Representations of higher education in fiction-based sources contribute to forming public perceptions of academia, and so are a form of public pedagogy. Within popular culture representations, understandings of academics are constructed using particular tropes which build shared meanings of the profession. Conferences are one of these tropes and…

Wider visibility of information literacy (IL) outside of the library and information science (LIS) field is important to the success of IL instruction, learning, and research. The development and major updates of several information literacy documents in the past decade evidence the changing landscape of IL research, but how these changes have…

As the number of articles on postsecondary topics expands, new methods are required to quantitatively understand the literature. Previous scholars looking at the higher education literature use manual coding, which limits the number of years that can be studied, or network analysis of citations and words, which does not yield groupings of articles…

The field of higher education studies has expanded dramatically in recent years. Notably, research centers/institutes and academic programs devoted to the field of higher education (tertiary education) has increased worldwide to now include peer-reviewed journals, books, reports and publications. Utilizing secondary data from 277 higher education…

The PhD is the highest formal qualification and signifies a scholar's rite of passage as a legitimate contributor of new knowledge in a field. Examiner reports make claims about what is legitimate in a thesis and what is not and thus articulate the organising principles through which participation in a field is measured. The authors analysed 39…

This study aims to explore the development of higher education research in South Korea based on historical and scientometric perspectives. After the evolution of the country's higher education research community is presented, articles focusing on higher education from 1995 to 2012 are analysed. In total, 145 articles in international journals and…

The purpose of this article is to outline what could be learned from the international research literature on the issue of developing teaching competences of novice faculty members. The mission of academics has changed in recent years. Academics must now also meet a strong social demand for graduates' access to employment and are increasingly…

This paper proposes the importance of qualitative research synthesis to the field of higher education. It examines seven key texts that undertake synthesis in this field and compares essential features and elements across studies. The authors indicate strengths of the approaches and highlight ways forward for using qualitative research synthesis…

This article analyzes 255 articles published in seven peer-reviewed journals over a 10-year period and presents examples of how higher education researchers undertake the study of campus racial climates; racial differences in access, outcomes, and attainment; and the experiences of students, faculty, and administrators of color on predominantly…

The history of the philosophy of higher education was studied. Examining descriptions of the field of higher education was one approach, along with computer searches. There appeared to be a gap in the study of higher education--the failure to study the history of philosophy of higher education. The problem seemed to be that scholars had not tried…

The pursuit of objectivity is among the most critical yet unresolved problems confronting the study of higher education. The entire process of research is theory-laden, putting into question the possibility of objectivity in historical investigation. A change of approach to address this issue is recommended. (MSE)

The origins, development, and influences of James McKeen Cattell's research on the conditions, performance, traits, and other characteristics of preeminent American scientists are discussed. Cattell's role in the development of academic quality rankings is noted. (MSE)

Examination of the contents of 3 major higher education journals over 3 time periods indicates that only about 30 of over 770 articles focused on women or topics commonly associated with women. These articles were classified according to feminist phase theory to indicate the extent of feminist scholarship in the journals. (Author/MSE)

Scholars and researchers, in studying colleges and universities, should appreciate the advantages of broader perspectives and better insights in the interpretations and explanations of institutions telling their own fascinating stories. Each institution can be studied from different perspectives and each can contribute new insights into the world…

The perspectives of Lon L. Fuller on legal education in the 1940s and 1950s is outlined, including the responsibilities and tasks of the lawyer, curricular deficiencies, pedagogical deficiencies, the need for and objectives of a course in jurisprudence, research needs, and obstacles to good legal education. (MSE)