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"Higher education"

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In the modern era of research, the significance of transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches in enhancing higher education learning outcomes cannot be overlooked. These approaches break down traditional academic silos, fostering a more holistic and interconnected understanding of complex problems. By integrating diverse perspectives and methodologies, they promote critical thinking, creativity, and innovation among students. Educators and institutions must embrace and implement transdisciplinary teaching and technological integration to prepare students for the demands of the future and drive meaningful advancements in education. Transdisciplinary Teaching and Technological Integration for Improved Learning: Case Studies and Practical Approaches embodies a commitment to these approaches, incorporating three cyclical activities-research, participation, and action-that collaboratively seek answers to practical questions through features of participatory and situational research. The book explores problem identification, action planning, observation collection, and behavioral data analysis. Covering topics such as artificial intelligence tools, higher education institutions, and university student satisfaction, this book is an excellent resource for higher education faculty, academic administrators, curriculum developers, educational technology specialists, researchers, and more. © 2024 by IGI Global. All rights reserved.

The aims of this research are to describe recent, global, empirical understandings of the recognition of prior learning (RPL) and to synthesise and extant knowledge in a way that assists stakeholders in uplifting the transitions to education, employment, or training. RPL matters are particularly important to current sector policy initiatives as reforms to the Australian government’s approach to widening participation in higher education have helped in the development of the 2021 National Microcredentials Framework to define, standardise and consolidate RPL for Australian citizens. Furthermore, the recent 2024 Australian Universities Accord Final Report highlights the importance of RPL to facilitate lifelong learning. A systematic review guided by the PRISMA and PICO frameworks identified 65 articles published between 2013-2023, that empirically examined RPL. Using manual thematic analysis, 17 core themes were organised into five meta-themes: 1) the benefits of RPL; 2) the challenges of RPL; 3) RPL processes; 4) institutional processes; and 5) national RPL policy. This article provides timely insights to shape the future RPL research agenda as well as RPL practice and policy in Australia and beyond. © 2024, Open Access Publishing Association. All rights reserved.

Purpose: Current study theoretically and technically analyzed the empirical literature on Graduate Employability Skills (GES) and aimed to investigate ten research questions: 1) the specific features of the retrieved empirical studies on GES, 2) the trends of empirical scientific production of GES, 3) the most relevant and high-impact sources in the field of GES, 4) clustering the sources through Bradford’s Law of Scattering, 5) the highly cited articles on GES, 6) the most relevant countries on GES, 7) the most pertinent and high-impact authors on GES, 8) authors' productivity through Lotka’s Law of authors’ Scientific Productivity, 9) the trending research avenues for future investigations on GES, and 10) identified research gaps relevant to the field of GES. Design/methodology/approach: The Scopus database was used to extract data, and VOSviewer and Biblioshony tools were used for the study's bibliometric analysis and systematic literature evaluation. Findings: The present study analyzed 864 sources containing 1816 articles from 4378 authors that address GES. Publications on GES were steadily increasing, with a notable upswing beginning in 2010 and reaching a record high of 232 articles in 2019. The UK, Australia, and Malaysia are the top three nations in terms of number of publications and cumulative citations. The thematic map of keywords revealed which themes future researchers need to investigate: work-integrated learning, entrepreneurship, industry 4.0, sustainability, management education, business education, project-based learning, education, curriculum development, learning, and graduate skills. Originality/value: The present study provides theoretical, practical, and social implications for graduates, the higher education industry, policymakers, the economy, and society. © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: The number of passengers in the aviation sector following COVID-19 has recovered in 2023 and is 5% higher than it was in 2019. The average annual growth of air travel is predicted to be 3.2% between 2019 and 2039. This means the need for aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services will also increase. Moreover, the stakeholders require lower costs, higher effectiveness/market share and sustainability. These expectations can be realized only with the identification, development and implementation of new innovations while improving and optimizing the already used processes and procedures. Since only highly qualified graduates can reach these requirements, the need for profession-specific MSc and PhD level engineers has elevated significantly. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the development and implementation of a new MRO higher educational framework program in strong cooperation with enterprises and universities. Design/methodology/approach: The emphasis is placed on the program’s scouting, investigation, development, realization and evaluation by defining key performance indexes and aiming for the optimal solution for all participants. Findings: The result of this study is the establishment of a new educational framework, the reinvention of the MSc curriculum and the integration of PhD-level researchers in the industry in a way that fulfills the needs and requirements of the MRO sector. In return, it will give various benefits to all parties involved. Originality/value: The novelty of this work comes from creating a new educational MSc and PhD level framework that can push the MRO industry forward and fill the gap of missing engineers in this field. Plus, the newly developed program is highly flexible and can be used by other players in the economy after making some adaptions and modifications. © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited.

