Student mobility policies have become a high priority of the European Union since they are expected to result in private and social returns. However, at the same time these policies risk leading to unwanted geographical consequences, particularly brain drain from lagging to core regions, as formerly mobile students may not return on completion of their studies. Accordingly, this thesis focuses on both the private returns to student mobility and the determinants of return migration. It is important to note that, currently, the literature about the mobility of students is scarce and provides mixed evidence regarding both these issues. We contribute to the current academic debate in this field by doing a case study on the Master and Back programme, which was implemented since 2005 by the Italian lagging region of Sardinia. The programme is co-financed by the European Social Fund and consists of providing talented Sardinian students with generous scholarships to pursue Master's and Doctoral degrees in the world's best universities. Concerning the private returns to migration, we evaluate the impact of this scheme on the odds of employment and net monthly income of the recipients. Moreover, we assess whether the scheme has been able to improve their job matching. To perform this analysis we access unique administrative data on the recipients and a suitable control group, complemented by a purpose-designed web survey. In addition, we enquire into the determinants of return migration and the underlying decision-making process by using a mixed-methods approach, which is particularly well-suited for very complex phenomena like the one at hand.

This thesis addresses a gap in research on collaborative creativity. Prior research has investigated how groups of professionals, young people and children work together to co-create work, but the distinctive contribution of this thesis is a socioculturally framed understanding of undergraduates’ interdisciplinary practices over an extended period. Guided by a socioculturally framed theory of creativity, this thesis observed 4 students creating a 10 minute performance piece, and presents a longitudinal analysis of the co-creation process which occurred through a total of 28 meetings recorded over the course of a twelve-week term (24 hours of recordings in total). Specific episodes were selected from the full set of recordings, constituting 2 hours of recordings for in-depth analysis. Sociocultural discourse analysis was used to examine how social and cultural contexts constituted an ecology of undergraduate practice in interdisciplinary creative collaboration. Offering a new methodology, this discursive approach for studying context (Arvaja, 2008) was combined with interaction analysis (Kumpulainen & Wray, 2002; Scott, Mortimer & Aguiar, 2006) to analyse how moment-by-moment creative developments and contexts were resourced and constituted through dialogue, artifacts and physical settings. With implications for theory and practice, the analysis showed how the students’ collaborative contexts were constituted through dialogue, and how their emerging co- creative practice was mediated through multiple social and physical settings. It further evidenced how common knowledge was constructed through the process of collaboration, the value of peer feedback for fostering confidence, and students’ need for ‘silent witnessing’; for space to reflect and contribute to a long-term cumulative conversation. The thesis also discusses how resourceful the students were, in terms of negotiating unfamiliar and unpredictable co-creating activities. Evidence is provided for the collaborative value of creating and appropriating new tools to develop common knowledge, and for the significance of imagination as a psychological resource for building common knowledge about hypothetical future activities, showing how technology-mediated co-creating can be seen as a complex interactional accomplishment.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is part of everyday life. It is not different in the education field. However, its use has implications for what it means to teach and learn effectively in contemporary education. When ICT is used in the classroom, things happen through divergent forces, components, and mechanisms, according to different contexts, and evidencing a complex environment. The purpose of this study is to show how complex the use of ICT in education is by analysing different components and their productive forces. Assemblage ethnography is the methodology adopted and a range of data collection tools are used. The thesis explores five case studies generated from different settings: Primary, Secondary and Post-secondary education. The analysis offered shows how discourse, policy-making, budget, and CPD are not enough to account for all of the ICT-related situations that happen on a daily basis inside schools. ICT in education evidences a diverse and fragmented field of policy, money, and practice, pedagogy and many other elements. This study concludes that there are three main productive forces emerging from the education ICT assemblage which: evidenced unsolved issues of the schooling process, enhanced or made emotions emerge; opened possibilities for other subjectivities to happen.

An examination of the trainee experience in a competency based training programme. In a high-risk industry, having highly trained personnel is taken very seriously. This four year training programme produces highly qualified and skilled individuals and this research examined the experience of progressing through the training programme through the trainees' lens. Learnings include two consistent elements contribute to a negative trainee experience: Evaluation Methods that produced a tension between memorisation and learning and Trainer Practices that lacked student-centred, research informed methods that would likely improve the trainee success rate as well as the overall trainee experience.

