Editorial

Higher Education faces a number of key challenges as it navigates the complexities and uncertainties of an ever-changing global landscape. The papers included in this volume of IETI reflect these complexities addressing, as they do, a wide range of topics and issues relating to employability of graduates and the need for research-based and work-based learning, the emotional labour often associated with studying and indeed teaching, and the need for more innovative approaches to pedagogy as a means of supporting learning, both in the classroom and online. The papers in this issue also represent Higher Education in its most global sense, with the data being drawn from almost all continents of the world. This issue includes contributions from scholars in Africa (Cameroon and South Africa), Asia (China, India and Taiwan), North and South America (USA and Brazil), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), and Europe (Finland, Italy and the UK) making it truly reflective of the global nature of Higher Education today. At first glance, these papers might appear to offer an eclectic view of this global landscape – on closer inspection, what we see are a series of papers that that draw attention to some key issues and complexities.

The first paper in this issue, by Holbrook, Shaw, Fairbairn, and Scevak, draws attention to the increasingly pertinent issue of doctoral student wellbeing, reporting the results of extensive work in Australia undertaken to develop a questionnaire instrument that can be used to measure wellbeing in doctoral students. The development of the Importance to Doctoral Wellbeing Questionnaire (IDWQ) represents an attempt to identify the organisational and personal factors at play in this regard. The paper also offers suggestions of how the findings from such instruments can be used to support the development of policies and practices that will support doctoral learning and wellbeing amongst candidates.

The paper by Bahtilla draws on a sample of 66 research supervisors from two universities in Cameroon and considers the factors that contribute to the timeliness of supervisor feedback. This paper raises a number of interesting questions about, amongst other things, the extent to which the increasingly heavy workload demands of supervisors and the misalignment between research interests of supervisors and students are factors accounting for delays in feedback, which then have implications for the development of students’ research skills. The paper draws attention to the need to recognise that quality of work is not the only relevant issue here.

Continuing the theme of feedback, Chen and Liu, in a larger-scale study, explore understandings of feedback literacy in a sample of 200 students and 20 academics from a university in China. These authors highlight the extent to which there is a misalignment between student and teacher understandings of feedback literacy at the micro and macro levels. They suggest that greater consideration is needed of the role of staff-student partnerships in the development of a shared understanding of feedback literacy if such frameworks are to be effective.

Adding to the discussions of skill development and employability, the paper by Bowyer and Akpinar adopts an ethnographic method to explore experiences of research-based learning in business schools in Australia and Finland. Boyer and Akpinar report that research-based learning is characterised by a set of challenges and rewards for both students and supervisors but, when effective, provides students with a strong sense of professional identity and a sense of preparedness for the future. These authors also recognise that the role of the supervisor is crucial in mediating the tensions and complexities that are associated with this form of learning.

The paper by Lu et al. builds on this theme of skill development and future employability by considering the issue of career adaptability. The paper explores the relationship between a range of psychological factors, including personal proactivity and psychological safety, in a cohort of students enrolled on a sports work-based learning programme in Taiwan. The authors report that there is a relationship between proactive personality and career exploration, with the need for psychological safety serving as a moderating variable influencing the extent to which the work-based interns demonstrated a tendency towards adaptability in relation to their future career opportunities and choices.

Bonesso et al’.s paper on the development of leadership skills and practices utilises experiential learning and emotional intelligence as frameworks for thinking. The results of a quasi-experimental design indicate that such frameworks, coupled with pedagogical techniques such as journaling, can enhance the adoption of leadership practices and support the development of leadership attributes. This Italy-based study offers an exemplar of how graduates can be supported to develop the key graduate attributes of leadership needed for an increasingly complex and shifting landscape.

In keeping with the theme of employability, the next two papers in the issue address some of the more contentious aspects of this topic. The first of these, by Farias et al., considers the extent to which students experience a sense of institutional support for their entrepreneurial characteristics, tendencies and intentions. In a large-scale study including over 1000 observations of students in five regions of Brazil, the authors conclude that support for entrepreneurial activity is a complex issue and there seems to be a misalignment between students’ expectations and perceived university support. This finding, the authors suggest, reflects the complex nature of entrepreneurship and institutional structures and systems that are not designed to reflect such activities. They are clear that whilst students may have entrepreneurial aspirations, there is a lack of perceived support for these. This, perhaps, brings us nicely to the next paper in the issue, which reflects on what is understood by the term ‘employability’ itself and the synergies that might exist between understandings of this and understandings of entrepreneurship.