This study examines the extent to which students obtain postsecondary credentials in the career technical education (CTE) fields of focus they choose in high school. Using school fixed-effects models, we find that focusing on a particular CTE field in high school is associated with an increased probability of enrolling and obtaining a postsecondary credential in that field. The secondary–postsecondary relationship varies across focus areas, and it is strongest in health (increase of 12.5 percentage points), which is disproportionately chosen by females. Across all fields of focus, however, most students enroll and obtain a postsecondary credential in fields that are different from what they focused on in high school. © 2023 AERA.

The valorization of skills in English higher education policy-making is a long-standing refrain, informing both rhetoric and investment from government and shaping university behaviour. Critiques of the ‘skills agenda’ are equally established, on grounds of its contested evidence base, manner of implementation and even its very definition. This paper draws on Bacchi’s ‘What is the Problem Represented to Be?’ (WPR) approach (Bacchi, in: Bletsas, Beasley (eds) Engaging with Carol Bacchi: strategic interventions and exchanges, The University of Adelaide Press, Adelaide, 2021a; Bacchi and Goodwin in Poststructural policy analysis: a guide to practice, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2016) to examine how the UK Department for education’s nascent Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE) policy represents, and therefore in Bacchi’s sense produces, problems in the English tertiary education system. Through its WPR analysis of a significant contemporary shift in the English funding system, this paper demonstrates how the LLE policy replicates but also extends certain key features of the skills agenda and the dominant presuppositions of current English higher education policy-making. © International Association of Universities 2023.

Background: Experiential learning environments are beneficial for the development of generic learning outcomes, such as critical thinking, communication, and self-regulation. However, research about the variation in experiential learning activities and their benefits is scattered across several bodies of discipline-specific literature. Purpose: The aim is to map the design elements of experiential learning environments across domains and to uncover their relation with generic learning outcomes. Methodology/Approach: Using a scoping review study, 22 studies were subjected to qualitative analysis. Findings/Conclusions: The design elements were related to authenticity, structure, and agency, and learning outcomes in the cognitive, affective, metacognitive, and socio-communicative domain. Confidence and communication skills were the most often included learning outcomes, followed by teamwork and problem-solving. The design elements that were most prominently present across learning outcomes were related to individual agency within group work during the activity and authenticity represented in interactions with peers. Further, we identified seven patterns about how design elements relate to generic learning outcomes. Implications: Addressing the design of experiential learning environments on a more fine-grained level is needed to increase insights of which generic learning outcomes are being fostered, and to enhance comparability of research findings within and between types of experiential learning environments. © The Authors 2023.

Despite rising participation rates in Portugal, a gap persists between general and vocational upper secondary students' transition to higher education (HE). This study employs a qualitative methodology, specifically through content analysis of focus group discussions, to explore the factors influencing vocational students' reluctance towards higher education, amidst specific policies designed to aid their transition. Empirical findings suggest that vocational students may exhibit reservations stemming from self-perceived academic deficiencies, impacting their self-confidence in continuing their education at a HE level. Nevertheless, confidence in market-valued practical skills might motivate HE consideration within a vocational domain. Their practical focus also makes HE seem less immediately applicable in the labour market. Many prioritise integration into the workforce for short-run objectives, seeking breaks, experience and financial earnings. Aiming for earning and practicality, many lean towards the labour market over HE, even considering emigrating to achieve financial stability. The study emphasises the need for Portuguese educational policies to align vocational training with HE, supporting diverse student ambitions and holistic career paths. © 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

In the changing global landscape, education programs for radiation therapists (RTTs), also known as therapeutic radiographers or radiation therapy technologists, at higher education institutions (HEIs) are non-existent in many African countries. In countries with local RTT education programs, there is evidence of a wide variety of qualification types, including in-house training, diploma and degree offerings. However, what is consistent is the integrated curriculum approach to classroom theory and clinical work-based learning that across the continent follows the general structure of a work-integrated learning (WIL) approach, to enhance clinical competence and meet the needs of the health sector. This study used a qualitative approach with thematic analysis of publicly available documents and reflective writings followed by further analysis through application of the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to explore the changing landscape of oncology in Africa and the impact of this on the education of RTTs. The study was guided by the reflective research question: How can the systemic understanding of RTT training in a changing landscape enable competent and caring practice? The study extends prior research on RTT education in Africa and contributes to debates on the changing role of RTTs in a rapidly changing environment. © 2024 The Author(s)