In response to global competition in higher education, university rankings have been developed. These have been interpreted as indicating the regions and countries with the most prestigious and competitive higher education institutions. The rankings are viewed as important in many countries, but their role is ambiguous and contested in the Nordic…

This study aimed to investigate common features and ways of understanding quality culture (QC) within higher education institutions (HEIs) in Nordic countries. While the concept of QC is commonly accepted and often used, its meaning is not always clear. This paper focuses on how Nordic universities frame QC in their internal documentation. The…

Student mobility in the Nordic countries has traditionally been characterized by cultural cooperation and egalitarian values. Yet, the region has not been isolated from international trends towards emphasizing excellence and competition in the global knowledge economy. Policy framing is here used as an analytical lens for analysing national policy…

The many challenges faced by instructors in distance education have been extensively documented in current literature. Nevertheless, the relative importance of such challenges has not been researched to the same extent. As instructors and institutions face limitations in terms of time and budget, the ability to effectively prioritise challenges…

As higher education quality assurance in many countries in Europe has become a mature activity, some agencies carrying out external quality assurance are developing beyond their core tasks and missions. The current study identifies new tasks taken up within quality assurance agencies and analyses the drivers behind such development. Based on an…

Gender equality goals for higher education are found in all national legislations. This notwithstanding, quality assurance conceptual frameworks and practitioners' work in the European Higher Education Area have tended to be gender-blind and thus remained disconnected from gender equality concerns. Focusing on the policy innovations recently…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a global disruption to higher education, especially in engineering education, where many teaching and learning activities are difficult or impossible to conduct online. This study examines the changes in the students' experiences of this disruption using a 26-item process-oriented course experience questionnaire (CEQ)…

The purpose of this study is to determine the direction of causality between the quality of education and technological development for the selected Northern European countries over the period 2006-2017. To this end, we employ the bootstrap panel causality test. The findings of our study indicate that the quality of education leads to changes in…

This book provides an overview and evaluation of the quality of bilingual education found in internationalised higher education institutions. Its authors focus on the multifaceted roles that language(s) play in these growing multilingual spaces and analyse and identify the many factors that account for quality multilingual degree programmes. The…

The purpose of this study was to extend an understanding of success experienced by leaders in teaching development units. Using a framework comprised of narratives of constraint, this qualitative study interviewed 38 academics in leadership roles from Finland, Australia, Sweden, Norway, the United States, Canada, Scotland, and England. Findings…

This article considers the conditions, possibilities, and challenges of creating what is referred to here as a 'reflective space' within a higher education course for principals. It is informed by the findings of a qualitative research inquiry conducted in the interests of enhancing the principals' learning and professional praxis and the…

This research uses i-graduate's International Student Barometer to investigate whether overall satisfaction and institutional recommendation are influenced by student nationality and destination country, while controlling for the covariates of learning experiences. The result of our analysis is the identification of a conceptual framework for the…

Evidence can be used to support digital course design. The aim of this paper is to discuss how teachers can develop local evidence to support digital course design. Previous research has focused on how practice can be based on research, while we have a limited understanding of how local evidence is used and produced in practice. Local evidence…

This study explores the culture of physics departments in Sweden in relation to physics teacher education. The commitment of physics departments to teacher education is crucial for the quality of physics teacher education and the way in which physics lecturers talk about teacher education is significant, since it can affect trainees' physics…

Based on data from interviews conducted with 14 academic managers at two Swedish universities, this article investigates the consequences of the increasing prevalence of performance measurement in the higher education sector. The study contributes to the discussion of how performance measurement impacts academic work, focusing specifically on its…