Biology faculty at San José State University developed, piloted, implemented, and assessed a freshmen course sequence based on the macro-to micro-teaching approach that was team-taught, and organized around unifying themes. Content learning assessment drove the conceptual framework of our course sequence. Content student learning increased…

Threshold concepts were introduced nearly 10 years ago by Ray Land and Jan Meyer. This work has spawned four international conferences and hundreds of papers. Although the idea has clearly gained traction in higher education, this sub-field does not yet have a fully fledged research methodology or a strong critical discourse about methodology.…

Expansion of higher education has been perceived as the major tool through which China can raise its international competitiveness. To raise educational quality, the Ministry of Education initiated a new employment reform and a Teaching Quality Assessment for Undergraduate Programs. In this research, we employed a qualitative method to investigate…

This paper presents findings from an empirical study of key aspects of the teaching and research priorities, beliefs and behaviours of 72 professorial and associate professorial academics in Science, Information Technology and Engineering across four faculties in three Australian universities. The academics ranked 16 research activities and 16…

Retirees and current employees of the University of California were surveyed about their retirement experiences and plans. Employees who retired prior to the mandatory age were more satisfied with their decision and fared better financially than the mandatory age retirees. (Author)

In a study of British university psychologists' publishing rates, publications in 1968-70 and 1978-80 were compared across groups of different ages. In both periods, faculty over age 45 published less, and those holding appointments in both periods published less in the latter despite age. However, considerable variability was found within groups.…

This study attempts to utilize more refined measures of rewards and productivity than have been employed in past research in an effort to determine whether differences in rewards offered to men and women exist, and if they do, whether such differences can be explained in terms of differing rates of productivity. A 10-page questionnaire was…

The attitudes of biologists in Australian universities towards teaching and research are compared with those of their British counterparts. Both prefer research to teaching, and four major problems in undergraduate education are analyzed in these terms. (MSE)

A study of the reliability of writing evaluation by teachers from various departments at Bowling Green State University is reported. One hundred papers from the Writing Proficiency Examination given by the Department of English to all students completing the freshman composition sequence were selected for evaluation. Thirty volunteer faculty…

Compares two English for academic purposes research projects--undergraduate writing task surveys--one conducted in the United States and the other in Hong Kong. The first could be considered a success, but the second is a failure, mainly because of the lack of cooperation from teachers of science and engineering faculties. The possible reasons for…

In a study of administrative effectiveness, a total of 103 academic department heads in four universities rated a set of 15 administrative activities as to their importance. Faculty members in the 1,333 departments used the same set of activities to rate both the importance they should be given by the department head and the effectiveness with…

Results of a follow-up study of the same students used in the Feldman study indicate that individual student evaluations are remarkably stable over time and more reliable than previously assumed. There was systematic information in individual student ratings that internal consistency approaches have ignored or assumed to be nonexistent.…

Advisors (n=596) of doctoral students at a large research university were surveyed about their perceptions of the characteristics, content, and purpose of the doctoral dissertation. Respondents indicated that the dissertation continues to play an essential role in doctoral education, although notable field-related differences were found in…

A survey of internal research programs shows most are centrally administered with most growth in the private sector. Half spent under $75,000 per year on these programs. Stated program purposes were generally supportive of young researchers and of preliminary research. Administration is most often under academic vice-presidents and graduate…

A study was conducted to provide information on which to base alternative plans for an interim tenure policy for the University of the District of Columbia for the academic year 1978-79. Data were collected on 661 full-time, permanent faculty employed by the university. The data included sex, age, faculty rank, highest degree completed, annual…