Suchergebnisse

There are currently over 35 million students within Europe and yet, to date, we have no clear understanding of the extent to which understandings of 'the student' are shared across the continent. Thus, a central aim of this article is to investigate how the contemporary higher education student understands their own role, and the extent to which this differs both within nation-states and across them. This is significant in terms of implicit (and sometimes explicit) assumptions that are made about common understandings of 'the student' across Europe – underpinning, for example, initiatives to increase cross-border educational mobility and the wider development of a European Higher Education Area. Drawing on data from students across Europe – and particularly plasticine models participants made to represent their understanding of themselves as students – we argue that, in many cases, there is an important disconnect between the ways in which students are constructed within policy, and how they understand themselves. The models produced by participants typically foregrounded learning and hard work rather than more instrumental concerns commonly emphasised within policy. This brings into question assertions made in the academic literature that recent reforms have had a direct effect on the subjectivities of students, encouraging them to be more consumerist in their outlook. Nevertheless, we have also shown that student conceptualisations differ, to some extent, by nation-state, evident particularly in Spain and Poland, and by institution – most notably in England and Spain, which have the most vertically differentiated higher education systems. These differences suggest that, despite the 'policy convergence' manifest in the creation of a European Higher Education Area, understandings of what it means to be a student in Europe today remain contested.

Although Canada is a welfare state, and it has need-based priority student financial aid support policies in Canada; however, its higher education financial aid service is not universal. Rather its higher education support services have neoliberal policy matrix (public grants and private loan) financial aid services began to take root in most Canadian provinces. Although, since 1964, the Canadian financial aid program has provided over $51 billion in Canada Student Loans to more than 5 million Canadians to help them finance their education and equip them to achieve their career aspirations. However, higher education tuition fees and student debt levels are increasing every year. Class sizes and the proportion of part-time contract lecturer positions are increased. The average undergraduate tuition fees were $2,243 in 1990-91 (CFS, 2013), but tuition fees increased to $7,086 in 2018-19. Moreover, Statistics Canada (2015) identifies tuition fees for most graduate programs in Ontario have seen a similar 300% increase since 1990 and are now $8,971 on average, even professional program fees have undergone a much more dramatic increase. Further, after 2016 the tuition costs grew the fastest in Ontario (+402%). Government funding accounted for the majority of operating revenue for Canada's university institutions, accounting for 83.2% in 1978, leaving students to pay approximately 15% (MacDonald & Shaker, 2013). However, at the University of Toronto, the government grants and the institutional grants cover only 53% of the tuitions and fees of the students. Hence the average Canadian student debt is $27,000, up from $8,000 in 1990 (Burley & Awad, 2014). Moreover, many students will spend half of their working lives paying back their student debts (Graeber 2011, CFS 2011). The Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) student debt the publicly-assisted colleges' students are 9.1%; and private career colleges is 14.5%; overall 2017 OSAP default rates for Ontario postsecondary institutions is 6.7%. The paper has many secondary data. The author talks with many students, read many articles, books, reports, and newspapers to get the full scenario of the Canada student financial aid policies, programs and products. The study finds although Canada has the need-based higher education student financial aid policies; however, many brilliant students from the low-income group do not have a university education. The study identifies many issues responsible for many students' inaccessible to college education and increase of student debt. One of the main reason is many college financial aid officers do not elaborately explain student higher education financial aid government policies, programs, and products to the prospective higher education students. Although, the Government of Canada changes many of its higher education financial assistance policies, programs, and products; however, the ratios of the grants: loans are still questionable to many students, researchers, and laymen. Therefore, the federal, provincial and institutional grants need of the increased so that grants portion can be higher than 80% than the loan portion.

The society's social and technological context is in constant change, which causes the need to innovate and experiment changes in higher education, namely as far as teaching and learning strategies are concerned. In this paper, particular emphasis is given to the assessment of the teaching and learning strategy known as Project Based Learning (PBL). Among the features characterizing this strategy, we highlight the possibility that students have of: learning by doing and by applying their own ideas, getting involved in real-world activities applicable to the world of work, researching questions and issues, discussing ideas, and elaborating and executing projects. According to several authors, who will be cited in the article, the PBL methodology makes students more creative and constructive and helps them develop skills for researching and developing solutions to the problems they might face in their professional life, by learning to solve problems with increasingly higher levels of complexity. Students' perceptions on the project based learning strategy were obtained from a sample of subjects attending a course in software development in a Portuguese public higher education institution. This course started in the academic year of 2017/2018 and is integrated in a nationwide pilot project, included in the Portuguese Government initiative INCoDe.2030. The main aim of this course consists of training professionals in the field of computing programming who will develop skills to respond to the needs of the real world, as well as fomenting intervention projects within the community. The predominant methodological strategy in all the course units is anchored in Project Based Learning. The main aim of this paper is to assess the Project Based learning strategy, namely by identifying the students' level of satisfaction and motivation with the strategy used, its strengths and weaknesses, aspects that can be improved, and the skills acquired. The methodology used in this research work is a mixed one, with both qualitative and quantitative characteristics and with procedures associated with experimental research. The main data collection tool used was the survey. The results of this research provide the characterization of the Project Based Learning strategy from students' perspective, and highlight indicators which enable the assessment of the referred strategy's strengths and weaknesses as well as the reference to some skills acquired by the students, aiming to the eventual improvement of the strategy and its extension to other courses. Project Based Learning may constitute an approach which is well received by students and enables them to get involved into the paths of innovation and updating, needed to meet the demands of the 21st century. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

