Externally imposed assessment requirements in higher education call for documented attention to using assessment results for program improvement. Although this systematic process promises to lead to better learning outcomes it has also been challenged as ineffective and even harmful. What can make assessment truly meaningful and move beyond the…

This paper examines how institutional positioning has emerged in the meaning-making activities between Finnish higher education institutions and the Ministry of Education and Culture. The study is based on a qualitative analysis of the performance agreement documents of all higher education institutions filed with the ministry for contract periods…

Academic quality in for-profit vocational college programs is a concern for all stakeholders, especially nontraditional college students. The purpose of this study was to expand understanding of how administrators and owners of for-profit (proprietary) colleges influence academic quality in on-ground vocational college programs. A phenomenological…

This study investigated how instructors in United Arab Emirates higher education institutions view their professional employment, the extent of their identification and engagement with their institution, and how their views are shaped by the national and institutional contexts in which they work. Many interviewees felt their professional…

Since 1998, the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities in Ontario, Canada, has required that data on specific key performance indicators (KPIs) be made public by its publicly funded universities. The information is intended to be used by universities to demonstrate their achievements, to improve their programmes and services, and to…

Despite receiving growing international recognition and regard, the scholarship of engagement remains undervalued internally at academic institutions, especially in relation to career development and academic promotion. This form of scholarship presents difficulties relating to evaluation, assessment, and evidencing that are not generally present…

This article presents a qualitative case study based on an analysis of the outcomes and meanings attributed by university academics to an institutional merger, from the perspective of organisational identity. The change process may have broadened the "us and them" gap that exists between those responsible for university leadership and…

This paper aims at looking at governance instruments beyond managerial technicality. It intends to do so by analysing the impact of governance reforms on the universities autonomy assumed as a regulation instrument to politically steer systems and institutions. The regulation efforts undertaken at the European and national levels reflect a trend…

Through experiencing and reviewing multiple-country endeavors in academic profession study and participating in a new project regarding the academic profession in Asia, the author pinpoints and anticipates the shortcomings of study alone or dominantly questionnaire-based and ignoring the broader social context. The author proposes a new…

This study explores the climate for teaching at a major Midwest research university. Teaching climate is generally defined as the shared perceptions of current organizational processes that affect the institutional environment for teaching (Peterson et al., 1991; Tagiuri, 1968). Three types of distinguished teaching awards were used to select…

This report outlines a method for learning about the internationalization processes at institutions of adult and higher education and then provides the analysis of data gathered from the researchers' own institution and from site visits to three additional universities in the United States and the United Kingdom. It was found that campus…

This paper takes a sociocultural approach to questions around the professional identity of teacher educators in Scotland. Through an analysis of the historical trajectory of Scottish teacher education and its institutions, it is suggested that there are four distinctive groups of staff currently working in the university departments that provide…

Despite strong political support for the development of sustainability literacy amongst the UK graduates, embedding sustainability in the higher education curriculum has met with widespread indifference, and in some cases, active resistance. However, opportunities exist beyond the formal curriculum for engaging students in learning about…

This paper presents a concept for analysing the bearing of institutional settings on inter- and transdisciplinary research and education for sustainable development and applies it to a concrete case example. It asks in how far the funding programme requirements and the institutional project arrangements impacted on the research process and project…

This paper explores participation in higher education in Germany and Spain through two case studies from the RANLHE project. There is one case in each national context (Germany and Spain) based on biographical interviews undertaken between 2008 and 2010. Social, economic and cultural dimensions are explored in order to better understand the German…