Academic developers are important interpreters of policy, yet little research has focussed on the interplay of policy and academic development practice. Using methods from critical discourse analysis, this article analyses a national learning and teaching policy, charts its development, and explores its interpretation by the academic development…

Internationalization is a key contemporary debate within Higher Education (HE). Many universities worldwide proclaim their "international" status, citing quantitative indicators, particularly international student and staff recruitment and outbound student mobility data to illustrate this. In this paper, we focus on the non-mobile…

Over the past decade or so, Chinese government has been strategically luring back overseas Chinese high-fliers to strengthen science, technology, and higher education. One of the major initiatives is the Thousand Youth Talents Scheme (TYTS) launched in 2011. By 2017, 2980 Thousand Youth Talents Scheme scholars (TYTSs) had been recruited into…

It is widely recognised that tertiary education does not provide all of the knowledge and skills required to succeed in modern societies. Personal and interpersonal skills--so-called "soft skills"--are also needed to complement professional skills and expertise, and become an essential part of an individual's personality. One way of…

In Ghana, research has shown that educational reforms over the years have ignored the importance of school leadership development, and there are currently very few reform initiatives that address the need to develop the leadership proficiencies and skills of school leaders. This study sought to investigate how school leaders, who include…

Learning through peer observation in higher education is most frequently investigated from the perspective of the teacher who is observed. What is under-examined is "how" learning arises for the observer by watching a peer in practice. This paper provides insight into this question through an interpretive-phenomenological analysis of a…

Conducted as part of a multi-country study of the teaching-related experiences and expectations of early career academics (ECAs) in Africa, this study investigated the major influences on the teaching practice of ECAs at Makerere University; the mechanisms by which these academics learn to teach; the teaching-related challenges they experience;…

This study investigated outcomes of the provision, by one Australian and two U.K. universities, of bridging programs that allow registered Malaysian nurses to upgrade their diploma qualifications to degree level. The study was informed by current literature on Transnational Higher Education (TNHE) programs. Not sufficiently explored in the…

ESL programs at post-secondary institutions must often generate revenue in addition to teaching students English. Institutions often impose explicit expectations on these programs to generate profit, creating unique challenges for those who administer them. This qualitative case study investigated challenges faced by ESL program directors at one…

This qualitative study used interviews to explore perceptions of the management and leadership role of the higher education registrar and the skills needed to fulfill that role. The findings reveal a variety of factors that were considered to impact the registrars role as a campus leader. There findings can help registrars find ways to maximize…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how, and the extent to which, massive open online courses (MOOCs) might be used in the accreditation of students' prior learning, in programme delivery at international branch campuses, and for lecturers' professional development (PD) in transnational higher education.…

This paper represents an attempt to make a theoretical contribution to its knowledge base through an analysis of the group factors which contribute to the success of women academics engaged in research within the area of social sciences. The data were obtained through a series of in-depth interviews carried out at public universities in Catalonia,…

This case study investigates how an ESL teacher's activity of self-directed journal writing can facilitate learning and function as a mediational tool for teacher professional development. The participant for this study is a native English speaker who taught an ESL freshman writing course in an American university. Since he had little time to…

This paper reports on a collective case study of three blended courses taught by different instructors in a higher education institution, with the purpose of identifying the different types of blend and how the blend supports student learning. Based on the instructors' and students' interviews, and document analysis of course outlines, two major…

While the literature on self-authorship has focused on the development of college students and young adults highlighting various developmental tasks associated with the ages 17 through 30 (e.g., Baxter Magolda, 2001, 2003, 2004), in this article, we explore the exercise and development of faculty members' self-authorship as educators, proposing…