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1 – 10 of over 4000Solveig Cornér, Kirsi Pyhältö, Jouni Peltonen and Søren S.E. Bengtsen
This paper aims to explore the support experiences of 381 PhD students within the humanities and social sciences from three research-intensive universities in Denmark (n = 145…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the support experiences of 381 PhD students within the humanities and social sciences from three research-intensive universities in Denmark (n = 145) and Finland (n = 236). The study investigates the cross-cultural variation in the researcher community support and supervisory support experiences, factors associated with their support experienced and the perceived support fit.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a mixed methods design, both quantitative analyses and qualitative analyses (open-ended descriptions) were used.
Findings
The results showed that students in both Danish and Finnish programs emphasized researcher community support over supervisory support. The Danish students, however, reported slightly higher levels of researcher community support and experienced lower levels of friction than their Finnish counter partners. The results also indicated that the only form of support in which the students expressed more matched support than mismatched support was informational support.
Practical implications
The results imply investing in a stronger integration of PhD students into the research community is beneficial for the students’ progress. Building network-based and collaborative learning activities that enhance both instrumental and emotional support and a collective form of supervision could be further developed. The possibility of Phd student integration in the scholarly community is likely to lead to more efficient use of finacial and intellectual resources in academia and society more broadly.
Originality/value
This study offer a unique contribution on doctoral students’ academic and socialization experiences in terms of explicationg the sources of support, support forms and support fit among Danish and Finnish doctoral students. Both invariants and socio-culturally embedded aspects of support experience among the students were detected.
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Samantha Charlotte Brandauer and Susanne Hovmand
The purpose of this paper is to use the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS) International Business (IB) program as a case study to illustrate how experiential learning theory…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to use the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS) International Business (IB) program as a case study to illustrate how experiential learning theory (ELT) can be put into practice in an education abroad context through pro-active intervention and through supporting immersion activities inside and outside the classroom.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper will use the IB program at DIS as a case study to illustrate how a holistic approach to study abroad is put into practice and how it aligns with the current theories in experiential learning and intervention in student learning during the study abroad process. It will examine various elements of the IB program as well as self-assessment data gathered from students through evaluations and a unique survey.
Findings
Through concerted intervention efforts, DIS is exposing students to different perspectives as well as professionals within the Danish and European business communities, utilizing real-world case examples, making students active participants in their learning, strengthening their intercultural skills and preparing students to be able to reflect on and articulate what it is they have learned abroad. Based on student self-assessment, students agree that DIS is helping them prepare for the global work place.
Research limitations/implications
This paper is limited to the experiences and practices within DIS IB program and all student data come from their own self-assessment and do not do pre- and post-testing to measure students' intercultural gains.
Practical implications
This paper should be useful to higher education institutions and study abroad programs looking to enhance the experiential learning opportunities for business students abroad.
Originality/value
This case study serves to illustrate examples of ELT in practice and intervention in student learning abroad with a particular focus on skills needed for business students in a global work place.
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Annette Aagaard Thuesen and Eva Mærsk
Esbjerg is located in the Wadden Sea region and is a regional centre with approximately 72,000 inhabitants. Commercially, the city has recently ranked first amongst major Danish…
Abstract
Esbjerg is located in the Wadden Sea region and is a regional centre with approximately 72,000 inhabitants. Commercially, the city has recently ranked first amongst major Danish cities in the creation of jobs. However, in Denmark, it is mainly other cities that attract younger students, and Esbjerg has some of the same structural problems due to outmigration as Danish rural areas in general. It is, therefore, important for Esbjerg to be able to attract international students so that businesses and institutions in the region can recruit skilled employees. In this book chapter, the authors aim to reanalyse data from 10 semi-structured interviews with international students at higher education institutions in Esbjerg conducted in 2016. The authors position their empirical findings within the literature on international student integration to investigate the obstacles to international student integration into study, business and leisure life in Esbjerg and potential solutions given Esbjerg’s peripheral location. The chapter, thus, aims to improve the understanding of cultural, work-related and everyday life challenges that are present in university town environments where international students study, mainly from the perspective of students.
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Morten Lund Poulsen, Per Nikolaj Bukh and Karina Skovvang Christensen
This paper studies how performance funding of education is perceived by principals, teachers and administrative staff and management. The dysfunctionality of performance measures…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper studies how performance funding of education is perceived by principals, teachers and administrative staff and management. The dysfunctionality of performance measures often reflects how the measures prevent an organisation from achieving its goals. This paper proposes that perceptions of dysfunctionality can be analysed by separating the perceptions of the programme's intentions, of the school-level actions and of the outcomes for students.
Design/methodology/approach
Following a qualitative methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers, school management, staff specialists and top management in a large Danish municipality when outcome-based funding was introduced.
Findings
The performance-funding programme affected teaching by changing educational priorities. Different perceptions of the (dys)functionality of intentions, actions and outcomes fuelled diverging responses. Although the performance measure was generally considered incomplete, interviewees' perceptions of the financial incentivisation and the dysfunctionality of actions depended on interpretations of the incentivisation and student-related outcomes of the programme.
Research limitations/implications
Dysfunctionality can be contested; the interpretations of the intention of a performance-funding programme affect the perceived dysfunctionality of reactions. Both technical characteristics of funding schemes and administrators' and principals' mediating roles are essential for the consequences of performance funding.
Originality/value
The paper examines conditions for dysfunctionality of performance measures. We demonstrate that actions can be perceived as dysfunctional because of a measurement's intentions, actions themselves and the actions' outcomes. Further, the paper illustrates how the reception of performance funding depends on how consequences are enacted based on educators' interpretations of the (dys)functionality of intentions, actions and outcomes.
