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This quantitative study measures change in certain factors known to influence success of first-year students during the transition to higher education: self-efficacy, autonomous learning and social integration. A social integration scale was developed with three subscales: ‘sense of belonging’, ‘relationship with staff’ and ‘old friends’. Students responded to this and existing scales measuring self-efficacy and autonomous learning, before and after participating in transition activities including a group-work poster project. The authors discuss positive outcomes regarding a sense of belonging and how the authors’ expectations in other areas such as self-efficacy were not met. The importance of early contact with academic staff and small-group work is confirmed. Tinto’s assertions on pre-existing relationships are challenged. The authors suggest that further investigation might prevent a ‘scattergun’ approach to transition based upon superficial understanding of outcomes. They discuss potential models for transition design and support a ‘longer’ process with several opportunities for student engagement in success factor development.

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The effects of gender on organisational structures for professional university staff have been largely overlooked in the literature. Using data from one Australian university, we examine the location of professional female staff in the organisational hierarchy. Our analysis indicated that significant gendered segregation existed within and across role level, function, and position title. Women comprised the majority of university professional staff yet the minority of senior administrative positions. Those women who were in senior executive positions were clustered in support areas at the fringe of the decision-making powers of the university. At mid-level management, where numbers of males and females were equivalent, evidence indicated that women assumed a level of greater responsibility yet at lower salary levels. These factors all contribute to professional women’s invisibility within the new climate of higher education. This invisibility works to limit current and future career possibilities, as this article highlights.

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Despite ongoing debate about whether they can and should, most higher education institutions include the development of employability skills within their curricula. However, employers continue to report that graduates are not ready for the world of work, and lack some of the most basic skills needed for successful employment. Research into why this might be abounds from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, including government, employers, higher education institutions and graduates. Interestingly though, the views of undergraduates, the recipients of this employability development, are not well known. This could be important, because learning theory tells us that motivation and commitment of learners is an essential prerequisite for effective outcomes. So the question is raised as to whether undergraduate students are engaged with employability skills development. This article reports on a study exploring the views of over 400 business studies, marketing and human resource management undergraduate students about employability. Findings suggest there is only limited alignment between the views of students and other stakeholder groups. There are differences between first, second and final year students, which could explain an observed lack of engagement with employability-related development. Some suggestions for improving engagement are made, alongside ideas on what can, realistically, be done within higher education institutions.

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This article draws on a 'within-subject' design of employment of university graduates in China over two different periods, namely 2008 and 2014. This research was conducted based on semi-structured interviews and secondary data analysis with four groups of key stakeholders including universities, government agencies, labor-market intermediaries and university graduates. The 'within-subject' design enabled an in-depth exploration of how changes at formal and informal institutions affect the employment of university graduates in a fast-changing labor market. The results show that lack of institutional interactions, socially constructed norms that influence graduates' perceptions and ambiguous directions of educational policies significantly affect university graduates' employment.

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This study aims to understand the perceived learning experiences and gains for Japanese government officials from US and Japanese graduate and professional schools, and how applicable their continuing professional education (CPE) is to professional performance. Interview participants were drawn from long-term overseas and domestic fellowship programs within the government's National Personnel Authority. Human capital theory and Ottoson's situated evaluation framework were applied for the analysis of 30 purposefully selected interviews. The officials from the overseas program reported more diverse and positive outcomes in cognitive, social, and affective domains as well as networking opportunities from their experiences than those from the domestic program. The interviews, however, revealed a loose linkage between CPE participants' outcomes and their subsequent work.

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Since the 1970s, research on why students discontinue their university studies has been a major topic, especially in American educational sociology and university socialization research. With the aid of multilevel models, this contribution examines the relationship between institutional and individual factors in influencing the tendency to drop out. The data employed here from the Konstanz Student Survey are typical of German universities. This study shows that students do not contemplate dropping out because of stress or a lack of ability, but primarily because of weak commitment to their course of study in general, or to the specific field of study in particular. The institutional influence on the tendency to drop out is thus modest, being limited to maintaining or improving teaching quality.

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Between 1998 and 2004, the higher education systems of Germany, France and the Netherlands underwent major changes. The changes were framed in the context of the Bologna process, and linked to the reform of degree structure towards a system of undergraduate and graduate cycles. This article investigates how a key feature of these systems was affected, the relationship between university and non-university higher education. It demonstrates how the Bologna process was seized as an opportunity for adjusting policies defining the types of higher education institutions, their status and roles. Using institutional theory, it compares actor constellations and actor interaction in the policy process to explain similarities and differences. It finds that, while the two institutional types moved closer to each other in all three systems, the boundaries between university and non-university higher education started to blur, and tensions emerged between the new degree structures and other elements of the institutional reality.

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Field placement has traditionally been an important component of professional and vocational education programmes, and there is a growing interest in workplace experience in higher education programmes in general. In this article, we examine the direct and the indirect links between classroom preparation for placement, placement quality and programme coherence, and the development of student learning outcomes (general competence, knowledge and skills). Using a longitudinal survey of social work students, combined with data from national registers, we find that programme coherence has a direct positive impact on all three types of learning outcomes, classroom preparation for placement has a positive direct impact on knowledge and general competence, while placement quality only indirectly relates to student learning outcomes and is mediated by programme coherence. Placement quality is therefore important, but its positive impact on learning outcomes depends on whether it has a spillover effect on students' experience of programme coherence.

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This article draws on a longitudinal and qualitative study of students in a master's program in engineering. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyse annual, semi-structured interviews with 10 students, from the first semester until one year after graduation. The program enjoys a high status and has a reputation of being highly demanding. The results show how the students categorise themselves in relation to outgroups, and partly supports earlier research. The longitudinal design made it possible to study how students' social identities changed throughout their program, and when they went through a transition process to work. The graduated students developed an identity change, which involved a restructuring of the ways in which they understood their position in the social world.

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Employability has become, and is likely to continue to be, a major issue for a variety of stakeholders in higher education. The article examines three competing perspectives on employability, termed here as the 'possessive', 'positioning' and 'processual' approaches. The first of these, based on notions of skills and attributes, dominates the policy and practice discourse but, it is argued, is deeply flawed in theoretical terms. The second perspective, based on social positioning theory, is shown to be more in accord with the evidence of employment outcomes, but tends, arguably, to lead to a 'counsel of despair'. The processual perspective is then presented, particularly focusing on the concept of graduate identity. The article argues that this is theoretically robust, is supported by empirical evidence, and provides a sound basis for curriculum and other forms of intervention to enhance graduate employability.

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