There is a dearth of research on the work-life balance experiences of academics who undertake short-term international teaching assignments. Academics who teach offshore are also accountable for onshore activities including lecturing, research, supervision of higher degree students, mentoring, publishing and administrative obligations "inter…

Group work has been increasingly encouraged and applied in Vietnamese universities. However, very little has been known about how Vietnamese university students work in a group and what the conditions are that help establish an effective group. This study attempted to redress this gap. The research applied Bourdieu's social field theory to examine…

Academic culture is a distinct and unique field, and perhaps may best be conceptualised as a space. Although access to university has traditionally been restricted, recent efforts on a number of fronts have attempted to "open" the space of the academy. In particular, enabling programmes such as Preparatory Programs and Foundation Courses…

While the experiences of international doctoral students, especially those from Asian countries, have been well researched, fewer studies have explored the experiences of African students in Southern countries like Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. This article reports on doctoral writing and student and supervisor perspectives on English…

Practicum experiences are critical learning environments for developing requisite skills, knowledge, behaviours and attitudes across the professions. Evidence suggests that international students in professional social and behavioural science programs struggle across a number of dimensions while on practicum. Key issues for these students coalesce…

This study considers the conceptual space, or extent of autonomy, given to coursework Masters students before, during and after a Business Ethics course that explicitly developed and assessed their research skills. This vocationally oriented and academically challenging course used the "Research Skill Development framework" as its…

The Flipped Classroom (FC) method is used widely in higher education, with studies claiming various benefits. However, to date, little work has focused on what makes FCs effective for student learning. This study presents data collected from interviews with 14 UK-based undergraduate students, investigating their perceptions of participating in a…

The marketisation of higher education (HE) has created a number of tensions and ideological dilemmas that may influence how academics see their roles and teaching practices. This paper explores how academics in the discipline of social work (who were also in leadership roles) perceive their roles and identities and manage the tensions and dilemmas…

In this article, we explore the narratives of 10 doctoral alumni from Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) who underwent graduate training in Sweden. The narratives identify challenges encountered by the alumni but more importantly reveal the agency by which these challenges were overcome. The most important strategy was that of collaborative…

Emotion experienced in the classroom has been shown to influence subject-level satisfaction and loyalty to the institution. To date, a valid and reliable scale to measure higher-education satisfaction emotions does not exist and this study aims to rectify this shortfall. After a qualitative and quantitative investigation, 14 emotions that formed…

The post-apartheid higher education transformation project is faced with the challenge of recruiting and retaining black academics and other senior staff. But when we shift the focus from participation rates to equality-inequality within historically white universities (HWUs), then the discourse changes from demographic equity and redress to…

While the epistemological and ontological challenges faced by doctoral candidates are well documented, the same cannot be said of the emotional dimensions of the journey. This paper draws on Activity Theory in exploring the role of emotion in the longitudinal doctoral learning experiences of six international PhD candidates studying in Australia.…

Increasingly, the importance of reflexivity has been acknowledged in higher education research. In this paper, I reflect on my experience of researching lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) university students in Hong Kong. The focus is not on the findings that emerge from the in-depth interviews conducted per se, but on the…

This article examines the role of agency for the English language development of three Chinese research students with high English proficiency sojourning in Australia. The focus is on the various approaches the learners employed to strengthen their sense of confidence in their language use in Australia. The data were obtained through in-depth…

Attempts to recruit Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students into nursing degrees have made minimal impact on the number of registered nurses working in Australia's healthcare sector. Yet increasing the number of Indigenous nurses remains one of the most important objectives in strategies to close the health gap between Indigenous and…