Applicants to Medical School must be academically successful to secure a place at university. Despite their success in secondary education and the stringent entry criteria, a significant number of students fail summative assessments at the end of their First Year. This gives rises to the following question: “Why do previously high achieving students fail in the university system?” Existing models seek to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary withdrawal from university and to explain academic withdrawal in the context of an individual’s academic and social integration into a new educational environment, their commitment to the institution and their commitment to Medicine as a career. However, much of the existing literature on failure in the early years at Medical School has focused on pre-university academic ability, as demonstrated by grade achievement at the end of secondary education, and/or faculty’s perspectives of student failure. This dissertation adopts a qualitative approach to understanding success and failure in the first year at Medical School from the perspective of medical students themselves. Their perspectives are explored within the model of withdrawal and persistence proposed by Tinto (1975) and interpreted in the context of existing literature on failure in the early years of higher education in general and in Medicine in particular. These findings are further reframed within an analysis based upon Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice. This analysis considers the students’ field of operation, the relative positions of agents within the field and the capitals which allow them to hold those positions, and the habitus of the agents and the institution itself. Through this analysis, factors that students believe may predispose to success and failure are identified and discussed. This in turn leads to a consideration of how my own understanding and professional practice have developed and might develop in the future.

Everest and Blanc (E&B) is at a crossroad. It grew from a ‘mom and pop’ operation into a small professional firm and plateaued. Thus, there is a desire to bring about operation efficiency, followed by expansion of the company. In order to be successful, a systematic decision making process is necessary to ensure a high probability of success, and able to pinpoint dysfunctions early for improvement. In addition, implementing processes need careful consideration and progress monitoring. This study was founded on these premises using M2 mode research methodology to establish an optimal structural course of action by surveying paradigms of management theories and concepts. The study began with an exposition on research methodologies and focused on the M2 research mode. It continued on with considering operations topics (micro concerns), extending to general issues (macro concerns) in conjunction with management theories and concepts. Finally a decision making model was shaped and applied to E&B. During the process, several important decisions were made, grounded on the findings on the research, such as relocating the corporate office anticipating expansion. Overall, the changes introduced, the process of change, the decision-making process, and implementation were all effective. The decision making model, SOMM, Strato Operation Management Model, is an extension of both Ansoff’s and Anthony’s management models together with the decision-making process. The emphasis is on the relationship of the system structure’s characteristics where it is symbolized by a matryoshka representing the three management modules (Strategic Management, Management Control and Planning and Tactical Operation) nesting within each other. Relating to the overall strategic and management control and planning competency, the workhorse is a combination of defensive and offensive approaches together with evaluation methodologies to capture emerging and unintended strategies and to control performance; whereas the tactical operation process is to bring about efficiency and effectiveness. These are new knowledge and policies cast into members of E&B. It is, therefore, fundamental that careful interventions are necessary to cause changes by motivation and to align goal congruency. Further, the inquiry had specifically focused on the needs of E&B, it did not preclude application to other organizations. For academics, it may be an engaging topic for further empirical studies advancing knowledge in management and operations. With respect to a wider world application, it was also concluded that the findings for E&B are applicable and adaptable to other professional and business concerns as innovative tools to their problems and issues.

