The present paper reports on a small investigation that took place in the author's teaching environment to highlight her students' academic lecture comprehension needs related to the new subject matter of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). The aim of this research endeavour was to ponder over students' perspective of the difficulties emerging…

There is synergy between the investigative practices of police detectives and social scientists, including work-based researchers. They both develop lines-of-inquiry and draw on multiple sources of evidence in order to make inferences about people, trends and phenomena. However, the principles associated with lines-of-inquiry and sources of…

The main aim of this study is to examine the perceptions of university graduate working mothers who have 36-60 months-old children of the quality of the time spent with their children. In the study, the phenomenology design was used among qualitative research techniques. The study group consisted of 32 mothers selected by using a maximum variation…

This article explores the contribution of higher education to the development of numeracy and literacy competencies. To control for other post-schooling determinants of generic skills, the analysis is confined to adults aged 20-24 years who have completed or who are enrolled in tertiary studies. The quality of incoming students is controlled for…

Effective communication of science is a ubiquitous learning outcome for most science degrees, and a national threshold learning outcome for science in Australia. Evidence suggests that employers and academics are dissatisfied with the communication skills of many science graduates. Our study examines communication tasks used in summative…

Increasing emphasis is being placed upon employer expectations in research on graduate employability, in response to the widely claimed gap between employer expectations and graduates' understanding of these expectations. For graduates, being uncertain of their employer's expectations may threaten the ease of their transition into the workplace…

This paper examines the potential negative consequences of the internationalisation of American higher education from the perspective of positional competition theory. This analysis suggests that internationalisation efforts undertaken by colleges and universities contribute to positional competition between students vying for admission, between…

This article explores the experiences of international students as they engage in independent learning through formulating dissertation proposals. It contributes new insights by focusing on the 'pre-supervision' stage, where students formulate a research project and write a proposal independently. The analysis draws on questionnaire and focus…

'Quality' in education is difficult to define. What is viewed as high quality by staff, students and employers must be identified so that universities can articulate their offer. Equally, helping students develop the graduate skills and attributes that employers value is essential. This project explored quality in higher education from the…

This article highlights findings from a case study research investigating factors that foster the academic achievement of community college students in Hong Kong. Data was collected from in-depth interviews with six community college students in a middle-sized, self-funded community college. The findings illustrate nuanced facets of teacher care…

Although several ethical decision-making methods exist, there is a dearth of research evaluating their use and effectiveness. This study examined graduate student papers by both art therapy and counseling students that applied either the DO ART model (developed for art therapists) or the ABCDE worksheet (for general mental health usage) to case…

The pursuit of excellence in preparing student teachers for the teaching profession is a never-ending endeavour. This study aimed at investigating the value of teaching practice as perceived by the participants, how they determined such value using human judgement and whether value judgement can be used as a form of reflection during teaching…

Descriptive evidence shows that English learners (ELs) have lower high school graduation and 4-year-college attendance rates than monolingual and fluent English users. Applying the regression discontinuity design to rich administrative data from a large district in California, this study identifies the first causal effects of initial EL…

Embedded Work Integrated Learning (EWIL) is a specific model of Work Integrated Learning (WIL); students work with industry in small blocks of time at regular intervals throughout semester focussing on reflective learning in authentic work environments. This study highlights benefits and challenges experienced when incorporating EWIL into a…

This is the first of three articles on academic fraud. This article describes the history and growth of diploma mills and counterfeit operations. The second article will focus on Axact, the world's largest diploma mill (a true criminal enterprise). The third will detail how to identify diploma mills. This article describes degree mills…