Future Of Higher Education Research Articles

The Virtuous Aspect of Perceived Organizational Politics: The Future of Higher Education

The Virtuous Aspect of Perceived Organizational Politics: The Future of Higher Education

PREPARATION OF FUTURE HIGHER EDUCATION SPECIALISTS FOR PROFESSIONAL SELF-IMPROVEMENT

The scientific review considers the process of developing the readiness of future higher education specialists for professional self-improvement. The analysis and reflections on the contemporary scientific research presented in the article made it possible to present professional self-improvement as a complex phenomenon due to a range of psychological, socio-economic, cultural, professional and personal factors. Theoretical analysis of researches by domestic and foreign scientists, as well as our results, confirm the key positions of S. Rubinstein, O. Leontiev and others that the development of personality is carried out through activities. Accordingly, it is the activity approach that is defined by us as the leading one in the methodology of forming the readiness of future teachers for self-improvement and led to understanding the dynamics of this process from the standpoint of phasing changes in such types of personally significant activities as self-actualization and self-realization. realization of self-knowledge, perception of "self-image", self-organization, self-control and self-correction. In the course of our study it was found that the process of professional self-improvement of future higher education specialists depends on their personal characteristics, methodological competence and "image of professional self", ability to reflect, as well as depth and intensity of self-knowledge.

Protecting the University as a Physical Place in the Age of Postdigitization

Covid-19 forced higher education sectors across the world to digitize the entire university experience online. There are now calls for universities to continue chasing continued and further digitization, often from for-profit businesses and those in Silicon Valley who have been promising to disrupt the sector for decades. We argue that the pandemic has illustrated how crucial universities are to their local communities, and efforts should be made to emphasize their physical place and space. The destruction of American cities in favor of auto-centric suburbs provides a parallel for the possible future of higher education. The Cult of Efficiency mindset and accountability models that dominated neoliberal discourse offered the impetus for highway construction through city centers, often razing Black neighborhoods and ruining communities and culture along the way. The calls for the full digitization of universities echo this same possible destruction for the sector. This is not a Luddite warning to reject all digitization, instead, it is a rejection of the hyper-capitalization of higher education and the disruption promised by for-profit businesses, along with a reminder that the sector should be a local public good.

Higher Education Futures?

Predicting the future is a difficult and inexact business and, generally, humans are more prone to focus on immediate problems and short-term problem-solving rather than long-range planning. In fact, long-range forecasts are tricky and often rendered wrong due to catalytic events. The dramatic changes in teaching, learning, and conducting research that have seemingly catapulted Higher Education (HE) institutions into a new modus operandi over the past 24 months are a case in point. Who would have predicted that higher education would be conducted by a great many institutions almost entirely virtually and over sustained amounts of time? That academics would teach from their homes lecturing to a screen of black boxes and images? That students would do fieldwork virtually via video, embedded questions and tasks, and that the practice of research teams discussing progress and findings in person would practically vanish?

Leading Through Times of Uncertainty: The Future of Higher Education, Work, and Kinesiology

Leading Through Times of Uncertainty: The Future of Higher Education, Work, and Kinesiology

Conceptualizing international positioning strategies for Indian higher education institutions

PurposeThe manuscript reflects on the future of higher education from an emerging country perspective. The authors specifically answer how new education policies, ranking and accreditation are impacting the current state of Indian higher education institutions (IHEIs) and how IHEIs can cultivate their path towards positioning themselves internationally. This study aims to bring together existing scenarios and to serve as a springboard for future research and applications.Design/methodology/approachThe manuscript is designed and executed as a conceptual study exploring the current state and prospects for IHEIs. The study synthesizes the concepts of positioning strategies in context to IHEIs. A conceptual diagram integrating existing concepts from marketing, total quality management and business education is created to understand the phenomenon among the IHEIs stakeholders.FindingsThe authors found that IHEIs started showing their international presence yet they are facing various challenges (government bureaucracy; international salary standards; global student population; and cultural sensitivity). The authors also found that the positioning problem is not a one-time attempt; the complexity of higher education is a “wicked problem” and, hence needs to be evaluated, changed and executed continuously. The manuscript offers relevant information to IHEIs leaders and stakeholders to improve on their international positioning strategies and proposes avenues for future research.Originality/valueThe study outlines future development and positioning strategic plans that IHEIs may consider and reflect in their strategic plan. The conceptual diagram on achieving successful international positioning and problem areas is expected to act as a guidebook for the key decision-makers. The focus is on distinguishing the imperatives, creating a key guide for meeting immediate requirements, allotting assets prudently to update their international presence. The study will provide IHEIs with a new lease of life in the future.

