Underneath is the 105th issue of the VU International News and Reviews.
The purpose of this digital publication is to identify relevant data-driven reports on any aspect of the international dimension of higher education and research. It gives a brief description of the reports, with a hyperlink to where it can be found.
The VU International News and Reviews is made with specific attention for the perspective of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and its partners in the Aurora network of societally engaged research universities.
But subscription is open and free for anyone interested in the topics covered – subscribers are free to forward the VU International News and Reviews to interested colleagues, who can subscribe by mailing to kees.kouwenaar@vu.nl. .
Regular subscribers can get direct access to the available reports in the Newsletter Dropbox folder. |
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| STUDY ABROAD MAINLY FOR THE HAPPY FEW? |
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| Preparing our students for the global world |
International student mobility
Students from backgrounds that are underprivileged in one way or another stand a lower chance to have an internationalisation experience – although research shows that these students on average profit more from such experience, when properly coached.
A German study from some time ago underlines this point: In a discussion paper The Social Selectivity of International Mobility among German University Students of the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Claudia Finger analyses data from the German National Association of Student Affairs (Deutsches Studentenwerk) on two cohorts (1997 and 2006) and finds a) that social background is an important obstacle to study abroad and b) that this has not weakened, but rather increased after the introduction of the Bologna reforms.
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| US OVER THE HILL? |
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| Preparing our students for the global world |
International student recruitment
The US National Science Foundation has published its 2018 Science & Engineering Indicators. The publication looks at the S&T education from elementary to graduate university level, the S&T work force, the attitude of the public and government towards S&T, and compares the R&D landscape in the USD in international setting.
It also zooms in on undergraduate and graduate enrolment in S&T and in this contexts looks at international enrolment also in a broad context.
The report shows that after consistent growth up to 2016, 2017 showed lower enrolment figures at both undergraduate and graduate levels, with a total decrease from ca 840 000 to ca 809 000 students.
This downturn is much more noticeable in non S&T fields, but even in S&T, graduate enrolment is down with 15 000 to 229 000 – while undergraduate international S&T enrolment barely holds its own.
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| DEFENDERS AND CHALLENGERS IN HIGHER EDUCATION |
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| Preparing our students for the global world |
International student recruitment
StudyPortals’ new publication on Envisioning Pathways to 2030 offers a quick view on the authors’ take on megatrends in a) the world around higher education, b) higher education as a sector, and c) strategies for international recruitment/enrolment of students. The selected trends are plausible – although other choices might have been equally plausible – and the foundation in statistics seems solid.
They offer an interesting conceptual framework for the position that universities may take in view of the developments around them: Defenders – Adapters – Innovators – Challengers.
The framework does beg the question where the authors would position the Dutch universities, which have been active in English taught programmes for decades, but are not part of the English-speaking world.
Their message that to stick to full degree programmes for youngsters coming directly from secondary education is a “defenders’“ position, is challenging most continental European universities – and is probably meant to be just that.
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| MOTIVATION STATEMENTS? THEY DON’T WORK |
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| Preparing our students for the global world |
Admission and selection
Next month, Anna Niessen will defend her PhD dissertation “New rules, new tools: Predicting academic achievement in college admissions”, reporting on an multi-cohort analysis on the predictive value of motivation and other personal competencies or traits on selection of students in higher education programmes.
She has found – what many practitioners will agree with from their experience – that assessing motivation and personal competencies and traits is, in the first place, hard to do in a reliable way: you can’t be sure that your measurement is accurate. And in the second place, even if you make the measurement as truthful as you can, its predictive value on study success is negligible.
Anna Niessen argues that giving applicants test tasks that are similar to the real programme (curriculum samples), yields much better predictive results. As she ends her abstract: “A major challenge in establishing effective and fair selection decisions in education and in organizations is to overcome the reliance on intuitions and gut feelings; scientific knowledge based on selection psychology should be utilized in practice much more.”
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| EFFECTIVE AND STABLE ADMISSION? |
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| Preparing our students for the global world |
Admission and selection
Already in 2016, Judith Zimmermann defended her PhD dissertation at ETH Zürich on “Information Processing for Effective and Stable Admission”. Although her statistical handling of her data will no doubt have been flawless, her theoretical and conceptual framework leaves room for improvement – and criticism. She seems unaware of the crucial distinction between a) what students have to be good at, b) how good they have at it, and c) what tools can be used to ascertain this when deciding if a student will be admitted or rejected when applying for a Master’s programme.
