Context: College campuses in the United States are currently engaged in public and ongoing negotiation of the value and limits of free speech in educational contexts. Responses to invited campus speakers from students, faculty, and campus leaders point to diverging perspectives on the roles and responsibilities of higher education institutions and…

Scientific argumentation skills are a key component of science learning practices needed by students in the 21st century. Where the essence of scientific argumentation is to support the argument with evidence and reasoning and then refute the claims and evidence of the opponent's argument. Supporting arguments with evidence and reasoning can be…

Rapidly eroding financial support and tuition increases that outpace inflation threaten the viability of an education that considers civic engagement as foundational. Simultaneously, institutions of higher education are increasingly perceived by the public as market-driven entities existing for the economic benefit of the individual, the upward…

Flourishing conversations between professionals in the public sphere are creating new opportunities for intercollegiate debate. This desire to expand debate outside of the Communication Studies community pushes the idea of debate beyond its traditional boundaries. Those who have witnessed these attempts to bring more disciplines into the world of…

Past research on face-to-face instructional delivery demonstrates that students' participation is positively related to their achievement in a course (Rocca, 2010), and that participation mediates the relation between attendance and achievement (Kim et al., 2019). Given that blended learning is on the rise in higher education (Johnson et al.,…

For decades, scholars have argued that civic education practices, such as debates on controversial issues, have the capacity to enhance civic outcomes, including political knowledge, attentiveness, and interest. This study bridges the literature on political science education and political behavior by employing an experimental approach to assess…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse which are the active learning methodologies, which had better contribute to acquiring competences for sustainable development (SD) in higher education. Design/methodology/approach: Cluster analysis is used to define 252 students' skills patterns and their perception of the different active learning…

This paper establishes a novel niche by providing an original critical synthesis of the potentials and challenges of using public art to teach about, and "que(e)ry", sexuality, gender and space. The argument vouches for a critical pedagogy that pursues a visual politics for experiential and potentially transformative learning about…

Systematic reviews are common in disciplines such as medicine, nursing, and health sciences and students are increasingly being encouraged to conduct them as a component of their thesis (Pickering & Byrne, 2014). Fortunately, the tedious old days of writing a thesis by gathering mountains of hard-copy papers are long behind us. Privileged…

The vocabulary of higher education is being devalued. The use of "expert" and "elite" as pejorative terms undermines the trust on which successful societies are based. In a "post-factual" society, universities have to re-establish a respect for objective truth and powerful arguments, becoming trust building as well as…

Some employers contend that the college graduates they hire should have stronger communication and critical thinking skills upon arrival from their various college/university programs in which they majored. As higher education continues its efforts to meet the demands for employers, the authors contend that the benefits of participation in debate…

In this essay, the editors and contributors to this special section on SoTL in the Arts and Humanities argue that given the current climate and context, debates within SoTL about appropriate methodology both lead scholars from their disciplines to reject SoTL and also, more importantly, distract us from more significant questions and challenges.…

This dissertation addresses the question: Should higher education governance and decision-making be an elite or collective responsibility? It brings into conversation (i) the debate over the future of shared (i.e. participatory, faculty) governance in higher education, and (ii) research in democratic theory, specifically the epistemic defense of…

Critical thinking requires that we dig beneath the surface of organizational issues to explore multiple views, context, and aspects of knowing. In this exercise, students explore these deeper issues with the question: Are incentives effective? A hypothetical case unfolds to show how two consulting groups can arrive at very different…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how competences for sustainable development and research interrelate within a context of competence-based higher education. Specific focus is oriented towards strengthening research competences for sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: Following a hermeneutic-interpretive methodology, this…