The National Renewal Conference: A Forum for the Discussion of Issues of Faculty Vitality and Renewal

A series of national conferences focusing on faculty renewal is described in this paper. These conferences were attended by over 450 faculty members, faculty development professionals, and academic administrators representing 188 institutions and higher education organizations in 39 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, and the Virgin Islands. The programs of these conferences demonstrate that a wide range of activities promoting faculty renewal are ongoing in a variety of institutional settings throughout the country and examination of the conference programs and participants provides additional insight into the topic of faculty renewal in higher education.William K. Jackson is associate director of the Office of Instructional Development at the University of Georgia and a founding co-chair of the National Renewal Conferences. He holds graduate degrees in physics and educational administration (higher education) from the University of South Carolina and has served as an academic administrator at both a private liberal arts college and a public research university. He currently co-directs a FIPSE-funded Senior Teaching Fellows program at UGA.     

The smiling philosopher: Emotional labor,gender, and harassment in conference spaces

Abstract

Conference environments enable diverse roles for academics. However, conferences are hardly entered into by participants as equals. Academics enter into and experience professional environments differently according to culture, gender, race, ethnicity, class, and more. This paper considers from a philosophical perspective entering and initiating culturally into academic conferences as a woman. It discusses theories of gender and emotional labor and emotional management, focusing on Arlie Hochschild’s foundational work, and affect in gendered social relations, considering Sara Ahmed’s theorization of the feminist killjoy and the affect alien. It applies these lenses to explore problematic experiences of women initiates at conferences. The paper proceeds with a theoretical discussion of gender, emotional labor, and affect. Then the paper discusses women academics’ experiences generally and at conferences, including educational research conferences, with reference to relevant higher education research as well as anecdotal evidence, relating these experiences to the theories. It thus aims to tie together theoretical insights, higher education scholarship, and ordinary real-life experiences of gendered social relations in conference activities.     

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]     

One decade of environmental education research in Brazil: trajectories and trends in three national scientific conferences (ANPEd,ANPPAS and EPEA)

Abstract

This article discusses the scientific research work on environmental education presented during the last decade in three Brazilian conferences: the meetings of the National Association of Graduate Research on Education (Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Educação, ANPEd), the National Association of Graduate Research on Environment and Society (Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Ambiente e Sociedade, ANPPAS), and the Environmental Education Research Meetings (Encontros de Pesquisa em Educação Ambiental, EPEA). It analyzes the authors, institutions, and regions whence the studies came from, as well as their main research subjects. Our findings indicate the prevalence of women in all academic degree segments; of PhD holders and candidates; of professors in public higher education institutions located in the Brazilian Southwest and South regions; and of environmental education in formal teaching as the main subject in all three conferences. Based on these results, we discuss how this body of research relates to the development of Brazilian academic and educational policies, and indicate some of the challenges involved in building a research tradition in this field, in close dialogue with the arduous political and pedagogical path of environmental education in Brazilian schools.     

Do Returnee Faculty Promote the Internationalization of Higher Education? A Study Based on the “2014 Faculty Survey in China”

Abstract

Based on data from the “2014 Chinese University Faculty Survey,” this article analyzes the distribution characteristics and manifestations of internationalization from returnee faculty to Chinese colleges as well as their impacts on the internationalization of higher education in the three dimensions of scientific research output, teaching content and methods, and international exchanges. Compared to local teachers, returnee faculty members adjust their research output strategies to reach a higher level of internationalization. They favor publishing papers in international journals and publish fewer domestic papers and make fewer domestic patent applications. They focus on international perspectives and content in their course teaching content and methods. In terms of international exchanges, they participate in international academic conferences and travel abroad more often for advanced studies. Their experiences studying overseas accumulate their comparative advantage in the internationalization of the academic profession. Higher education institutions should make them play larger roles in promoting the internationalization of scientific research and teaching as well as international academic exchanges to improve the level of internationalization of Chinese higher education.     

Women’s participation in academic conferences in Israel

This article examines the participation of women in academic conferences in Israel, a country in which women are under-represented in academia vertically and horizontally. Data were retrieved from announcements of academic conferences in Israel, for one academic year, covering 56 conferences that attracted 997 participations. Participation was measured according to a three-level vertical hierarchy and a three-level horizontal divide that was based on academic discipline. Statistical z-tests and χ² tests were conducted to compare the proportions of male and female participation. Findings show that male participation in conferences was three times that of women. It was also found that the conferences reflected the social agenda in Israel. It is suggested that women are subjected to two forms of gender marginality, one stemming from the gendered division of labour and the other from the characteristics of the academic conferences that reflect the masculine military social agenda in Israel.     