She shows no awareness of the extensive body of expertise in the American graduate admission community and seems to not care about the issue of false negatives: rejected students who would have done well. This is remarkable, as recent findings at well-reputed American Graduate Schools show that this is indeed a problem. Through their National Student Clearing House system, American institutions can - and do – find out that their rejected applicants too often are admitted and successful at other schools that are as good – or better.
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| WHY MOBILITY MATTERS TO WOMEN |
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| What is happening in the world |
Diversity
Already in 2016, PriceWaterhouseCoopers conducted a study exploring the link between gender diversity and international workforce mobility. Their starting point was the observation that women make up only 20% of the internationally mobile workforce in the Financial Services sector, which worries the sector’s CEOs who see talent scarcity as one of their greatest challenges. Based on over 600 interviews and a survey of over 4000 participants in 40 countries, they found that almost the same number of women in the sector aspires an international work experience as men: 73 – 77%. But a stereotype perception among company leaders and HR staff, as well as a lack of transparency about international job opportunities make that companies don’t adequately use their female staff’s inclination for international assignments. In addition, more flexibility in the assignment choices would help step up the proportion of women in international work force mobility in the Financial Services sector.
And probably not only in the Financial Services sector.
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| FOUR OUT OF TEN UK STUDENTS HAVE MENTAL ISSUES |
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| What is happening in the world |
Student Experience
According to a survey by Campus Living Villages – a leading student housing provider – 41% of students in the UK reports themselves to have poor mental health and no less than 39% say “yes” to the question if they have ever felt suicidal. The report is based on a survey among 200 students with the help of The Student Room – a UK based student community company. There is a direct correlation between mental health concerns and time spent on Social Media.
The report doesn’t compare the information with student mental health in earlier years or other countries.
It does stress that universities can and should do more to reach out to these students, because many don’t know who to turn to. |
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| UNIVERSITY CAREER GUIDANCE WORKS! |
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| What is happening in the world |
Education
From a 2017 survey among over 32 000 students at 43 randomly selected Higher Education institutions in the US, Gallup and Strada conclude in their 2017 College Student Survey that career services at universities are effective in boosting the students’ confidence in their preparedness for the job market. This is particularly true for students from non-traditional and underrepresented backgrounds. But these service are still underutilised, with 60% of the students in the survey never using either physical or online career services.
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| LABOUR MARKET VALUE OF SHORT DEGREE PROGRAMMES |
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| What is happening in the world |
Education
The American Enterprise Institute has published a study “Saving the Associate of Arts Degree” which may also interest those in European higher education who believe in the value of short HE degree programmes in the first cycle.
The report starts with the observation that the American AA degree – designed as a low threshold stepping stone to the Bachelor’s degree – actually for many is the end of their HE career. Sadly enough, students with no more than an AA degree, actually suffer a wage penalty from their short degree cycle, unless they have high-value marketable skills. They discuss mechanisms through which colleges can help AA degree holders to the value of their degree, i.a. through transfer pathways to Bachelor’s degrees, embedding marketable skills into the AA programmes, and strengthening ties with employers. |
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| BREXIT MAY HAMPER RECOGNITION OF UK DEGREES |
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| What is happening in the world |
Education
In an article published through Academia.edu, Vangelis Tsiligiris and Alex de Ruyter explore “What the higher education Brexit debate has not covered”. Apart from their conclusions that there are both challenges and opportunities for British HE in Brexit and that more research is needed both on facts and perceptions around the issue, one of their more salient observations is on – possibly diminishing – recognition of UK degrees within EU countries after Brexit.
They argue that in spite of the legal framework within the European Union for the recognition of university degrees for both professional and academic purposes, European countries have been known for dragging their feet in actually giving holders of international degrees full rights and opportunities within their system. This is particularly relevant for the British providers of transnational education, offering Greeks, German and other European students the possibility to obtain a British degree without ever leaving their country. |
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| NOTE: THE MISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY |
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I want to give my take on what the message of society to universities should be – as a contribution to the ongoing discussion about the merit of value-free and curiosity-driven research.
Here goes what could be the message to researchers – and to research intensive universities:
“We want you to conduct your thoughts and studies beyond the confines of current thought and current knowledge; we want you to be critical of any practice, belief or assumption that we all hold self-evident.
But:
We want your work to focus on some unsolved problem out there in the world, in society.
It is OK not to aim for short term results and not to define the results before you start.
It is not OK to choose the topic of your studies without any ambition to help solve real problems.” |
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