Bringing our communities to the research table: the liberatory potential of collaborative methodological practices alongside LGBTQ participants

Research on and about queer people and topics in higher education continues to evolve, expand, and push boundaries on identity, policy, and programming, increasingly informed by our narratives and experiences. Thus far, this work has done little to dismantle the imposed binary of researcher and subject(s), relegating queer research and practice as something that is done ‘on,’ ‘to,’ or ‘for’ queer people, rather than ‘with’ them. Collaborative ethnographic methodologies and communities of practice (CoP) provide alternative modes of scholarship and practice that build queer people’s agency through active involvement in research and social change processes. Situated in two of our own examples, our purpose is to explore big questions and raise even more. This article calls for a further queering of LGBTQ research in higher education by utilizing collaborative methodologies such as CoP and collaborative ethnography to improve the strategies, practices, and knowledge of campus queer communities and imagining new democratic and liberatory realities together.     

Designing interdisciplinary instruction: exploring disciplinary and conceptual differences as a resource

This article presents a “telling case” of an interdisciplinary, team-teaching experience that explores how participants eschewed ethnocentricism of their fields of study in order to learn from each other, while providing instruction to students and analysing data collected from the class (a graduate course on literature and pedagogy). Through the process, the participants (a professor of English education and a professor of literature) ground the perspectives of literary interpretation in their field of study and languaculture, and developed a conceptual framework that guided their interactions and analysis of the discursive actions of the class. An ethnographic perspective served as the conceptual frame and informed how the participants observed, described, and developed claims about classroom interactions. Through this study, the participants answer calls for more examples of how faculty in higher education engage in interdisciplinary teaching and research and the need for faculty to develop conceptual ethnographic frameworks for their collaborations.     

Excellence in doctoral supervision: an examination of authoritative sources across four countries in search of performance higher than competence

Supervision is generally recognised as playing a crucial role in the quality of a research student’s doctoral experience and their academic outcomes and, in common with most areas of higher education, there is an oft-stated desire to pursue excellence in this important area. Excellence in research degree supervision is, however, an elusive concept and on close scrutiny most of the discussions of high-quality supervision, even those that purport to be identifying excellence, refer to competence rather than excellence. This paper examines two potentially national authoritative perspectives from which excellence in research degree supervision might be explicated (codes of practice and learning and teaching awards) from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom but concludes that the complex nature of the activity and the complexity of the concept itself mean that rather than identifying excellence in supervision we can only respond to claims for excellence.     

Knowing through reflective practice in higher education

This article explores the use of reflective practice statements as sources of data. Under certain conditions reflective practice statements can be interpreted as providing insight into the underlying mechanisms at work in organisations. The article presents an analysis of reflective practice statements produced by lecturers in higher education who have participated in a course for research supervisors. Reflective practice in higher education has not yet become institutionalised as a form of professional socialisation and the article argues that participants were actively engaged in meaning making. Such statements can be seen as productive of real insight. The data is analysed in terms of the craft skills involved in supervision, the contradictions of maintaining a sense of expertise in modern universities, the significance of emotion at work and in terms of institutional power relationships. The article concludes that properly contextualised reflective practice can produce knowledge of the mechanisms at work in the contemporary academy.     

Public domain or private data? Developing an ethical approach to social media research in an inter-disciplinary project

This paper discusses the ethical issues faced in undertaking research about the role of learning in the subjective experience of chronic illness, where data were taken from social media. Drawing on psychology and education, this paper discusses the ways in which authors from these disciplines are laying the groundwork for legitimate online research by actively debating the public versus private nature of online spaces. The paper explains how this debate informed the development of an ethical approach to research. Relevant ethical guidelines and previous research are used to support the argument that individuals’ informed consent is not necessary in online contexts where data exist within the public domain, and where risk of harm to users is low. This paper provides an insight into one educational researcher's journey through the process of doing ethical social media research, and suggests ways forward for others embarking upon that same journey.     

