Perspectives on contemporary issues in higher education management

In this issue, we are excited to bring you six articles that offer comparative perspectives on three contemporary issues in higher education management: research culture, contextual admissions, and, teaching quality and satisfaction.

We begin with two perspectives that contribute to the emerging discourse on research culture; one from the United Kingdom (UK) and the other from Norway. Research culture has been described as encompassing the behaviours, values, expectations, attitudes, and norms of our research communities (AdvanceHE, n.d.), and in the UK we have seen the proposed definition of research excellence for REF2028 expand to include this term (JISC 2023).

In the first article, published online in September 2022, and therefore not incorporating analysis of REF2021 data, Mehmet Pinur and Emre Unlu present an analysis of the submissions to REF2014. They explored whether the submission rules appeared to influence the approach of higher education institutions (HEIs) in selecting their submissions and case studies. They found some evidence of strategic submissions under the REF2014 rules. These findings endorse the direction of travel for the revised submission rules for REF2028, which remove all limits on the number of submissions or minimum number level of submissions for each researcher (JISC 2023).

Through their analysis of Norwegian university departments, Aksnes et al. examine the extent to which research performance can be associated with specific organisational characteristics at the department level. The key findings indicate that there are few distinct departmental characteristics associated with research performance, such as elected or appointed leadership, single or multi-campus organisation, or departmental size. However, the study reveals that highly productive individuals do matter and suggests that cultural dimensions and working conditions may be interesting factors to pursue in further research.

Next, we present two perspectives on selection practices for medical degrees; one from New Zealand and one from the United Kingdom (UK). In New Zealand, Boaz Shulruf and colleagues examined the academic performance of students from low socio-economic backgrounds registered for degrees in medicine and science. They found that students from schools with a lower socio-economic status (SES) had similar or higher attainment levels to their peers from higher SES schools in their final year of study. The authors argue that these findings support the need to review selection policies for highly competitive programmes such as medicine, so that students from disadvantaged secondary schools have opportunities to enrol in these programmes.

In the UK, one way that medical schools have been trying to enable enrolments from students with diverse backgrounds is through contextual admissions policies. These policies are intended to enable HEIs to identify applicants who have the greatest potential to succeed, rather than relying solely on exam results (OfS 2019). Olivia Eguiguren Wray, Samuel Pollard and Anna Mountford-Zimdars investigated the clarity and accessibility of information about contextual admissions for potential applicants by examining the websites of 57 medicine programmes. They found that although half of the courses clearly described how they used contextual admissions, the information available places a large burden on the applicant to navigate the system, and they call for more accessible information on contextual admissions. While admissions and selection policies are moving in the right direction, these two articles highlight that there is still much more work to be done to truly make medical degrees accessible to students from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

The final two articles offer insights into teaching quality and satisfaction in the UK and Taiwan. Feng Su's paper examines how English universities conceptualise and articulate their perspectives on ‘teaching quality’ in the context of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF). Su found themes in the TEF submissions analysed common ideas such as ‘student as partner’, ‘student voice’, and ‘engagement’, suggesting students tend to be positioned by the institutions as central to the concept of teaching excellence. Su makes recommendations for institutions to consider how they articulate teaching quality in the future.

Moving from teaching quality, to student satification, in the final paper in this volume Hungche Chen and Mingnuan Yang explore why students want to enrol in an Honours Programme and their levels of satisfaction with the programme. The study, based in Tawain, is from an institution which began admitting outstanding high school students into its four-year honour programme in 2020. They found four key factors that affect students’ enrolment and retention; deeper learning, supplement opportunities, scholarships, and connecting with faculty. The authors suggest there are associations between multiple factors and student decisions, which would support institutions to grow their programme and to recruit and retain more potential students.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joanne Caldwell

Joanne Caldwell is Joint-Editor for Perspectives and is the School Business Manager in Salford Business School at the University of Salford. She completed her EdD in 2021, focusing on professional services staff identity and their relationships with academic staff.

Charlotte Verney

Charlotte Verney is Joint Editor for Perspectives and is Head of Assessment at the University of Bristol. She has worked in higher education for over 15 years, held management posts in several UK universities, and last year completed her EdD with a thesis examining the changing nature of higher education administrative work.