The United Arab Emirates is developing higher education institutions that will contribute to an educational sector providing premium degree programs. There was a belief that the recognition and achievements these institutions attained over decades in their native land would be transferable in the implementation of international branch campuses.…

Higher education institutions today are increasingly considered to be "means," serving as suppliers for employers, not "ends" that address "wicked" problems. This disregards their role in the generational succession of civil societies. Massive open online courses can strengthen higher education institutions by working…

This ethnographic study examines the negotiation of the value of critical thinking by a group of community college students and their instructor in a required general education literature course. Using a sociological analysis, the authors explore how the students situated themselves as both learners and consumers in the classroom, a social field…

An analysis of interviews, focus-group discussions, assessment instruments, and assignment prompts revealed that within general education, faculty assessed critical thinking as faceted using methods and criteria that varied epistemically across disciplines. Faculty approaches were misaligned with discipline-general institutional approaches.…

This article describes a three-year study assessing change in critical thinking demonstrated in essays written for regular class assignments. A rubric was designed and scorers trained to assess critical thinking holistically without knowledge of the writing prompt or author's status. The longitudinal improvement in scores earned by freshmen…

In 2009 and 2010, the author was involved in two University of Botswana initiatives on graduate employability. The first was a university-wide task force exploring the attitudes of students and staff and recommending reforms both in learning and teaching and in support services for students. The second was a Faculty of Humanities tracer study, in…

The notion of interdisciplinarity in higher education raises significant questions about the very nature of knowledge and knowing. Are there fundamental knowledge bases associated with particular disciplines that cannot be understood through interdisciplinary teaching and learning? Or is there a common knowledge base across the disciplines that…

This article reports a study that examines the efforts of one school--Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania--to improve student writing in first-year learning communities by promoting so-called process-based writing pedagogy outside of writing classes. Administrators encouraged instructors of subject-matter classes to integrate the…

The emphasis on engaging students in high-impact educational practices is increasing in higher education. Since its release in 2008, "High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter" has been the go-to report for campuses seeking guidance to help their students "reap the full benefits--economic, civic,…

Analysis of survey data collected at a liberal arts college suggests that faculty perception of assessment as a scholarly activity has a significant relationship with willingness to engage in assessment. This finding indicates the importance of focusing on the scholarly nature of assessment when encouraging faculty participation in assessment…

The purpose of this study was to explain the process and implementation of an outcomes-based general education program at a public, doctoral/research-extensive institution from the perspective of faculty. The theory that emerged explains how different causal, intervening, and contextual conditions interact with and affect the phenomenon of general…

This qualitative case study explores how undergraduate students and their instructor made meaning of students' motivation to learn in a one-credit, pass/fail first-year seminar. The findings point to the importance of addressing structural motivational barriers and ensuring that instructors possess the instructional, motivational, and…

This study examines how diversity requirements differ from courses that are highly inclusive or less inclusive of diversity. Results suggest that instructor characteristics are statistically different and that highly inclusive and less inclusive diversity courses score highest and lowest, respectively, on measures of effective teaching compared…

This research study investigated the assessment practices of five different undergraduate business programs. It examines the learning outcomes required for the business programs and their linkages with general education outcomes. Specific assessment methods, the results from assessments, and how business program faculty use assessment findings to…

The majority of research on general education assessment in recent years has focused primarily on predominately white institutions. Very little is known about general education assessment at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUS). Using descriptive analysis, this exploratory study examines the state of general education assessment at…