Presidential Address: The academic discipline of education. Reciprocal relationships between practical knowledge and academic knowledge

This article explores the nature of education as a vital part of human knowledge. The argument that is presented addresses the critique of education as having epistemological weaknesses as an academic discipline. The argument is framed by scholarship that has categorised the discipline of education as derived from three main traditions of knowledge. In order to explore the coherence of education as a discipline, contrasts are made with other disciplines such as mathematics and sciences. The article also reviews scholarship in relation to the concept of education research that is close-to-practice, and the relevance of this to understanding education as an academic discipline. The article concludes by suggesting a new model that shows the relationships between practical knowledge and academic knowledge that are an intrinsic part of education. A more confident portrayal of education as an academic discipline is also advocated.     

Longitudinal study of stages of beginning teacher development in a field‐based teacher education program

Abstract

Field‐based teacher education programs are part of a growing trend in education to provide long‐term classroom teaching experience and acculturation to the school environment as part of the certification process. This article reports on a study of stages of teacher development across ½ years of full‐time teaching as teacher candidates work to complete coursework in fulfillment of a masters of education program. Beginning teachers completed a Teachers Concerns Checklist at six points in the program. Factor analysis and ANOVA were utilized to develop a chronology of stages across these years to inform programmatic development. Findings suggest reduced concerns for classroom management as full‐time teaching begins and increased concerns for delivery of instruction as teachers are immersed in full‐time teaching. Strong concerns for professional development emerge only after a full year of teaching. Implications for the academic program, supervision, and future research are discussed     

Academic entrepreneurship (re)defined: significance and implications for the scholarship of higher education

Over the past several decades higher education scholars have conducted a significant amount of research aimed at understanding the implications of enhanced interactions between the academy and the private marketplace. Accordingly, a voluminous literature that includes conceptualizations and discussions of academic entrepreneurship has emerged. This paper used content analysis to examine how researchers have conceptualized entrepreneurship in five leading higher education journals. The analysis revealed notable patterns in the application of theoretical and conceptual frameworks of entrepreneurship to higher education phenomena, as well as observable distinctions in how entrepreneurial models are applied in specific organizational, institutional, and geographical contexts. Results suggest that there is a paucity of attention paid to the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of entrepreneurship within higher education scholarship. We introduce a framework for strengthening the application of entrepreneurial models to higher education research that is grounded in the theoretical constructs of entrepreneurship as articulated in the economic and management literatures.     

Are online communities for young people an issue for education researchers? A literature review of Swedish and international studies within the educational field

Issues concerning children and young people are of interest for the educational field as question about fostering, up-bringing, learning and socialisation are core topics for academic researchers in education. Today many young people in Sweden and around the world spend an increasing amount of their time in online communities or social networking sites. This article aims to investigate whether it also is highlighted by the education researchers. Is it an area to which educational researchers currently contribute? The goal for this article is to present research that is done regarding these issues. My findings show that few academic studies deal with youth and their online environments. Foremost is the research about Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in formal learning situations: in higher education, in schools and classrooms, among professional groups such as teachers and about more general computer use rather than on questions about the fostering or up-bringing of children online. This study implies that online activities for children and young people is a topic currently lying outside the educational research field, resulting in a discussion on why that can be. My work consisted of three parts: a manual search in Swedish research journals at a university library and by searching one Swedish (Libris) and one international (ISI Web of Science) online database. This activity took place in 2009 and covered research conducted between 2003 and 2008. I conclude that this area is one where educational expertise is lacking; hence further research is strongly required.     

The rhetoric and reality of technology-enhanced learning developments in UK higher education: reflections on recent UCISA research findings (2012–2016)

This article reviews the investment that UK higher education institutions have made in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) services in recent years, and considers the impact this has had on academic practice. Drawing on UCISA survey and case study research, our analysis shows that whilst the range of centrally supported TEL tools and services in support of teaching and learning has increased across the sector, evidence of transformational change in pedagogic practice through their use has been harder to discern. We observe an increasing number of TEL systems that instructors are being encouraged to engage with as part of their academic practice; however, there have been limited changes in the mode of course delivery, with content-focused and supplementary uses of the web still very much in vogue. The evidence suggests a gap between the institutional rhetoric on TEL developments and the reality of academic practice across the sector. Using Barnett’s “conditions of flexibility” as a frame of reference [Barnett, R. (2014). Conditions of flexibility: Securing a more responsive higher education system. York: The Higher Education Academy. Retrieved from https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/conditions_of_flexibility_securing_a_more_responsive_higher_education_system.pdf], the article discusses the factors behind this mismatch, exploring how a balanced institutional focus on service development and academic support may be needed to foster transformative and sustainable changes in the way that TEL tools are employed in course design and delivery.     

