Special issue about student-centered learning environments

A new special issue has been published from the project at the UNIPED journal, with emphasis on student-centered learning environments.

The special issue was coordinated by guest editors by Crina Damsa and Thomas de Lange.

The articles include both English and Norwegian language articles, and all are available open access.

The special issue includes the following contributions:

  • “Studentsentrerte perspektiver og tiltak i høyere utdanning. Et forskningsbasert innspill til kvalitetsarbeid i praksis” by Crina Damsaand Thomas de Lange
  • “Student-centred learning environments in higher education. From conceptualization to design” by Crina Damsa and Thomas de Lange
  • “Skal vi la pasienten døy? Sjukepleiarstudentar sine erfaringar med å handtere utfordringar i simulering” by Odd Rune Stalheim and Yngve Nordkvelle
  • “Deltaker eller tilskuer? En casestudie om vilkår for deltakelse og samarbeidslæring i et nettbasert masterprogram i økonomi og ledelse (MBA)” by Trine Fossland and Cathrine Tømte
  • “Evolution of a portfolio-based design in ecology: a three-year design cycle” by Rachelle Esterhazy and Øyvind Fiksen
  • “How do self-regulation and self-efficacy beliefs associate with law students’ experiences of teaching and learning?” by Heidi Hyytinen, Anne Haarala-Muhonen and Milla Räisänen
  • “Studieprogramledelse – et spørsmål om organisering?” by Bjørn Stensaker, Mari Elken and Peter Maassen
  • “The role of research-based evidence in cultivating quality of teaching and learning in higher education” by Sari Lindblom-Ylänne
  • “Kvalitetsarbeid i studieprogrammene: fagene som kontekst for studentaktivisering og kunnskapsintegrasjon” by Monika Nerland

You can find all the articles here

New publication about “quality work” in higher education

Dr. Mari Elken, NIFU

Professor Bjørn Stensaker, UiO

Mari Elken and Bjørn Stensaker have just published a new article in the journal Quality in Higher Education, titled “Conceptualising ‘quality work’ in higher education“. The article argues that current literature on quality in higher education lacks sufficient emphasis on practices within organizations. Outlining this as a future avenue for research, the term “quality work” is contrasted with more well known concepts of quality management and quality culture.

The article can be downloaded open access here.

The term “quality work” will be further addressed in the upcoming final edited volume from the project, where a second round of revisions of the chapters is now underway and which is scheduled to be completed early 2019.

 

New book chapter on stimulation in a practicum course in nursing

Odd Rune Stalheim, INN

Professor Yngve Nordkvelle, INN

Odd Rune Stalheim and Yngve Nordkvelle published a chapter in the book “Self-Efficacy in Instructional Technology Contexts”. The chapter is titled “I Saved the Patient: Simulation and Self-Efficacy in Health Education“. In the chapter, they explore how technical innovations change how nurses are trained in practice.

Abstract: Historically, nurses’ training has been based on a traditional apprentice model, with most of the practice performed in real-life situations. Technological innovations have changed the way that nurses are trained in practice, in response to the continuing improvement and complex reality of nursing. In this case, simulations in designated technological laboratories for nursing education have the advantage of preparing students for real-life experiences and assist them in translating theory into action in safe and secure conditions. Simulation is a context for teaching and learning, with its huge potential for offering students affective, cognitive, and psychomotor challenges in learning. Practicing beforehand leaves more time and opportunities for students to concentrate on what is otherwise only possible to learn in complex and realistic situations. High-fidelity health simulations in safe environments offer students unique opportunities to practice skills and build self-efficacy while circumventing the possibility of human injury or distress. Additionally, student responses and satisfaction with simulation activities are reported to be very high in nursing education.

View the book here

New publication on feedback in higher education

Rachelle Esterhazy, UiO

Rachelle Esterhazy has published a new article on disciplinary practices and their relational dynamics in feedback practices, in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. View the article here.

Abstract: 

Most research on feedback has paid limited attention to the role of disciplines and their relational dynamics. This article addresses this limitation by offering a conceptualisation of feedback as a relational process that emerges through feedback encounters shaped by the educational and professional practices of the discipline. Using data from a qualitative case study of an undergraduate software engineering course unit, it explores the relational dynamics between different elements of the course and how these dynamics matter for the emergence of productive feedback encounters. The findings show that a wide range of productive feedback encounters occurred between students and both human and material sources throughout the course. Feedback encounters were productive when students had the opportunity to navigate the tools and conventions necessary to participate in the educational practices of the course and, by extension, the discipline’s professional practices. Different learning activities were characterised by distinctive relational dynamics that provided various opportunities and constraints for productive feedback encounters to emerge. The findings demonstrate the importance of accounting for disciplinary practices and their relational aspects when designing for learning activities that aim to enable students to productively seek out and engage with feedback.

Full reference: Esterhazy, R. (2018) What matters for productive feedback? Disciplinary practices and their relational dynamics, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(8), 1302-1314

New publication on educational leadership

Bjørn Stensaker, Nicoline Frølich and Per Olaf Aamodt have published a new article based on the study programme leader survey carried out in the project. The article is titled Policy, Perceptions, and Practice: A Study of Educational Leadership and Their Balancing of Expectations and Interests at Micro-level” and is published in Higher Education Policy

The article takes a starting point in three competing perspectives on educational leadership in higher education, as being managerial, disciplinary, or stakeholder oriented. Examining these based on the survey among educational leaders, the article finds that for educational leaders, the managerial view is comparatively less relevant for how educational leaders conduct their tasks.