Speaking Personally–with Farhad Saba and Rick Shearer

ABSTRACT This discussion was recorded on June 15, 2021, with the American Center for the Study of Distance Education and transcribed for the American Journal of Distance Education to capture the essence and depth of the field of distance education from two seminal leaders. Dr. Farhad Saba, professor Emeritus of Educational Technology at San Diego State University (SDSU), has been in the field since 1973 and has authored more than 100 articles and chapters in books. Dr. Rick Shearer has over 35 years of experience in distance education and has served in higher education leadership and learning design roles. Both are Mildred B. and Charles A. Wedemeyer Award recipients and recently coauthored the book Transactional Distance and Adaptive Learning: Planning for the Future of Higher Education. To watch or listen to the complete discussion, please visit: ac4sde.com.

Information Technologies, Reading, and the Future of Higher Education

The article addresses the challenge for universities and colleges to prepare students for the world they inhabit through relevant course offerings and new approaches to teaching. Unfortunately, these structures of higher education still resemble chapels, where the professor is ‘priest,’ and with a pedagogy that is informed by monologue, methodological nationalism, and a general lack of awareness of the rapidly changing social and physical world around us. Starting with the Gutenberg revolution, and following the ideas of Marshall McLuhan, Sven Birkerts and Joseph Brodsky,the article approaches the consequences of the new information technologies that are profoundly rewiring our minds and replacing our ability to think critically. The author asks: what might education look like today? How might we challenge young people to learn how to think? The first task appears to critique and transform the political architecture of classrooms and the teacher centeredness of pedagogical activity, replacing monologue with dialogue. Students need to be shown how to critically distance themselves from the seductions of information technologies, and educational institutions should return to requiring deep reading and discussion of extended narratives.

Thoughts on the Future of Higher Education in the UK: A Personal View with a Historical Context

Before the effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic, there had been continued debate about the future of Higher Education (HE) in the UK. It is now accepted that the effect of the pandemic will have a long-lasting effect on HE in the UK and elsewhere. This paper addresses the changes that are currently taking place, based on a strategy that aims to develop a future knowledge-based economy, following the UK governments 2019 landmark review of HE. It explores the underlying parallels between the current situation and certain historical events that catalysed the development of a new approach to HE in the past, which is very relevant today. In this context, the paper discusses why major changes in UK HE provision is now required as a response to the fact that although the cost of education is rising, employers are reporting that graduates are increasingly unprepared for the workplace. In this respect, the paper addresses a model for HE that focuses on `earn-as-you-learn’ apprenticeships and work-place-based learning. The key to this is the emphasis that the UK government is now placing on funding new `Technological Colleges’, in which students are trained by experts from the industry on a contractual basis, rather than by university academics with tenured positions.

Transformation of Higher Education into New Normal

The purpose of this qualitative study was to get a better understanding of faculty members' views on the future of higher education by their first-time online teaching experiences during the Fall 2021 academic semester, which was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the outbreak's rapid and widespread dissemination, it created a unique phenomenon that had a significant impact on faculty members who had no prior experience teaching courses entirely online. In order to conduct this qualitative research, purposive sampling was used to choose ten faculty members from a variety of disciplines who had at least ten years of experience teaching in a traditional classroom setting at a public university in Izmir, Turkey. Faculty members were asked about the future of higher education in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from that, each faculty member was asked to discuss how the mandatory shift to online education altered their teaching style and how institutional help impacted their experiences throughout the pandemic. As a consequence of their observations and statements of their perspectives on events they witnessed and personally experienced, the key issue of "transformation of higher education with hybrid perspective" developed as a central theme. The data analysis revealed the following subthemes: "educators on the internet," "sustain and evolve," and "university support". These findings may be applied in a variety of contexts, including educational leadership and the design of hybrid and online courses, among other applications in higher education.

Searching for Practical Wisdom in Higher Education with Logos, Pathos and Ethos. Case: Finnish Universities of Sciences

In our complex and highly connected world, educating for life—that is, educating students with knowledge, skills, and competences infused with practical wisdom (PW) and ethical and moral values—is essential. The paper seeks to answer the question: how could university education facilitate the progress to a wiser and better world? The methodology involves case study research (CSR) based on both secondary and primary data. The missions, visions, and values of fourteen public Finnish universities are analyzed for PW. The findings demonstrate that universities, by becoming more open, unbounded, and enacting organizations, and by enhancing collaboration with businesses, could foster the cultivation of PW in higher education (HE). The novelty of this paper is the creative communication of the case study, where kairos, logos, pathos, and ethos are used to explore a new reality for HE. The article contributes to the contemporary discourses in the literature on the future of HE. Educators in HE need to transform from knowledge workers to wise leaders, wisdom workers, creators, empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. The context of the case study research makes it difficult to generalize. Therefore, international, comparative research is used to complement the findings. The eight-stage change process applied to universities and HE could help in solving the urgent problems of society and facilitating progress to a wiser and better world.