Fixing higher education through technology: Canadian media coverage of massive open online courses

The popularization of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been shrouded in promises of disruption and radical change in education. In Canada, official partnerships struck by higher education institutions with platform providers such as Coursera, Udacity and edX were publicized by dailies and professional magazines. This print coverage of MOOCs captures the contemporary ideological struggle over the meaning of both technology and higher education. By means of a thematic analysis of the English Canadian print coverage of MOOCs (2012–2014), this paper shows that both online educational technologies and higher education are constructed through an economic frame. However, this frame does not go unchallenged. Where newspapers construct MOOCs as an easy fix for an allegedly inefficient and outdated higher education system, professional magazines question the relationship between technology, higher education and money. These different representations point to the efforts of academic communities to develop alternative social imaginaries of education as public good within a dominant neoliberal framing of MOOCs and of the higher education system. In conclusion, the paper reflects on how the academic community can create alternative discursive spaces by shifting the discussion of MOOCs from economic concerns to civic goals.     

Editorial

The first article in this issue raises some fascinating issues that relate to my own background in research into student learning and experience of courses in conventional higher education. Richardson, Long and Woodley have administered the Academic Engagement Form', used widely in colleges in the USA, and the 'Course Experience Questionnaire', used widely in universities in Australia, to distance learning students. John Richardson and various colleagues have previously shown that these questionnaires, separately, work as well in distance learning contexts as they do in conventional contexts: that is, they identify the same factors as components of students' experience, and the same factors relating to overall perceptions of quality of experience, as in conventional contexts. Of the many findings reported in the study reported in this issue of Open Learning, two stand out for me. First, academic engagement is shown to play a key role in students' perceptions of academic quality: engaged students perceive their course to be of higher quality. This does not tell us if students who are happy with their courses become more engaged or if those who are engaged become happier with their courses, however, merely that they are related. 'Engagement' here encompasses both social and academic engagement as defined in Tinto's model of student retention. Second, students' overall perceptions of academic quality are mediated by their perceptions of their tutors. The authors conclude: '... the attitudes and behaviours of tutors are crucial to students' perceptions of the academic quality of courses in distance education'. In conventional contexts the item on the Course Experience Questionnaire that relates most closely to student performance concerns the quality of teacher feedback, not teaching, and this is easy to understand in a distance context. The methodology of this paper (relying on factor analysis of questionnaires and multivariate analysis of the relationship between questionnaire scale scores and background variables such as age, gender, educational qualifications, workload and hearing status) may be relatively unfamiliar to readers of Open Learning. What is perhaps more familiar is that such an analysis adds to similar conclusions about the centrality of the tutorial role in ODL students' learning from very different kinds of study (such as of the relationship between tutorial attendance and student performance). There is a growing body of evidence that the same variables are involved in student perceptions of courses and of academic quality in distance learning contexts as in conventional contexts.     

International academic staff in UK higher education: campus internationalisation and innovation in academic practice

Abstract

Amidst opportunities for universities to consider international academic staff in supporting internationalisation and innovation in academic practice, there is very little research to provide insights into their attitudes towards institutional approaches and frameworks in place to enable this. This article focuses on this research gap, suggesting that this academic community might enhance the development of internationally-informed and innovative pedagogic practice. The research reported within the article constitutes a preliminary study, set within a UK higher education case study setting. Methods included focus groups and themed in-depth interviews with a sample of 34 international academic staff from over 15 countries. The findings and discussion provide insights into the perspectives and experiences of international academic staff in relation to the Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning and other institutional practice. Innovative pedagogic practice as enabled by international academic staff is discussed, as are approaches to the internationalisation of the curricula. The findings are relevant to the UK higher education context but also to the global context: academic institutions need to consider whether curriculum and processes are limited and limiting in favour of a narrow cultural lens.     

How education background affects design outcome: teaching product development to mechanical engineers,industrial designers and managers

ABSTRACT

Product design and development (PDD) is a current topic of academic and industrial research. Emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as design thinking and creativity has been recently pulled together into the teaching and research on PDD. This paper looks into a multidisciplinary setting made up of three similar but independent PDD masters courses taught at three higher education institutions, having the same assessment, syllabus, assignments and outcomes. As expected, students’ projects foci are different. The outcomes of this experience were confronted with an ex-post literature review, which generated thorough guidelines that supported an innovative proposal for PDD education, to be implemented into an interdisciplinary Summer School. Significant generalisable contributions for educating modern engineers, designers and business entrepreneurs are expected, instead of just teaching methods of engineering, design and entrepreneurship at the case universities. The limitation of the used inductive reasoning concerns ‘truth’ being suggested but not assured.     

