Higher Education In Vietnam Research Articles

Building outcome standards of the curriculum based on digital literacy to respond human resource for digital transformation for higher education

aa Digital transformation is one of the core content and plays an extremely important role in socio-economic development towards the goal of Industry 4.0. It is not only about improving technology but also changing awareness, management model and management strategy. Digital transformation in education is one of the major contents of national digital transformation. In order to achieve the goal of digital transformation in education, the building of the curriculum to response the digital literacy criteria for student outcome standards is an important issue for providing digital human resource. Therefore, in this paper, we represent some issues related to digital transformation, digital literacy in the curriculum towards the goal of training human resource for digital transformation for higher education in Vietnam. A case study of the curriculum in Quang Binh University will be discussed.

Knowledge Management in Higher Education in Vietnam: Insights from Higher Education Leaders — An Exploratory Study

This paper aims at increasing awareness of knowledge management (KM), its challenges as well as benefits in Higher Education (HE) system of Vietnam. An exploratory qualitative research design was deployed using semi-structured interviews. Nine senior institutional leaders from nine Vietnamese universities participated in the study. Thematic analysis, informed by the literature, was undertaken on English translated transcripts of the interviews. The findings shared senior HE leaders’ perspectives on how KM in higher education institutions (HEI) of Vietnam was being conceptualised and operationalised, as well as insights into how KM associates with six dimensions of HEIs’ performance so as to gear up KM’s benefits and anticipate challenges when a HEI embarking on the KM journey. Further research of different methods on the topic to enlighten the role of KM in HE system of Vietnam, and beyond, is recommended. The role and importance of KM is wildly recognised in business communities. However, studies exploring KM application in HE system remain scarce especially HE of developing countries. In Vietnam, no qualitative studies of KM in HEIs have been located. Vietnam is a nation on its way to transform from a state-based to market-driven economy; and a comprehensive education reform is deemed to shoulder the key task. KM deployment in the whole HE system is essential to comprehensive education reform and then to the global integration of its HE system. Besides, the study helps enrich the literature of KM in HE sector and provide insights of KM to campus chiefs, KM officers, administrator in HEIs.

Examining the impacts of out-of-class student engagement on student competencies in the context of business students in Vietnam – evidence from universities in Hanoi

PurposeThe topic of student engagement (SE) has received considerable attention in the literature for its robust correlation with many positive educational outcomes in higher education (HE). However, among these desirable outcomes, student competencies have rarely been examined despite their importance in employability. While universities are expected to improve graduates' competencies and prepare them to adapt in an uncertain and complex workplace, the results are still limited. Therefore, this study attempts to examine the impacts of SE on student competencies in HE in Vietnam, focusing on the out-of-class environment. It also aims at developing a measurement instrument for out-of-class SE.Design/methodology/approachBased on student self-reports, this study collected two different datasets of 492 and 490 undergraduate business students in Hanoi to implement separate exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The measurement instrument of out-of-class engagement was adapted from the literature review and developed based on qualitative research, which combined the four subconstructs of participatory, emotional, cognitive and agentic engagement.FindingsFindings confirms four subconstructs of SE in the out-of-class context where agentic engagement is a valid and distinct aspect. Findings further show that, among these four subconstructs, cognitive and agentic engagement have significant impacts on all four important student competencies for business students, while participatory and emotional engagement do not.Research limitations/implicationsThis study confirmed out-of-class SE has significant positive impacts on student competencies in HE, especially with out-of-class cognitive and agentic engagement. The findings show evidence of different impacts between participatory and agentic engagement, in which while participatory has no impacts on student competencies, agentic engagement significantly contributes to competencies of managing self, communicating and managing people and tasks. This implies different outcomes can be expected from different levels of engagement.Practical implicationsFrom a managerial point of view, the findings of this study strongly suggest that higher education institutions (HEIs) should view the out-of-class environment as an important extended learning context for students' complete development. Besides, as student out-of-class participatory engagement is not sufficient to the formation of student competencies, HEIs should strengthen out-of-class cognitive and agentic engagement among students. From the leadership perspective, building a good campus environment with various opportunities to involve students in diversified extra-curricular activities is beneficial to university students.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the body of knowledge in SE by establishing a theoretical linkage between out-of-class engagement and student competencies and provides sufficient statistical significance. In addition, it validated out-of-class agentic engagement as a separate and distinct subcomponent of out-of-class SE and confirmed the positive impact of out-of-class engagement on student competencies for business students.

