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Tertiary education has seen a shift toward pedagogies that make use of social interaction. As part of the shift, teachers have considered re-framing their role in the teaching process, and giving more attention to ways in which knowledge construction amongst students can be supported. While many online technologies are well positioned to support interactivity between students, the use of these tools does not necessarily ensure that the social interaction is of a type that guarantees learning will take place. This paper employs an 'ecology of resources' perspective (Luckin , ) to explore the experiences of teachers and selected students from three tertiary-level contexts as they engaged with interactive learning tasks mediated by asynchronous online technologies. The data presented in the study were generated primarily from accounts and semi-structured interviews, and presented teachers' beliefs about how the learners could operate as knowledge resources for each other, while they themselves were somewhat 'epistemically distant'. In contrast, the data suggest that the experiences of students and tutors were vastly different. The students represented themselves and others as inadequate resources, perceiving that the expertise to construct knowledge was not present in the student group. These observations highlight the importance of building resource-rich learning environments, enabling access to expert performances through blended settings, and nurturing a perception of capability between students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In upper tertiary educational programmes around the world, the new Web-mediated communication practices termed Web 2.0 are introduced as learning activities with the goal of facilitating learning through collaborative knowledge construction. The aim of this paper is to point to discrepancies in the views of learning, knowledge, and the goals of the practice implicit in Web 2.0 and educational practices and to argue that these discrepancies lead to theoretical tensions and practical challenges when Web 2.0 practices are utilized for educational purposes. The article is structured into four main parts: First, Web 2.0 is characterized from a practice perspective. Second, some conceptual discrepancies between the “practice logics” of Web 2.0 and educational practices are identified. Third, the question of transcending the discrepancies is raised through a discussion of related pedagogical strategies. Fourth, it is argued that the conceptual discrepancies bear out in practice as concrete challenges concerning collaboration, evaluation, and the general aim and status of the material produced by students. These challenges are illustrated with examples from the author’s practical experience with Web 2.0-mediated learning activities in eight courses at the BA and MA levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores international comparisons of the extent of commonality or diversity in the main national external quality assurance frameworks for higher education. It has been suggested, from an European survey, that there are common features in national quality assurance frameworks (van Vught and Westerheijden (Quality Management and Quality Assurance in European Higher Education: Methods and Mechanisms) 1993; Luxembourg, Commission of the European Communities, Education Training Youth). The paper extends the survey, tapping other comparative reports. These comparisons show that a `general model' of external quality assurance does not universally apply, but that most elements of it do apply in most countries. We conclude that the `general model' provides a starting point from which to map deviations. In each country, there may be specific additions of elements or omissions from the model, but more usually there are modifications or extensions of elements. These variations are determined by practicalities, the size of the higher education sector, the rigidity/flexibility of the legal expression of quality assurance (or the absence of enshrinement in law), and the stage of development from state control of the sector. Some additions to the `general model' are suggested. The paper also considers efforts to produce an international scheme for external quality assurance of higher education, and the applicability of the `general model' to the transfer of quality assurance frameworks from country to country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Methodological diversity has enriched higher education research. One area about which little is known is the dynamics of multi-investigator multi-institutional projects. This paper examines what happens inside a large-scale, team-based research project with an emphasis on decision points related to methodology and reporting results. Systematically reflecting on the tensions that emerged during one effort can give license to other investigators to openly discuss and manage more productively the decisions and struggles in their research and avoid pitfalls that could compromise the research endeavor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In nearly all the Latin American-developing countries (LA-DC), entrepreneurial activity overseas is based on export commodities, mainly on mining and agriculture. Therefore, a shift of the entrepreneurial model-commodities-based toward high-technology represents a considerable challenge for both businesspersons and policymakers. In this sense, from an environment-industry perspective, we investigated whether a country's tertiary education and science might be drivers of the high-technology exporting firms (HTEF) growth. Furthermore, considering that most of the current studies are focused on the firm-level, by contrast, our research was conducted at a country-level. Thus, we develop a ten-year panel dataset for ten LA-DC. Through an econometric model-OLS, we provide empirical support for our hypothesis. Our results reveal that a country's tertiary education and science both together are drivers of the HTEF growth. Therefore, our conclusions will have implications at both a policy and a practical level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A gap in childlessness rates between women with and without tertiary education in low-fertility settings has been well documented by scholars. However, in the United States, high rates of childlessness are declining for women with tertiary education. Will this current trend lead to a closing of the gap in childlessness across educational subgroups in this country? We answer this question using data from the Current Population Survey from 1976 through 2018. We present population-level trends in permanent childlessness by level of education and estimate the differences in the prevalence of childlessness across educational subgroups. Our findings indicate that the rates of childlessness for women aged 40–44 with tertiary education in the United States are the lowest they have been in over three decades and that rates of childlessness are converging among women with secondary and tertiary