The revamp of the National Student Survey (NSS) has led to the elimination of the final 'overall satisfaction' question for Higher Education Institutions in England. This paper develops an index approach that can effectively summarise student satisfaction, utilising a 'fuzzy poverty' methodology that assigns weights to dissatisfaction outcomes…

While institutional logics theory has increasingly been applied in higher education research, especially in the past five years, agreement is lacking on how to approach institutional logics analysis. This results in proliferating institutional logics in higher education studies and often confuses newcomers to the field as to how to use…

This paper explores the effect of methodological choice on global Higher Education Institutions' (HEI) rankings, and the effect of choices regarding League Table and Ranking Systems (LTRSs) upon decision-making and policy. LTRSs are identified as heuristics to aid decision-making about HEIs. The paper examines the methodological choices commonly…

Considerable academic attention has been placed on analysing whether, and to what extent, socioeconomic background affects higher education participation. However, the use of socioeconomic status (SES) is problematic as it may be constructed from various data sources. Similar issues can be inherent in study design-related operationalisation…

The bibliometric methodology is an established technique for research evaluation as it offers an objective determination and comparison of research performance. This paper aims to critically assess some standard bibliometric indicators commonly used (based on publication and citation counts) to evaluate academic units, and examine whether there…

Using as a starting point in the recent work of Mountford-Zimdars et al., the authors analyse attitudes towards expanding higher education (HE) opportunities in the UK. The authors propose that the approach of Mountford-Zimdars et al. is flawed not only in its adoption of a multivariate logistic regression but also in its interpretation of…

The assessment of student learning outcomes in the tertiary school sector has seen an increase in global popularity in recent years. Measurement instruments that target higher order skills are on the rise, whereas assessments that foster the recall of factual knowledge are declining. The Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO)…

Many educational researchers have experienced challenges in obtaining ethics approval. This article explores some of the reasons why this is the case, looking specifically at the participatory action research methodology. The authors' experience of seeking ethics approval for a project intended to introduce peer review as an enhancement process is…

Despite increases in the number of articles published in higher education journals using structural equation modelling (SEM), research addressing their statistical sufficiency, methodological appropriateness and quantitative rigour is sparse. In response, this article provides a census of all covariance-based SEM articles published up until 2013…

The aim of the research reported in this paper was to explore students' "journey" towards conceptual understanding during an undergraduate course. The task that medical students face--to learn a substantial quantity of detailed knowledge and integrate into a coherent whole in a limited time frame--is demanding. Seven students were…

A key role for educational leaders within undergraduate medical education is to continually improve the quality of education; global quality health care is the goal. This paper reports the findings from a study employing a power model to highlight how educational leaders influence the development of undergraduate medical curricula and the…

Current understandings suggest that three aspects of writing practice underpin the research student publication process: knowledge creation, text production and identity formation. Publishing a literature review is the first opportunity most students have to publish. This article compares the pedagogical benefits of different literature review…

This paper considers how the idea of "discipline" can best be conceptualised, both in general and particular terms. Much previous research has employed a strong essentialist approach, a model of disciplines which exaggerates the homogeneity of specific disciplinary features and accords disciplines generative powers which they rarely…

No formal pedagogical culture for research methods in the social sciences seems to exist and, as part of the authors' endeavour to establish such a culture, this article reviews current literature about teaching research methods and identifies the gaps in the research. Articles in academic journals spanning a 10-year period were collected by…

In the quest for a better reflexive research practice and to respond to the challenge of expanding on an education research repertoire, the authors consider "situational analysis," proposed as a post-modern approach to grounded theory using maps. Originally situating their research projects within a social constructivist theoretical…