In this chapter, we draw on an analysis of English policy documents and focus groups with students at three English higher education institutions, to explore some of the complexity in the ways in which the concept of student-as-consumer is discussed by both those formulating policy and the intended recipients. In relation to policies, this is evident in some of the apparent contradictions within government documents which, on one hand, emphasise strongly many aspects of a consumer discourse (foregrounding ideas around investment, choice and ensuring value of money) but, on the other hand, also discuss in some detail the vulnerability of students and their need of protection– which is clearly at odds with the notion of an 'empowered consumer'. With respect to students, a similar degree of complexity can be seen in their differential awareness of the student-as-consumer discourse, and their varied responses to it.

"Statistics on students and qualifiers on Higher Education (HE) courses at Scottish Institutions in 2010-11 are published today by the Scottish Funding Council. This publication updates the figures in the 2009-10 issue of the same publication, which was a National Statistics publication released on 29th March 2011 by the Scottish Government. Responsibility for the production of the publication was transferred to the Scottish Funding Council during 2011. The release contains information on HE provision and attainment in higher education institutions (HEIs) and colleges in Scotland and the figures reported here supersede those contained within previous releases" - page 1.

This close investigation of student protests in the UK, Canada, Chile and Italy represents the first comparative review of the subject. Setting the wave of demonstrations within the contexts of student activism, social issues and political movements, it casts new light on their impact on higher education and on the broader society

The present research studies the factors that have impacted the affective engagement of university students in an educational online course. It examines how the type of interaction (learner-learner, learner-instructor, and learner-content) and the type of engagement (behavioural, cognitive and affective) have influenced the affective engagement of the students in the online course. Nineteen university students majoring in teaching mathematics, who were enrolled in the course Mathematics Teaching Methods, participated in the present research. Two data collection tools were used: semi-structured interviews and reflections. To analyse the texts resulting from the interviews and reflections, inductive and deductive qualitative content analysis was used. The research results indicated that university students have experienced more positive than negative affective engagement in the three communicational channels used in this course to facilitate online learning, which were: synchronous lectures, forums and assignments. The results also indicated that these three types of interaction have positively influenced students' affective engagement in the three channels, with that influence being different from one channel to the other based on the interaction type taking place. We suggest that specific types of engagement need to be attended to for positive affect to occur. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-01296 Full Text: PDF

Improving higher education student learning plays a critical role in advancing human capital. Assessment lies at the heart of such improvement, underlining the need for research and innovation in this field. This article reviews an AERA Open Special Topic published to advance assessment research and hence the success of higher education. It sketches key contexts, surveys selected articles, and stands back to frame future steps ahead. ; American Educational Research Association

Purpose
This study aims to assess higher education students' interest in learning sustainability competencies and their pro-ecological worldviews at a large research-intensive university in Finland to provide a background information for developing a sustainability science course.


Design/methodology/approach
In total, 797 students participated in the study. The data were collected through an online survey that measured students' interest in learning sustainability competencies and their pro-ecological worldviews. Participants were classified into five categories based on field of study. The data were analysed by using Pearson's correlation, independent samples t-tests, and analysis of variance.


Findings
The participating students perceived learning of critical thinking and values thinking most interesting. Interest in learning sustainability competencies and pro-ecological worldview appeared to differ across fields of study. Participants studying humanities expressed lower interest in collaborative use of digital technology compared to the participating students in science and agriculture. Participating students in health and welfare scored lower on interest in learning values thinking than students in other study fields.


Research limitations/implications
The response rate was low. It is likely that the participants felt strongly about sustainability challenges, therefore making them more interested in sustainability competencies. The limited number of sustainability competencies studied does not allow generalisation to all sustainability competencies.


Practical implications
The differences in interest in learning sustainability competencies and pro-ecological worldview should be understood and considered when planning sustainability education.


Originality/value
These results provide new insights into the interlinkage of students' interest in learning sustainability competencies, their pro-ecological worldviews and their field of study.