Institute of Education

Publications

• Book

  Mehrotra S. K., Singh A. P.

  Reconfiguring India’s Qualifications Architecture: TVET Reform from the National Skills Qualification Framework to the National Credit Framework

  Under what institutional conditions do qualifications frameworks become trusted mechanisms for progression, mobility, and labour-market signalling? This paper starts with this question, and then examines the evolution of India’s qualifications architecture through the trajectory of the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) and the emergence of the National Credit Framework (NCrF). More specifically, it addresses the question: why did the NSQF fall short of becoming a trusted qualifications framework, and to what extent can the NCrF overcome these limitations to create an integrated and credible qualifications system? The NSQF, introduced in 2013 as a learningoutcomes-based framework, sought to improve progression, portability, and comparability across education and training. However, its implementation became concentrated on short-duration skilling programmes and fragmented institutional arrangements, resulting in weak assessment credibility, limited labour-market recognition, and constrained learner progression. Drawing on policy documents, implementation evidence, and comparative institutional analysis, the paper argues that these shortcomings were structural rather than technical: qualifications frameworks cannot generate trust or mobility without robust institutions for assessment, certification, quality assurance, and recognition. Against this backdrop, the NCrF (2023), introduced under the National Education Policy 2020, represents a second-generation reform. By integrating school education, higher education, technical and vocational education and training (TVET), and experiential learning within a unified credit architecture, it has become the organising framework of India’s qualifications system. The paper shows that India has effectively moved from a single-framework model centred on the NSQF to a more complex architecture incorporating the NHEQF, NSEQF, and NCrF. It further argues that the alignment of the NSQF and NCrF has transformed India’s qualifications structure from what is commonly described as an eight-level framework into a 13-level progression system through the introduction of intermediary levels between Levels 2 and 7, with important implications for progression, comparability, and learner mobility. Drawing on international experience, the paper concludes that successful qualifications reform depends less on framework design than on trusted certification, visible progression pathways, and employer recognition. India’s next phase of reform must therefore shift from training expansion to assessment-based trust, progression-oriented qualifications, and stronger integration with domestic and international labour markets.

  Vol. 18709. IZA Discussion Paper, 2026.

• Article

  Kutuzov A., Богданова А. В.

  Beyond activity counts: object-mediated participation in project-based learning is associated with outcomes at different levels of analysis

  Learning analytics of collaborative project-based learning still relies largely on activity counts and final products, which register the fact of digital activity but not the structure of collaborative participation. This study proposes an object-mediated, multi-platform approach that reconstructs joint work from digital traces as a network of ties between students and shared project artifacts, and relates the structure of digital participation to educational outcomes. Drawing on engineering project-based learning at the Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics, HSE University (14,289 digital events from GitLab, Wekan and Trello, 614 student–project pairs in 251 projects), we computed volume, configuration, network-position and temporal measures of participation and estimated their associations with first-attempt project grades using rank correlations with cluster-bootstrap confidence intervals, effect sizes, multilevel decomposition and hierarchical regression. Only students with at least one observed event could be included: 838 of 1,452 eligible pairs (57.7%) left no observable trace, and observed and non-observed pairs did not differ in grade. Associations are small throughout. Activity volume is weakly associated with outcomes (ρ = +0.22), as is a student’s relative embeddedness within the team once within-project ranks are placed on a common scale (ρ = +0.16). The clearest pattern is categorical rather than graded: students who left events alongside observable teammates yet shared no artifact with any of them scored markedly lower (δ = −0.34), and this indicator is stable across pooled, mixed-effects and ordinal specifications, whereas gradations among connected students add little. A less closed structural position is associated with higher grades independently of activity volume (Burt constraint ρ = −0.190), and continued expansion of a student’s circle of shared objects is associated with higher outcomes within teams. Temporal organisation contributed no incremental variance between projects but did so within them, and its direction depends on the anchor used to close the project window. The approach offers a diagnostic vocabulary for collaboration and prompts for formative enquiry rather than an instrument for grading.

  Frontiers in Computer Science. 2026. No. 8.

• Book chapter

  Koroleva D., Jogezai N.

  Navigating the Blessing–Curse Paradox: An Ecological Perspective of Cultivating a Culture of Responsible Generative AI Use in Higher Education

  The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative artificial intelligence (GAI), has positioned educational institutions and individual learners at the crossroads of opportunity and risk, highlighting both significant benefits and potential drawbacks. In this context, fostering a culture of responsible and meaningful GAI use has become essential for leveraging its advantages while mitigating associated challenges. This chapter presents the results of two phenomenological qualitative studies that explore this cultural dimension. Study one examined Russian university professors' perspectives on the articulation of individual and organizational GAI standards, while Study two investigated the views of Russian educational managers, aiming to provide a balanced assessment of guidelines at both levels. Employing semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, the findings illuminate how individual or microsystem, and organizational, or mesosystem interactions and tensions shape the development of guidelines and practices that promote a responsible approach to GAI use in higher education. At the microsystem level, individual faculty seek awareness, autonomy, and ethical engagement with GAI, while at the mesosystem level, organizational structures, guidelines, and policies mediate these efforts, negotiating the balance between individual practices and institutional support and accountability. The results highlight that responsible GAI governance emerges not as a set of static rules but through ongoing interactions between individual agency and organizational frameworks. Future research can incorporate observational data, longitudinal designs, or cross-cultural comparisons to further validate and extend these insights.

  In bk.: GenAIED: Cultural and Pedagogical Catalysts in Higher Education. L.: Routledge, 2027. Ch. 16. P. 247-272.

• Working paper

  Antipkina I., Ivanov A., Guzhelya D.

  Explicit continuum scale format reduces the ceiling effect in self-report questionnaires comparing to Likert response format

  This study presents a methodology for developing a new questionnaire format called explicit continuum scenario scales, in the example of a client focus questionnaire. Elements of the Rasch Guttman scenario scale methodology were used in its development. In three consequent studies, different aspects of the scale functioning were investigated. In Study 1, on the sample of 100 respondents, it was shown that the explicit continuum scale produces reliable results and helps avoid the ceiling effect shown in the Likert response format version of the client focus questionnaire. In Study 2, the scale was administered in a competition environment, in a sample of 735 people. Despite the positive shift of scores, the instrument shows excellent psychometric characteristics and still resists the ceiling effect. In Study 3, new items were included, and the scale was presented in an interactive format. In the sample of 65,000 university students, it demonstrated the robustness of its psychometrics characteristics including dimensionality. The results of the three studies show that the explicit continuum format has the advantage of the stable dimensionality similar to the expanded format and is promising for measurement in social sciences.

  Basic research program. WP BRP. National Research University Higher School of Economics, 2024