Purpose Of Higher Education Research Articles

Academic gardening: from the sweet perfume of roses to the narrowness of their thorns

The Brazilian graduate program was originated in the 1930s, from the Decree No. 19.851/31, aiming to implement the scientific research in all fields of human knowledge as a purpose of higher education. In 1951, the Law No. 1.310/51 was responsible for creating the National Research Council (CNP), today the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). This institution ensures the formation of researchers and scholars in all areas of knowledge, through programs, grants and investments. That same year, the Decree No. 29.741/51 created the Campaign for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), the forerunner of the current Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel, with the purpose of assessing and funding the Brazilian graduate programs(1). It is worth mentioning that, in the assessment of graduate programs, CAPES is based on objective and subjective criteria that are analyzed by peer experts from several areas of knowledge; on the meritocratic nature of the programs; and on the current policies for the development of these programs.

Seekers after truth? Images of postgraduate research and researchers in the twenty-first century

Western cultural practices contribute to our understanding of the purpose of higher education and how we are to conduct ourselves in educational contexts. In this article, entitled ‘Seekers after truth?’, I analyse recent works of popular fiction which draw on and contribute to the idea that postgraduate research is a process of locating and amassing clues leading to the revelation or discovery of a truth. These novels re-inscribe the metaphor of the postgraduate researcher as detective or ‘seeker after truth’. This article considers the contradictory and productive meanings that arise from the trope of the researcher-detective. In addition, I argue that, although there are challenges in bringing the work of one field to bear on another, analyses of discourses which are not produced within higher educational contexts can nonetheless promote reflection on educational concepts. In this case, fiction enables us to consider ideas about what it is to do postgraduate research and to be a postgraduate researcher.

Connecting and Collaborating to Further the Intellectual, Civic, and Moral Purposes of Higher Education

Colleges and universities are places where students are immersed in course work and planned activities outside the classroom, where habits based on values and character can be formed. Whether working with students to achieve learning outcomes specifically related to academic courses or helping them work through the consequences of a conduct issue, those in student affairs can enable students to think analytically and develop their cognitive skills. Tying the cognitive understanding of ethical and moral reasoning to experience can transform students’ lives. The key to effectiveness is the real collaboration between faculty and student affairs.

Evaluation of the current situation of the Hungarian higher education based on a few indexes

Around the Millennium we experienced the worldwide development and the growing importance of the role of higher education played in the social and economic development. A few years later, however, a crisis appeared in the situation of higher education (Kadocsa, 2002). The Hungarian higher education system faces the perspective of serious changes in its fundamental principals – such as its main activities and the economical ways which are used to finance these activities – even if only parts of the new educational scheme come into effect. Considering this fundamental activity aspect of the issue, there are new challenges which make necessary to rethink the role and aim of higher education and to define the new tasks needed in connection with education, research and other services. Hungarian Education needs to be renewed and improved to avoid a completebreak away; therefore, future priorities and tasks in order to fulfill these priorities need to be defined (Vincze and Harsányi, 2011). The new conception seems to be based on restrictions of the budget as it is experienced recently: a new structure available for a smaller part of society with a restricted budget has been under development. However, not even a battle, let alone a war can be won without money, horses and arms. The recent financial restrictions as well as the parts of the Széll Kálmán plan concerning education prove that serious amounts of governmental funds is taken away from education. The international improvement tendencies contradict to basically all of these Hungarian priorities.All in all, no reform or change – no matter how much wanted – can be achieved without appropriate funds.

Junior faculty of color in the corporate university: implications of neoliberalism and neoconservatism on research, teaching and service

In higher education today, an overwhelming acceptance of neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies that advance corporate logics of efficiency, competition and profit maximization is commonplace. Market-driven logics and neoconservative ideals shape decision-making about what is taught, how material is taught, who teaches, who does research, who belongs, what counts as valid research and, ultimately, the purposes of higher education. Against this backdrop, in this essay, I provide a critical analysis of the ways in which market-driven and neoconservative values shape the experiences of junior faculty of color in American research universities. That is to say, I am concerned with the ways in which neoliberal racialization structures the lives of junior faculty of color in the US academy. In my analysis, I reason that in order to substantively improve conditions for junior faculty of color, there is a need for those concerned with change to fine-tune understandings of the US academy – its history and new re-alignment with the market, neoconservative ideals and corporate values – identifying in the process the non-benign impact of the corporate university on scholarship and teaching, working conditions and visions for social justice and equity.

