Do Academics\u27 Views on Leadership Align with the Literature, and How Does This Impact Their Teaching of Widening Student Participation?

This article offers an interpretative reading of research interview data gathered with seven academics in a small English university that caters predominantly to widening student participation. The original interviews aimed to explore the most effective ways academics can support students in developing leadership capability. For this article, the author revisited the digital recordings of those original interviews and conducted an interpretive reanalysis of the data. This reanalysis aimed to ascertain the extent to which the conceptions of leadership that the academics hold align with the academic literature on the concept. Leadership is notoriously an ill-defined concept, and so, for this article, the author used Yukl’s (2012) taxonomy of leadership behaviours drawn from a systematic review of the literature as the basis for comparative analysis. The literature indicates that developing students’ leadership capability is a desirable educational outcome, but this presupposes that academics understand what the term leadership means. This article explores this by evaluating how well the academics\u27 understanding of the concept of leadership aligned with the literature presented in Yukl’s (2012) taxonomy and considers the implications of this for their teaching. The article concludes with recommendations for adopting a coherent framework for academics to work within, especially for institutions that serve widening student participation. This article contributes to the knowledge of teaching practice by evaluating how well academics understand a concept they are (implicitly or explicitly) expected to teach and recommends further research to develop the scholarship

We Need to Talk About Resilience: The Case for a Pragmatic and Holistic Perspective

This essay offers a pragmatic and holistic perspective of resilience to assist careers and employability professionals in supporting university students and graduates. It examines the evolution of employability models from skills-based to capital-based frameworks, emphasising resilience as a key component of psychological capital. Drawing on the Employability Capital Growth Model (ECGM) and sustainable career theory, the essay critiques simplistic views of resilience grounded in positive psychology, advocating for a more nuanced understanding that considers personal, contextual, and temporal dimensions. Drawing parallels with physical strength-building through weight training, it underscores the importance of progressive challenges, mental fortitude, support systems, consistency, and recovery in developing resilience. These factors provide a practical framework for guiding university students and graduates toward sustainable careers, with an emphasis on health, well-being, and long-term productivity. Resilience, the essay argues, is not about unyielding strength but adaptability and recovery, accounting for external factors and systemic barriers. By integrating principles from weight training into career guidance, careers and employability professionals can offer a balanced view of resilience, equipping students and graduates to navigate contemporary career challenges. This approach bridges career development and employability theories, providing new insights for practice and research in higher education and beyond

University Teachers’ Conceptions of Their Role in Teaching Problem-Solving

Equipping young adults with problem-solving skills is critical in today’s knowledge economy. Universities have increasingly adopted approaches like problem-based learning (PBL) to foster critical thinking and independent learning. However, while extensive research exists on the benefits of PBL, less attention has been given to studying tutors\u27 conceptions about their role from a phenomengoraphic research perspective. This study addresses this gap by investigating university tutors\u27 conceptions of their roles in teaching problem-solving skills within a PBL environment. Data from interviews with 15 tutors identified a progression of conceptions, from creating a safe learning environment to fostering independent learners. Each conception affects practices in tutorial groups, shaping inquiry depth, collaboration quality, and transferable skills development. The findings highlight the importance of understanding tutors’ roles in enhancing the potential of PBL to equip students with essential problem-solving skills. By uncovering the diverse ways tutors conceive their role, this research offers actionable insights for academic developers and educators aiming to refine teacher training programs and foster student-centred learning in higher education

The Practice of Implementing Project-Based Learning in the EFL Classroom: A literature review

This literature review focuses on the use and effectiveness of Project-Based Learning in teaching English as a foreign language and its significance in developing students’ English language skills and 21st century skills, with special focus on critical thinking, cooperation and digital skills, which are essential skills for young people entering the workforce in the 21st century. The review was based on short-term and long-term projects with upper secondary school students and university students, applying both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods and aims to identify the advantages and challenges teachers and students face during the implementation of PBL and its effectiveness in developing students’ skills. The review reveals that PBL can be an effective method in developing both students’ English language skills and 21st century skills, the main advantage being facilitating student engagement by allowing them to make their own choices. Another important finding is that using PBL in the classroom may be challenging for both teachers and students due to the amount of time preparation and implementation requires and the lack of training teachers receive

The Outcomes of a Virtual Exchange (VE) Project Carried Out by Universities from Three Different Countries: Benefits of Collaborative Initiatives on Cultural Sensitivity Involving International Students at Universities

