Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) can improve student skills, retention, and matriculation to postgraduate study. Traditionally, UREs are available mostly in the natural and biological sciences, which have fewer minority and women majors and thus have disproportionately excluded these groups from such experiences. One effective solution is…

Making a contribution to knowledge is a cornerstone requirement of the PhD. It requires candidates to provide new understandings about a phenomenon to push the boundaries of an intellectual field. To achieve this 'boundary pushing', the findings offered in the research must have relevance for contexts beyond the site of study. In effect, the…

This paper conceptualises and explores 'the art of critique' in student writing in the humanities and social sciences [Foucault 1997. "What is Critique?" In: "The Politics of Truth." English Translation. Translated from French by Lysa Hocroth & Catherine Porter. In "Dits et Ecrits" for original French. Los…

This study sought to probe into higher education faculty members' personal epistemology. The participants were faculty members in soft disciplines from Iranian universities. A qualitative thematic study was carried out. Also, the data were collected through interviews and observations, and were analyzed using thematic analysis. Four themes were…

Powerful knowledge facilitates students' access to profound understanding and abstract thinking. In this study, disciplinary knowledge practices and their curricular capacity are examined in regions, i.e. interdisciplinary and professionally oriented degree programmes. Interview data on curriculum knowledge were analysed drawing on Basil…

Teachers' conceptions of teaching play a key role in the pedagogical practices they apply in their teaching. Previous studies of conceptions of teaching generic skills have been mainly qualitative with small samples, and thus there is a need for a more extensive quantitative study. This study investigates the associations between higher education…

This paper provides a critical interrogation of government-led reform of higher education (HE) in England. Its focus is marketisation, and in particular, the concepts of 'value for money' (VFM), teaching excellence, and students as educational consumers. Hitherto, research on VFM in HE has been largely quantitative in nature and primarily focussed…

It is often asserted that to facilitate student engagement, encourage participation and create optimal learning environments, the classroom should be a safe space. In this paper, we explore the idea that 'safety' is at odds with the very nature of academic enquiry. Using data from a qualitative study with staff at a UK University, we illustrate…

Emotion is an integral part of the knowledge production process, yet is rarely acknowledged within research methods teaching or textbooks. As educators, preparing students for fieldwork is essential, and should go beyond skill-learning, towards building confidence in their ability to react both ethically and appropriately during fieldwork. This…

A common recommendation in critiques of datafication in education is for greater conversation between the two sides of the (critical) divide -- what might be characterised as sceptical social scientists and (supposedly) more technically-minded and enthusiastic data scientists. This article takes the form of a dialogue between two academics…

In the market discourses of technological disruption, higher education institutions have routinely been positioned in deficit models and of anachronistic approaches to teaching at odds with the types of educational futures being presented by commercial organisations. Predominantly, automation technologies in the form of artificial intelligence are…

Higher education's policy demands and pedagogical practices often take as their 'desirable' subject an unspecified body, failing to interrogate who the student is (and is not) in relation to differentiated access to power, privilege, and opportunity structures. This paper offers a feminist critique of such decontextualised theorisations of…

This article considers support programmes for direct entrant (DE) student transitions as a widening participation strategy. We reflect upon one induction and support project with 27 students transitioning from further education into the second year of undergraduate social science degree programmes in a Scottish university. We use focus group data…

This paper was motivated by student protests at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, where the Rhodes Must Fall collective called for the "decolonisation" of the university's curriculum. I deliberately adopt a "decolonial gaze" to re-describe the structural and cultural conditioning of the post-colonial university and the…

Within the currently diverse UK higher education environment, one important aspect of learning is the development of intercultural competence. The study that informs this paper investigated the ways intercultural competence was perceived as being enhanced or inhibited through current language and educational practices at a university that…