In this regard, Geerthuis et al. remind us in their paper that employability is not an uncontentious or uncontested construct. In their interviews with academics in New Zealand, they highlight the complexities of the term employability itself and draw attention to the lack of consensus on exactly what this means and what skills and attributes students need to develop in order to be employable. Their work also reminds us that there is no universal agreement about the role of the academy in the development of employable graduates, and that academics often feel they do not have the pedagogical tools needed for such endeavours. This paper reminds us of the messiness and complexities of Higher Education and the importance of not making assumptions about what is universally understood or agreed upon.

The next paper in the collection bridges the issue of employability and pedagogy by considering the use of role-play as an innovative approach to engaging remote learners. In a study focusing on the interprofessional learning of healthcare workers in India, Bajaj et al. consider how role-play can be used as a pedagogic device to engage online learners. Presenting data from both the participants of the role-play itself and those who observed the role-play interaction, Bajaj et al. offer suggestions as to how this approach might be used to support online learning for interprofessional communities. Data from the role-players suggest ways the approach can be implemented, and observers’ positive responses to the experience suggest that this is a pedagogical tool that could be utilised more widely and shows how classroom-based pedagogies might be translated into workable and productive online pedagogies.

Tataw extends this consideration of online pedagogy in his paper, in a USA-based examination of team projects in online learning. Utilising a value creation framework approach, Tataw found close alignment between students’ preparedness, contribution to productivity, respect for others and flexibility and their use of critical thinking, problem-solving skills and engaging with the learning itself, amongst other things. Tataw does point out, however, that group size is a factor here, and as teams get larger learners often resort to more individualistic behaviours rather than adopting more team-based and collaborative learning activities.

Wang et al’.s paper, whilst not focusing on online learning, does raise issues of digital pedagogy and the use of virtual reality as a pedagogic device. Drawing on data gathered from a sample of students in Taiwan, these authors suggest that students’ willingness to engage with virtual reality as a means of learning is influenced by the big five personality traits, and show how levels of extroversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness and introversion all influence the extent to which a learner is likely to engage with, and enjoy the experience of, virtual reality. The authors also acknowledge that there are certain physical factors that will influence engagement too. They suggest it is important for tutors to be aware of these factors as considerations when employing virtual reality as a pedagogic device.

As we move forward in the issue, considerations of pedagogy continue in the paper by Zhang et al., who offer an evaluation of a blended programme in a Chinese HEI designed to support students to develop a clear understanding of what plagiarism is and how it can be avoided. The authors report that through their blended programme, which utilised a range of approaches including scenarios for discussion, students not only developed a more sophisticated understanding of plagiarism but also enhanced their academic writing skills.

Concluding the section on pedagogy, the paper by Craven and Frick introduces a bold challenge to pedagogic practice by suggesting that boredom can be used as a pedagogic device. Their paper calls for academics to evoke pedagogic bravery and utilise boredom as a means of fostering creativity in the classroom. Through their analysis of data derived from academics in South Africa, they identify overlaps between the concepts of creativity and boredom and suggest that teachers can harness this as a means to stimulate and provoke learning.

The final two papers in the issue address matters of decolonisation and the place of scholarship in the career development of teaching-focused staff, within the context of UK Higher Education. Whilst these do not form a discrete grouping, they reflect some of the more difficult issues we are addressing in Higher Education. The paper by Winter, Webb and Turner reports the results of a benchmarking activity designed to evaluate and explore the extent to which curricula in a UK HEI have been decolonised. The work included data from 99 staff and 290 students across four different departments, and reports that there are varied conceptions of the extent to which decolonising work has actually taken place, and these differences are associated not just with role, staff or student, but also linked to whether respondents were from minority ethnic groups.

In the paper by Smith and Walker, we turn to a further important and complex issue, that of the career development and support of teaching focused academics. In particular, Smith and Walker focus on the role and status of Scholarship as part of the portfolio of work expected of a teaching focused academic. They recognise and highlight the complexities of this issue pointing out the lack of consensus and consistency about what is meant by scholarship and how it might be embedded within the career trajectories and benchmarks for teaching-focused staff. Their paper highlights the urgent need for clarity and uniformity in this area so as to provide clear and consistent career paths.