Higher Learning Research Communications最新文献

{"title":"Faculty Members’ Perceptions of Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Afghanistan","authors":"Sayed Ahmad Javid Mussawy, Gretchen B. Rossman","doi":"10.18870/hlrc.v8i2.411","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18870/hlrc.v8i2.411","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study investigated faculty members’ perceptions of quality assurance and accreditation (QAA) in Afghanistan. The study aimed to examine how familiar faculty members were with QAA policy, quality concepts, QAA processes, and whether QAA process has improved the status quo. Through a sequential exploratory mixed methods design, the investigators interviewed seven faculty members at four universities, and subsequently conducted a self-administered survey questionnaire at six universities (two public and four private). A response rate of 54 percent (N = 42) was obtained from the survey. The study findings suggest that faculty members had mixed impressions about QAA implementation. For instance, an overall sum of mean scores shows that faculty members have a positive view about QAA processes M = 3.5 (SD = .75), however, interview participants were less satisfied with QAA outcome. Lastly, implications are made that a successful implementation of QAA processes in Afghanistan is contingent on: 1) establishment of a quality culture wherein universities own the processes and outcomes, and 2) engagement of key stakeholders including faculty, staff, and administrators to internalize QAA processes to improve the status quo. Keywords: higher education quality; quality assurance; accreditation; higher education in Afghanistan","PeriodicalId":37033,"journal":{"name":"Higher Learning Research Communications","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67693889","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Developing Faculty to Provide University Students with Improved Learning Experiences: The Role of Centers for Teaching and Learning","authors":"Águeda Benito, N. Green, Deborah R. Popely, Phuong M. Thai-Garcia, Art Schneiderheinze","doi":"10.18870/HLRC.V7I2.385","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18870/HLRC.V7I2.385","url":null,"abstract":"The article addresses the importance of incorporating faculty development as a key priority of higher education institutions. A literature review and some face-to-face and online interviews were conducted at various U.S. institutions, to identify common and best practices regarding this important matter. The article offers some ideas about what is done, and how it is done, to help faculty be ready for the challenging role they need to play: to be effective developers of a diverse student body that meets the evolving needs of industry and that utilizes technological tools that never existed before.","PeriodicalId":37033,"journal":{"name":"Higher Learning Research Communications","volume":"7 1","pages":"1-12"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48970694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Making Sense of an Elusive Concept: Academics’ Perspectives of Quality in Higher Education","authors":"L. Nabaho, J. Aguti, J. Oonyu","doi":"10.18870/HLRC.V7I2.383","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18870/HLRC.V7I2.383","url":null,"abstract":"Objective: Since the 1990s studies on how stakeholders in higher education perceive quality have burgeoned. Nevertheless, the majority of studies on perception of quality in higher education focus on students and employers. The few studies on academics’ perceptions of quality in higher education treat academics as a homogeneous group and, therefore, do not point out cross-disciplinary perspectives in perceptions of quality. This article explores how academics across six disciplines perceive quality in higher education. \u0000Method: The article is anchored in the interpretivist paradigm. Data was collected from 14 purposely selected academics at Makerere University in Uganda and analyzed using thematic analysis. \u0000Results: The findings show that academics perceive quality in higher education as transformation, fitness for purpose, and exceptional. The findings further demonstrate that a stakeholder group or an individual stakeholder can subscribe to a notion of quality in higher education but voice divergent views on its variants. Similarly, the academic discipline, the perceived purpose of higher education, and the problems within a higher education system have an influence on stakeholders’ conception of quality in higher education. \u0000Conclusions: From the findings it can be inferred that quality in higher education defies a single definition and that stakeholders’ perceptions of quality do not take place in a vacuum. \u0000Implication for Theory and/or Practice: The multidimensional nature of quality and the contestations around it necessitate a multidimensional approach to assuring and assessing it.","PeriodicalId":37033,"journal":{"name":"Higher Learning Research Communications","volume":"7 1","pages":"25-45"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41449759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Implementation Through Innovation: A Literature-Based Analysis of the Tuning Project","authors":"Krisztián Pálvölgyi","doi":"10.18870/HLRC.V7I2.380","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18870/HLRC.V7I2.380","url":null,"abstract":"Tuning Educational Structures in Europe is perhaps the most important higher education innovation platform nowadays. The main objective of the Tuning Project is to develop a tangible approach to implement the action lines of the Bologna Process; thus, implementation and innovation are closely linked in Tuning. However, during