The Irish Institute of Technology (hereinafter referred to as IoT) sector is poised to undergo a period of transformation, consolidation and system reconfiguration, to be brought about through a series of institutional mergers, collaborations and alliances. This research focuses on the Irish higher education (hereinafter referred to as HE) landscape, and in particular, on the journey of three groups of IoTs (hereinafter referred to as Alliances) as they plan to merge and subsequently apply to be re-designated as technological universities (hereinafter referred to as TUs). This research provides a contemporaneous account of how the Irish IoTs are organising themselves for merger and examines the substantial challenges which lie therein. By examining and comparing three Alliances which are undergoing a similar process but with varying degrees of success, this research explores the key factors which facilitate on one hand, and/or inhibit on the other, merger negotiations and the merger process in HE, both at a system and institutional level. This knowledge will be useful to policy makers and other higher education institutions (hereinafter referred to as HEIs), particularly in Ireland’s IoT sector, which is likely to experience a wave of mergers over the coming decade. It also contributes to the relatively scant body of literature on the nature of and the factors impacting upon the merger process in higher education, and of mergers in the Irish HE context. A qualitative study, employing a multiple case study approach, was adopted. Based upon a thematic analysis of data gathered from the three cases, this research identifies and categorises the key factors that are perceived to facilitate on the one hand, or inhibit on the other, the merger process in HE, both at a system and institutional level. A framework consisting of political, strategic, operational, emotive, historic and cultural factors is proposed, examined and discussed, and recommendations for both institutional and system level actors are provided. In addition, this research proposes a micro-political model which details the various phases through which HE mergers proceed, and argues that it is the macro and micro-political and emotive factors, rather than strategic or operational factors, which have the most powerful influence on the merger process.

This study adopted an interpretive qualitative approach, using narrative inquiry to understand the experiences of early career physical education (PE) teachers who took ‘risks’ during their training year, and who had been teaching in schools. Narrative interviews were conducted with nine PE teachers who had engaged with a Risk-Taking Professional Development Programme (PDP) during their training year and who had been teaching for between two months and five years. Interviews explored the meanings, definitions and influences that participants ascribed to risk taking from their memories of the training year and once they began teaching in schools. The focus of the study emerged because in my role as a PE teacher trainer, I designed the Risk-Taking PDP to challenge trainee PE teachers to reflect critically upon their teaching and pupil learning and, move beyond their comfortable practices. Inspiration was taken from the Office for Standards in Education outstanding descriptor at that time, to ‘Take risks when trying to make teaching interesting, be able to deal with the unexpected and grab the moment’ (Ofsted, 2008, p. 1). The Risk-Taking PDP became a core component of the PE Teacher Training course in one UK Higher Education Institution (HEI) and was delivered to over 100 PE trainee teachers. An interpretive analysis located overlapping and interlocking themes which closely represented illuminative epiphanies (Denzin, 2001). Findings revealed that risk-taking became a central component of teachers’ practice during the training year. It encouraged critical reflection and developed trainee confidence. Epiphanic moments experienced by participants highlighted that adaptation, negotiation and resilience formed over time as crucial aspects of risk-taking. Once qualified and teaching in schools, key influences affected PE teachers’ willingness to take risks. These included; performativity measures, time, pupil behaviour and the influence of the subject community. Risk-taking was found to support personal and professional growth and, when influences in schools were positive, engagement with innovation and creativity continued. This led to further growth and learning for both teachers and pupils. This study provides new knowledge to inform the continuation of the Risk-Taking PDP and offers new insights for PE Initial Teacher Education and Training (ITET) practices. Furthermore, this study reaffirms the views of Clandinin and Connelly (2000) who argue for narrative being a three-dimensional space where temporality, sociality and place (context) influence thinking and learning and also, those of Dewey (1938) where experience and learning is transactional and always in relation to others and the social context. This study proposes a fourth dimension to risk-taking, a visional dimension where teachers visualise an ‘ideal’ situation and, is represented through the abstract conceptualisation of risk-taking holding a four-dimensional metaphorical space. This is represented through a geometrical shape, the Tesseract. This study suggests that the Tesseract Model should be utilised in schools to support early career teacher professional development, build resilience and encourage collaborative engagement in subject communities. Likewise, insights from a methodological approach, of narrative inquiry, that has seen a limited application in the context of PE provides a different and invaluable viewpoint in positioning the researchers’ and participants’ stories centrally.