Mapping the Pleasures and Risks of Supervision

Good supervision is central to successful graduate research, yet it is a pedagogy that is poorly understood. This may be one reason why it is often experienced as problematic, especially by students. To address these concerns, in this paper I delineate a map of supervision which is informed by contemporary theories of education. As I describe the layers of the map, I will attempt to show traces of each layer in some texts from the supervision of a master's student. The fruit of my analysis is a view of supervision as a complex and unstable process, one filled with pleasures and risks. This view is potentially useful for informing the practices of supervisors, students and the academic advisors who work with them.     

Improving lecturers' assessment practice in higher education: a problem-based approach

This article reports on a project based on the authors' concerns about assessment practice in higher education in the United Kingdom. These concerns stem from their experience as university lecturers, and from knowledge of research evidence and policy issues relating to assessment in higher education. Given the complex nature of higher education, improvement rather than mere change in assessment procedures will require the full participation of people who possess intimate day-to-day contextual knowledge, including an understanding of those aspects of the situation which are not easily measurable or even readily observable. The article details (a) a Popperian problem-based approach to action research designed to facilitate improvements in higher education assessment practice, and (b) how this methodology was adopted, tested and developed at the University of Sunderland. The authors’ aim is to encourage colleagues in other higher education institutions to adopt and further test this methodology in subsequent research.[1]     

高职学院国际化办学途径探索

高职院校积极研究和探索走国际化办学之路,这已成为高职教育的一大发展趋势。高职教育国际化时间还不长,经验也不够丰富,加大对其国际化途径的研究,具有一定现实意义。本文从教育理念和培养目标、人才培养模式、师资队伍和管理队伍、课程体系等四方面,探索高职院校国际化办学途径,力求找到具有一定参考价值的办学思路。     

The ‘post‐post period’ and environmental education research

Described as ‘postexperimental’ and of the ‘post‐post period,’ the current moment in social science research is typified by multivoiced texts, researcher reflexivity, cultural criticism, and experimental works; characteristics in keeping with poststructurally informed understandings of social science research as contingent, evolving and messy. However, many researchers concerned with environmental education continue within positivistic or postpositivistic traditions, relying on understandings of reality as something that is out there to be discovered or approximated. This article explores the methodological considerations of post‐informed research, seeking to contribute to discussions of how environmental education research might better take issues of representation, legitimation, and politics into account.     

Framing the benefits of higher education participation from the perspective of non-completers

ABSTRACT

Ensuring that students of all backgrounds are smoothly transitioned through the stages of access, participation and completion in higher education has been the focus of much public policy and research in recent decades. Subsequently, public policy discourse treats those who do not complete their higher education degrees as unsuccessful, despite a lack of research considering the beneficial outcomes of non-completing students. Evidence of beneficial outcomes of higher education participation without completion has potential to challenge the deficit-centric discourse of completion dependent on a binary view of success and failure. This article details a critical discourse analysis of responses to a 2017 survey of university non-completers asked ‘were there any benefits from the time you spent doing an [sic] incomplete degree?’. This study finds that non-completers experience a wide range of benefits from incomplete studies despite the dominant discourse discounting their experiences as unsuccessful. Additionally, this study presents a critique of framing surveys of non-completing students within the normative bounds of success as completion in higher education, and instead calls for a more nuanced construction of success in higher education.     

Assessment innovation and student experience: a new assessment challenge and call for a multi-perspective approach to assessment research

The impact of innovative assessment on student experience in higher education is a neglected research topic. This represents an important gap in the literature-given debate around the marketisation of higher education, international focus on student satisfaction measurement tools and political calls to put students at the heart of higher education in the UK. This paper reports on qualitative findings from a research project examining the impact of assessment preferences and familiarity on student attainment and experience. It argues that innovation is defined by the student, shaped by diverse assessment experiences and preferences, and therefore its impact is difficult to predict. It proposes that future innovations must explore assessment choice mechanisms which allow students to shape their own assessments. Cultural change and staff development will be required to achieve this. To be accepted, assessment for student experience must be viewed as a complementary layer within a complex multi-perspective model of assessment, which also embraces assessment of learning, assessment for learning and assessment for lifelong learning. Further research is required to build a meta-theory of assessment to enhance the synergies between these alternative approaches and minimise the tensions between them.     

