In the aftermath of the Bologna Process, Germany decided to open universities for individuals who do not possess a scholastic university entrance qualification but completed vocational education. This paper questions how long it takes until these so-called non-traditional students enroll and compares their routes to university to the routes of…

This study investigates how doctoral students perceive research work in the context of their own PhD projects. Thirty-two students from a Finnish university were interviewed, representing three disciplines: medicine, natural sciences and behavioural sciences. Their conceptions of research varied in terms of describing research as "a job to…

This study investigated labour-market orientations of students at a Swedish University with a dual/diverse focus on vocational/academic objectives. The aim was to investigate whether and how levels of students' labour-market orientation vary with social background, change during the study period, and are related to approaches to studying and…

Malaysia has made significant progress in advancing access to education over the last two decades, having achieved the education goals of the UN's Millennium Development Goals. Unfortunately, this has not been accompanied by quality improvement, with reports of "unemployable" graduates a frequent refrain. This paper reports on a study of…

In Norwegian research universities, a large individual increase has taken place in scientific and scholarly publishing over the last 30 years. The purpose of this article is to explain the reasons for this growth in a generational perspective. We put forward six hypotheses that can be illuminated by cross-sectional data drawn from five surveys to…

In the Netherlands, university programs increasingly use the binding study advice (BSA) to select students after the first year. Students with insufficient progress after the first year and who therefore do not conform to pre-defined BSA norms have to quit their program. This study investigated whether the introduction of the BSA is associated…

Academic career paths in Europe are heterogeneous, and the chances for early career researchers to become a permanent member of the academic profession differ from country to country. In some countries, the employment prospects are very insecure. It is asked whether contract conditions at universities influence the chance of taking over a mature…

The literature on leadership in higher education is predominantly concerned with the role of formally designated senior managers such as heads of department and deans of faculty. By contrast, relatively little attention has focused on those performing informal and distributed forms of leadership, such as (full) university professors. This article…

Despite national requirements for accredited teaching qualifications, there is a lack of literature on disciplinary differences in student learning in higher education. Academics at a UK research-intensive university were asked to report on the existence of literature or knowledge concerned with how students learnt in their subject. No relevant…

A competitive higher education environment marked by increased accountability and quality assurance measures for doctoral study, including the structured training of doctoral supervisors, has highlighted the need to clearly articulate and delineate the work of supervising doctoral students. This article responds to this imperative by examining the…

With the exception of academics, occupational groups within universities remain relatively under-researched. Based upon qualitative interviews with 27 research administrators in 19 UK universities, this article reports on a small-scale qualitative project to investigate the workday worlds of these "boundary-crossing" and…

This study investigates the predictive correlations between results from the New Zealand National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), a standards-based qualification, and university grade point averages achieved by first-year students in one large New Zealand University (and, for comparison purposes, also presents correlations from the…

A discussion of common practices in and literature about faculty recruitment and selection concludes that (1) little has been written about the process or issues, (2) great reliance is put on personal judgment, and (3) each institution controls the selection process exclusively. (MSE)

This study analyzed follow-up information on graduates (n=95) and noncompleters (n=54) of the University of Lancaster (Great Britain.) Data on family background, educational qualifications, and labor market experience suggested that part of the salary differential in favor of graduates was accounted for by other factors such as other professional…

Among the barriers to acceptance of clinical problem-based medical education are institutional complacency and lack of rewards for teachers with academic competence in education rather than biological research and clinical care. (MSE)