Rethinking employability: how students build on interest in a subject to plan a career

As universities prioritise employability, there is increased attention to promoting students’ career decidedness. In this mixed method, cross-sectional study, we explore whether and how students’ interest in their academic subject affects their career decidedness. Using surveys of 428 undergraduates studying sciences in a UK university (60% F, average age = 19.9) and case examples from follow-up interviews with 15 students, we examine students’ interest development and its relation to their career decidedness and their desire for meaningful, interesting work. Findings showed that most students who were studying science in university had a well-developed interest that had motivated their choice of programme, and their subject interest and career decidedness were linked. Regression analyses indicated that students’ interest in their subject was a significant predictor of career decidedness, mediated by students’ desire to pursue that interest in their career. Open-ended comments on the surveys suggested that decidedness was informed by coursework, proactive career exploration, work experience, interest, feasibility, and familial contacts. Interviews confirmed these factors and illustrated how they contributed to students’ career decidedness. We propose implications for academics and career counsellors who might help students refine their interest by considering connections between their academic subject, interest, and related career options. We argue that educators and policy-makers need to reframe employability interventions and think beyond teaching students skills or attributes that lead to employment. Educators can start with students’ interest in their subject and support students’ exploration of how they can continue to pursue that interest in various careers.

Introduction of didactic principles in the “Floriculture and ornamental gardening” academic subject

The urgency of the topic is due to the search for new didactic principles and their introduction into the teaching of the discipline “Floriculture and ornamental gardening” at the Department of Plant Breeding PSAU. The study was conducted in 2019–2021 by the method of included observation and formative experiment among applicants for higher education 2nd year of the Faculty of Agrotechnology and Ecology, specialty 201 Agronomy. The introduction of four didactic principles, namely responsibility, patriotism, environmental and aesthetic principles, in the teaching of the discipline “Floriculture and Ornamental Horticulture” promotes the education of spiritually mature, intelligent and hard-working professionals in the agricultural sector of Ukraine.

2. IR as an Academic Subject

This chapter examines how thinking about international relations (IR) has evolved since IR became an academic subject around the time of the First World War. The focus is on four established IR traditions: realism, liberalism, International Society, and International Political Economy (IPE). The chapter first considers three major debates that have arisen since IR became an academic subject at the end of the First World War: the first was between utopian liberalism and realism; the second between traditional approaches and behaviouralism; the third between neorealism/neoliberalism and neo-Marxism. There is an emerging fourth debate, that between established traditions and post-positivist alternatives. The chapter concludes with an analysis of alternative approaches that challenge the established traditions of IR, and with a discussion about criteria for good theory in IR.

The Russian language: how to teach it so that it becomes “great and mighty”?

Recognizing the undoubted merits of the modern methodology of teaching the Russian language and the undoubted methodologists’ successes achieved in recent decades, we cannot but realize the need not only not to be satisfied with what has been achieved, but, on the contrary, to do everything in our power to search for answers that correspond to the changes taking place in the country and the world. In everything that concerns the Russian language, it was the time that turned out to be surprising in its social energetics as the exponent of a huge set of problems requiring urgent solution. Just as uncontrolled drifting ice floes converge and collide with each other, so at the end of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st centuries, different layers of issues related to the development of the Russian language, its connections with other languages, interpersonal, interethnic, interethnic and interstate relations collided. Finally, the attitude towards it on the part of the younger generations that have already entered and continue to enter life, including those formed by the academic subject «Russian language». In the article, the author reflects on the meaning of the Russian language, speaks about the methods of teaching it, which are built as methods of teaching a foreign language, and shows that with this approach the language loses its flexibility and liveliness and is filled with formulas and clichés.

1. Studying criminology

This chapter provides an overview of criminology, which is the scientific study of crime. ‘Criminologists’ are generally considered to be the lecturers, scholars, and researchers who create and impart criminological knowledge and understanding to inform the development of academic theories and arguments, and also of policies and practice relating to crime and people who come into conflict with the law. The study of criminology can be divided into three interconnected areas that each contribute to the understanding and knowledge of crime: defining and exploring crime, explaining crime, and responding to crime. We can view these three elements as not only a journey which leads on to research, but also as a triad of criminology. Ultimately, criminologists are interested in the sociological, psychological, legal, policy, and anthropological influences on defining, explaining, and responding to crime. The chapter details what criminology looks like as an academic subject.

Combining Teaching Strategies, Learning Strategies, and Elements of Super Learning Principles

Blending teaching strategies, learning strategies, and elements of super learning principles increase learning outcomes tremendously in any case, situation, or academic subject. Employing teaching and learning strategies adequately impact on an interactive session (academic subjects or any field) to a great degree, enhance learners’ motivation significantly, improve self confidence and self esteem of learners considerably, and soar learning outcomes substiantly. It is impossible to combine all learning and teaching strategies (there are many techniques, and a small space time to incorporate them in one lesson or an academic subject.) in an academic subject entirely. Accordingly, strategic teaching or learning establishes skills or techniques in addressing a lesson or digesting information from the lesson. Also, learning results depend on the quantity and quality of combining learning and teaching strategies, and components of super learning principles. The greater the participation of mixing techniques or skills in a lesson, the greater are the positive results in the learning outcomes. Teaching and learning strategies, and superlearning elements are in a close relationship with each other; teaching strategies imply learning strategies and elements of super learning. Combination of the three ingredients play a crucial part in any lesson, academic subject, or general knowledge; mixing all these three components together wisely maximizes learning outcomes enormously.

Encounters with borders

This article examines (im)obility in the global visa regime through the experiences of a Global South academic working in the Global North. Drawing on an autoethnographic account of a visa application, this article outlines the ways in which the global visa regime negatively affects a Global South academic’s life. Visa regulations constitute a particular Global South academic subject in the Global North, one whose academic career is characterised by uncertainty and anxiety, as visas can limit access to promotions and to fieldwork and research opportunities. Visa experiences can thus contribute to alienation and non-belonging of Global South scholars in academia, while impacting knowledge production and teaching.

Business Ethics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Future Challenges

Over the years, business ethics has become an established discipline, which is taught in many business schools around the globe, often as a mandatory class. But its success reaches far beyond being an academic subject. Throughout the corporate world, and despite undisputable delays, sometimes mere lip service and real setbacks, business ethics, together with its sister enterprises like CSR, Corporate Citizenship, or Compliance, has seen a huge boost in terms of being respected and taken seriously. In spite of the necessary criticism against corporate practices that business ethicists daily raise, one should also not overlook this positive development....

Powerful Learning with Computational Thinking: Our Why, What, and How of Computational Thinking

The Powerful Learning with Computational Thinking report explains how the Digital Promise team works with districts, schools, and teachers to make computational thinking ideas more concrete to practitioners for teaching, design, and assessment. We describe three powerful ways of using computers that integrate well with academic subject matter and align to our goals for students: (1) collecting, analyzing, and communicating data; (2) automating procedures and processes; and (3) using models to understand systems. We also explore our four main commitments to computational thinking at Digital Promise: PreK-8 Integration; Commitment from District Leadership; Inclusive Participation of Students Historically Marginalized From Computing; and Participatory and Iterative Design.