Students’ Attitudes towards Mobile Learning: A Case Study in Higher Education in Vietnam

The use of mobile learning has been investigated in many educational settings to support the effectiveness of mobile devices in teaching and learning. The study aims to explore students’ attitudes towards the use of mobile technology in higher education. To gain insight into students’ attitudes towards it, both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed from a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire and a semi-structured interview with the participation of 118 students in a university. The results showed that students expressed highly positive attitudes towards the use of mobile technology in learning. The easy access to resources and course materials was most beneficial to students accompanied by enhanced communication with peers and instructors to help students achieve better academic scores. Besides, students could develop various skills through mobile learning such as computer skills, analytical skills, and note-taking skills. It is to suggest the implication of using mobile devices to support teaching and learning to improve the quality of education in higher education as a whole.

The Impact of Digital Transformation in Higher Education: The Case Study from Vietnam

The education sector in general and higher education, in particular, has paid great attention to digital transformation into teaching. Digital transformation is not only a general development trend but also helps to change the traditional teaching method to a new active teaching method that helps learners to be active and creative when participating in the learning process. The traditional classroom model, which has existed for a long time, is gradually shifting to classrooms that apply information technology to teaching and learning to reduce lectures and transfer knowledge to develop the initiative, creativity, and capacity of students to learn. Create opportunities for learners to learn anytime, anywhere, learners can be active in the learning process, contributing to building a learning society. The article clarifies the impact of digital transformation on higher education in Vietnam. From there, offer an oriented solution to help digital transformation become an effective tool in higher education in Vietnam today.

Students’ Perception of Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Vietnam: Empirical Evidence and Implications for Face-to-Face and Alternative Modes of Learning

Students are considered the most essential internal stakeholders in the higher education sector. They play a significant role in quality assurance processes. This study aims to investigate students’ engagement with and perceptions of Vietnamese higher education quality assurance. The study conducted an online survey questionnaire for undergraduate students in five major cities across Vietnam. The researchers utilised convenience sampling method to draw a representative sample from the target population. The 1,323 valid responses were collected and analysed using IBM’s SPSS Statistical Tool. The results show that most of the Vietnamese students were aware of quality policy and quality assurance models implemented at their institutions. The purposes of quality assurance and the focus level of quality assurance were also reported on by the majority of respondents. However, the positive change as to the results of quality assurance implementation was not clearly observed by the students. The paper concludes that Vietnamese students were involved in several major quality assurance processes, and they were aware of only important quality assurance tools implemented at their university.

Students’ Acceptance of E-learning Adoption in Higher Education: An Empirical Study in Vietnam

E-learning models have been dramatically spreading during the COVID-19 outbreak. The study's objective is to investigate students’ acceptance of E-learning in the context of Vietnam's higher education. UTAUT model was adopted to evaluate the acceptance and use of the E-learning method. The analyzed data were collected from 531 undergraduate students in Vietnam, who currently use E-learning environments. The findings indicated that social influence had a significant impact on behavioral intention. The behavioral intention and facilitating conditions were two factors affecting the acceptability of E-learning for university students. Also, those findings have enriched students' understanding of adopting E-learning. They provide suggestions and implications for educators and institutions in the continuing implementation of e-learning at Vietnamese higher education institutions.

The impact of human resource management and educational innovation on employees' organizational commitment: A case study at Saigon International University, Vietnam

Higher education in Vietnam is in a period of autonomy, self-responsibility in all aspects, and human resource management (HRM) to increase commitment to employees' organizations in the context of educational innovation. This has been receiving the attention of the whole community. The results showed that HRM (including attracting, training and developing, maintaining humSan resources) and educational innovation (including decentralization, socialization of education, integration) have a positive influence on both organizational satisfaction and organizational commitment. Satisfaction also has a positive influence on employees' organizational commitment. This result sets the stage for proposing some governance implications to the leadership of Saigon International University (SIU), Vietnam.

Quality Assurance of Higher Education in Vietnam: The Impact of Autonomy Policy

The autonomous university model is recognized as a method of advanced university governance to improve training quality . In Vietnam, university autonomy has made many positive changes in training quality in recent years. This study examines if there is a difference in the QA activities of academic programs between two types of higher education institutions: the public universities with financial autonomy and the public universities without financial autonomy. A quantitative method was used to analyze the survey data from 593 participants. An independent T-test was used to analyze the differences between the two types of institutions. The results indicated statistical differences in most activities in seven research areas. The quantitative result provided strong evidence of the impact of autonomy policy on two types of higher education institutions, which was not addressed in the national report on autonomy policy in 2022. Some recommendations were made to improve the QA activities toward continuous quality improvement.

