This paper investigates grammatical difficulty from the perspective of Saudi university students, of EFL as well as from the perspective of university teachers. It aims to find out which English grammar features are more difficult/less difficult than others. Furthermore, it attempts to determine the reasons and causes that account for such grammar…

In the UK the title "professor" is generally applied only to the most senior academics--equivalent to North American full professors--and whom anecdotal evidence indicates to be often unprepared for the increasingly expansive academic leadership roles that they are expected to fulfil. The study reported in this paper was directed at…

The study explores the institutional factors which influence the impact of education in building academic entrepreneurship in higher educational institutes of Uttarakhand state, India. In order to understand the institutional barriers, the author interviewed 68 senior-level educationists, who were working in the capacity of Director General,…

Initial teacher education programmes have been identified as crucial to meeting the twin policy aims of professionalising the further education (FE) workforce and achieving improved learner outcomes, yet college-based teacher educators are underrepresented in published research and commentary. Drawing on a case study of teacher educators employed…

The role of an academic mentor is typically diverse, discipline specific and institutionally heterogeneous. Mentoring relationships are commonplace, yet the experience and delivery of mentoring in universities reflect a broad spectrum of approaches and execution. This article reflects on the pedagogic evolution of mentoring, examining the student…

An evaluation project was carried out to consider the factors that influence university teachers engagement with an institutional professional development scheme. Data was collected via an online questionnaire followed up by semi-structured interviews. This paper will consider those factors that encourage and act as barriers to engagement. The…

Part-time teachers form a growing proportion of the global Higher Education (HE) workforce. Their backgrounds can vary from Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) teaching for the first time, to practitioners bringing workplace experience into HE and sessional teachers, all with differing professional development needs. This paper builds on previous…

We explored students' perspectives about their professors' use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and compared these to the views of professors deemed by their students to be excellent in their use of ICTs. 311 students completed an online questionnaire and nominated up to three of their professors who used technology in a way…

Vignettes, brief descriptions of fictional characters and situations, serve as a tool to study people's lives, perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes about specific situations. Although not widely used in library and information science (LIS) research, vignettes can depersonalize responses to controversial situations or behavioral responses related…

This study investigated the implementation of best teaching practices by science graduate teaching assistants [GTAs] (3 chemists and 2 biologists) in five inquiry-based, interdisciplinary chemistry-biology experiments during a six-week professional development (PD) program, Engage PD. Additionally, we examined GTAs' experiences in implementing…

This study aims to explore the perceptions of university students and instructors regarding English as the medium of instruction for teaching science courses in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). One hundred English as a Foreign Language students from several science courses participated in the current study. They completed a self-assessment…

Student-faculty interactions are a component of social integration, a key concept in Tinto's theory of student persistence which has received empirical support. However, the influence of social integration for commuting students has been questioned. Furthermore, student-faculty interactions in the classroom are under-researched and arguably…

This research focuses on the assessment literacy, that is, the understandings of assessment terminologies and how they relate to each other, in academic staff developers in the UK, collected via questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Academic staff developers have been trained and certified to support new higher education lecturers in…

This article describes a study of 58 faculty members using a practical method for assessing the prevalence of learner-centered practices through individual interviews and rating their described practices with published rubrics. Analysis of the interviews found that the same faculty member might use more learner-centered practices in one course and…

Educational institutions offer diverse staff development programmes to allow staff members to keep up with educational innovations and to guarantee educational quality. The current study investigates by means of a survey and semi-structured interviews whether the teacher perceives staff development as a management model, a shop-floor model or a…