Student ratings are now an accepted orthodoxy in global higher education environments. They form an increasingly important metric that has been assimilated as a robust proxy measure of quality for evaluating individual, institutional and even system-level performativity. Although the technical design aspects of student ratings have received…

In environments characterised by complex structures and processes, universities rely on co-operation and goodwill between staff to function effectively, underpinned by good service quality. However, there is a lack of research on relationship quality in internal service settings and on the role support staff play in the development and enhancement…

University mentoring programs are often implemented as an instrument to support students' personal development and successful transition to university. Scholars and practitioners alike emphasize the importance of matching for high-quality peer mentoring. However, mentoring theory and research lacks specificity regarding relevant characteristics…

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements for job applicants in higher education are somewhat controversial. Advocates argue that DEI requirements ensure fair representation, counter historical discrimination, and improve efficiency. Critics contend that DEI requirements reduce faculty quality by limiting the number of eligible applicants…

After reviewing varous methods to evaluate college student learning, it is proposed that U.S. faculty at neighboring colleges could collaborate to construct tests, much like the external examinations used in the United Kingdom, to assess student learning and the quality of education more consistently. In the long term, this method would also…

While the establishment of quality assurance has been seen for decades as the most significant instrument to secure and enhance the quality of teaching and learning in higher education, the concept of developing more specific learning outcomes has in recent years attracted much interest, not least due to the creation of national qualification…

The massification of higher education has dramatically changed the association between credentials and jobs in advanced countries, while its impacts in transitional economies have received less academic attention. To address this research lacuna, the paper utilizes rich information from China's national surveys of college graduates from 2003 to…

This study examined students' feedback engagement and assessment experiences in a higher education teacher programme with the Assessment Experience Questionnaire (n = 182) and individual interviews (n = 14). The results suggested that quantity of effort and feedback quality were the most important predictors of variance in students' use of…

In recent years, various reforms have sought to foster forms of marketisation in the Italian public sector, promoting the uptake of concepts such as customer satisfaction and perceived quality. In the field of higher education, such efforts have focused on certain specific areas, like quality of research and teaching, while the quality of…

This article develops the concept-mapping method as a tool for enhancing teaching quality in higher education. In particular, it describes how concept mapping can be used to transform abstract knowledge and understanding into concrete visual representations that are amenable to comparison and measurement. The article describes four important uses…

Secondary analysis of the UK's 2011/12 Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education survey reveals that many existing assumptions about graduate internships are questionable. This article proposes a reliable way of estimating the true extent of internships including those reported as 'voluntary' jobs: hidden internships. In doing so the article…

The practice of combining digital and face-to-face elements into blended learning courses is becoming the new normal in higher education and offers a promising learning format. While studies on the effects of blended learning have so far focused mostly on the online components of the blends, the success of blended learning also rests on the…

The private higher education (HE) sector in the UK is subject to little oversight or regulation. Consequently, it remains a largely unknown quantity. Yet, the UK government is keen to foster the growth of private providers as a means of stimulating competition across the "entire" HE sector that will purportedly lead to 'a greater choice…

Research on student engagement in higher education (HE) has addressed the conceptualisation, measurement and criticism of the phenomenon over the last two decades, predominantly in Western countries. The conceptualisation of student engagement has received little attention in countries of a lengthy association with the Soviet realm. This study…

A comparison of the public debates over higher education quality finds that, despite much common ground, the American concern focuses more on equity, access, curriculum content, and academic standards, whereas the British concern is for value for the money spent. It concludes that each debate can benefit from the other. (MSE)