Education as Citizenship: Appropriating a new social space

This article presents a reflection on teaching and curriculum which promotes citizenship education and raises the issue of the purpose of higher education. I embrace a concept of education as action and reflection upon a world in order to change it - or as bell hooks calls it, education as a practice of freedom. I argue for the need to conceptualise students first as citizens, then as employable graduates. My experience involved a shift in focus from what is taught and an emphasis on examinations and essays, to how and what students learn and the process of learning. The article argues, however, that teaching and learning which attempts to balance tensions between values of the market-place and values of education as a practice of citizenship requires more than better teaching and assessment: it requires broader institutional support to be truly effective.     

Postgraduate supervision: E-mail as an alternative

Abstract

Supervisors at higher education institutions cannot ignore the possibilities created by technology, and for the sake of this article, e-mail, as an aid for supervision on postgraduate level. After completing the modules for the Magister Technologiae (M Tech): Education qualification, students are required to complete a dissertation of limited scope. Many of these students cannot visit their supervisors on a regular basis, because of the time and costs involved in travelling far distances. The only time when some academics meet the students is when they attend the workshops on proposal writing. In this article the authors argue that e-mail supported supervision should be considered as an alternative to traditional one-on-one supervision. The research on which this article is based followed a qualitative design. Data were collected by means of open-ended questionnaires which were sent by e-mail to the participants and their responses were e-mailed back to the authors. The findings indicate the satisfaction of the students with e-mail supervision which enabled them to complete their studies in the prescribed time. The use of e-mail in supervision was found to create opportunities for further study even on postgraduate level.     

对家长参与教育督导工作的认识与改进

在基础教育阶段,家长参与教育督导具有必然性,这为区域教育督导工作的改进提供了一个新的增长点。文章认为:学生家长参与教育督导工作,强调评估过程与结果的开放,有利于体现教育督导活动的社会性,促进政府行政行为、学校办学行为和社会教育需求三方的整体聚合,深化区域学校发展性教育督导实践。为此,坚持理论研究与实践探索相结合,在对家长参与教育督导工作进行理性分析的基础上,有针对性地总结以英国为代表的国外经验,分析上海浦东新区学校发展性教育督导中的相关做法,并对完善家长参与教育督导机制提出改进建议。     

Active Learning and Teaching through Digital Technology and Live Performance: ‘Choreographic Thinking’ as Art Practice in the Tertiary Sector

This article is an interdisciplinary reflective response to an intensive studio learning and teaching experience involving artists, academics and postgraduate students. The authors of this article teach, research and practise in coding, digital design, dance, and virtual and live performance. As lecturers and students we reflect upon and propose future approaches to art practice in tertiary education informed by live performance, performance capture and studio‐based responses to digital and virtual platforms. We reflect on an innovative contribution to the field of research–teaching nexus as informed by digital and virtual data capture identifying the key element of immediacy in live performance and choreographic improvisation with systems. We reflect on practice‐based inquiry via the Choreographic Coding Lab (CCL) model – a dialogical negotiation between capture technology and interdisciplinary artists in industry and academia. How can we encourage potential studio inquiry as an adapted model in tertiary learning and teaching? Our interdisciplinary voices, presented as authors’ reflections, provide suggestions for future studio‐based, active learning contexts.     

