University dropout is a phenomenon of growing interest due to the high financial costs that it involves for both families and states. Various variables have been studied in order to understand why this problem occurs. Satisfaction with the degree choice, study self-regulation and social adaptation within the university are some of the variables…

Academic freedom is of central importance to higher education and it affects all aspects of work at universities. It symbolizes academics' acceptance of the need for openness and flexibility (Balyer, 2011) and it protects the conditions leading to the creation of good teaching and learning, sound research, and scholarship (Atkinson, 2004).…

Student engagement is a key predictor of academic performance, persistence and retention in higher education. While many studies have identified how aspects of the college environment influence engagement, fewer have specifically focused on emotional intelligence (EI). In this study, we sought to explore whether EI could predict cognitive and/or…

Demand for higher education in Australia has doubled since 1989, increasing the number of students from diverse social, economic and academic backgrounds. Equity targets have seen a proliferation of programs and interventions aimed at encouraging school students, particularly those from low socio-economic status backgrounds, to participate in…

Romanian scholars, and others, have decried the quality and quantity of scholarly productivity from Romania. However, Romanian scholars face challenges of both tradition and resources as they try to westernize their higher education system. We analyzed data from two sources to compare Romanian scholarly productivity to that of other countries from…

The main goals of course evaluations are to obtain student feedback regarding courses and teaching for improvement purposes and to provide a defined and practical process to ensure that actions are taken to improve courses and teaching. Of the items on course evaluation forms, the one that receives the most attention and consequently the most…

Students in their first year of university face a number of transition issues that can make realising their academic potential difficult. In the sciences, first-year courses cover a large amount of material across broad subject areas, which can make them troublesome for students without background knowledge, and students need to adapt to typically…

A short version of the Approaches to Studying Inventory administered to 169 college psychology students in early semester revealed that scores for meaning orientation did not predict academic performance in any way, whereas there was a very small negative correlation between reproducing orientation and academic achievement. Internal reliability of…

Learning outcomes in higher education are of considerable interest to students, teaching staff, researchers, tertiary education institutions and funding authorities. To improve the quality of learning outcomes may require a better understanding of what happens in the learning process from the perspective of the learner. This study makes use of a…