The Undereducation and Overcriminalization of U.S. Latinas/os: A Post-Los Angeles Riots LatCrit Analysis

This article presents an overview and discussion of qualitative research in education by analyzing the roles of researchers, the history of the field, its use in policymaking, and its future influence on educational reform. The article begins by describing the unique position that qualitative educational researchers have in higher education, as they often attempt to serve both academic and policymaking audiences. The article then moves to discuss the ascent of qualitative methods in the social sciences and educational research. The article concludes by attempting to work through a number of pressing concerns that qualitative researchers may face in upcoming decades; specifically, the final section presents possible strategies to improve the relevance and impact of qualitative researchers’ work on reframing educational policy at local, state, and federal levels to meet the demands of equality and social justice.     

Toward a Critical Study of Jewish Education

This article proposes a reconfiguration of the academic study of Jewish education that would (1) emphasize the “critical” analysis of an expanded range of issues (2) draw upon a broad range of disciplines and fields of study; and (3) formulate a new research agenda. The article argues that the focus on a “critical” approach to Jewish education studies is not a retreat from practice, but an important step in the enrichment of the academic study of Jewish education, as well as in the enhancement of the practical training of teachers, leaders, and communal professionals.     

Undergraduate research as a student engagement springboard: Exploring the longer-term reported benefits of participation in a research conference

ABSTRACT

Background: Undergraduate research is evident in many forms across higher education: in journals, at conferences and on research placements. It is widely reported that undergraduate research can encourage the development of discipline-specific and transferable communication skills and, in some cases, a more complex development of higher-order critical appraisal. Recent studies of extracurricular undergraduate research conferences have also found that participants report a development of self-authorship and an appreciation of the conference as liminal and transformative space. With many published studies measuring immediate feedback surrounding conference events, there is also a need to explore participants’ reflections over a longer term period of time.

Purpose: This small-scale project investigated participants’ self-report of whether and in what ways participation in a non-assessed, extracurricular undergraduate research conference had impacted their academic and professional practices, one year after their involvement in the conference.

Method: The qualitative study took place over two academic years with participants from an undergraduate conference which was held annually. The investigation adopted an action research methodology and completed two cycles of research. Data were collected firstly through an online survey with open questions, yielding feedback from 44 respondents. Focus groups were then conducted with nine of these students to explore this data further. A thematic approach was used to analyse the data.

Findings: The two cycles of data collection and analyses resulted in the identification of four central themes: (1) general positive impact on studies or career; (2) the development of presentation skills and personal confidence; (3) the development of research skills and perspectives; (4) an increased engagement with extracurricular opportunities.

Conclusions: Overall, our analysis identified that participants reported a development in communication skills and an enhanced relationship with the concept of ‘research’ and self-authorship. Students’ report that participation directly led to increased engagement with additional extracurricular activities is particularly noteworthy, as it contributes something new to the growing body of literature surrounding undergraduate research. More widely, the study suggests the potential for undergraduate conferences to act as springboards for increased extracurricular engagement.     

Why are some universities better? An evaluation in terms of organizational culture and academic performance*

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between organizational culture and academic performance among higher education institutions. The sample was composed of 647 faculty members working in the colleges of education, health, engineering, law, economics, and administrative sciences in four central research universities in Turkey. The Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) was used to describe organizational culture, whereas University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) data were used to investigate academic performance. A multilevel analysis in which one unit of analysis (i.e., faculty member) was nested within another (i.e., college) was performed. The original contribution made to the literature by this research is its examination of the relationships between organizational culture and tangible performance indicators (e.g., the number of academic publications and citations). Results show that three different culture types were observed in the universities: Innovative team culture, competitive culture, and hierarchic culture. Although significant relationships were found between academic performance and both competitive culture and innovative team culture, the sole significant predictor of academic performance was competitive culture. One particularly interesting finding was that whereas competitive culture was effective on quantitative indicators (i.e., number of publications and number of citations), only innovative team culture affected the indicators related to effectiveness (i.e., article impact level and citation impact level).     

Research capacity and dissemination among academics in Tanzania: examining knowledge production and the perceived binary of ‘local’ and ‘international’ journals

This article explores two distinct strategies suggested by academics in Tanzania for publishing and disseminating their research amidst immense higher education expansion. It draws on Arjun Appadurai’s notions of ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ internationalisation to analyse the perceived binary between ‘international’ and ‘local’ academic journals and their concomitant differences in status. In an attempt to examine critically how the status quo regarding knowledge production in higher education is maintained and reproduced, the article explores interactions between a Tanzanian academic and an educational researcher from the global North, including the ways in which research collaborations between academics from different contexts and material conditions in their institutions may both advance and inhibit professional development of academics and comparative education research, writ large. The article concludes with a call for comparative education researchers to carefully consider the future of educational research in sub-Saharan Africa and the complexities of continued involvement in knowledge production processes.