Autonomy in higher education in Vietnam

Currently, the education and training in Vietnam sector has had specific policies and actions in which to attach importance to the renewal of the management mechanism for universities in the direction that universities are more and more autonomous in their mission implementation, improve the quality of education. International experience shows that one of the solutions to improve the quality of public universities is to gradually increase autonomy for universities in the following areas: autonomy in program and education plan; autonomy in using finance and facilities; autonomy in recruitment, human resource management; autonomy in educational goals and quality. The paper presents the research on the model of autonomous public universities in Vietnam in the context of the implementation of the Education Law 2019.

THE IMPACTS OF TECHNOLOGY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF L2 ORAL FLUENCY IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN VIETNAM

This article is a part of my dissertation project, which examines teachers' and students' perceptions on the factors influencing the speaking fluency of L2 students in universities in Vietnam. This article was conducted to investigate factors that impact the development of L2 speaking fluency in higher education in Vietnam. Specifically, the current study is on the impact of technology in developing oral fluency in higher education in Vietnam. The mixed-method was created with this purpose. Data was collected via close-ended questionnaires for thirty students and thirteen teachers and semi-structured interview questions for instructors. The findings indicate that technology has a positive influence on English oral fluency. In addition, the findings reveal that technology can help students improve their communication skills and speaking fluency.

Vietnam’s Success in COVID-19 Pandemic: What Are Consequences to Its Higher Education?

The COVID-19 pandemic and the shutdown of schools created disruptions in Vietnamese education, which has not been evaluated to date. This paper provides an analysis of the effect of COVID-19 policies on teaching and learning in higher education in Vietnam. We first contextualize higher education in Vietnam prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. We then present an analysis of the Vietnamese government’s educational policies aimed at controlling virus spread with respect to Vietnam’s inequalities of access to higher education, quality of curriculum and instruction, and institutional autonomy. Our analysis focuses on how government policies can simultaneously respond to the pandemic and moderate prior educational issues. Through this analysis, we contrast the advantages and disadvantages of the policies and highlight the challenges Vietnamese universities face in policy implementation. We conclude this paper by discussing the implications of changes made during the pandemic to comment on higher education in Vietnam post-COVID-19.

Digital transformation in higher education in Vietnam

This paper, which aims to explore (i) what digital transformation means in the higher education context, (ii) what knowledge should faculty members equip themselves with in response to the forthcoming digitalization in their institutions, and (iii) what HEIs should bear in mind in designing professional development programs to support their faculty’s preparation. Based on an exhaustive review of literature, the paper has significant implications for HEIs in getting ready for their imminent digitalization.

Transformative education as an orientation for sustainable development of higher education in Vietnam: An exploratory study

Transformative education is recognized as a relevant theory for educational development in many countries. Scholars have noted that transformative education can help learners to become more critical, responsible, and autonomous. However, there is no such empirical evidence available in Vietnam to date. There is also a gap between theoretical construct and practical application of transformative education in Vietnam. This study aims to explore the current understanding of transformative education and clarify its impact on learners. To address the gap, the authors assess the status of higher education in Vietnam and propose why transformative education can be a solution to improve the quality of higher education. Our study used a qualitative approach to explore the knowledge and experience of respondents related to transformative education. Data collection used Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and In-Depth Interview (IDI). Two FGDs were performed with students and alumni from universities in Binh Duong Province and Ho Chi Minh City exploring the learning experience in class. Three IDIs were implemented with experts in higher education management and quality assurance exploring the consistency and application of transformative education in Vietnam. The findings indicate that learning activities at several universities in Vietnam are still heavy on theory, and students lack experimental activities. Respondents also reported that transformative education is consistent with the sustainable development of higher education in Vietnam. Our study also provides several suggestions regarding to how to apply transformative education in Vietnam in the long term.

Vietnam's Higher Education in the Era of Industrial Revolution 4.0: Opportunities, Challenges and Innovation

The industrial revolution 4.0 with its rapid development speed and far-reaching impacts on the development of each country, if being left behind of this revolution, the lags behind the development is also inevitable. On the contrary, if making good use of the advantages of this revolution, the opportunities are huge. Industry 4.0 is based on people, in which high-quality human resources are the core for development. This is also the development direction that each country needs to prepare for incessant changes in the future. This article will present the issue of "Vietnam's higher education in the era of Industrial Revolution 4.0: Opportunities, challenges, and innovations”

A Proposal of Information Literacy Concept in Accordance with the Context of Higher Education in Vietnam

Information literacy is a type of personal capacity, which demonstrates an individual’s ability to master the information world, exploit and use information effectively to deal with his/her living, studying and working needs. Information literacy is associated with the development of lifelong learning capacity and social inclusion for individuals. Therefore, information literacy has become increasingly important, becoming a popular topic in education research, especially in the current context of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Since the 70s of the 20th century, information literacy has been widely discussed and developed by educational institutions, especially higher education ones, in Western countries. Concepts, theoretical frameworks and practices for developing information literacy for learners have been established and mostly applied in Western countries. However, with a different educational context, such as the one in Vietnam, how should information literacy for university students be conceptualized and developed? This paper firstly presents an overview of how the concept of information literacy has been changed globally and those aspects that impact the way information literacy has been conceptualized and developed. Key points discussed are educational context, academic culture, teaching and learning practices. From that analysis, the paper proposes a concept of information literacy for students, which is in accordance with the academic culture of Vietnamese higher education.

