Recent research has shown that 3.4% of university students in Finland have a diagnosed or observed illness or disability that affects their learning at the university level. The University of Jyväskylä Language Centre embarked on an organised, ongoing research and intervention project to enable appropriate teaching practices to suit the needs of…

Engineering students often conduct information searches without sufficient consideration of the context of their research topic. This article discusses how development of a new information literacy (IL) mindset through instruction in integrated IL education affects students' understanding of research problems and formulation of information search…

Cooperation between home and school benefits pupils' wellbeing in many ways. Hence, it is of utmost importance that teachers are able to cooperate with families in early childhood education as well as in primary and secondary education. In order to work effectively with the diversity of families, teachers need to develop their skills and knowledge…

Despite the widespread use of performance-based management in higher education, empirical research on its actual impact has remained scarce, particularly in Europe. With agency theory as a framework, our study utilised survey data collected from Finnish universities in order to explore the influence of performance management on perceived teaching…

The aim of this paper is to report on teachers' experiences of, and approaches to, multimodality in teaching and learning. A small-scale online survey with closed and semi-structured questions has been deployed to school and university teachers (n = 68) for eliciting their experiences in multimodal teaching and learning. Thematic analysis has been…

The Great Recession raised questions of what and how macroeconomists teach at academic institutions around the globe, and what changes in the macroeconomics curriculum should be made. The authors conducted a survey of undergraduate macroeconomics instructors affiliated with colleges and universities in Europe and the United States at the end of…

This study explores the nature of reciprocal commitment in academic careers. The article is based on a survey conducted in autumn 2013 among fixed-term employees at eight major universities in Finland (N = 810). The analysis is focusing on researchers who have a doctoral degree and who are working on a fixed-term contract at their university (n =…

The OnCreate project was initiated by ten universities with expertise in collaborative work in online-based learning environments and explores the specific challenges of implementing university courses in creative disciplines in such an environment. The first research phase comprises a literature search on creativity and its contextual factors in…

Although women's representation in higher education nears parity with men at the undergraduate level, this representation diminishes as one ascends the academic ranks. Because gender gaps in the "elite" activity of international research collaborations might contribute to the underrepresentation of women in the upper ranks, we ask if…

In this large-scale study, higher education teachers' descriptions of their own learning were examined with qualitative analysis involving application of principles of phenomenographic research. This study is unique: it is unusual to use large-scale data in qualitative studies. The data were collected through an e-mail survey sent to 5960 teachers…

Time pressures often necessitate the use of more efficient exam tools, such as electronic exams (e-exams), instead of traditional paper exams. However, teachers may face challenges when introducing e-exams in a higher education context. This paper describes what kinds of challenges teachers may face when introducing e-exams, based on experiences…

This article focuses on the impact of international research collaboration on individual research productivity in 11 European countries. Research productivity and international publication co-authorship of "internationalists" and "locals" (or academics collaborating and not collaborating internationally) are compared. The…

Access to current research materials, pedagogical best practices, and relevant knowledge has become problematic as journal subscription costs have increased. Increasing delays in the traditional publication timeline, coupled with high subscription costs, have resulted in a diminished ability for IS faculty and their students to access the most…

This article explores how the university workers of two Finnish universities experienced the range of neoliberal policymaking and governance reforms implemented in the 2000s. These reforms include quality assurance, system of defined annual working hours, outcome-based salary system and work time allocation system. Our point of view regarding…

In the prestige economy of higher education, research productivity is highly prized. Previous research indicates, however, a gender gap with respect to research output. This gap is often explained by reference to familial status and responsibilities. In this article, we examine the research productivity gender gap from an international perspective…