This case study, of veterinary education at Glasgow between 1949 and 2006, was undertaken to provide an illustrative account of learning and teaching practices over time. Ultimately the aim was to inform discussions on curriculum reshaping in undergraduate veterinary education at Glasgow. A questionnaire was distributed to 2360 alumni, 513 students and 50 teachers, to obtain quantitative data on the availability and perceived usefulness of different educational methods and technologies, analysed using SPSS. Qualitative data were sought principally through ten student focus groups and interviews with over thirty current and former staff, theoretically coded using NVivo. Questionnaire responses (from 11.5% of alumni, 23.8% of students and 72% of teachers invited to participate) revealed that lectures, printed notes, tutorials, practical classes and clinical training were used consistently over time and rated highly by stakeholders, confirming the importance of didactic teaching methods coupled with discussion and practical hands-on experience. The focus groups with students highlighted their strong desire for earlier clinical training, with the recognition that a case-based approach resulted in more meaningful learning. The interviews with staff revealed that whilst all staff welcomed the opportunity for increased vertical integration, problem-based learning was rejected as a wholesale solution. Highlights of the school’s curricular innovations to date include the clinico-pathological integrated sessions, the lecture-free final year, and the introduction of a veterinary biomolecular sciences course that allowed for a seamless vertical integration in years 1 to 4. However, recent efforts to implement self-directed learning and assessment strategies have been hampered by the fact that these were isolated innovations set within a traditional teacher-centred paradigm. There was little support among stakeholders for undergraduate specialisation. There is still a perceived need for veterinarians to have omni-potential – if not to be omnicompetent. However, it is recommended that the current system of tracking be replaced with a more streamlined core-elective system, to allow students to pursue specific topics of interest in the later years of the course. Teachers and students cited attributes of ‘good’ teachers. These generally did not change over time, although technologies did change. Good communication appears to be central to good teaching, with an in-borne desire to enthuse and motivate students to learn for the pleasure of learning rather than the need to hurdle-jump examinations. Both teachers and students cited good teaching characteristics in terms of the teacher as authority and motivator, rather than as a facilitator of independent learning, reflecting the nature of the traditional, didactic course. There was little evidence of pedagogical change resulting from technological innovations. If anything, newer technologies compounded surface learning approaches and low level cognitive processing, rather than promoting deep learning and higher order thinking skills. Identified barriers to teaching innovations included lack of time, reward and support (for teachers and students). Future curricular innovation will require a substantial investment in the scholarship of teaching – rewarding staff for excellence in teaching, putting it on a par with research excellence, and ensuring the necessary support mechanisms and infrastructure are in place to ensure the success of a self-directed learning curriculum. A guided discovery learning curriculum is recommended, a compromise between traditional teaching and a fully problem-based curriculum. The study did not specifically focus on assessment, but it is recommended that learning, teaching and assessment practices should be constructively aligned.

HEIs have, over the recent decade, been involved in internationalisation of their academic programmes and in the delivery of their degrees in international locations. Internationalisation is associated with the incorporation of international facets into the composition of curriculum, faculty, and students through a combination of activities and policies. One such activity associated with internationalisation is transnational education, in which the degree students are located in a different country than where the institution delivering the education is based. Transnational education is often categorised in many forms: franchise, twinning, articulations, double degree programme, partnership, distance education, and international branch campus. Hospitality and tourism programmes have been identified as having been involved not only in internationalising their degree programmes, but also in delivering their degrees internationally in branch campus locations. However, even though the narrative has been on the start-up, operations, and management of these IBCs, less is known about the impacts the international branch campus has on the exporting hospitality and tourism programme. This research, based in management, tourism, and international education, and viewed through a post positivism and critical realist perspective, presents an understanding of the effects that exist between hospitality and tourism programmes in HEIs and their IBCs. This is achieved through developing a typology of the influences that overseas expansion has on the exporting hospitality and tourism programme. To address the objective of this research, a case strategy approach was used to support the exploratory and descriptive nature of this topic of study. The methodological design consisted of a mixed-methods approach, exploring three hospitality-tourism programmes in the United States delivering their degrees at international branches campuses. A conceptual framework based on elements associated with overseas expansion of both firms and HEIs and the theoretical foundations regarding internationalisation, guided data collection and analysis. The significance of this study is twofold. First, it contributes to greater understanding of IBCs from the perspective of the home campus. Much of the literature surrounding exporting education through IBCs broadly focuses on three themes: market entry, risks and benefits, and quality control issues. Understanding these influences back at the home campus programme contributes to an underdeveloped area in the transnational literature. Secondly, the research contributes to the topic of internationalisation specific to the academic field of hospitality and tourism management. Although there is much consensus that academic programmes should prepare students for an international industry and a global marketplace, it is unclear the role that exporting hospitality and tourism degrees on IBCs has in internationalising the exporting degree programme specific to students, faculty, and curriculum. Greater insight was gained regarding IBCs and internationalisation by assessing the influences of IBCs through the experiences of home campus faculty and staff. Additionally, findings may also prove useful to organisations, both academic and commercial, seeking to expand internationally. Findings of this research demonstrate that delivering a degree internationally is motivated by both internal and external factors, but home programme leadership combined with pull factors from the international location may be the catalyst in the decision to expand internationally. Additionally, the justification for international expansion and the outcome of this activity appears to be most associated with expanding the programme's brand and credibility in the area of international education. Impacts on faculty, students, and curriculum diverge somewhat when considering the mobility between both the home campus and international branch campus. Students at the home campus experience internationalising influences based on two factors. The first is their study abroad experiences at the branch campus, and the second is their interactions with foreign students who transfer to the home campus. Similarly, faculty who engage with the branch campus onsite in the international location are in some cases gaining international exposure that allows them to internationalise their perspective on the industry and their students. Faculty and staff at the home campus identify the challenges of supporting both the necessary resources of the international branch campus, and the requirements to serve the changes associated with the home campus environments.

