Search Results for
"Higher education"

We believe that project-based learning is one of the most effective tools for synthesizing and consolidating digital technologies and interactive teaching methods at a pedagogical university. Modeling of students’ project activities ensures their targeted professional training with the use of digital technologies and computer mathematics systems, stimulates student collaboration and integration of their knowledge from different disciplines. The purpose of the study is to analyze the effectiveness of implementing students’ project activities in the educational environment of a higher education institution. The main tasks are to analyze current trends in higher education, study approaches to modeling projects in mathematics and computer science, develop and implement methods and tools for project-based learning by students, and evaluate the results, the impact of this process on the educational environment and students’ academic achievements. We conducted a pedagogical study and verified its results using the Shapiro-Wilk’s W test, Student’s t-test, Friedman ANOVA We conducted a pedagogical study and verified its results using Shapiro-Wilk’s W test, Student’s t-test, Friedman ANOVA variance analysis, Kendall coefficient of concordance, Pearson’s correlation coefficient. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

The education sector is faced with many challenges in a world that is developing at a very rapid pace, such as the increasing burden of administrative tasks on educators. This study looks into the potential solution of Robotic Process Automation to these challenges and its impacts on higher education. We analyze the existing literature on RPA adoption by higher education using a systematic review and draw attention to the current state of applications and potential benefits. Our findings show that RPA would significantly enhance administrative operations, reduce errors, and free educators for teaching and student engagement. RPA could be a significant opportunity to establish efficiency and effectiveness in the learning environment, although not free from challenges, such as the cost of initial investment and job displacement. The paper concludes with recommendations for institutions to successfully integrate RPA while ensuring a balanced approach is taken to maximize benefits and mitigate associated risks. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

This study proposes the Critical Incident Technique as an empirical tool to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching entrepreneurship competencies within entrepreneurship courses by using the Comprehensive Entrepreneurship Competence Model as a theoretical framework. The study focuses on the perceptions and experiences of 15 teachers who introduced in parallel, during two semesters in 2022, the same teaching approach in 39 entrepreneurship courses offered in 5 universities in Estonia, Finland, Italy, Poland, and Portugal. The teachers were asked to describe in detail specific incidents encountered during their teaching experience, without any cognitive filter represented by pre-established items, categories, and elements of evaluation of the teaching process. Then, the incidents were sorted into categories based on similarities in the content and classified as relating to positive and negative outcomes. Our findings contribute to the design of new educational programmes aiming at fostering students’ entrepreneurship competencies, showing peculiarities that need to be considered. Moreover, the study emphasizes the importance of using a range of evaluation approaches when testing a new method and suggests that exploring the teaching process, in addition to learning outcomes, can provide useful insights to inform the design of the teaching. © 2024 Society for Research into higher education.

The combination of knowledge and skill sets from robotics and Artificial Intelligence has proven as a powerful catalyst for students’ learning experiences, when applying available resources and knowledge acquired through vocational training. Within the Department of IT at an Austrian vocational high school, our students actively engage in projects that combine robotics and AI. Our diploma theses extend beyond mere classroom theory, allowing interested students to apply their knowledge in authentic, real-world scenarios in the form of thesis projects which span different engineering and IT disciplines. Our goal is to emphasize hands-on experiences and encourage our students to design, construct and program robots, even with the addition of AI technology, such as image recognition and classification trained for specific tasks. Through this practical immersion, our students gain a deeper understanding of robotics and AI, disciplines that are at the forefront of today’s technological innovation. We worked with two groups of students on interdisciplinary projects bridging the gap between robotics and AI and based on our students’ feedback found an increase in motivation to learn not only about the fields themselves, but also about related fields, from mathematical theory to better understand the intricate workings of AI algorithms to electronics and working with microcontrollers. Personal interviews with involved students have also pointed toward an increased motivation through the intense cooperation between the team members as well as the teachers responsible for supporting the project teams through their thesis projects. Projects connecting robotics and AI empower students to become adaptable, creative problem-solvers which is a crucial foundation for success in the twenty-first century. By fostering collaboration and critical thinking, while enhancing students’ technical skills and equipping them with the adaptability and creativity they require, this educational approach prepares students to thrive in a rapidly changing world where both disciplines play pivotal roles. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

With the proliferation of disruptive technologies driving innovation, there arises an imperative for businesses to equip themselves with forward-looking skill sets. The stewards of higher education institutions (HEIs), who oversee the preparation of candidates with pertinent skills, bear a significant responsibility. The workforce is grappling with an expanding skill gap (SG) brought about by the rapid adoption of technology and the evolving landscape of job roles. Thus, academia finds itself presented with a pressing challenge—to bridge this growing divide. To address this concern, we propose the HEISG (higher education institution skill gap) framework, leveraging machine learning (ML) techniques to assess and quantify this SG. This framework calculates skill scores pertaining to both supply and demand by analyzing exit skill scores from HEIs and entry skill scores required by industries, respectively. By comparing the resulting student profiles from HEIs with job descriptions from industry, we compute a cosine similarity score that highlights the gap between the supply and demand skill vectors. This iterative process is aimed at narrowing the chasm between the skills demanded by the industry and those imparted by HEIs. Our proposal suggests updating curricula to align with industry needs. The application of ML algorithms and natural language processing aids in generating skill index (SI) with customizable threshold values, tailored to specific disciplines and sectors. This study contributes to a better understanding of the demand for various skill sets, ultimately ensuring that students are well-prepared for the industry, thanks to the implementation of this framework. © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Urmila Shrawankar and Prerna Mishra; individual chapters, the contributors.