The Thinking Student’s Guide to College: 75 Tips for Getting a Better Education (review)

Reviewed by: The Thinking Student’s Guide to College: 75 Tips for Getting a Better Education Amanda Frioli Andrew Roberts. The Thinking Student’s Guide to College: 75 Tips for Getting a Better Education. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010. 184 pp. Paper: $14.00. ISBN: 978-0-2267-2115-6. Andrew Roberts, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, shares a straightforward and intelligible depiction of higher education addressed to prospective and first-year students. Departing from guides that focus on study skills, grades, or social life (p. 3.), Roberts concentrates on less publicized considerations that students must have if they truly desire an education. He justifies this choice by illustrating outlets already available for those merely seeking a diploma or a good time, as opposed to those in quest of higher learning. Written from the perspective of a professor and former undergraduate advisor, the book is based on Roberts’s observations and experience in higher education. He infuses his advice with insider information about how universities and the professoriate actually work. Roberts’s underlying premise is that a great education is available at America’s colleges and universities, but is not necessarily offered. Students need to understand and navigate the terrain skillfully to get a better, more personalized education.College faculty and administrators will immediately recognize many truths encapsulated in this volume. For new and prospective students, however, Roberts exposes what may be unfamiliar territory. The book is organized chronologically, according to milestones of the undergraduate experience. Roberts presents information through a series of numbered “tips” that offer practical suggestions for students. Along the way, he poses and answers several important yet often unasked questions that help students negotiate the world of higher education. Although it is a guidebook for students, The Thinking Student’s Guide to College also has relevancy for the higher education community, as I discuss later. Chapter 1 provides a brief but relevant history of the university and, more importantly, presents insights into higher education administration. It presents a concise account of the roles, responsibilities, and perspectives of the key decision makers in a university. This account illuminates challenges facing colleges and how administrative, faculty, and student priorities often differ. Rarely imparted to students, this information helps shape an understanding of the complexities and purposes of higher education. Ultimately, students can use this knowledge to inform their college selection. Chapter 2 outlines steps for selecting a college. Roberts convincingly argues that a college’s reputation is not as important for ensuring a quality undergraduate education as students may think. He stresses that undergraduate classroom education is similar among colleges and universities. More important than reputation are criteria such as college size and the general education program. Roberts’s approach is both sincere and candid, deconstructing the many intentions of a college and sharing insights about the role of the undergraduate student from the college’s perspective. The next two chapters offer advice on choosing classes and a major. Roberts’s main message here is experimentation and self-challenge. He provides several strategies for exploring courses and majors and encourages students to expand variety in their studies and venture beyond the requirements of their majors. By opting for small seminars and upper-division courses, for example, students deepen their educational experience. Roberts encourages students to select majors based on their personal interests but, as an insider, enumerates the benefits of less-populated majors. He suggests several often-neglected majors and departments that students should consider. Inherent in this book are the concepts of shared responsibility and self-agency. Students can abdicate their agency and accept the standard educational experience, or they can take responsibility for shaping and improving their education through the choices they make. The succeeding three chapters guide students through their college years. Chapter 5, “Being [End Page 658] Successful,” imparts common advice such as: manage time well, join study groups, ask for help when needed, and work hard. Interestingly, it also prompts students to demonstrate their hard work to their professors, an important prelude to Chapter 6, which focuses on ways students can increase interaction with their professors. Roberts holds that such interaction is fundamental to personalized attention and a...

What are the structural conditions of importance to preceptors' performance?

Preceptors play a critical role in the process of developing nursing students' knowledge, skills and ability to make independent and critical judgments, however relatively little is known about what aspects are associated with nurses' performance as preceptors. To investigate structural conditions and professional aspects of potential importance to nurses' perceptions of their performance as preceptors, and to evaluate the validity and reliability of a questionnaire measuring nurses' perceptions of being a preceptor. The study had a correlational design. Total population sampling (N=1720) in a county council district in central Sweden was used to screen for nurses with recent preceptor experience, 933 nurses responded (response rate 54%), of those 323 nurses fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The present findings are based on data from 243 of these subjects. Data were collected with a questionnaire and analyzed using multiple regressions analyses, exploratory factor analyses and reliability coefficients. The results show that aspects such as receiving feedback on the function as a preceptor, being able to plan and prepare the clinical education period, receiving support from unit managers and having specific supervision education explain 31% of nurses' overall view of their performance as preceptors. However, structural conditions and professional experiences could not explain preceptors' use of reflection and critical thinking when acting as preceptors. These findings are discussed within the framework of Kanter's structural theory of power in organizations. Further, the psychometric evaluation showed that the questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring nurses' structural conditions for and perceptions of their performance as preceptors. Structural conditions such as feedback and support seemed to strengthen nurses' general view of their performance as preceptors but did not seem to facilitate nurses' work toward the aim of higher education and helping nursing students develop critical thinking.

