This article presents a two-phase study exploring the usage of technology in higher education as well as the role of the general innovativeness in predicting the actual use of technology. During the first phase of the study, which involved 502 staff members, a descriptive analysis of their usage of social media, technological devices, and Microsoft Office 365 cloud services was performed, with various demographic variables being considered. During the second phase, which involved a subsample of 106 staff members, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine a model in which the general innovativeness and the demographic variables acted as predictors of the actualized innovativeness. The results showed that the staff used social media, devices, and cloud services quite satisfactorily. The examination of their user profiles revealed that there were significant differences among the staff members on the basis of their demographic variables, especially their gender, job type, and discipline. The results of the SEM showed that the general innovativeness contributed positively, as was expected, to predicting the adoption of devices, non-academic social networking sites and Office 365 cloud services. The results further suggested that males were early adopters of devices, while academics were early adopters of commercial services and academic social networking sites. However, the academics appeared to lag behind the administrators in terms of adopting Office 365 cloud services. The implications of the study and directions for future research are also presented.

Main purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize the attributes of loose and tight coupling in educational organizations. In addition, it is aimed to determine whether this phenomenon has value and strategies to offer for the current educational administration and research. Integrative literature review, and content analysis, assisted by Atlas.ti software, were used as the methods of this paper. Review data included 32 articles from peer reviewed journals.In the findings, conceptual framework of Continuum of organizational couplings in educational organizations was generated. Elements of the framework include the features of coupling concepts within the continuum, components of couplings, contributory types of organizational couplings, and the elements of leadership and change process with emerging strategies, as well as the element of cultural context. In this paper, elements of continuum of couplings and leadership will be emphasized. Findings of this paper have practical implications for the management and leadership in educational organizations, and for the researchers in the field for future research purposes. In addition, findings have social implications for both teaching staff and administration in educational organizations by highlighting the attributes of loose and tight coupling, and their connections with leadership, change process and cultural context. The paper presents a distinctive synopsis of the educational administration literature, in the context of loose and tight coupling, with the time span of four decades.

Oura Health Ltd.'s provided the surveillance smart rings for the study, but did not participate in the analysis. The manuscript in question is published as a preprint in bioRxiv, but we guarantee that it does not infringe any subsequent copyright or license agreement. 3We would like to thank all study subjects for their participation in the study. We also thank Tuomas Konttajärvi for assistance in measurements and preprocessing of EEG data, Jani Häkli, Annastiina Kivipää, Tarja Holtinkoski, Aleksi Rasila, Taneli Hautaniemi, Miia Lampinen and others who assisted in measurements or otherwise contributed. We are grateful for devices and data provided by Oura. We wish to acknowledge Jussi Kantola for data management and reconstruction of MREG data, the CSC -IT Center for Science Ltd.

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Finland offers a specific example of a country with a broad enrolment in higher education, where the educational starting age is relatively high and where studies may last considerably longer than in most other European countries. This study attempted to identify at-risk students in Finnish universities with the greatest probability of non-completion of studies. This probability is by far the highest in the fields of information technology and information sciences and, in specific cases, in the fields of mathematics and science and economics and management. The situation of at-risk students is best described in terms of the scant use of time for present studies, uncertainty regarding their study field choices and their general intention to withdraw from their studies. An analysis of qualitative case study interviews revealed six general student types, each representing different meanings of studying for slowly advancing at-risk students.

This study explores Finnish university students' engagement and transitions from the first to the second study year. Student engagement is an important perspective for evaluating the success of transitions, both from the individual's and institution's viewpoint, in the early stages of a student's studies. In this study, student engagement has been modelled as an interaction of individual and collective processes related to learning. There is surprisingly little research on the transitions from the first to second year of study and on engagement construction from the first year onwards. The target population in the study was university students from all 13 universities in Finland who started their studies in the autumn of 2012. Altogether, 1176 students responded to the Engagement Evaluation Questionnaire (EEQ) in the springs of 2013 and 2014. The results showed that the intensity of engagement decreases during the second year of study, while the importance of individual elements of engagement, especially academic skills, may increase within the second year. It is noteworthy that there are differences of engagement between professional and generalist disciplinary fields. The probability of weak engagement seems to be more common in generalist fields. Most worryingly, those in the weakly engaging group from the first year of study onwards seem to remain in the group quite permanently, and the probability of belonging to the group even increases in the second academic year.

In the description of the complex relationship between individual students and their education context, as well as understanding of questions related to progression, retention or dropouts in higher education, student engagement is considered the primary construct. In particular, the significance of the first year of higher education in terms of engagement is decisive. We aim at developing a multidimensional conceptualization of engagement and utilized network analysis. Data were collected as part of the annual Student Barometer survey in Finland during the 2012–2013 academic year, and we gathered a nationally representative sample ( n = 2422) of first-year students in different disciplines at 13 Finnish universities. Network analysis confirmed the multidimensional process model of engagement and its six dimensions. The central dimensions of engagement are identity and sense of belonging, which develop in the interplay between individual and collective dimensions as a long-term process. Additional network analyses with covariates identified positive and negative factors that affect engagement. The study adds new perspectives to existing knowledge of engagement. It is important to understand the process-like nature of engagement and make visible factors affecting the process. Based on these findings, we provide novel practical recommendations for interventions for university students who struggle with engagement during their first year.