Employing an exploratory mixed-method approach, this research explores young adults' affective learning outcomes derived from their short-term educational travel abroad experiences. Different from previous travel research mostly focusing on the educational benefits of cognitive knowledge and technical skills, the current research highlights the prominent effect of educational travel on young adults' personal growth and attitudinal/emotional development by investigating the understudied domain of affective learning and how it manifests among college students having short-term study abroad experiences. Through a systematic review and a follow-up survey-based comparison study, five salient affective learning variables were identified—perspectives on global interdependence, intercultural attitudes, openness to diversity and challenge, environmental attitudes, and general self-efficacy. Furthermore, this research found that travelers' lower-order affective learning shows significant progress after the short-term educational overseas travel. This study contributes to a niche topic in tourism research and provides implications to promote educational travel as an effective transformative learning approach.

While much of recent study abroad research has focused on identifying and measuring different learning outcomes in terms of specific skills, competencies, perspectives and attributes acquired during study abroad opportunities, less research has considered how students’ deeper conceptions and understandings of international experience may change and develop during such educational encounters. This paper presents a phenomenographical research study that explored how students conceive of and make meaning out of their international education experience in a study abroad context. The data are based on detailed semi-structured interviews conducted with a sample of 28 undergraduate students at an American university who engaged in a variety of different study abroad opportunities. Guided by Variation Theory of Learning, the analysis of the data resulted in a typology of student conceptions of international experience (SCIE) that identified four distinct categories of conceptions of international experience (observing, interacting, participating and embracing) described across three constitutive features (being in the other culture, relating to the other culture and learning in the other culture). Hierarchically related through nine critical aspects of variation, the typology provides a unique and useful framework against which to map the “messiness” of students’ complex, often complicated understandings of their experience. It offers study abroad programmers opportunities to better understand and design student learning experiences and assessment instruments that go beyond competencies, skills and other learning outcomes.

This paper reviews recent literature addressing the state of technology in higher education as a backdrop for a faculty development program offered annually at Northwestern. First, we will present the state of technology related to teaching in three areas: (1) the varied institutional interest in technology, (2) the variance in faculty engagement with technology, and (3) factors that influence faculty acceptance of technology. Next, we will introduce Northwestern’s response to the need for faculty development related to technology, the 5-day Teaching and Learning with Technology workshop. Finally, we will present data gathered over two years that demonstrates how pedagogically-driven technology training can enhance teaching and encourage faculty to embrace technology in teaching to accomplish pedagogically-based learning objectives.

Critical thinking is a key learning outcome for Palestinian students. However, there are no validated critical thinking tests in Arabic. Suitability of the US developed Critical Thinking Assessment Test (CAT) for use in Palestine was assessed. The test was piloted with university students in English (n=30) and 4 questions were piloted in Arabic (n=48). Students responded favorably. Scores were comparable with US scores. Only two students found the content problematic. One-hundred-twelve Palestinian faculty reviewed the skills tested by the CAT. There was moderate agreement that they represent critical thinking. Translation of the CAT into Arabic and further study are warranted.

Today we live in an age of mass marketing and educational commerce where international education has become a big business, full of promise and reward. It is not surprising that in this spirit many colleges, universities and third party providers that promote study abroad characterize it as essentially guaranteeing “Global Citizenship,” a very attractive credential to students and parents alike.

Research and teaching are often construed by academic staff as incongruous activities that have little overlap in practice. Many studies on the relationship of teaching and research assume an inherent competition or “rivalry” between these two practices. In this study, we draw on a framework that conceptualizes these academic practices not as distinct and irreconcilable, but rather as analogous practices with a common essential goal: the advancement of learning and knowledge. Taking a phenomenographic research perspective, we investigated how 39 early career, research active academic staff at a research-intensive university conceive of learning across their academic experience and practices. We identified five distinct conceptions of academic learning within three general categories: disconnected, transitional, and connected.

In science and engineering research, meth-odologies based on quantitative methods of data collection are prominent, based on their power for building predictive models of the natural world. Research in the social world, of which engineering education is a subset, is only partially described by quantitative models. Much of the subtlety of human interaction rests in complex models of causality that require the use of qualitative data for building explanatory theory.