Making Your Own Luck: Academic Libraries and the Digital Shift

COVID-19 didn’t disrupt higher education; it hastened the disruptions that have already been taking place. One particularly prominent disruption is the digital shift, or the move from primarily face-to-face operations to operations with a large digital component. In order to survive, higher education needs to fundamentally change. But how prepared is your library for these changes? You can’t simply wait for these changes to happen and hope to get lucky; instead, you need to make your own luck. Libraries are uniquely situated to lead the institution in this digital shift. This paper will present an overview of student demographic and higher education trends such as decreasing enrollment, increasing diversity of the student body and its needs, technological disruptions, and changing workforce needs. Specific examples from two academic libraries in the United States will demonstrate how this information has informed practice, allowing these libraries to be ahead of the digital shift, to easily weather the COVID storm, and to be models for other campus departments. As humanity’s response to the COVID-19 crisis transitions from reactive to proactive, higher education cannot return to pre-pandemic operational norms. Libraries must position themselves to nimbly adjust to disruptions of traditional services rather than rely on “getting lucky” when change is forced upon them. Instead, make your own luck by intentionally integrating more digital resources into the collection and more virtual services into the workflow, using patron data to inform workflow decisions, and flexibly adapting crisis mode operations to sustainable, permanent operations. Ultimately, this paper will show how librarians can combine the tried-and-true with new library practices to adjust to the digital shift in a way that positions them to lead campuses into the future of higher education.

Covid-19 and the Future of Higher Education

Covid-19 and the Future of Higher Education

An exploratory study into the teaching of clinical examination skills in advanced practice.

Clinical examination skills are vital for the accurate assessment and diagnosis of patients. These skills also allow clinicians to differentiate between pathology requiring investigation or treatment and normal anatomy or physiology. This allows clinicians to avoid unnecessary tests and to be able to reassure a patient that their symptoms do not require treatment. However, an incomplete or faulty clinical examination can lead to missed diagnoses and patient harm. Although comprehensive clinical examination skills training is provided in the undergraduate curriculum of medical schools in the UK, little is known in relation to the teaching provided for nurses and allied health professions working in advanced practice roles. This survey sought to explore this phenomenon and uncover clinicians' experiences with regard to being taught a selection of specific clinical examination skills in theory and in practice, those skills being the core system examinations (respiratory, cardiovascular and peripheral vascular, abdominal, central and peripheral nervous systems) and a number of focused examinations (digital rectal and examination, thyroid, breast and genital examination for males and females). The findings demonstrate a concerning variability of educational experiences and a lack of educational coverage of some of the basic clinical examination skills in both theoretical and practical terms. These findings provide an insight into areas of future higher education curricula development as well as workplace mentoring and learning.

COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND POSSIBLE TRENDS INTO THE FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: A REVIEW

COVID-19 virus pandemic resulted to abrupt closure of higher education institutions globally as a strategy to manage its spread. This has extensively impacted on the core functions of higher education which include teaching, research and community service. Through a desktop review of relevant literature, the study explored the impacts, mitigation measures adopted, emerging challenges and the future of higher education in the context of COVID-19. The pandemic disrupted the academic calendar, research activities, displaced students, and there has been loss in revenue streams and human resources. It is likely to affect sustainability of local and international higher education. Higher education institutions responded by leveraging the use Information Communication technology (ICT) to minimize disruptions. Challenges experienced include unreliable internet connectivity and ICT infrastructure, equity in access to remote teaching and learning, staff and students’ readiness, assessment of learning, resource constraints, delivery of field and practical courses and quality assurance in emergency remote teaching and learning. The impacts, responses and challenges have been manifested with gaps and inequalities between learners, institutions and countries. The study envisions widescale uptake of blended delivery of academic programmes, capacity building for staff and students on online pedagogy and a holistic quality assurance framework that infuses achievement of desired learning outcomes with Maslow Hierarchy of needs. Greater emphasis will be placed on the entrepreneurial university, institutional mergers and strategic planning for disasters.

