Trends High. Educ., Volume 3, Issue 2 (June 2024) – 8 articles

The challenges and tensions experienced by mid-career faculty (MCF) can lead to frustration, disengagement, or leaving the professoriate altogether, a trend noted by researchers prior to and especially after the pandemic. In this article, we explore the role that collegial support and career reflection and assessment strategies targeting mid-career faculty can play to preserve institutional vitality, support faculty agency, and promote student success. Additionally, we propose initiatives and supports that may assist these faculty members in staying in the academy and staying well as they pursue professional fulfillment and work towards their goals, including promotion to full professorship. We contend that post-secondary campuses should invest in keeping MCF engaged because of the crucial roles they serve on campus. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in online studio education, which has presented a significant challenge to traditional design studio teaching methods that rely on face-to-face interactions between instructors and students. It is contended that online studio education enhances the accessibility of design studio pedagogy, making it possible for students to learn from anywhere in the world. However, it also challenges the development of tactile skills, which are crucial in design education. Additionally, online studio education can render certain aspects of traditional design studio pedagogy obsolete, while bringing back elements of design history and theory that may have been overlooked in traditional studio teaching. It can also be argued that online studio education has the potential to reverse the traditional power dynamics between instructors and students, resulting in more democratic and collaborative forms of learning that can empower students. As the literature on the effects of online studio education is growing, there is a need to understand how the shift from the material space and its affordances to an online environment affects the core components of an architectural design studio. To understand the effects of this new medium, this research employed Marshall McLuhan’s tetradic approach, a hermeneutic tool to perform a critical interpretation of any medium by examining four simultaneous effects: how it enhances a human sense, what it makes obsolete, what forgotten aspect it retrieves, and how it flips into its opposite at its extremes. A literature review was conducted to analyze the effects of online studios from a tetradic framework and identify the major discussions of the impact of online studio education. The methodology involves a two-part literature review. This study specifically focused on peer-reviewed, empirical research published after 2020, and the authors used search terms related to online architectural studios during the pandemic. The process identified 176 records of peer-reviewed empirical studies for further analysis and 20 papers were read and included in the review, defining repeating topics/themes and organized under four categories pertaining to the founding archetypes of an architectural design studio: (a) setting and communication, (b) actors, (c) outputs, and (d) dynamics. This process was followed by organizing the findings and interpreting them within the tetradic framework to develop a comprehensive understanding of the consequences of the online design studio. Overall, this research aims to provide a detailed and nuanced analysis of the impact of online studio education on design studio pedagogy, conceptualizing McLuhan’s tetrad as a basis for the analysis, and therefore aiming to enrich our understanding of the post-COVID-19 era of learning architecture by examining the dramatic change in the medium and its effects. Full article

Among the most popular learning management systems (LMS) available worldwide is Moodle. This current study examines how learners’ attitudes toward English as a foreign language (EFL) and their language proficiency are affected by Moodle’s interactive language-learning activities. Thirty-three undergraduate students participated in this study. We investigated the effects of engaging language-learning exercises that were practiced on Moodle using an experimental research design. To find out if the experimental and control groups differed significantly from one another on pre- and post-measures regarding the development of language skills and attitudes toward language classrooms, a number of statistical tests were employed. We conducted a data analysis using SPSS software. The results demonstrated that there were differences favoring the experimental group in the development of language skills and the attitudes of learners toward the language classroom. There were no apparent differences in forming structures, speaking, or listening compared to the control group’s learners. On the other hand, there were notable differences in the overall score, writing and reading skills, and lexical item mastery. Additionally, significant differences in the language acquisition growth of the experimental and control groups were found using an independent-sample t-test in the post-test, with the experimental group benefiting. Full article

This study reveals that the likelihood and diversity of postsecondary institutions providing basic needs programs are significantly influenced by institutional factors such as the institutions’ organization and size. This study also indicates that Hispanic-Serving Institutions tend to provide emergency housing, which highlights a targeted response to specific community needs. In addition, the analysis indicates that the presence of students with financial needs is linked to the availability of food pantry services, suggesting a strategic approach to address student welfare. The findings from this study provide critical insights into how institutional characteristics influence the provision and variety of basic needs services. These conclusions not only underscore the pivotal role of such services in supporting the overall well-being and academic success of students but also indicate institutional factors that support the formal implementation of a variety of basic needs programs to meet diverse student needs. Full article

