The article presents results of an Erasmus+ project that aimed at suggesting a comprehensive performance indicator set for learning and teaching. Based on a benchlearning exercise among the six project universities, the article presents findings of an exploratory research on the assessment of the developed indicator set by members of four…

This study focuses on the state and effectiveness of national funding systems of Higher Education to support the European Universities Initiative. Its focus lies on the mechanisms employed by Member States for the core funding of higher education institutions, in particular the mechanisms that include performance elements. More specifically, the…

Purpose: The explanatory study aimed to understand the global perspective of quality education and describe transformative strategies that empower teacher educators and equip the education system and future teachers to act as change agents by fostering learning processes that support students towards a sustainable future.…

This follow-up study presents a design-based research (DBR) setting implemented over a three-year project called 'eKidZ - Teach Your Parents Well' which uses research-based learning and follows the four phases of DBR. In an iterative cycle, 20 teenagers aged 14-16 took on the role of researchers and investigated intergenerational learning and the…

This paper examines the effects of learning opportunities on the attainment of different proficiency levels in general pedagogical knowledge among student teachers to provide insights into their learning processes and the effectiveness of teacher preparation. The authors used a subsample of the EMW study with two time points, comprising the data…

This volume addresses the conceptions of actors and actorhood in higher education research. It explores the range of actors that are (or should be) recognized and theorized in higher education research, the processes that shape actorhood in the higher education reforms and explores the relations between the actors and higher education reforms.…

The following article describes how empirical research can give new impulses to Islamic religious education. These impulses could lead to a reconciliation of the Islamic religious heritage with the fast-changing reality of Muslims in non-Muslim countries and societies. Due to the presence of Muslim children in public schools and the urgent…

Embedding quality into higher education institutions is a challenging matter given the complexity of the higher education environment. Although several studies have been conducted seeking to reveal associated challenges, a limited number of researches have been implemented on a cross-national level. This study investigates challenges associated…

Teaching of Psychology includes a great variety of topics, course formats, and assessment approaches. A central concept that incorporated the interface between teaching goals, instructional methods, and examination modalities is referred to as Constructive Alignment (CA). This model addresses possible designs of teaching to improve students'…

In recent years, the enhancement of learning and teaching has become a priority, not only for higher education institutions, but also for national governments, the European Union and the Bologna Process. This report aims to map the learning and teaching landscape in 28 higher education systems and to provide insight into how teaching enhancement…

This article shows how the professional discourse on quality assurance in higher education is building on latent meaning structures that can be competing with each other and even subvert the messages on the manifest level. Taking the case of the Austrian higher education system as an example and employing a reconstructive-interpretative approach…

The vast majority of studies concerning the implementation of quality assurance in higher education institutions have been conducted from a national perspective, with few cross-national studies. This study aimed to explore the implementation of quality assurance standards in Europe from a comparative perspective. A questionnaire based on…

This chapter summarises the rationales and impacts of the national reforms of the six countries selected (Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Portugal) and complements it with a literature review on reforms in these and other EU countries. The reforms emerge as having been inspired by endogenous processes -- with or without a…

The increasing availability of non-formal education in the form of Open Education Resources (OERs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) gives rise to the questions of how such education can be formally recognized for credit. Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR), and Qualification Frameworks are fields of practice actively engaged in…

This report describes the opportunities, challenges and limits of evidence-based quality improvement in university language teaching. Using "treffpunkt sprachen"--Centre for Language, Plurilingualism and Didactics at the University of Graz as an example, it provides a brief explanation of the centre and then presents the prioritization…