Online Learning, COVID-19, and the Future of the Academy: Implications for Faculty Governance and Collective Bargaining

The purpose of this article is to speculate on the future of higher education as online technology, including adaptive learning (also referred to as personalized learning) infused by artificial intelligence software, develops and matures. This is a risky undertaking since predicting the future, and in this case the evolution of technology, is difficult. While many try to predict what will happen and sometimes get it right, predicting when something will happen is far more challenging. Online and blended learning have already advanced within education, but the most significant changes are yet to come. Evolving technologies have the potential to change the traditional roles in our schools, colleges and universities to the point that many educators are reconsidering their purposes and roles as teachers, researchers and administrators.

Faculty experiences on emergency remote teaching during COVID-19: a multicentre qualitative analysis

Purpose During COVID 19 pandemic emergency remote teaching (ERT) in higher education emerged and faculty members had to go through a transformation in teaching-learning without preparedness. The purpose of the study is to understand the instructional delivery experiences of faculty members, explore the challenges and how they overcame these challenges during the transition from traditional classroom teaching to ERT. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative research approach using phenomenology is adapted for the study. The study is conducted in selected renowned government and private universities offering professional education in India, Malaysia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Data analysis is using NVivo, data management software, based on Ricouer’s theory of interpretation. Findings The findings identify unique challenges and opportunities in faculty experiences during the implementation of ERT and universities require more preparedness in implementing a revised pedagogy. Addressing these unique challenges is, therefore, essential in effective change management and ensuring the effectiveness of instructional delivery. Research limitations/implications The study comprises faculty experiences from only selected countries (the United Arab Emirates, Oman, India and Malaysia) and disciplines such as business studies, design and architecture, engineering, hospitality and tourism management, medicine and nursing. The research contributes towards change management and adaptability strategies during emergency transitions. Practical implications The study has implications in the field of education, administration, research and society at large. This is an era of change that has witnessed tremendous possibilities of digital technology in enhancing remote teaching and learning at all levels of education worldwide. The study enumerates the factors influencing the paradigm shift in the pedagogy for present and future higher education. The present study also highlights how challenging this transformation was to the lives of professional academics and emphasized how effectively the faculty need to be mentored for the future by the administration. Future research can envisage effective tools and techniques for strengthening professional education at universities. The social context and human experiences in ERT and their impact on the process of learning are also addressed in the study. Social implications The study aims to understand the social context and human experiences in the process of ERT and their impact on the process of learning. Originality/value The findings of the study would throw light into the factors influencing the paradigm shift in the pedagogy for present and future higher education.

Three Essays toward Care in and beyond Academia

Radical practices of care rooted in feminist praxis and the lessons we have learned from Professor Lorgia García-Peña are fundamental to our pedagogy and our imagination of a more just future. We insist on a need for care practices across the university—in the abolitionist visions of the future of higher education, in student-led ethnic studies movements on college campuses, and in feminist pedagogical and reading practices. Grounded in transnational feminist thought and praxis that centralizes collectivity, community, and interdependence, our essays incorporate the lessons we have learned from García-Peña and our organizing efforts for ethnic studies as graduate students at Harvard to challenge the exploitative, capitalist, and violent practices of neoliberal universities. Through personal narrative, testimony, cultural and historical analysis, and poetry, this interdisciplinary piece insists that the humanities are indefensible without a focus on ethnic studies methodologies.

Perspectives on the Future of Higher Education

Globalization and technological progress have transformed the world in all areas of human activity, including education. Although, it is certain that higher education will change in the near future, there is no clear or unanimously accepted vision. The article provides analysis and perspectives on the historical evolution and features of universities, best practices in tackling challenges related to globalization and technological progress. Moreover, it offers an insight into the arguments that fundament the need to rethink the way we perceive higher education, its mission and goals, as well as draft strategies aimed at ensuring the capacities of universities to be competitive in the ever-changing educational environment.

Are you a newcomer to horizon scanning? A few decision points and methodological reflections on the process

AbstractIn this short methodological paper, we introduce four issues regarding the process of a horizon scanning exercise. During our horizon scanning project about the future of higher education, we met with several methodological challenges that influenced the data gathering and analysis of our research. The four issues were as follows: (1) finding the right template of data gathering, (2) identifying the right focus of our exercise, (3) the effect of the chosen target group on the process, and (4) the issue of blind spots of the analyzed discourse. By making our research dilemmas and our answers transparent, we would like to highlight how these issues and our decisions shaped the process and the output. In this manner, we demonstrate the iterative aspect of data‐gathering and analysis phases in horizon scanning processes. By discussing these four challenges, we also attempt to emphasize that methodological decisions mutually affect each other and in turn the process itself. Furthermore, this way we could provide methodological insights for researchers who encounter similar decision points during their horizon scanning.