The VE project was implemented with the cooperation of three universities: Budapest Business University, University of Applied Sciences, Hungary; University of Sfax, Tunisia; and Izmir Democracy University, Turkey, in 2023. The main objective of the Virtual Exchange project was to provide students with opportunities for intercultural and interactional development through the performance of collaborative intercultural tasks. The further aim of the project was to provide students with international intercultural experience and to foster mutual understanding, global education, and digital literacy. We focused significantly on creating joint activities that encouraged international students to communicate in ways that enabled them to grasp knowledge beyond what they could merely acquire from websites or books. Both a preliminary survey and a follow-up survey were conducted among the students involved from the three universities, exploring their initial expectations and cultural perspectives before and after the project. The present study summarises the details and the experiences of the implementation of the Virtual Exchange Project, while another paper presents the results of the questionnaires in more detail

Generation Z: Increasing Self-Perceived Employability and Well-being through Serious Leisure

Generation Z (Gen Z) is the best-educated, technologically adept, and most racially and ethnically diverse generation entering the workforce today. Gen Z also has the highest rate of diagnosed depression and anxiety. They prefer to have a side hustle on top of their full-time jobs; however, the act of monetizing their leisure activity has been shown to add more stress. The benefits of serious and casual leisure are shared; with emphasis on the need for Gen Z to engage in more forms of serious leisure to enhance their well-being and self-perceived employability. Employers and schools should encourage, promote and invest in more serious leisure activities for Gen Z. Continuing the emerging focus on research in leisure studies and careers, specifically focusing on Gen Z is highly recommended

Differentiating Grapes from Wine: The Education-To-Work Transition

There is a growing interest in connecting the literature on graduate employability, career development, and worker employability. However, inconsistent terminology across these fields poses a challenge. This essay focuses on the term ‘school-to-work transition’. In career development and worker employability literature, it often refers to the movement from all stages of schooling into the labour market, while in graduate employability literature it is understood to only refer to the transition from secondary school into the labour market. To illustrate this issue, we use a metaphor comparing grapes to wine. Consequently, we propose ‘education-to-work transition’ as an overarching term, with various subcategories specific to secondary and tertiary education

What the Literature Tells Us About the Transition of Second-Career Academics Into Higher Education

With the growth and evolution of the higher education sector in recent decades, universities have drawn on more diverse sources from which to recruit academic staff. One such route is for universities to recruit professionals from non-academic backgrounds to teach and research. The transition of career professionals becoming second-career academics is a growing phenomenon, but one that is under-researched in the literature. This paper summarises the findings in the literature on this topic from the last twenty-five years, drawing on forty-four academic articles. Common themes are discussed and presented in a chronological format from the decision-making process prior to transitioning, through the challenges and opportunities commonly experienced by second-career academics making the transition, concluding with a summary of the recommendations presented in the research. In the discussion section that follows, the author draws on their own experience as a second-career academic to summarise pertinent points and offer an additional perspective on the recommendations offered in the literature. The purpose of this article is to offer a summary of what is currently understood in the literature with a view to supporting further research into the transition of second-career academics as an important skills development issue for the higher education sector. The review finds that several recommendations are common in the literature (mentoring schemes, development of academic skills and agency, introduction of reference materials and cultural change) and the viability of these is discussed before recommendations are made for individuals considering transitioning to a career in academia

The Use of Social Media and Artificial Intelligence Tools by Online Doctoral Students: Skills Needed and Challenges

Our paper aims to explore how doctoral EdD students in their thesis stage made use of digital technologies, social media (SM), and artificial intelligence (AI) tools. In this study, AI does not involve data on the use of the new generation of AI, which has been introduced in more recent years after this study took place. This paper refers to a 2nd stage qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews collected from research undertaken in 2018 into student use of digital technologies in an online professional doctorate programme. The original study utilised an exploratory case study approach, an online survey (n = 28), and a series of semi-structured interviews (n = 9). This study will add further qualitative findings and perspectives to those that emerged in the previous study. This study will help to provide new insights into the interview data that was used to inform the initial paper resulting from the research in 2018. We argue that the unique characteristics of online doctoral students as both individuals and learners determine the popularity of some digital tools and that, in order to make the best use of the full range available they need to develop new skills and a better understanding of the pedagogy associated with those digital tools and the value they can add to an educational context. This can be achieved through the provision of more systematic coaching and support systems. This in turn will contribute to enhancing students’ feelings of belonging to a real academic learning community and their self-confidence and autonomy as online learners in general and in their performance in a Viva in particular