My original contribution to knowledge is the use of computer generated, three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds using Second Life® as a three-way sustained engagement and a mechanism for a genuinely productive dialogue between Further Education (FE) colleges, employers, employees and apprentices. This thesis shows how the use of virtual worlds creates meaningful employer engagement where Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are involved in planning and contributing to learning (Healey et al, 2014). A radical rethink is taking place about the way we should learn. That is that most learning is informal, at work, under the guidance of non-educationalists and that this situation is universal in the government's priority area of apprenticeship (HM Treasury, 2015) and among most private providers. I will discuss how virtual environments allow SMEs to work in ways they cannot in real life and juxtapose this against the real world, in order to reveal the previously misunderstood connections between the two. The question of Further Education (FE) reform has been widely debated (Bailey et al, 2015, Kelly, 2015) with former Skills Minister, Nick Boles, questioning whether the general FE college model has a future (Evans, 2015) and The Centre for Vocational Education Research (2015) reporting “FE needs to be rethought and rebuilt”. The gap in research for UK vocational education is significant, in comparison to school or university education (Coffield 2008, Grollmann, 2008) and detrimental to the UK government’s drive to recruiting 3 million apprentices by 2020 (Gov.UK, 2015a). This thesis addresses the use of virtual worlds to enhance work transitions both educationally and work related with special attention to apprentices. Specifically, I will be looking at research that pays attention to the socio-cultural context of situated learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991, Vygotsky, 1978), in order to show communities of practice in virtual worlds, transferring motivation and knowledge management. I argue working in virtual worlds bridges the gap between education and industry to develop a modern workforce for the continuation of learning across formal and informal settings (Vavoula et al, 2007) and how its use is endless and hugely enriching by allowing learning to be much more opportunistic. There are so many opportunities in the use of virtual worlds, related particularly to a three-way partnership in learning between apprentices and employees, employers and FE colleges: co-ordination of off- and on-the-job learning; real-time oversight for employers of their employees’ progress; use of virtual events at work to enrich learning, demonstrations of processes and development of learning communities.

This thesis investigates the learning experiences of students who participated in short-term study abroad trips (also known as regional academic travel) offered by New York University Abu Dhabi’s Office of Global Education, with the objective of attaining an authentic account of these experiences. This authentic account supports a better understanding of a student’s experience, and leads to a more in-depth understanding of learning, which for this research is called the learning lifeworld. Phenomenography is used to capture the qualitative variation of individual experiences leading to four categories of description placed in logical relationship to one another yielding an outcome space of four conceptions of learning experience. Phenomenography alone, while reflective in nature, has limitations on determining an authentic account of experience. Therefore, it is helpful to draw upon reflective thinking ability, which produces information on each student’s ability to reason through an ill-structured problem, and puts students in a reflective thinking development stage, which is linked to a student’s critical reflection ability. Reflective judgment stages for each student were determined using the standard reflective judgment interview (King & Kitchener, 1994), and then compared against the instances conceptions of learning experience that appeared in each student account. A relationship was identified between instances of conceptions and the level of a student’s reflective thinking ability that could lead to a deeper understanding of the learning lifeworld through the language students used in responses from the phenomenographic interview and the reflective judgment interview. The findings of this research show that there were at least four qualitatively different ways students experienced regional academic travel trips. The categories developed through an analysis of student reflective accounts are: the regional academic travel experience complements and supplements classroom learning; develops academic skills; affects students’ future academic, personal, and professional endeavours; and offers students a chance to reflect on impacts they have made and can make in a community and the world. The results of this research make an original contribution to lifeworld theory, transformative learning, and short-term study abroad research by utilizing a unique combination of research approaches (phenomenography and reflective judgment to inform lifeworld theory and transformative learning) in a novel setting (NYU Abu Dhabi regional academic travel). The design of this research could be used for future studies to examine learning in an in-depth way, whilst assuring that the accounts given could be considered authentic. Finally, the results also led to recommendations for improvement of future regional academic travel trips offered by The Office of Global Education.