Acceleration Across California: Shorter Pathways in Developmental English and Math

Developmental courses in English, math, and reading have an important purpose in higher education, especially in the open-access world of community colleges. These classes—also referred to as “reme...

A Popperian Perspective on Science Education

Despite the rigorous debate around the purposes of higher education and the associated concept of graduate attributes, science education at the tertiary level has remained largely impervious to engaging with these ideas. This is may be due to the emphasis on the knowledge base of the hard science as opposed to the emphasis on the knower in the humanities. However, many science graduates leave tertiary institutions with a fairly simplistic epistemology despite the rhetoric of the importance of problem solving and conceptual understanding. Arguments stemming from an emphasis on the being of the student are easily dismissed by scientists as being irrelevant or substantially less important than the content knowledge of their subjects. In exploring the philosophy of Karl Popper an argument can be made for the importance of personal development on the basis of Popper’s understanding of critique.

University ranking as social exclusion

In this article we explore the dual role of global university rankings in the creation of a new, knowledge-identified, transnational capitalist class and in facilitating new forms of social exclusion. We examine how and why the practice of ranking universities has become widely defined by national and international organisations as an important instrument of political and economic policy. We consider the development of university rankings into a global business combining social research, marketing and public relations, as a tangible policy tool that narrowly redefines the social purposes of higher education itself. Finally, it looks at how the influence of rankings on national funding for teaching and research constrains wider public debate about the meaning of ‘good' and meaningful education in the United Kingdom and other national contexts, particularly by shifting the debate away from democratic publics upward into the elite networked institutions of global capital. We conclude by arguing that, rather than regarding world university rankings as a means to establish criteria of educational value, the practice may be understood as an exclusionary one that furthers the alignment of higher education with neoliberal rationalities at both national and global levels.

Higher education status in public value orientation

In the article the interrelationships between the types of dominating values in the society and corresponding consequences for higher education aims and objectives. In the context of the mentioned interrelationships, there are given the examples of studies offered by the USA and Daugavpils University, as well as the access to value structuring and typology found in scientific literature. The surveyed study results render the public evaluation on the instrumental and terminal values of the higher education. Authors pay a special attention to systemic view or four quadrant matrix use in the analysis of value formation process. Semantic analysis of the concept “knowledge” and hermeneutic interpretation depict the direct connection of the education with individual and collective values. By determining the values dominating in the public, one can predict its expectations in the field of education and adapt it to the necessary changes.

Integral vision: a multi-perspective approach to the recognition of graduate attributes

The increasing focus of universities on employability is stimulating debates about the purpose of higher education. In this article, we consider what attributes society will demand from graduates in the future. We use Wilber's integral theory to tease out some of the issues in the current conceptualisation of graduate attributes and argue that we need to move away from the current emphasis on skills for jobs and individual, material betterment toward a more spiritual and world orientation. Education for the future needs to focus on an agenda of personal responsibility and on individual and social interior attributes and to move away from its present ‘exterior systems’ focus. Graduate attributes need to address levels of concern that rise through the self and the social toward the welfare of the whole planet.

A proposed methodology for contextualised evaluation in higher education

This paper aims to inspire stakeholders working with quality of higher education (such as members of study boards, study programme directors, curriculum developers and teachers) to critically consider their evaluation methods in relation to a focus on student learning. We argue that many of the existing methods of evaluation in higher education are underpinned by a conception of learning that is de‐contextualised. As a consequence, many data collection methods do not address aspects that affect students’ learning. This is problematic because the core aim of higher education is to facilitate student learning. We propose a contextualised evaluation methodology, guided by 10 key questions, which can help evaluators address concepts and questions of student learning in their evaluations.

Leadership in higher education: some lessons from other sectors

PurposeThere is a tendency in every sector to argue that its culture and leadership issues are unique, and that concepts and processes for leadership development do not travel well across sector boundaries. Higher education (HE) is well known for adopting this point of view. Drawing from the author's own experience of working in many parts of the private, public and third sectors, the purpose of this paper is to unpack that paradox and suggest some important lessons and practices that can survive the transition across these boundaries.Design/methodology/approachThe examples of such practices are drawn from the worlds of broadcasting, the arts, education, local and central government. They include embracing the “tight/loose” tension conceived by Charles Handy, the conceptualisation of the customer experience in a way that can engage HE staff and the vital contribution that universities can make to the “leadership of place”.FindingsThe author has found three general concepts of leadership, which seem particularly relevant to the challenges facing UK HE today. Agility – the ability to embrace new business models, new organisational relationships and new technological opportunities whilst holding on to the core purpose of HE. Distinctiveness – seeking through institutional dialogue a shared understanding of difference, either as a single institution or as part of a unique cluster of universities. Alignment – finding the optimal meeting point between top‐down institutional goals and the traditional bottom‐up collegial culture.Originality/valueThis paper provides an opportunity to reflect on development programmes run by the Leadership Foundation, and to test them against the wider context of public service leadership development.