by Wong Man Lai, Sonia. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1991. / Bibliography: leaves 113-114. / acknowledgements --- p.i / abstract --- p.ii / table of content --- p.iii / Chapter chapter one --- p.1 / Chapter i. --- introduction --- p.1 / Chapter ii. --- structure of the thesis --- p.3 / Chapter chapter two --- p.4 / Chapter i. --- assumptions --- p.4 / Chapter ii. --- the simple one-period model --- p.13 / Chapter iii. --- a model with on-the-job screening --- p.26 / Chapter chapter three --- p.40 / Chapter i. --- a multiple-period model --- p.40 / Chapter ii. --- restriction on the number of examinations attempted --- p.59 / Chapter iii. --- learning by doing --- p.68 / Chapter chapter four --- p.73 / Chapter i. --- uncertain ability --- p.73 / Chapter ii. --- uncertainty about the score production function --- p.86 / Chapter chapter five --- p.96 / Chapter i. --- costs and benefits of rationing competing behaviours --- p.97 / Chapter ii. --- policy implications --- p.98 / Chapter iii. --- implications for expansion of higher education tn hong kong --- p.104 / appendix a (list of notations) --- p.108 / appendix b --- p.111 / bibliography --- p.113

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

Learner autonomy has been recognised as a desirable educational goal, especially within the domains of adult and higher education. Whereas this has led to a growing body of research addressing learner autonomy across different educational and cultural contexts, there are still contexts, including Kurdistan-Iraq (i.e. the context of this research), which have remained under-researched. On that account, researchers (e.g. Dickinson, 1996; Little, 1999; Palfreyman, 2003; Usuki, 2007) encourage examining learner autonomy within such settings. This research, therefore, was an attempt to understand the realities and complexities of the situation of learner autonomy within a public institution of higher education in Kurdistan-Iraq. To achieve that, this research included students, teachers and senior administrators as participants assuming that these are the major interacting parties that could influence and determine the overall situation of learner autonomy. This study adopted a qualitative case study design within which multiple methods of data collection were used. The data was obtained through classroom observations, focus groups with thirty-four students divided among six groups and interviews with six teachers and five senior administrators. The sample of students, teachers and senior administrators was drawn from five different academic disciplines, namely English, Kurdish, Law, Psychology and Biology across the four distinct existing faculties. The findings generally showed an unsatisfactory situation of learner autonomy within this specific context and there emerged multiple personal, pedagogical, institutional and socio-cultural constraints which altogether seemed to pose serious challenges to the exercise and development of learner autonomy. Apart from that, students turned out to be relatively more autonomous compared to their previous educational experiences and there appeared to be certain behaviours and practices not just among students as a manifestation of their autonomy but also on the part of teachers towards encouraging the sense of autonomy and responsibility among students. However, these autonomous and autonomy-supportive practices and behaviours seemed to be confined to ‘isolated individual efforts’ of some students and teachers which implies that no systematic institutional attempts were present to promote autonomy or at least to create a conducive environment within which autonomy could flourish or be exercised. The findings also indicated that the autonomous behaviours and autonomy-supportive practices appeared to mainly circulate within the non-political form of autonomy which tends to focus on personal learning gains and lack a political dimension which concerns with the need for autonomous capacities to resurge within the social and political life to serve the public good. This seemed to reflect the interpretations and values the participants associated with learner autonomy which were significantly oriented towards the non-political variant of autonomy. This study, therefore, points to the need of further research, particularly action research, aiming at promoting the political understanding of autonomy.

