Studies In Higher Education

The development of intellectual humility (IH) is increasingly important to institutions of higher learning and society in general. IH disposes individuals to reflect on their own fallibility and relates to their willingness to change their beliefs in light of new evidence. This study explores the complementary role of students’ perceptions of their own and their instructors’ IH. It compares them across different course subjects and types in a large, diverse American West Coast university. We examine students’ (n = 1,272) IH across multiple classrooms and multiple students’ ratings of the same instructors (n = 1,070 instructors). Results indicate that students’ IH and perceived instructor IH vary considerably across classroom contexts, but average student and instructor IH are positively correlated with each other. Student and instructor IH was lower in social science classrooms than in arts and humanities courses; at the same time, student and instructor IH was higher in STEM and health classes than in arts and humanities courses. However, much of the variation due to course subjects was accounted for by course types. Instructor IH was lower in lectures, labs, and discussions, while student IH was lower in lectures and seminars but higher in labs. Furthermore, neutral news-seeking behaviors positively predicted student IH, suggesting the significance of this trait in balancing perspectives. Our results provide a basis for future research examining IH and its relationship to student outcomes and classroom contexts and for policies to support its development in students.

Achieving academic adjustment is challenging in transition to university. Hence, guided by the Study Demands-Resources Theory (SD-R) and its dual processes (i.e. motivational and health impairment processes), we investigated reciprocal relationships between some key learning experiences (i.e. academic self-efficacy, academic engagement, and learning-related emotional exhaustion) and how they can interplay with academic adjustment. To this end, the three-wave data spanning over the first semester were collected from Chinese transitional students (Mage = 18.26, SD = 0.73). Further, we conducted the random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) that can disentangle between – and within-person variances and reveal state-like within-person relationships. The RI-CLPM analyses showed that random intercepts of the constructs under investigation were correlated with each other at the between-person level. At the within-person level, regarding the motivational process, we revealed the positive reciprocal relationships between academic self-efficacy and engagement and the positive unidirectional relationships from prior academic self-efficacy to later adjustment across Time 1 and Time 3. Regarding the health impairment process, we found negative unidirectional relationships from prior emotional exhaustion to later adjustment across Time 1 and Time 3. The positive unidirectional relationship from prior academic self-efficacy to later adjustment was additionally found from Time 2 to Time 3, but this relationship was not evidenced from Time 1 to Time 2.

The article explores how students perceive the meaning of work and how they seek purpose in work during the challenging transition from university to work. Two rounds of interviews were conducted to observe the evolving nature of students’ work transitions. Twenty-six mainland Chinese students from various master’s programmes in Hong Kong participated in the first round of interviews; one year later, 12 of them participated in the second round of interviews. Based on the qualitative content analysis, I first identified four types to illustrate how the students perceived the meaning of work: survive, thrive, (dis)connect, and contribute. In addition, using the analytical framework of self-formation and narrative analysis, I expounded two pathways to purposeful work: inward self-formation by cultivating capabilities and outward self-formation by cultivating moral qualities. The findings also revealed the tensions between individual agency and environmental forces in students’ early search for meaning and purpose at work. The article contributes to current discussions on graduate employability and university-to-work transition, with a particular focus on the ongoing construction of meaning and purpose at work. Theoretical and practical implications for a wide range of stakeholders involved in graduate employment were also discussed.

The study of variables like engagement and resilience has become increasingly relevant in higher education in recent years, given their crucial role in fostering active participation in the teaching-learning process. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine the mediating role of resilience in the generation of academic engagement processes, analyzing variables such as satisfaction, social integration and self-regulated learning. To this end, structural equations were carried out using SmartPLS 4 with a sample of 1167 Spanish university students. The results contribute to the theoretical understanding of academic engagement by highlighting the interaction between the proposed variables and the mediating role of resilience in university. Furthermore, they highlight the need for higher education institutions to implement strategies that promote resilience, social integration, and self-regulated learning, which can improve student engagement and increase retention rates. This study suggests practical implications for the development of retention policies and student support programs that focus on fostering these key aspects.

