Higher Education at MDU – Research and Development
Research in Higher Education aims to generate insights into higher education teaching and learning by studying the interactions, institutions, policies, norms, values, structures, and human attributes that shape educational processes and outcomes.
This can include but is not limited to the development of explanatory theories and models, practical models for professional judgement and action, or studies of patterns and relations between relevant phenomena on both individual and group level.
As the research contributes to more generic, systematic, reflective, and public discourse about, inter alia, students’ learning processes, institutional conditions for teaching and learning, or pedagogical leadership, the research can underpin higher education development initiatives. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is strengthened and developed in interaction with this research.
The focus for the research group in higher education at Mälardalen University (HEM) is pedagogical work in the context of professional degree programmes with explicit awareness of the social justice and citizenship education dimensions. We understand pedagogical work to address educational purposes, knowledge development and circulation, curriculum issues, and university-pedagogical practice.
This focus correlates well with the existing vision and programmes of MDU, while addressing the need for more research on applied and interdisciplinary teaching and learning in higher education.
The work falls within four main, non-disjunctive themes.
Negotiating global challenges within higher education
Professional education takes place within the context of a rapidly changing professional landscape, where professionals need to be prepared to respond to a multitude of global substantial threats or crises where solutions within dominant paradigms are not evident.
Read more about Negotiating global challenges within higher educationPreparing professionals for social transformation triggered by the use and development of AI applications
The rapid development of AI, especially generative AI in the form of deep learning neural networks and Large Language Models, with broad applications across society, places great demands on higher education institutions.
Read more about Preparing professionals for social transformation triggered by the use and development of AI applicationsHigher education, practice, and development
Research on teaching within professional programmes is limited, yet crucial for both quality learning in general and for issues of accessibility in particular.
Read more about Higher education, practice, and developmentProgramme-specific research projects
At MDU, we engage in the study of higher education learning and teaching within professional degree programmes, in particular teacher education, engineering education, and health educatio
Read more about Programme-specific research projectsHigher Education Teaching and Learning
Read more about Higher Education Teaching and Learning at MDU
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