its development, Tuning has evolved into a complex, multilevel policy implementation toolset with a worldwide significance. The purpose of this article is to present the complex nature of the Tuning Project, the environment and dynamics of its development, and the mechanisms of its operation from a multilevel implementation perspective, through a literature-review-based analysis.","PeriodicalId":37033,"journal":{"name":"Higher Learning Research Communications","volume":"7 1","pages":"13-24"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43675372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring the Relationship between Students with Accommodations and Instructor Self-Efficacy in Complying with Accommodations","authors":"Anna M. Wright, Kevin R. Meyer","doi":"10.18870/HLRC.V7I1.367","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18870/HLRC.V7I1.367","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionUniversity instructors regularly encounter students with disabilities in their classrooms, and in the 2011-2012 school year, 11% of undergraduates self-reported having a learning disability; a number that continues to increase (Hadley, 2016; National Center for Education Statistics, 2014). There are students who have not reported their disabilities to their institution as it is not required to do so (Lynch & Gussel, 2001). In fact, nearly two thirds of students on college campuses choose not to disclose their disabilities (Newman & Madaus, 2015), and may not be receiving needed accommodations due to the nondisclosure. Legislation requires that instructors provide reasonable accommodations to students with documented needs (Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990). Since instructors encounter these students regularly and are required to accommodate them, a greater understanding of this population is needed.Many researchers have focused on how university students with disabilities perceive their interactions with instructors (Cornett-DeVito & Worley, 2005; Frymier & Wanzer, 2003), how faculty perceive students with disabilities and their accommodations (Bento, 1996; Murray, Flannery, & Wren, 2008; Murray, Wren, & Keys, 2008), and how students can advocate for themselves in higher education (Palmer & Roessler, 2000; Roberts, Ju, & Zhang, 2016; Test, Fowler, Wood, Brewer, & Eddy, 2005). However, researchers have yet to identify what information instructors need to proactively meet student accommodations. Researchers have shown that university faculty understand the need to accommodate students with learning disabilities, but faculty are often uncertain how to do so (Murray, Wren, et al., 2008). When students may advocate for themselves, how their instructors respond could have implications for future student self-advocacy. Instructors' reactions could be based on a lack of understanding of disabilities and their implications, as well as not clearly understanding the legislative mandates (Bento, 1996). One variable that could impact effective communication between faculty and students with disabilities in providing accommodations is instructor self-efficacy. Instructor self-efficacy, or an instructor's belief that he or she has the ability to meet the student's accommodation needs, may be dependent on instructor empathy and flexibility, and student self-disclosure could affect instructor self-efficacy. Due to instructors' lack of knowledge regarding accommodations and the legal requirements surrounding them, instructors often lack self-efficacy working with students needing accommodations (Bento, 1996). Therefore, identifying how instructor self-efficacy can be increased is crucial.Despite that there are laws requiring instructors to provide accommodations, some may begrudgingly comply (Cornett-DeVito & Worley, 2005). To better understand possible instructor reticence in meeting student accommodations, this study was conducted to examine t","PeriodicalId":37033,"journal":{"name":"Higher Learning Research Communications","volume":"7 1","pages":"65-83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42497614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Augmented-Virtual Reality: How to Improve Education Systems","authors":"Manuel J. Fernández","doi":"10.18870/HLRC.V7I1.373","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18870/HLRC.V7I1.373","url":null,"abstract":"This essay presents and discusses the developing role of virtual and augmented reality technologies in education. Addressing the challenges in adapting such technologies to focus on improving students’ learning outcomes, the author discusses the inclusion of experiential modes as a vehicle for improving students’ knowledge acquisition. Stakeholders in the educational role of technology include students, faculty members, institutions, and manufacturers. While the benefits of such technologies are still under investigation, the technology landscape offers opportunities to enhance face-to-face and online teaching, including contributions in the understanding of abstract concepts and training in real environments and situations. Barriers to technology use involve limited adoption of augmented and virtual reality technologies, and, more directly, necessary training of teachers in using such technologies within meaningful educational contexts. The author proposes a six-step methodology to aid adoption of these technologies as basic elements within the regular education: training teachers; developing conceptual prototypes; teamwork involving the teacher, a technical programmer, and an educational architect; and producing the experience, which then provides results in the subsequent two phases wherein teachers are trained to apply augmentedand virtual-reality solutions within their