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Malene Gram, Margaret Hogg, Bodil Stilling Blichfeldt and Pauline MacLaran
The purpose of this paper is to address the meaning of food consumption practices in maintaining intergenerational relationships between young university students and their…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the meaning of food consumption practices in maintaining intergenerational relationships between young university students and their parents.
Design/methodology/approach
Student food consumption has been mainly studied through quantitative methods, treating students as a homogenous group, more or less living in a vacuum, and often with the focus on nutrition. This paper gives voice to young adults to unpack the significance of cooking and food consumption in relation to maintaining or changing family ties. The study is based on 12 qualitative interviews, five focus groups and a workshop, with Danish and international students in Denmark. Theoretically, the study draws on family, consumption and transition research.
Findings
The authors identify four realms of intergenerational relationships in the context of food. The relationships range from a wish either to maintain the status quo in the relationship, or to change and rethink the relationship, and importantly, the act of maintaining or changing the family relationships may be initiated either by the grown-up child or by the parent. The study concludes that the act of moving away from home is a period of intense (re)construction of food consumption habits and skills, which draw several threads back to the family home, and relationships undergo change in various ways.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations of this study are that it has been carried out only in a Danish context.
Originality/value
The contributions of the study are capturing the children’s view of this transition, and providing insights into how apparently mundane consumption can be full of symbolic meaning. The paper will be of interest for researchers and practitioners seeking to understand intergenerational relations and consumption.
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Anna Hammersh⊘y and Po-Ju Chen
A group of tourism and hospitality students from a Danish university were on a study trip to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. During a company site visit, their program was disrupted…
Abstract
A group of tourism and hospitality students from a Danish university were on a study trip to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. During a company site visit, their program was disrupted by an unexpected extra speaker following an unplanned social event. The Danish group leader decided to stay with the original program even if it meant declining the hospitality of their hosts.
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Kara Chan, Gerard Prendergast, Alice Grønhøj and Tino Bech‐Larsen
This article aims to examine young consumers' perceptions of healthy eating, contexts where healthy or unhealthy eating are practiced, and their evaluation of regulatory measures…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to examine young consumers' perceptions of healthy eating, contexts where healthy or unhealthy eating are practiced, and their evaluation of regulatory measures that discourage the consumption of unhealthy foods in two different markets.
Design/methodology/approach
A convenience sampled survey was conducted of 386 Danish and Chinese adolescents using a structured questionnaire.
Findings
Results showed that perceptions of healthy eating were generally based on concepts such as balance and moderation. Unhealthy eating was most frequently practiced at parties and in festive periods. Hong Kong respondents were more likely to associate eating habits with healthy eating than Danish respondents. Danish respondents were more likely to practice healthy eating at schools than Hong Kong respondents. Making tanks of cold water freely available everywhere was perceived to be most effective in discouraging the consumption of soft drink. There were age, gender and market differences in attitudes toward selected regulatory measures that discourage the consumption of soft drinks.
Research implications
Health educators and public health campaign designers should design health communication messages that target different perceptions of unhealthy eating, as well as different unhealthy eating contexts. Policy makers should be aware of the difference in local environmental conditions when designing regulations to encourage healthy eating.
Originality/value
The study is an innovative attempt to examine adolescents' perception of healthy eating and attitudes toward food regulatory measures in more than one consumer market.
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The chapter provides the reader with a critical, conceptual framework for further independent exploration of actor-network theory (ANT) when applied to higher education reform…
Abstract
The chapter provides the reader with a critical, conceptual framework for further independent exploration of actor-network theory (ANT) when applied to higher education reform. First, it introduces briefly the potentials of ANT as a means of questioning, and eventually escaping, the formal policy level as the “natural” point of departure for studying policy reform. Second, by pointing to my experiences from an on-going study on a Danish subset of the European Bologna process, in which I invited relevant actors to participate in formulating the research questions, it concretizes – and critically reviews – how ANT may feed new insights as well as challenges into the research process.
This chapter focusses on three young, female students from Denmark and their quiet voices in a world full of loud expectations – in this case the expectations of education. The…
Abstract
This chapter focusses on three young, female students from Denmark and their quiet voices in a world full of loud expectations – in this case the expectations of education. The chapter is based on a research project named Marginalization and Co-created Education (MaCE), which is constructed through indirect conversations with young students. These students were either attending an Adult Education Centre (In Danish: VUC) or a Production School (an institution for people who for a short period have to consider what to do in relation to the system of education). The aim of the study was to obtain an understanding of being a young person on an educational journey and to let the young students express their experiences through their own voices and views. The findings of this research present an overwhelmingly negative view of the school experiences by the young students, who all at some point felt neglected and not acknowledged through their school time by both teachers and classmates. These findings are illustrated through German sociologist Norbert Elias and his work on The Civilizing Process, and focusses on the unavoidable connection between civilising and distinction processes.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ways to practice the written assignment in a university setting in the context of information literacy and in perspective of Schatzki's…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ways to practice the written assignment in a university setting in the context of information literacy and in perspective of Schatzki's practice theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis is based on both a qualitative in-depth study involving individual interviews with students from higher education and the practice theoretical perspective.
Findings
By analyzing informants’ negotiations of the “acceptable” way to perform the written assignment practice, a configuration of the particular practice has been made. In perspective of Schatzki's practice theory, a study into information literacy involves focussing on the changing character of the activities performing the practice in question. In this paper the changing character is analyzed by comparing the configuration of the written assignment practice with a description of the genre of scientific articles. The paper draws the conclusion that the configuration consists of both regular and irregular occurrences. Job orientation and use of social media seemed to influence the written assignment practice as it was performed by the informants.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to research into information literacy in educational settings by proposing an analysis based on Schatzki's theory combined with concepts of routinization, reflexivity, and genre.
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