Little is known about the nature of educational proficiency in evaluation practices in academia. This is unfortunate, since excellence in teaching is increasingly seen as significant for the prosperity of contemporary higher education institutions. This study explores the meaning ascribed to educational proficiency in the recruitment of academic…

Re-organization of practicum within Initial Teacher Education in Sweden has initiated changes of support for student teachers. This article discusses learning during practice, where student teachers are placed with peer students, and what this method of learning indicates how student teachers should learn the profession of teaching. This article…

European institutions of higher education have increasingly sought to improve the accountability and transparency of teaching and research with formal procedures and performance criteria. In a longitudinal analysis conducted in faculties of social sciences and economics at universities in the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom, we examined…

A researcher's number of publications has been a fundamental merit in the competition for academic positions since the late 18th century. Today, the simple counting of publications has been supplemented with a whole range of bibliometric indicators, which supposedly not only measures the volume of research but also its impact. In this study, we…

Mathematicians have, historically, not been overly successful in their approach to teaching and much research has looked in to why this is so. Teaching mathematics is based on a solid understanding of the subject; however, instructors also need to be able to efficiently communicate the subject to their students. The purpose of this study was to…

This report aims to provide insight into the realities faced by higher education academic staff at a time of fast-moving change and increasing societal demand. Fluctuating student numbers, new funding and steering mechanisms are among the features of today's European higher education landscape, but not enough is known about how academic staff are…

Teachers in academia are usually not required to have teacher training but must often be evaluated by their students who expect them to have much better teaching qualifications than their high school teachers. However, teachers in elementary and high schools are required to go through several years of teacher training, resulting in a teaching…