The National Student Survey (NSS), which is a major source of data for UK league tables, is completed by students in their final year of study at all publically funded Higher Education Institutions in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the majority in Scotland. It asks for twenty-two statements to be considered. An apparent lack of definition of…

This study examines the factors contributing to academic probation in university settings and highlights the problems that students encounter in higher education institutions in Bangladesh. The study focused on students facing academic probation on two private universities in Bangladesh and analyzed students' response with respect to nine…

For years now, public education, and especially public higher education, has been under attack. Funding has been drastically reduced, fees increased, and the seemingly irresistible political force of ever-tightening austerity budgets threatens to cut it even more. But I am not going to take the standard line that government financial support for…

This article examines the role of language policies in mediating access and equity in education. By examining a range of research and case studies on language policies, the authors explore how educational language policies serve as a central gatekeeper to education itself, as well as to quality education that may fundamentally depend on language…

There has been greater attention in recent times on the outcomes of the education system so that the return on investments in education could be evaluated. It is measured based on tangible performance indicators and intangible students' outcome known as outcome-based education (OBE). Universiti Teknologi MARA Malaysia has implemented an OBE system…

As they wrote this article attentive to the focus of this volume of "Review of Research in Education" on "extraordinary pedagogies for working within school settings serving nondominant students" (C. Faltis & J. Abedi, 2011, personal communication), the authors held close understandings of ways in which narrative inquiry embodies potential for…

This research examines the practices used in assessing students' competencies in the European Higher Education Area. The main objective is to describe the current situation in the Spanish universities, concentrating upon the following questions: what are the most common assessment practices used by academics; how do university academics evaluate…

Learning and achievement issues among Foundation Year (FY) students at the Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI) Bahrain have been responded to by the Language and Culture Unit to address the educational problems that have arisen as a direct consequence of the differences in skills students have on leaving secondary school and the skills that are…

This article is a response to criticism of my book "Big Ideas for Little Kids." The main topics addressed are: Who is the audience for the book? Can people without formal philosophical training can be good facilitators of elementary school philosophy discussions? Is it important to assess attempts to teach philosophy in elementary school? Should…

The paper is based on interviews with a sample of 200 teachers from the Limpopo province about their life histories, particularly those aspects related to their choice of teaching as their first career path, and their expectations, experiences and perceptions in this regard. It argues that current approaches to teacher education in South Africa…

The higher skills policy of the UK New Labour Government emerged from the recommendations of the Leitch Review of Skills, and was implemented in England between 2007 and 2010. The policy aimed to encourage higher education (HE) institutions to engage with employers and employer representative bodies to design and deliver HE provision that…

Collaborative learning can, if designed and implemented properly, contribute to student learning outcomes and prepare them for teamwork. However, the design and implementation of collaborative learning in practice depend on beliefs of lecturers about teaching and learning in general, and collaborative learning in particular. One hundred and…

The importance of reflective practice is frequently noted in the literature; indeed, reflective capacity is regarded as an essential characteristic for professional competence. The ability to think about why and what one does is critical to intelligent practice, practice that is reflective rather than routine. In recent years, higher education…

This paper explores the role that state spending on higher education capital outlays plays in state budgets by considering the functional form of the relationship between state spending on higher education capital outlays and four types of state expenditures. Three possible functional forms are tested: a linear model, a quadratic model, and the…

Although used frequently in related fields such as K-12 education research, educational psychology, sociology, and social survey research, latent class analysis (LCA) has been infrequently used in higher education. This article provides higher education researchers with a pedagogical application of LCA to classify entering freshmen based on their…