Demands by higher education stakeholders in the late 1980s to early 1990s, led the higher education sector to focus on issues of effectiveness, accountability and efficiency. This was as true in the West Indies as elsewhere in the world. The University of the West Indies (UWI) reviewed its governance structure and established an academic quality assurance mechanism to respond to these challenges. More than a decade has passed since the implementation of this major initiative, and quality has since formed an integral part of the UWI’s strategic plans since 1997. Concerns have continually been raised however about the quality of the service provided. This is the focus of this study. This topic was explored and evaluated through the use of three units of analysis using a qualitative case study of the Mona campus. The methods used to gather data were essentially qualitative, using interviews, focus groups, and documentary research. The theoretical orientation was grounded in the quality literature, drawing on both the industrial literature as well as that in higher education. My findings paved the way for judgments which indicated that various quality procedures are employed in different parts of the UWI, Mona Campus. Some of these procedures do not seem to have produced the overall quality culture of excellence which was intended. Out of the information and commentaries produced by the respondents a unified quality framework has been produced that pays attention to effective procedures, processes, and systems. These criteria were assembled in a model to inform practice at the UWI and enhance the overall transformation process of the 2007-2012 Strategic Plan.

This thesis investigates the diversity in job quality of university graduates in 17 European countries using multilevel regression modelling, based on combined REFLEX and HEGESCO graduate survey data. The focus of the research is on aspects of graduate jobs that affect quality, especially the analytically neglected aspects of skill utilisation and work autonomy, as well as income, job security and work life balance First, for the purposes of measuring job quality, the thesis proposes an international multidimensional Graduate Job Quality Index (GJQI) with potential applications for further research and policy evaluation. Second, the thesis analyses variance in graduate job quality across 258 sectors of economic activity in the 17 countries studied, and identifies a number of factors that are correlated with overall job quality and its dimensions. The main research focus, however, is on contextual factors in the wider society and economy that help explain both diversity in job quality and differences between different sectors of the economy and different occupational groups. In particular: 1) the adoption of new computer technologies; 2) exposure to globalisation, and 3) high educational attainment in the labour force. The study tests two broadly contrasting theoretical approaches to differences in graduate job quality: skill-biased technological change theory (Acemoglu, 2002) and the new institutionalism (Baker, 2014) on the one hand, and the conflict theory of global knowledge capitalism (Brown et al., 2012) on the other, and in empirical terms finds more support for the latter of two theoretical accounts.

This research explores through the lens of branding practices at universities how professionals in public sector spaces respond to the influence of corporate marketing practices. Specifically, this research addressed the question of how faculty perceive branding activities in higher education and their role in branding activities at the university. It also sought to understand the impact and influence of institutional attributes such as heritage and location on faculty perception of branding. The research was conducted at three Universities in Ontario Canada, which were selected based on differences in heritage and location. Marketing, organizational studies and higher education studies literature were combined highlighting the differences between product and service based marketing and the interplay between organizational identity, image and culture. My research revealed ambiguous and complex responses from faculty and highlighted the unique values and beliefs inherent in academic culture. While most faculty members appreciated the need for branding under current economic conditions, many perceived branding as representing the unwelcome encroachment of business ideology within the university which had the potential of eroding the university’s contribution to the public good. They also perceived branding as leading to changes in both the structure and culture of the university. Many faculty expressed concern that branding tended toward a claim to be everything to everyone resulting in significant gaps in authenticity; in other words between brand representations and actual practices. The findings raise questions about the applicability of existing theories of branding to higher education institutions and an academic service brand model is proposed that captures the complexity of academic responses to branding. The management implications arising from this thesis reveal that faculty members see branding as a complex balancing act combining multiple attributes and one that requires transparent communication, the cultivation of trust, accessible brand leadership and authenticity.

<p> This qualitative study examined the perspectives of American students, focusing on the factors and characteristics that frame an individual as a global citizen. The study focused on nine American students who were enrolled in a California State University. This population of students brought knowledge of their personal perspectives and experiences, pertaining to their own ideals of global citizenship, as well as to how they believed it was integrated in their educational experience. Key themes from the participants included: the importance of a period of self-realization, individual effects as a result of the current political climate, the importance of language, and the lack of priority given to global citizenship within the K-12 public education system. </p><p>