education. The declines in childlessness rates and the convergence in childlessness rates between women with secondary and tertiary education are observed for all of the three largest race/ethnicity sub-populations of American women: non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic women. This report contributes to the emerging literature on the convergence of childlessness rates across sub-populations of women with different levels of educational attainment, which questions the well-established observation that there is a positive relationship between education and childlessness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on vocational education teachers' instructional activities in a new technology-enhanced learning (TEL) setting. A content analysis is applied to investigate teachers' and students' interactions in a 3D game context. The findings illustrate that when teachers' and students' interactions are mediated by a game, teachers seem to apply different discussion activities to empower vocational learning than they do in traditional classroom settings. Additionally, the present study shows that teachers spontaneously develop new ways of supporting vocational learning processes. In more detail, two main types of instructional activities were identified: a 'knowledge-providing' approach and a 'joint problem-solving' approach. Additionally, findings illustrate how teachers using different types of instructional approaches are followed up with different processes by students. The article is concluded with a general discussion of the emerging challenges regarding the technological and pedagogical development of vocational education and teachers' instructional activities in new TEL settings based on a more long-term design-based research project (ongoing since 2004). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study is organized around the central hypothesis that the high school context affects students’ postsecondary outcomes. Drawing on a nationally representative sample of high school seniors from the Educational Longitudinal Survey (ELS:2002), this study broadens our empirical understanding of how students’ acquisition of human, social, and cultural capital at the individual and school level affects 2- and 4-year college attendance. Results highlight the normative role of high schools in promoting college enrollment, particularly the role of socioeconomics, academic preparation, and access to parent, peer, and college-linking networks. This study advances our understanding of the secondary-postsecondary nexus and has implications for policies and practices aimed at realizing the current administration’s promise of providing greater access to postsecondary education for all students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the effects of South Korea’s Brain Korea 21 (BK 21) project, a special research funding program designed to build world-class research university. The effects were measured by examining the frequency of article publications in SCI journals during the 1995–2005 period. The results of the analysis indicated that the growth of research publications from Korean research universities was increased significantly following the implementation of the BK 21 project in 1999. In addition, during the period under study, four research universities (Yonsei, Korea, Sungkyunkwan, and Hanyang) were newly emerged. However, the growth rate of research publications was not different from that of the US and Japan, and even less than that of China. Thus, although the BK 21 project contributed to the growth of research publications of Korean universities, the project did not lessen the gap between Korea universities and world-class research universities in the US or Japan in number of publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the competitive marketplace of higher education, colleges and university leaders increasingly rely on the influence and service of their alumni to further institutional goals. Because of their demonstrated financial commitment to the institution, alumni donors are often enlisted to serve important roles as volunteers and political advocates. Using binomial logistic regression, this study examines a large sample of alumni donors from a large doctoral/research extensive university to predict donors who are most likely volunteer at the institution (via advisory board service, political advocacy, alumni club support). The study suggests that volunteering among alumni donors is predicted by capacity variables related to gender, residence, and overall civic engagement. Inclination to volunteer is associated with the quality of academic experience while an undergraduate student, beliefs about alumni volunteer roles, and number of degrees earned at the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Various international authorities have insisted on the importance of ethical learning in higher education for would-be professionals, including students of Business Administration. As the process of creating the European Higher Education Area gathers pace, first steps have been taken to explicitly incorporate ethics in the common European Qualifications Framework (EQF). However, the authors of this study show how in the course of the EQF development process, the consideration given to ethical qualifications has been curtailed and subjected to serious limitations. In this article, the authors review the historical development and the main elements of the EQF. Then, they analyze the gradual elimination of ethics within the EQF. Finally, they highlight the implications of this gradual elimination and propose avenues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As of the late 1990s, public spending on education in the US comprised approximately 7.1% of GDP; about 60% of that support was directed at K-12 education and the remainder at college education. We investigate the welfare and output implications of this spending in a theoretical model in which agents of differential innate ability choose whether to pursue higher education. Higher ability agents support greater expenditures at both the K-12 and college levels. When public education expenditures are low, all agents prefer that spending be directed solely to K-12 education; when expenditures are high, all prefer that some spending be allocated to college education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common finding in the literature is that institutional structures have little to no impact on student engagement and development. I argue that theory suggests peer ability (as measured by selectivity), institutional density, the differentiation of the curriculum, and the research orientation of the institution should all affect student engagement. Using the nationally representative Beginning Post-secondary Student survey, a non-linear selection on observables correction for selection bias, and a multilevel modeling approach, I find that institutional structures do affect student engagement in predictable and substantively significant ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]