Self-assessment involves students making judgements about their own learning. Self-assessment is promoted widely due to its benefits for lifelong learning. However, students often find self-assessment mechanical, useless and redundant–indeed inauthentic. This may partly result from understanding self-assessment as an instrumental and acontextual practice. We take an alternative approach by focusing on the authenticity of self-assessment. We bring together two research areas that have rarely intersected: self-assessment and authentic assessment. How has research conceptualised authenticity with respect to self-assessment? What could we learn from earlier studies to consider authenticity more meaningfully in self-assessment design? To answer these questions, we conduct an integrative review of 40 studies. We formulate an organising framework that outlines the various dimensions of authenticity in self-assessment. We argue that authenticity is a powerful idea that may bring self-assessment from the margins of higher education to its very centre. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This study investigates the impact of project-based learning (PBL) on the perception of professional competence in Early Childhood education (ECE) among pre-service teachers in Spain. A total of 586 students from four Spanish universities participated in a pre-post test design using the ECPP-FIM scale to measure the impact of the PBL approach on the perception of professional psychomotor intervention skills of ECE. The PBL approach involved close collaboration with preschools, providing students with hands-on experience designing and implementing movement-based activities in natural contexts. Descriptive and inferential statistics, including ANOVA, were used to analyse the data. Results indicate substantial improvements in the perception of professional competence across all five areas of the ECPP-FIM scale. Moreover, students from vocational education backgrounds showed consistently higher pre-and post-test scores than those from other academic pathways. Findings support the effectiveness of PBL in bridging the theory-practice divide and emphasize the importance of integrating real-world experiences in teacher training. To conclude, this study highlights the key characteristics that an ordinary university subject should incorporate to enhance the perception of professional competence. © 2025 Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. All rights reserved.

70% of youth in Djibouti experience unemployment. However, the country is critically responsible for assisting in regional security and global trade. Given the interest of the Djibouti government and international aid donors in promoting youth employment, this study provides a direction toward evidence-based decision-making. Data were collected from graduates of the principal organization providing non-formal education in Djibouti. From the results, respondents strongly prioritize work that matches their interests, with subgroup analyses showing varying levels of prioritization for attributes such as on-the-job training and higher salaries. © The Author(s) 2025.

This study explores the development of a Project-Based Learning (PBL) model incorporating multiliteracy pedagogy to enhance students' critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making skills, and environmental literacy. The research is motivated by the increasing environmental issues caused by human behavior, particularly excessive consumption patterns and unsustainable habits among students. Addressing these challenges requires an education system that fosters environmental awareness and essential 21st-century skills. The study employs a Research and Development (R&D) approach using the Dick, Carey, and Carey instructional design model. The research is conducted in junior high schools through three phases: pre-development, development, and post-development. Data collection involves both qualitative and quantitative methods, including expert evaluations, student feedback, and statistical analyses of learning outcomes. A control-experiment design is employed to assess the suggested model's efficacy. The results show that using the PBL paradigm with multiliteracy pedagogy significantly improved students' critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and environmental literacy. The model's ability to promote greater environmental responsibility and cognitive engagement was demonstrated by the experimental group's higher N-Gain score when compared to the control group. The data's validity and reliability were validated by statistical analysis, which revealed a significant difference (p < 0.05) between the pretest and posttest results. This study emphasizes how crucial it is to combine PBL with multiliteracy teaching in order to improve students' overall development. The implications suggest that educators should adopt innovative learning strategies to cultivate students’ environmental literacy and higher-order thinking skills, preparing them for future challenges in sustainable living and decision-making. © 2025 by the authors;.

This article investigates six pathways through which students possessing initial vocational qualifications can enter higher education in Norway. In Norway, vocational education and training (VET) tracks in upper secondary education are popular nationwide with the youth population, catering to almost half of every youth cohort. However, despite explicit goals to promote social mobility through education, there is evident reproduction of social inequalities in attraction to and completion of higher education programmes. This issue is of paramount importance for the welfare state context, given that students in VET tracks typically come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds compared to their peers in general education pathways. Therefore, prohibited permeability between VET and higher education undermines universal access to higher education. This study is designed in a threefold manner: First, the connection between VET and socioeconomic background is investigated, leading to the conclusion that underprivileged youth are overly represented in VET pathways. Secondly, we explore alternative routes to higher education available to vocationally qualified students in Norway; and thirdly, we present available data on to what extend these pathways facilitate access to higher education. We conclude that limited permeability is a social problem and discuss possible means to address the issue. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.