Gamification has emerged in higher education as an innovative approach that engages and stimulates student participation and active learning, through the integration of game elements in the learning experience. This study presents a case study in the field of Information Systems, based on the use of gamification, through the use of Lego bricks, to learn SCRUM. The participants in the study include 12 first-year students, enrolled in the curricular unit of Information Systems, in the academic year of 2022/2023, at a Portuguese Higher Education Institution. The objective of the study is to analyze student’s understanding of the SCRUM approach, in regard to: (1) how students understand the different roles of SCRUM and the objective of each ceremony; and (2) how students understand the structure of the SCRUM framework. Findings from the study show that students who engaged in the gamified learning environment demonstrated higher comprehension of SCRUM roles, scoring significantly better on assessments compared to their non-participating peers. In general, students felt that the gamification experience achieved its objectives. Future work aims to bring the game closer to the reality of the software development process, making it more aligned with the lego4scrum methodology approach. Full article

In compliance with national legislation, Greek tertiary education institutions assess educational quality often using a standardized anonymous questionnaire completed by students. This questionnaire aims to independently evaluate various course components, including content organization, instructor quality, facilities, infrastructure, and grading methods. Despite widespread use across universities, the questionnaire’s validity remains unexamined. This study addresses this gap by analyzing 48,000+ questionnaire responses from the University of the Peloponnese (2014–2022), encompassing 68 undergraduate and graduate programs. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the quality of the questionnaire, while exploratory factor analyses were used to assess the dimensions of the tool based on the data. Both analyses reveal shortcomings: confirmatory analysis detects strong correlations between supposedly different factors, and exploratory analysis identifies dimensions inconsistent with the expected structure. These findings question the questionnaire’s quality and the validity of drawn conclusions, while additionally identifying opportunities for reducing the number of questions, which can contribute to increased questionnaire submission rates. Given its common use across Greek universities and its influence on shaping courses, urgent redesigning of the questionnaire for tertiary education evaluation is recommended. Full article

This paper explores: How has wisdom pedagogy research emerged in higher education during 1980–2022? This study is the first to explore the emergence of wisdom pedagogy research in higher education applying Bipartite network analysis for detecting clusters of 24 wisdom pedagogy articles of 53 authors and 161 keywords. Results are visualized with WoS analytics, word-clouds, and with Bipartite network. Wisdom research in higher education is two decades late compared with other disciplines. In higher education n = 524 wisdom, n = 33 wisdom pedagogy publications were detected in the Web of Science Core Collection database. This paper analyzed n = 24 wisdom pedagogy articles published during the 1980–2022 period. There were only two articles found dealing directly with wisdom pedagogy. Therefore, this study has several further research implications for educational researchers. Firstly, they need to conduct a more comprehensive search for wisdom pedagogy models by extending the scope of this study to other databases, books, book chapters, and to conference papers. Secondly, they need to synthesize and theorize their findings by building a wisdom pedagogy model. Thirdly, researchers need to develop detailed guidelines for educational practitioners on how to apply wisdom pedagogy in practice. This study is only at the beginning of this journey. However, it would be important for educating students with wisdom pedagogy in higher education because it would facilitate students’ thinking, judgements, and actions based on their moral and ethical values in a highly interconnected and complex world. Full article

This mixed-methods study examines what high-impact practices (HIPs) help improve the chances of college and career success among minoritized students. Building on transformative and ecological perspectives of HIPs, the study tracks U.S. 4-year college students’ learning opportunities towards bachelor’s degree completion followed by job employment or graduate/professional school enrollment. It explores a more comprehensive and diverse set of HIPs: academic and sociocultural engagement, study abroad, foreign language, co-op/internship, student teaching, advanced math and writing courses, research, and volunteer activities. Statistical analyses of the Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) data reveal racial and socioeconomic inequities in HIP participation among different types of institutions, with relatively favorable opportunities and outcomes in private or research (doctorate-granting) universities. The qualitative analyses of college student interviews offer insights into the questions of why and how HIPs work (or not) for minoritized students. The study gives evidence-based policy guidelines for improving minoritized students’ college and career success by tackling institutional inequities in high-impact practices and learning opportunities. Full article