The article introduces a conceptual framework for analyzing competition in higher education, with a focus on competing as action. Drawing on Georg Simmel's sociological insights and behavioral decision theory, the framework captures key elements of competition. It distinguishes between observing and four forms of courting: performing, strategic informing, influencing valuation criteria, and attracting attention. To demonstrate its potential, the paper applies the framework to the German higher education system, particularly focusing on universities’ competition for third-party funding. This conceptual approach opens up avenues for comparative investigations of various forms of competition, enabling an analysis of both similarities and differences in the competitive actions of different actors within higher education, as well as across systems. The framework provides a valuable tool for exploring the complexity and multiplicity of competition in higher education and beyond.

In an increasingly global educational environment, business school accreditations are used by institutions as a signal of quality, credibility, and reliability. While academics’ perspectives on accreditation are well documented, the perspective of the external stakeholder group, ‘business professional’, is scarce. This research addresses this gap by empirically exploring business professionals’ perspectives regarding international and professional discipline-based accreditation of university business schools. A structured online survey attracted 110 valid responses from business professionals. A Bayesian Network (BN) model (implemented in Netica software) was developed for statistical analysis of the dataset, permitting the nuanced characterisation of complex interrelationships between the variables of interest. The findings indicate a low level of awareness of international accreditation among the survey participants. This questions the effectiveness of these accreditations as quality signals. Nevertheless, both international and professional accreditation were perceived as beneficial for employment and career prospects, and membership of professional bodies was seen as advantageous for networking and professional development. The practical implications suggest that information on accreditation, including quality indicators and benefits, could be more consistently and iteratively communicated to stakeholders. Furthermore, professional bodies and business schools could explore additional opportunities to enhance awareness about the value and career-related benefits of professional body memberships.

Supervision lies at the heart of research-based doctoral education. Existing scholarship has recognized the role of supervision in students’ academic socialization and identity construction but presented little empirical evidence based on prolonged observations of actual supervisory interactions. Addressing this gap, the present study adopted a digital micro-ethnographic approach to examine how a supervisor mediated a doctoral student’s academic identity construction in their supervisory interactions. Multiple-sourced data were collected over a two-year span, including the focal participants’ interactions through instant messaging, interviews, and artefacts. Informed by a sociocultural view of identity work in social interaction, data were subjected to both thematic analysis and micro-level discourse analysis. The analyses revealed that the supervisor drew upon transformative criticism, strategic recognition, and his own identity to mediate the doctoral student’s academic identity construction in an iterative process that often involved rounds of negotiations between different positionings. Situating the supervisor’s discursive practice at the macro-sociological level of doctoral education, this study contributes new insights into doctoral supervision as a hybridized and contingent practice that integrates the professional and the personal as well as the hierarchal and the collegial. The study offers important implications for doctoral supervision.

This present study in-depth investigates how higher education (HE) instructors and leaders in Vietnam are implementing student-centered orientation of teaching (SCOT) to help them escape the Confucian culture-caused blaming spiral: leaders blame instructors for failures, instructors blame students and institutional communities blame everyone. This study had a twofold aim: identifying how Vietnamese university instructors are implementing SCOT and identifying whether leaders support the academics staff’s SCOT adoption. The focus of the first aim was both authenticity – how well the study participants’ practices aligned with their SCOT conceptions – and comprehensiveness – how thoroughly they were incorporating the three central SCOT tenets of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The findings revealed that the study participants neither comprehensively incorporate SCOT principles into practice nor authentically student-oriented by adhering to their conceptions, and that they obtained no comprehensive support from institutional administrators for their SCOT efforts.

This article examines the intricate dynamics of trust and tension within university governance in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where the broader socio-political context—particularly student activism—profoundly influences university operations. Using the ‘grammar of trust’ framework, the article explores how student participation, as a core element of shared governance, presents both opportunities for democratic engagement and significant challenges, especially in politically charged environments. Through interviews with key stakeholders, including university council members and student leaders, the article uncovers issues surrounding the politicisation of university governance and emphasises the role of students in campus politics. It highlights the complexities introduced by political influences, advocating for proactive trust-building initiatives to navigate these challenges, mitigate conflicts, foster effective university governance, and contribute to broader societal progress.