports on a qualitative synthesis that analyses published research on TC in health sciences. It provides a fresh perspective on the literature to identify key themes. Inducting students into complex practices; beyond concepts and developing students’ agency, are the three themes to arise from our findings. These themes offer insights on the ways TC have been used to develop scholarly curriculum, teaching and learning practices. They not only reflect the concerns of the community, but represent a set of empirically based principles for curriculum and course design.