Elisabeth Hovdhaugen

‘Second chance’ routes into higher education: Sweden, Norway and Germany compared

Widening access to higher education is clearly part of the European policy agenda. Higher education ministers in the Bologna countries, as well as the European Commission, have all expressed a wish to make higher education more representative of national populations. This policy objective has been echoed at national level. One approach to widening participation is to provide ‘second chance’ routes into higher education. This is achieved by removing academic success at the secondary school as the determining factor for access to higher education. This paper compares the approaches to providing these second chance routes in Germany, Norway and Sweden. Each of these countries has organized second chance routes in a different manner, according to different principles and with differing obligations for the higher education institutions receiving the applicants. The paper closes with a review of the impact of second chance routes for widening participation and a discussion on the contribution such measures make to more inclusive higher education. The case studies support an expectation that second chance routes, although increasingly widely used, will remain a contested policy measure in the future.

Working While Studying: The Impact of Term-Time Employment on Dropout Rates.

There are many possible reasons why students leave university prior to degree completion, and one of the more commonly cited is being employed while studying. This paper analyses the impact of employment status on dropout rates using survival analysis. It finds that employment status does have an impact on dropout rates; students who work full time alongside studying full time are less likely to complete their programme than students working short part-time or not working at all. However, it seems as if there is a threshold to how much students can work, as working more than 20 h a week (long part-time work) increase the risk of dropout as much as full-time work. Integrating employment status into the analysis does not change the effect of variables known to have an influence on dropout, such as grades, gender and social background, but it contributes to further explain who are at risk of dropout. This implies that models for dropout and retention must also take such external factors into account, not just consider what happens at university, as in model of student departure.

Learning outcomes across disciplinary divides and contrasting national higher education traditions

In many quarters, attempts are underway to identify learning outcomes in higher education which are context-neutral or ‘generic’; such measures could provide new ways to assess and compare outputs from higher education. This paper considers potential challenges in using such broad learning outcomes across contrasting disciplinary and national settings. An empirical contribution is provided by an analysis of data from the international REFLEX survey for Norwegian and English bachelor’s degree graduates. This sheds some light on the relationships between graduates’ broad learning outcomes (general competencies), their national contexts and their disciplinary area. It finds variations in competencies across subjects and countries, suggesting that general competencies of the type often suggested as generic learning outcomes may be unstable and problematic to compare across contrasting settings. It highlights the need for comparative research into variations in learning outcomes and graduate competencies considering disciplinary and national factors.

Dropout and completion in higher education in Europe: main report

Improving completion and reducing dropout in higher education are key concerns for higher education in Europe. This study on dropout and completion in higher education in Europe demonstrates that national governments and higher education institutions use three different study success objectives: completion, time-to-degree and retention. To address these objectives policy makers at national and institutional level apply various policy instruments. These can be categorized under three main policy headings: financial incentives; information and support for students; and organizational issues. The evidence indicates that countries that have more explicit study success objectives, targets and policies are likely to be more successful. Particularly if the policy approach is comprehensive and consistent. As such, it is important that study success is an issue in the information provision to (prospective) students, in financial incentives for students and institutions, in quality assurance, and in the education pathways offered to students. Furthermore, increasing the responsibility of higher education institutions for study success, for example in the area of selecting, matching, tracking, counselling, mentoring and integrating students in academic life is clearly effective. Finally, to support the policy debate and monitoring of study success evidence, there is a need for more systematic international comparative data and thorough analysis of the effectiveness of study success policies

Coping by Copying? Higher Education Institutions' Student Recruitment Strategies.

Growing national and international competition for students puts pressure on higher education institutions (HEIs) to develop marketing and student recruitment strategies; these are also driven by financial stress caused by performance-based funding mechanisms. In this paper we explore Norwegian HEIs’ student recruitment strategies. What type of student recruitment strategies do HEIs develop? How are the strategies linked to the institutions’ student market position? We combine qualitative research strategies including in-depth interviews and document analysis with quantitative analyses of the student market positions of different types of institutions in Norway.

Higher Education in the Nordic Countries : Evaluation of the Nordic agreement on admission to higher education

The Nordic agreement on admission to higher education aims to ensure that in all the Nordic countries applicants to higher education from another Nordic country should be considered for admission o ...

National test results: representation and misrepresentation. Challenges for municipal and local school administration in Norway

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the publication of results from national tests in primary and lower secondary schools by Norwegian national authorities. Test results must be made available to the public, and are published in an aggregated format at school, municipal, county and national levels on a public website. These aggregated test results are meant to provide information on school quality for local government, as well as for school development. However, how the data are presented influences their usability, and this is further affected by the fact that many municipalities and the majority of schools are quite small. Hence, in many instances the information that can be retrieved from aggregated test results at school or municipal level are of little or no value to the users. When presenting the aggregated data to the public, the government should clearly state that the data might not be useful for small schools or small municipalities with regard to analysing their own performance and for quality enhancement.

National Tests in Norway: An Undeclared Standard in Education? Practical and Political Implications of Norm-Referenced Standards

Educational standards were not the official object of national tests, when they were introduced as a tool for quality assessment in Norwegian schools in 2004. As the national curriculum relies on teachers’ professional judgement for setting criteria for student learning, there are no direct links between the standardised tests and the managerial and pedagogical employment of the norm- referenced test results. In this study, we investigate how municipalities and teachers conceptualise and utilise results from national tests. We find that whereas school owners simply set future results from national tests to be above the national mean, many teachers either disregard or do not seem to comprehend the relationship between the norm-referenced test results and the national curriculum. Consequently, teachers seem to under-exploit test results for student learning development, while school owners seem to over-exploit the same results, as the national norm-based mean demonstrates that there is little variance at a local level, nor does it provide explanatory power. Results and teaching have never been linked to through ​authors’ explanation: teaching in Norway has of course been linked to curriculum aims. Our point is that results from national tests have not been “fed back” to teaching linked to these curricular aims. Results and teaching have never been linked through set curricular aims, which is partly a political process. Instead, national tests emerge as an undeclared standard in Norwegian education, causing ambiguous political demands and signs of professional frustration.