民办高校督导制度的建立与完善

当前我国民办高等教育发展进入了一个新阶段,在取得显著成绩的同时,也出现了许多新情况、新问题。民办高校督导制度正是在民办高等教育发展的特定阶段和特殊背景下,政府为加强民办高校规范管理而推出的一项新型的教育管理制度。实践表明,该制度的实施已取得一定成效,但其在设计和运行中仍存在一些问题和矛盾。本文在调查研究的基础上,对相关问题进行了思考和分析,并结合实际,就如何改进和完善民办高校督导制度提出了若干对策建议。     

The (d)(t)oxic lifeworld of early career postgraduate supervisors

In the context of higher education as social space or field in the Bourdieusian sense, exploring the lived experiences of early career postgraduate supervisors allow us to (re)consider the institutionalised rhythms, procedures and practices that shape graduate supervision. At the intersections of, inter alia, increasing numbers postgraduate students, the urgent need to transform SA higher education, and the need for appropriately qualified and experienced supervisors, many early career postgraduate supervisors are caught between understanding the doxa and orthodoxy shaping postgraduate supervision, and the necessary symbolic capital to formulate, engage with and practice heterodoxy. This article employs Bourdieu’s doxic schema (doxa, orthodoxy and heterodoxy) along with symbolic capital to make visible the doxic lifeworld experiences and journeys of early career supervisors. The research found that early career supervisors are often under-prepared, lacking symbolic capital and experiencing (toxic) shame.     

Internationalising the content of higher education: the need for a curriculum perspective

Internationalisation of higher education is a strategic theme in current research on higher education and policy debate. Both at national and institutional levels, in many countries, internationalisation is stated to be an educational goal. However, the dominant discourse on internationalisation of higher education in research and research-based discussions tends to be framed by political, economic and organisational perspectives, rather than informed by educational considerations. There is also a tendency to place internationalisation in higher education within the conceptual frame of economic globalisation and the increasing trade in educational services worldwide. While such discussions may shed light on various organisational, political or economic issues, this research does not give a pedagogical basis for the internationalisation of higher education in terms of teaching and learning. In particular, questions relating to the internationalisation of content and learning outcomes need to be addressed. A series of studies conducted in Sweden 1999–2007 by the authors indicates that the didactical realisation of internationalisation as an educational goal can be very elusive. In our findings, the concrete content considered by teachers and students to represent internationalisation did not follow any clear pattern or goal. Internationalisation was assumed to be represented by some form of ‘general knowledge’ and general human qualities, without considering cultural differences. Institutionalised curriculum thinking as a basis for developing internationalisation was lacking. Concrete thinking was very much restricted to organisational and administrative aspects, and thoughts concerning content and learning outcomes tended to be expressed in idealised and general terms, rather than developed into clarifying and useful specifications underpinned by curriculum theory. Certain consequences ensuing from this situation are discussed, and a curriculum approach to internationalisation of higher education is suggested.     

Surpassing Our Own Histories: autobiographical methods for environmental education research

In this article I appraise selected examples of the research on significant life experiences reported and discussed in a recent special issue of this journal by comparing the ways in which these studies use (and justify the use of) retrospective accounts of experience with autobiographical approaches to curriculum inquiry that have been informed by phenomenology and hermeneutics. I argue that the conservative and socially reproductive logic of significant life experiences research invites environmental educators to repeat rather than to improve upon their own histories and that, if we are to use autobiographical methods in environmental education research, we should try to do so in a way that generates new possibilities for educational experience, rather than merely replicates the experiences of a previous generation.     

Constructing an academic identity in Australia: an autoethnographic narrative

This paper examines the process of academic identity construction experienced by a Chinese PhD student in an Australian university from 2010 to 2014. The researcher draws on his diaries written in Australia and uses some stories of the relationships with his supervisors and other scholars to unfold the process of his academic identity construction in a host academic community. Two years on, the researcher reflects on the challenges confronted during his candidature, exploring the Australian PhD education system from within. This study will help educators and supervisors to understand an international higher degree research student’s gradual academic identity construction as a cultural Other in the context of globalized higher education systems, and it will contribute to the mutual understanding between supervisors and international research students, as well as supervisors’ professional supervision in a globalized higher education context.