Peer-led small-group learning has been used quite extensively in the US to enhance performance and retention of undergraduate students in science, math, and engineering classes. This study presents the results from an evaluation of a peer-led small-group programme at a research university in the US over a 10-year period across five disciplines (biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, and mathematics) and seven courses. Data suggest the programme had a positive impact on participants' grades in five of the seven courses and on retention in the four courses that require students to take a course sequence. Effects of the programme were investigated across gender and ethnic groups. Participants benefited from the programme regardless of their gender or ethnicity. However, effect sizes were often larger for students from underrepresented groups. This was particularly true for course retention, where effect sizes for females were larger than those for males in four courses.

Under‐represented minority students leave science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors at high rates. As an intervention, pre‐college summer‐bridge programs have been successful. However, evaluations of existing programs focus on degree attainment and lack information on student experience while in college. Traditional summer‐bridge programs also emphasize ethnic backgrounds and academic under‐preparedness. We report a new summer‐bridge program that aims to address gaps in the literature described above.The new summer‐bridge program is different from traditional programs in significant ways. First, the definition of under‐representation is expanded to include socioeconomic need, first‐generation college student, and multilingualism. Second, the selection criteria focus on demonstrated commitments to promoting diversity and inclusion instead of ethnic backgrounds to avoid activation of stereotype threat. Third, courses are offered at different levels to challenge students regardless of academic preparation. Finally, the program is designed to engage participants in activities that focus on community building, leadership development, and authentic practices in biological research.A quasi‐experimental design with a historical comparison group (n=708) is used to study the effectiveness of this program. To date, three cohorts of participants (n=58) have completed the program. Pre‐ and post‐surveys reveal significant increases in reported help‐seeking, propensity for critical thinking, and knowledge of research process. In focus groups and interviews, participants reported that the program helped them connect with faculty, establish social networks, and become part of the university community. Critically, compared to a historical cohort, participants have higher grades (2.53±0.62 vs. 1.94±0.92, p<0.01) and retention rates (73% vs. 30%, p<0.01) in General Chemistry, the gateway course to many STEM disciplines including biology.Grant Funding Source: Howard Hughes Medical Institute

An-Najah University recently established a center for excellence in learning and teaching (CELT) in collaboration with Northwestern University. The main goal of the center is to support the university's transition to a more learner-centered, technology-assisted environment. This paper focuses on the CELT Teaching Fellows Program, a program to build leadership capacity in learning and teaching. It also reports on key challenges which the center encountered when it began to engage with the university and its response to those challenges which included: i) developing a participation strategy, ii) creating multi-specialist teaching fellow teams, and iii) responding to macro-intervention requests.

Background: The Association of American Medical Colleges and Howard Hughes Medical Institute have urged medical faculty to develop in themselves, and in their students, habits of critical professional inquiry, while stressing the importance of integrating formal learning with hands-on, practical experience.Aims: This study describes the impact of a year-long faculty development program on conceptions of teaching held by 16 faculty in a medical school affiliated with a large private Midwestern research university.Method: Using pre and post semi-structured interviews, researchers identified three conceptions of teaching - transmission, acquisition, and engagement - found in participants, comparing how participants' conceptions changed by the end of the program.Results: Researchers found that 13 out of 16 (81%) faculty developed or maintained a more complex understanding of teaching by the end of the program.Conclusions: This study recommends that faculty developers (1) encourage their faculty to reflect substantially on what it means to teach - with the goal of assisting faculty to move beyond the idea of teaching as transmission or even as acquisition, to conceiving it as helping their students ask deep questions and make conceptual connections for themselves; (2) help faculty understand that developing a more complex understanding of teaching is as crucial to their professional development as developing their research and clinical skills; and (3) provide substantial opportunities for participants to explore teaching and learning as an evidence-based practice with colleagues and students.