teaching methodology using an available subject-specific experience and then finally implementing the use of the experience in a regular subject with students. The essay concludes with discussion of the business opportunities facing virtual reality in face-to-face education as well as augmented and virtual reality in online education.","PeriodicalId":37033,"journal":{"name":"Higher Learning Research Communications","volume":"17 3","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41261497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Transforming the World in Which We Live: Laureate's Transnational Civic Learning Project.","authors":"William M. Plater","doi":"10.18870/HLRC.V7I1.374","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18870/HLRC.V7I1.374","url":null,"abstract":"Higher education serves as an agent of social change that plays a significant role in the development of socially conscious and engaged students. The duty higher education has toward society, the role for-profit educational institutions play in enhancing the public good, and the prospect of making social change an element of these providers’ missions are discussed. Laureate’s Global Citizenship Project is introduced, highlighting the development of the project’s civic engagement rubric and the challenges of assessing civic engagement.","PeriodicalId":37033,"journal":{"name":"Higher Learning Research Communications","volume":"7 1","pages":"16-26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48499605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Teaching community college students strategies for learning unknown words as they read expository text","authors":"Leslie Craigo, L. Ehri, Manijeh Hart","doi":"10.18870/HLRC.V7I1.350","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18870/HLRC.V7I1.350","url":null,"abstract":"An experiment was conducted to investigate methods that enable college students to learn the meaning of unknown words as they read discipline-specific academic text. Forty-one college students read specific passages aloud during three sessions. Participants were randomly assigned to three vocabulary learning interventions or a control condition. The interventions involved applying context, morphemic, and syntactic strategies; applying definitions; or applying both strategies and definitions to determine word meanings. Word learning and comprehension were measured during the interventions and in a transfer task to assess treatment effects on independent text reading. Results revealed that students in all three intervention groups outperformed controls in learning words and comprehending passages. However, the treatment groups did not differ from controls on the transfer task. Teaching both strategies and definitions was especially effective for learning unknown words and comprehending text containing those words.","PeriodicalId":37033,"journal":{"name":"Higher Learning Research Communications","volume":"7 1","pages":"43-64"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46548608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Good teaching: aligning student and administrator perceptions and expectations","authors":"L. Nabaho, J. Oonyu, J. Aguti","doi":"10.18870/HLRC.V7I1.321","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18870/HLRC.V7I1.321","url":null,"abstract":"Literature attests to limited systematic inquiry into students’ conceptions of good teaching in higher education. Resultantly, there have been calls for engaging students in construing what makes good university teaching and in developing a richer conception of teaching excellence. This interpretivist study that is based on views of final year university students from six academic disciplines investigated students’ conceptions of good teaching at Makerere University in Uganda. Students conceived good teaching as being student-centred, demonstrating strong subject and pedagogical knowledge, being approachable, being responsive, being organised, and being able to communicate well. Most of the conceptions of good teaching hinge  on what the teacher does (the means) rather than affording high quality student learning (an end). It can therefore been concluded that good teaching is a multi-dimensional construct that defies a single definition and cannot be assured and assessed using a single indicator.","PeriodicalId":37033,"journal":{"name":"Higher Learning Research Communications","volume":"7 1","pages":"27-42"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43635005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Communication Skills–Core of Employability Skills: Issues & Concerns","authors":"A. Bharathi","doi":"10.18870/HLRC.V6I4.359","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18870/HLRC.V6I4.359","url":null,"abstract":"Based on a case study conducted by the researcher on a sample of 618 UG students, this paper focuses on identifying certain flaws in the present educational communication. The researcher after presenting the data analysis of the survey, attempts to highlight the present ELT scenario and its relevance to the present day needs of the society. It also emphasizes on the need to focus on practical dimensions of learning. It substantiates that inadequate language proficiency, lack of presentation skills knowledge and unawareness about life skills are the main reasons for the educated unemployment.  Finally, the researcher concludes this paper with some suggestions and recommendations which will help the learners to enhance their communication skills.","PeriodicalId":37033,"journal":{"name":"Higher Learning Research Communications","volume":"6 1","pages":"5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67693825","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}