The study investigates medical students' ways of approaching a medical task. Fourteen medical students in their clinical years responded to a written patient case on chest pain. Variations in the students' responses to the task were analysed from a contextual and linguistic perspective. Students approached the task in two distinctly different…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the contributions students make to the problem-based tutorial group process as observed by their peers, self-study time and achievement. To that end, the Maastricht Peer Activity Rating Scale was administered to students participating in Problem-Based Learning tutorial groups.…

Throughout the world, measuring "learning outcomes" is viewed by many stakeholders as a relatively new method to judge the "value added" of colleges and universities. The potential to accurately measure learning gains is also a diagnostic tool for institutional self-improvement. This essay discussed the marketisation of learning outcomes tests,…

Women's colleges and universities persist around the world, even as the vast majority of tertiary institutions are open to men and women. In nearly every nation, women can attend even the most elite formerly all-male universities, and in several nations women are the majority of all college students. Questions therefore arise about the continued…

While considerable consensus exists regarding the importance of internationalizing postsecondary education, little is known about whether distinct forms of internationalization influence civic engagement. This study estimates the degree to which study abroad and internationalization at home (IaH) are associated with international volunteerism…

In the struggle to remain true to their technical assistance and civic engagement missions in an era of shrinking budgets and increasingly complex accountability claims, land grant universities have developed different engagement strategies to contribute to the development of surrounding communities. Drawing on Flora and Flora's (in "Ann Am Acad…

In 2012 all Hong Kong universities will be extending the length of the undergraduate degree from 3 to 4 years and adding General Education as a degree requirement. This reform initiative represents a unique case of comprehensive organizational change of higher education on an unprecedented scale. This paper examines several of the most significant…

This article focuses on the wide variety of channels through which the process of knowledge transfer occurs. The overall objective is to show the complexity of relationships between researchers and firms in a university system, and to identify some specific factors that influence such interactions. Our case study involves a face-to-face survey of…

Network-building activities of PhD students are an important area of study in furthering our understanding of academic entrepreneurship. This paper focuses on PhD students' participation in network-building activities defined as mobility and collaboration, as well as own interest in and perceived grade of support for commercialisation from various…

The aim of the current investigation was to provide an insight into how new lecturers in higher education develop as teachers and to identify some of the main influences upon this development. A qualitative, longitudinal design with three semi-structured interviews over a 2-year period was employed with eleven new teachers from a range of higher…

This paper will consider the significance of emotion in assessment through reflective or experiential writing in the context of professional practice-based learning. It is based on a 12 month study conducted with undergraduate social work students undertaking what are referred to as "reflective writing" assessments. This form of assessment is a…

This article is a study of the competing academic and professional identity frameworks of lecturers whose discipline has only recently become part of the business of higher education. The article engages with important questions about higher education change and purpose, standards and parity among disciplines. Taking a critical ethnographic…

Educationalists are well able to find fault with rankings on numerous grounds and may reject them outright. However, given that they are here to stay, we could also try to improve them wherever possible. All currently published university rankings combine various measures to produce an overall score using an additive approach. The individual…

While access to postsecondary education in Canada has increased over the past decade, a number of recent studies demonstrate that youth from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are vulnerable to some degree of exclusion from postsecondary education. These studies tend to emphasize the lack of financial resources and social capital as the main…

The vast majority of university students have profiles on social networking sites (e.g., Myspace, Facebook) (Salaway et al. 2008). However, it is yet to be determined what role this rapidly evolving method of communication will play in an academic setting. Data for the current study was collected from 459 university students and 159 university…