Research has shown that a tenure track incorporates both commitment and control aspects: the career system offers junior-level academics long-term job prospects, but subjects them to performance control. This study complements existing research on tenure track positions, which has mostly been conducted in northern America. Universities in Finland…

Enrollment at university can be based on personal interests (intrinsically motivated) as well as financial prospects (extrinsically motivated). I investigate whether and how these qualities of motivation for enrollment influence achievement motivation and well-being of university students at the beginning of their studies. Thereby, I relied on…

This article examines the University Education Induction Programme (UEIP), an academic development programme, delivered at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The authors, who developed and now facilitate the UEIP, deliver the programme to early career academics and senior academics as per a senate-mandated requirement. Drawing on…

Constant change and stress in the workplace require workers with resilience. Universities have a key role to play in developing this vital capability. Past research has measured levels of university student resilience, but little is known about resilience from the learner's perspective. This semi-structured interview study of 38 undergraduate and…

Universities are increasingly engaging with non-academic professionals in facilitating performance outcomes, reaffirming themselves as purposive organisations, i.e. institutions with the ability to organise strategically in the pursuit of goals and standards. However, there is little empirical evidence for the impact of professional staff on…

Our purpose is to assess the influence of national culture and higher education on entrepreneurship among students and fresh graduates. The aim was to determine whether the grouping of students based on certain personality traits (most of which are connected to culture) is effective at predicting entrepreneurial intention and whether…

The presence of student teamwork is increasing in most university degrees. However, there is still a gap in the literature regarding the connection between teamwork processes and their outcomes. In this paper, the authors analyze these processes and how they relate to teamwork outcomes from the students' perspective. Data was gathered from 129…

Associate deans serve critical leadership roles in the functioning and management in higher education administration, but there is little professional preparation for the role. This study surveyed the perceptions of a random sample of 527 associate deans in colleges of arts and sciences, business, and education at US research-extensive and…

Research shows that a surface approach to learning is more common among students in the natural sciences, while students representing the "soft" sciences are more likely to apply a deep approach. However, findings conflict concerning the stability of approaches to learning in general. This study explores the variation in students'…

Despite the importance of goals in educational theories, goals in master's thesis projects are rarely investigated. Therefore, this study explores how goals play a role in master's thesis supervision in terms of: defining the goals (up-component); locating where the student stands in relation to the goals (back-component); and how the student can…

Student transition into higher education has increased in importance in recent times, with the growing trend in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development nations towards universal higher education provision and the concomitant widening of participation to include previously under-represented groups. However, "transition" as a…

Conducted as part of a multi-country study of the teaching-related experiences and expectations of early career academics (ECAs) in Africa, this study investigated the major influences on the teaching practice of ECAs at Makerere University; the mechanisms by which these academics learn to teach; the teaching-related challenges they experience;…

This study examined the changes in students' academic behavioural confidence over the course of their first year of academic study and whether changes differ by their achievement goal profile. Self-report data were collected from 434 participants in three waves: at the beginning of the first semester of their first year of undergraduate study, at…

Learning has been described by two conceptual metaphors: as individual acquisition of knowledge ("acquisition metaphor"), and as an enculturation into a subject community ("participation metaphor"). On the other hand, academics' conceptions of teaching are usually reported to vary between teacher and student orientation. In…

This study focuses on a pan-disciplinary scheme that targeted high-achieving undergraduate students. Earlier research from the scheme argued that high achievers have discernibly different learning and personal development support needs. One of the most frequent self-reported challenges within this high-achieving group is perfectionism. This…