Good academic writing means sitting with a discomfort that never entirely goes away. It’s not a discomfort that comes from having nothing to say. Most of us have more than enough ideas crowding the page. Not that. This discomfort is something more unsettling. The discomfort I am talking about is not the discomfort of avoidance, […] … learn more→

In France, the expansion of higher education has contributed to a kind of race against time in academic pathways, intensifying the influence of the initial degree on careers. How can we reduce this irreversibility of trajectories and propose a new pact for the democratization of higher education? An examination of public policy over the past […] … learn more→

● Social norms and expectations drive low female participation in STEM fields. ● It’s not a matter of lost talent, but a series of processes that make it difficult for women to participate. ● The solution cannot be partial—it requires planning of the structure, rules of the game, mechanisms, and operational procedures. The low participation […] … learn more→

In recent years, the hemp industry has grown rapidly, but not all products on the market meet the same quality standards. Reports of contaminated vape products and mislabeled cannabinoid content have made many adults more cautious about what they inhale. Because vape cartridges are heated and inhaled directly into the lungs, concerns about purity and […] … learn more→

It’s getting tougher to assess how much university students have learnt. In his work as a Mathematical Statistics lecturer, Michael von Maltitz has tried a new way of getting students to learn, and of assessing what they’ve absorbed and retained. Students have to show and discuss how they arrived at their understanding of the subject. They can’t […] … learn more→

Imagine a doctoral researcher finishing their introduction. They’ve carefully crafted the opening pages that situate their research question in the existing literature. Then they turn to write the abstract and, faced with the daunting task of condensing everything into 250 words, they simply lift sentences wholesale from what they’ve just written. The abstract becomes a […] … learn more→

University can be a time of great opportunities, but it can also be very stressful. Many students need to support themselves financially and may be living away from home. Students are also under constant deadlines and, if in their final years, need to prepare for life and work after uni. My colleagues and I research […] … learn more→

Is it time to get rid of group assignments at university? Federal Opposition education spokesperson Julian Leeser thinks so. On Thursday, he called for universities to drop group assessments entirely, arguing they are fundamentally “unfair” and “cheapen” degrees. In a speech to the Universities Australia conference in Canberra, Leeser said: Students feel, instinctively, that in […] … learn more→

In graduate school, my experimental archaeology professor told a student to create a door socket – the hole in a door frame that a bolt slides into – in a slab of sandstone by pecking at it with a rounded stone. After a couple of weeks, the student presented his results to the class. “I […] … learn more→

There’s a common assumption that if someone starts learning a language when they are very young, they will quickly become fluent. Many people also assume that it will become much harder to learn a language if they start later in life. Research into language learning shows that how old someone is when they learn a language does matter, […] … learn more→