Higher Education Research & Development

Concerns have been raised about the dearth of methodological plurality and risk-taking in contemporary journal publications on higher education. This paper offers a counter-narrative by exploring the operationalisation of 'the visual' for the study of the university during significant transitions since the cessation of the Cold War. It is informed by a systematised critical review of 208 journal articles, which were published in Englishes from 1992 to 2023, positing 'the visual' as subject, method, methodology or mode of enquiry. Mapping by journal, author(s), date and the contexts studied, revealed growth across 54 countries. Initially produced within and about the Minority World (most prominently the USA), visual study has expanded to the Majority World (most prominently South Africa). Emerging trajectories and patterns are narrativised across the decades, with consideration of contexts, foci, topics, interests served, and methodological choices in the generation, collection and evocation of imagery. This review demonstrates the scope of Visual University Studies for exploring and experimenting with the temporal (social, cultural, political and spatial strife, and change) and the multimodal (analogue and digital sources, methods and spaces) to express, document, critique, reclaim and commemorate that which is elusive or hidden within representations of the university ecology. ARTICLE HISTORY

This paper reports on a study of master's thesis supervision in taught postgraduate programs. The study employed qualitative narrative inquiry, drawing on interviews with 15 supervisors in applied linguistics at UGC-funded universities in Hong Kong. From the supervisors' accounts of their supervisory experiences, four core narratives have been constructed: scholarly partnership, directional partnership, affiliative partnership, and non-directive involvement. In each type of story, the meaning of thesis supervision, the supervision process, and the outcome are viewed and experienced differently. Supervisors engaged in scholarly partnership aimed to cultivate scholarly attitudes and identities in students. The narrative of affiliative partnership emphasized the significance of compassion and understanding in the supervisory process. While supervisors in directional partnership focused on helping students produce a high-quality thesis, supervisors favoring non-directive involvement expected students to plan and carry out their research projects independently. The idea of partnership and a positive supervisory experience were present in all narratives except the non-directive one. The findings underscore the need to reflect critically on the prevalent narratives of supervision with a view to enhancing students' thesis-writing experiences and outcomes. ARTICLE HISTORY

This paper explores, through a phenomenographic analysis, how higher education students experience comparison-based learning processes embedded in self-assessment activities. By combining observations and interviews, the paper offers a threefold contribution: (1) it provides two in-depth narratives of self-assessment activities; (2) it develops a typology that distinguishes between explicit versus implicit and analogical versus analytical comparisons; and (3) it proposes an outcome space to illustrate how students experience these contrasting assignments. The analysis detects a specific value of analogical comparisons for self-generated learning and of analytical comparisons for a better understanding of the course stakes. In both cases, making comparisons explicit is a way to foster cognitive and metacognitive benefits. Additionally, the findings indicate that comparisons with peer productions should receive special attention as students are less familiar with them than with traditional instructor feedback. Lastly, results suggest that consistency in self-marking should not always be interpreted as an indicator of powerful self-assessment. These insights hold implications for researchers and educators concerned with the ins and outs of self-assessment practice. https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/AZRCAEJH4WGMIC2BZX5K/full?target=10.1080/07294360.2025.2463521

University preparation pathways are an important equity mechanism for opening access to higher education to under-represented students. A vital focus of pathways education is on the academic literacy practices needed for successful undergraduate study, and this appears to mainly focus on academic writing development. Therefore, despite academic speaking and listening – known as academic oracy – also holding a crucial role in supporting students’ engagement with content, critical thinking, groupwork, teaching and learning, and in enhancing their success, the extent to which academic oracy forms part of pathways courses alongside other academic literacy practices remains unclear. Drawing on semi-structured interview data from pathways educators working in university-based pathways in six universities, we argue that consensus about the importance of academic oracy in pathways education is in contrast to awareness or expertise about how to use talk to better support student engagement and success. We make the case for a professional development agenda to upskill educators, and students, to better use academic oracy for equitable participation in undergraduate classrooms. We also propose using the more accessible term, ‘academic talk’, as part of this development to emphasise the intentional use of speaking and listening to engage students in learning across disciplinary contexts.

Class participation is an important indicator of student engagement. As research on assessing class participation is relatively scarce, questions of how to achieve reliability in assessing class participation and how to minimize subjectivity in the process remain to be addressed. As assessment approaches get updated in the era of Generative AI, there is a need to revisit the topic to uncover the various ways educators assess class participation in both physical and virtual classrooms. This study aimed to gather the best practices and challenges of higher education teachers in assessing class participation in online and offline (physical/face-to-face) learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 teachers from all 10 faculties in a university in Hong Kong. We found that strategies employed in assessing participation are associated with the type of learner, type of course, technology available, teachers' training, support, and resources, the learning context, and intended learning outcomes. Findings also point to the potential of technology-enabled assessment in helping students achieve intended learning outcomes, with teachers playing a huge role in terms of ensuring constructive alignment among intended learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities, and assessments. Recommendations to maximize the use of digital technologies in higher education are discussed. ARTICLE HISTORY

PhD holders often report facing negative stereotypes in recruitment, though the extent and impact remain unclear. We investigated the content and consequences of these stereotypes in recruitment contexts. Specifically, we examined how 220 recruiters perceived PhD holders’ professional profiles and their job suitability for a specific role, comparing typical PhDs, industrial PhDs, PhDEngineers, and Engineers. Results showed that while PhD holders were generally viewed positively, they were stereotyped as less competent than engineers. Despite this, perceived job suitability was similar across profiles. Gender stereotypes also emerged, with women’s profiles rated more positively but not preferred for job offers. These findings shed new light on how PhD holders are stereotyped and the potential impact of these stereotypes. They also suggest that recruiters and job seekers should be mindful of these biases in recruitment.

An understanding of who is affected by involvement in sensitive research has recently undergone closer examination. While the emotional risk to participants is widely acknowledged, scholars argue that emotional care should be extended to everyone in a research team. Yet work in this area presupposes that those who explore sensitive topics are already familiar with the field, and are to some extent prepared for the material they encounter. In the contemporary UK university, however, academics are required to supervise Masters level student projects in areas where they are not specialised, including sensitive themes. This paper provides a unique perspective in reflecting on the experience of a supervisor working with a Masters student on a dissertation exploring narratives of sexual violence, a field outside the supervisor’s academic specialism. Drawing on the theory of emotional labour, as applied to academic supervisory work, we discuss the project’s challenges, how it was approached, and what can be learned from this. Thus we make a significant contribution to literature on Masters supervision, highlighting the need for greater attention to be paid when allocating dissertation supervisors, and calling for more robust support for those working with students on sensitive research.

The in-between space ignites learning as individuals journey from dependence on the institution to independence from the institution. This space has hitherto been holistically undefined in the context of higher arts education. The study aims to explore such experiences within the lifeworld of student scholars in the fields of arts and design. Through interpretative phenomenological analysis, this study unravels emotional and mental states of being in-between at a higher education arts institution in Singapore. The findings highlight freedom, courage, disillusionment, discomfort, imposter syndrome, and feeling burn-out. Multiple engagements in the space in-between show a purposeful letting go of uncertainties for the sake of embracing ambiguities. This state fosters playful learning, exploration, creativity and innovation. Caught between one state and another, individuals experience different states of being at each stage of learning, which can be disempowering. Yet, individuals embrace the in-between space as a natural part of the journey in transformative learning. The results evince that being in-between was accepted as a necessary part of learning towards professionalism in the arts. The paper concludes with practical implications on how expanding a locus of learning experiences beyond the university can inform curriculum futures in higher education.