Exploring EFL undergraduates’ views of the impact teachers have on their online learning engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced education systems worldwide to switch all learning and teaching to the virtual platform since late 2019. This swift transition has a certain impact on students' engagement during their online classes. Studies propose that online learning engagement, as a multidimensional construct, is affected by online connectivity and peer or teacher support. However, little has been done, specifically in the context of higher education in Vietnam, to study the influence of each factor separately. In pursuit of filling this gap, four focus group discussions are conducted. The discussions firstly aim to comprehend the participants' general perceptions about the influence of EFL lecturers on their online engagement, while the main part is to investigate how the four specific roles of online lecturers, including their pedagogical, social, managerial, and technical roles, affect learning engagement. This explanatory study concludes that how effectively EFL lecturers can perform these roles has a substantial impact on their students' engagement in learning English online. From the findings, the paper suggests language teachers should be provided with more training that caters to enhancing their flexibility in creating autonomy-supportive online tasks as well as their digital competence.

Open knowledge management in university education in the context of digital transformation

Research objectives: this study aims to clarify the role of knowledge in social development, and open knowledge management in higher education. Research Methods: The authors mainly use theoretical research methods. Research through documents: retrospective, summarizing, systematizing theories from domestic and foreign studies, selected documents closely related to the task of knowledge research, knowledge management, thereby, act as a scientific basis for further studies to propose appropriate measures for higher education in Vietnam in the digital transformation period in education. Research results: the study shows the role of knowledge in the process of social development. In addition, the study points out the importance of open knowledge management to the training process in universities.

COVID-19 and higher education in Vietnam: Systematically rethinking the quality assurance system and practices towards the ‘new normal’ in post-crisis era

COVID-19 has spawned a critical shift in the landscape of higher education (HE) worldwide, entailing transformations of practices across the field, in which quality assurance (QA) for HE has also evolved to both reflect and stay adaptive to the ‘new normal’ formed during and beyond the pandemic. Against the COVID-19 context, this paper retells some of the existing debates for Vietnamese QA and accreditation activities, as well as identifies emerging challenges in QA practices in the post-pandemic era. Theoretically, the paper contributes a conceptual tool to examine the QA of the Vietnamese HE system, embracing three dimensions of teaching and learning, inputs and outputs. This further underpins our inquiry for QA practices in the Vietnamese HE context which has been scaffolded and developed accordingly. Drawn from a critical review and analysis of emerging policies and existing literature, practical implications and projections for the directions of Vietnamese QA in the future will be provided. This paper presents a timely insight for the process of policy-making and the implementation process of QA in Vietnamese HE during a time of uncertainties and looks towards building resilience to future crises.

Student internship experiences: areas for improvement and student choices of internship practices

PurposeThis paper investigates areas for improvement in internship practices from the perspectives of key stakeholders, such as university department leaders, host company leaders, lecturers, work supervisors, graduates, and final year students. Student choices of internship practices are also reported.Design/methodology/approachAn exploratory sequential mixed methods approach was implementing that included three focus groups, 15 individual in-depth interviews, and 461 responses to a student survey. In the qualitative phase, deductive thematic analysis was employed to explore areas for improvement in internship practices. In the quantitative phase, descriptive statistical analysis, and two non-parametric tests were used: the Mann–Whitney tests and Kruskal–Wallis tests, followed by pairwise comparisons to identify student choices of internship practices.FindingsThe corroboration and triangulation of the qualitative and quantitative data sets revealed three distinct areas for improvement in internship practices in Vietnamese universities. These are internship learning outcomes, internship support, and internship assessment. Findings highlighted the crucial role of industry stakeholders, including work supervisors in the entire process of the internship, as well as the key responsibility of universities in improving student internship experiences.Originality/valueAreas for improvement and student choices of internship practices in Vietnamese universities have not been discussed previously. Findings carry practical, policy and theoretical implications for higher education in Vietnam and other countries striving to enhance student internship experiences. Hence, this study contributes to the Vietnamese and international WIL literature with its findings emerging from a complex mixed-methods design. This methodological approach offers enhanced reliability and validity of findings compared to previous research in the field that relied on a single data set.