Tensions with PBL implementation in undergraduate engineering education – results from teaching practiceMotivation and Background: This research focuses on the experiences of engineering educatorsin the United States with their implementation of innovative pedagogies such as problem-basedlearning (or its variations) and the management of tensions that arise at the classroom and systemlevel when implementing these pedagogies. Engineering education has been undergoing reformefforts for several years. Not only have PBL approaches been deemed by research literature to bean optimal approach to develop graduate competencies and attributes, but many reform effortsutilize explicitly or implicitly key components of PBL.Methods: We designed an online survey which served as a sampling strategy to identifyvolunteer participants for the second phase of data collection, semi-structured interviews. Thisqualitative study focused on the variation in engineering educators’ ways of experiencingtensions in PBL implementations, as well as how they managed the tensions (n=14). In thespecific context of the first two years of undergraduate engineering education, the researchquestions were (1) based on their teaching practices, what are the predominant tensionsencountered by engineering educators? (2) What are the qualitatively different ways in whichengineering educators experience tensions with a PBL implementation in their teachingpractices? (3) How do engineering educators manage these tensions? The methodology used wasphenomenography, a research framework that focuses on the relationship between a phenomenonand people’s conception of the phenomenon.Results: The predominant tensions encountered by these engineering educators in this study werethe students’ initial discomfort with the transition to PBL, the educators’ role as instructor versusfacilitator, and the individual versus the organizational value assigned to teaching. Tensionsrelated to the students’ initial discomfort with the transition to PBL were addressed by managingexpectations and aligning learning activities with the learner level. Tensions related to theeducators’ role as instructor versus facilitator were managed by shifting the relationship betweenthe content, the student, and the instructor, and optimizing the use of the instructor during classtime. Finally, tensions of depth versus breadth of curriculum were managed by makingadjustments to the learning environment, to the content, and to the use of instructor and classtime. Implications, limitations, and future research are discussed.Conclusions and significance: For engineering educators considering the implementation ofPBL, this study offered not only insights into potential tensions, but also the managementstrategies used to mitigate the tension. For administrators, this study demonstrates the need forthe establishment of instructor support mechanisms that facilitate and encourage theimplementation of innovative pedagogies, as well as the redesign of recognition and rewardpolicies. Administrators may also consider creating a greater alignment between pedagogicalinnovation, course and educator evaluation processes, and the outcomes-based emphasis onstudent capabilities in order to support engineering education reform and the development ofengineering graduates who are prepared for the demands of a global and rapidly changingworkplace. For faculty development specialists, implications for the design of professionaldevelopment programs that focus on innovative pedagogies like PBL occur at two levels, theclassroom and the larger system level. Finally, for curriculum design and development, designersmay consider an analysis of need-to-know versus legacy content, the latter of which may carryless relevance in today’s professional engineering practices; redistribution of content to allowoptimal use of instructor time to support deep learning in students and; an integrative rather thanan additive approach to the inclusion of new content or to meet accreditation requirements.

Since the Erasmus Mobility Programme was established, a primary goal has been to develop in participants a European citizenship identity. However, few studies have empirically examined whether this identity develops during the Erasmus experience (Sigalas, 2010) and no studies have yet addressed the more fundamental questions of Erasmus participants’ primary citizenship identity ‐ National, European, Global, or to something else ‐ and how they understand this identity. Based on the analysis of interviews and surveys from students in 29 European countries and 160 different institutions, this study reveals that close to the same number of Erasmus students report primary citizenship identification to Europe as they do to their own country, and more than half hold a transnational citizenship identity. This paper also presents a typology of qualitatively distinct Erasmus student understandings of citizenship identity, revealing wide variation in conceptions. The paper concludes with a discussion of one particular category that suggests the emergence of the idea of an “Erasmus Citizen.”

BackgroundMethodology refers to the theoretical arguments that researchers use in order to justify their research methods and design. There is an extensive range of well established methodologies in the educational research literature of which a growing subset is beginning to be used in engineering education research.PurposeA more explicit engagement with methodologies, particularly those that are only emerging in engineering education research, is important so that engineering education researchers can broaden the set of research questions they are able to address.Scope/MethodSeven methodologies are outlined and for each an exemplar paper is analyzed in order to demonstrate the methodology in operation and to highlight its particular contribution. The methodologies are: Case Study, Grounded Theory, Ethnography, Action Research, Phenomenography, Discourse Analysis, and Narrative Analysis. It is noted that many of the exemplar papers use some of these methodologies in combination.ConclusionThe exemplar papers show that collectively these methodologies might allow the research community to be able to better address questions around key engineering education challenges, such as students' responses to innovative pedagogies, diversity issues in engineering, and the changing requirements for engineering graduates in the twenty‐first century.