Cardinal John Henry Newman and ‘the ideal state and purpose of a university’: nurse education, research and practice development for the twenty‐first century

Cardinal John Henry Newman's book, The Idea of a University, first published in the mid nineteenth century, is often invoked as the epitome of the liberal Enlightenment University in discussions and debates about the role and purpose of nurse education. In this article I will examine Newman's book in greater detail and with a more critical eye than is generally the case in the writing of nurse academics. In particular, I will focus on the claims that Newman was a champion of the Enlightenment University of the nineteenth century, that he promoted the idea of 'disinterested' universal knowledge for its own sake, that he was an early advocate of the pursuit of knowledge through scientific research, and the supposition that he would have welcomed the discipline of nursing into the University. In each case, I will suggest that these claims are based on an extremely selective reading of Newman's work. I will conclude by employing the example of practice development to propose an alternative way for nursing to find its place in the modern University that does not involve a retreat into what I will argue is an outdated and nostalgic view of the aims and purpose of higher education.

Humanism’s sisyphean task: curricular reform at Brown University during the Second World War

In the midst of a curricular debate at Brown University during the Second World War, the faculty’s humanists seized the opportunity to pen their views on the nature and purpose of higher education. This investigation reveals humanism as a fragmented force, at once principal and peripheral to the American academy. The central argument of this study is that humanists united when they stood against mainstream academe and fragmented when they tried to acculturate their ideas to prevailing currents of thought. This article further contends that humanists endured as a major if subsidiary constituency within academe because they offered the American university an elevated rationale for its existence without issuing a substantive challenge to its prevailing power structures.

Ripening the Time: Learning from the Past to Prepare the Future

Student affairs stands at a pivotal point in time and within its own history. By increasingly encouraging interdisciplinary learning across the curriculum, our profession is well positioned to help students understand the multiple purposes of higher education, including both the practical and the transcendent. Addressing these twin purposes is the only way our students can become citizens of the world and effect social change, just as each generation before them has done.

A Propósito de João Boavida y el Debate sobre las Finalidades de la Educación Superior: Los casos de John Dewey y José Ortega y Gasset

Para João Boavida, el gran desafío al que las universidades se enfrentan hoy es el de hacer compatible su finalidad clásica de educar a las élites intelectuales en la tradición de la exigencia científica de las diferentes disciplinas, con la aspiración a la democratización en el acceso y la consiguiente masificación. Boavida se inserta de este modo en un debate acerca de la idea de la universidad en el que a lo largo del último siglo han participado figuras destacadas del panorama intelectual de diversos países. En este artículo rastreamos las voces de José Ortega y Gasset y John Dewey, reconstruyendo, a la luz de las últimas aportaciones de Boavida, una conversación figurada entre ambos en torno a las finalidades de la educación superior y su articulación con las transformaciones sociales.

Language Learner Strategies and Linguistic Competence as Factors Affecting Achievement Test Scores in English for Specific Purposes

The article examines the effect of two factors on achievement test scores in English as a foreign language for specific purposes in higher education: preexisting linguistic competence and frequency of use of language learner strategies. The rationale for the analysis of language learner strategies as a factor affecting achievement test outcomes is outlined, and then language learner strategies and linguistic competence are defined. Results of international studies that have confirmed the correlation between these two variables are also presented. The results of this study indicate a statistically significant positive effect of general linguistic competence on achievement test scores. Among the constructs of language learner strategies, however, the only construct having a statistically significant effect on achievement test scores is metacognitive strategies. The article concludes with a discussion of findings and presentation of measures that could help students at lower levels of linguistic competence improve their achievement test scores.

Empire, state and public purpose in the founding of universities and colleges in the Antipodes

From the mid‐nineteenth to the early twentieth century universities and colleges were founded throughout Australia and New Zealand in the context of the expanding British Empire. This article provides an analytical framework to understand the engagement between changing ideas of higher education at the centre of Empire and within the settler societies in the Antipodes. Imperial influences remained significant, but so was locality in association with the role of the emerging state, while the idea of the public purpose of higher education helped to widen social access forming and sustaining the basis of middle class professions.