Influencing thinking and practices about teaching and ... · Appendix A. A guide to interpretive...

Influencing thinking and practices about teaching and learning in higher education An interpretive meta-ethnography Literature review 2006/07 Maggi Savin-Baden Lorraine McFarland John Savin-Baden

The Higher Education Academy – March 2008 1

Contents

Executive summary 1

1. Introduction 10

1.1 Overview 10

1.2 Aims of the review 10

2. Background 11

3. Outline of methodological approach 19

3.1 Review topic areas 19

3.2 Methodology 21

3.2.1 Interpretive meta-ethnography 21

3.2.2 Justification of method 22

3.2.3 Other methods considered 23

3.2.4 Reflections on the methodology 23

4. Identification, selection and analysis of the literature 25

4.1 Methods 25

4.1.1. Level 1: Searching 25

4.1.2 Level 1: Analysing articles to include and exclude 27

4.1.3 Level 2: Locating articles in relation to themes through different levels of

analysis 29

4.1.4 Level 3: Synthesising data 30

4.1.5 Database 31

5. Level 2 findings 32

5.1 Practice 47

5.1.1 Improving practice 47

5.1.2 Changing practice 54

5.1.3 Impact of major innovation 60

5.1.4 Creation of theory through exploration of practice 64

5.1.5 Student experience 69

5.1.6 Staff experiences 78

5.2 Transfer 84

5.2.1 Transfer for shared practice 84

5.2.2 Transfer in relation to policy 91


5.3 Community 98

5.3.1 Knowledge management 99

5.3.2 Disciplinary communities 99

5.3.3 Staff and educational development communities 102

5.3.4 Academic identity 110

5.3.5 Online/e-learning communities 111

5.3.6 Inquiry-based learning communities 119

6. Findings of level 3 synthesis and interpretation 126

6.1 Pedagogical stance 127

6.2 Disjunction 129

6.3 Learning spaces 132

6.4 Learning diversity 133

6.5 Agency 134

6.6 Notions of improvement 137

6.7 Communities of interest 139

7. Conclusions 141

8. Further research and recommendations 142

Appendix A. A guide to interpretive meta-ethnography 151

References 162


Executive Summary

This interpretive meta-ethnography research was undertaken on behalf of the

Higher Education Academy by Maggi Savin-Baden and Lorraine McFarland of

Coventry University, UK, and John Savin-Baden of Savin-Baden Associates.

The aim of the research was to establish what influences thinking and

practices about teaching and learning in higher education, how these

understandings can inform the higher education community, and to make

recommendations to guide future policy, practice and research.

Methodology

This literature review focuses on teaching and learning thinking and practices.

It examines areas of influence by mapping ideas about the initial themes of

practice, transfer and communities in higher education or related contexts. In

particular it sets out to explore the following questions:

• What does the literature indicate about teaching and learning thinking

and practices in higher education?

• What are the tensions and differences across practice and

communities, for example e-learning communities, problem-based

learning communities?

• What is the relationship between theories of teaching and learning and

actual practices?

The review maps the literature, including evaluative reports produced by

development agencies and practitioners, to clarify the ways in which

knowledge transfer can and does take place, and the conditions under which

it is most likely to occur. A sample of the literature intended directly to inform

the practice of practitioners, leaders and educational developers has been

included, to explore the ways in which research is being used in relation to

these communities. The review also examines the nature and extent of

engagement with these ideas in the literature intended for three ‘stakeholder’

groups:

• academic teaching staff (practitioners)


• institutional policy makers

• educational developers.

The literature was initially categorized into the following three core themes:

• Practice: the idea of practice is examined and the review considers the

literature that explores the nature of teaching and learning practices,

including those that are tacit and those that are highly situated. Issues

in the identification of ‘good’ and ‘best practice’ are highlighted;

conceptions that are open to critique.

• Transfer: literature that critiques ideas about transfer, and thus offers a

sophisticated understanding of issues in knowledge transfer is

included. Further, the study also examines the possibilities for and

realities of transfer, across both knowledge domains and areas of

practice. A mapping of conceptions of and approaches to change,

particularly in academic contexts, give this part of the review a wider

base in the literature on change.

• Community: literature that relates to an understanding of the

communities includes literature on: academic identity; networks and

communities of practice; knowledge management; and the role and

orientations of change agents, including educational development

agencies and practitioners.

This review used interpretive meta-ethnography. This is a qualitative

approach to managing a large range of literature, from the interpretivist

tradition. It presents an analysis of the findings across studies and then

interprets it in relation to further themes that emerge across studies.

Interpretive meta-ethnography is thus a systematic approach that enables

comparison, analysis and interpretations to be made that can inform

theorising and practice. Noblit and Hare (1988) suggested by

acknowledging researchers as interpretivists, that it is possible to recover

the social and theoretical context of research and thus reveal further


noteworthy findings. Interpretive meta-ethnography involves developing

inclusion and exclusion criteria, applying these to studies, and then

applying a three-stage process (Savin-Baden and Major, 2007), for

managing, analysing and interpreting the selected studies.

Identification, selection and analysis of the literature

This literature review used the innovative approach of meta-ethnography of

each theme at three levels: level 1 searching and analysing articles to include

and exclude; level 2 locating articles in relation to core themes and sub-

themes through different levels of analysis; and level 3 synthesising data.

At level 1, the initial search yielded over 6,000 articles, edited collections and

monographs. At level 2, annotations, maps, tables and grids were used to

identify and connect studies with the key themes. At level 3, data was

analysed by interpretative comparison and inductive analysis.

References to our themes were mapped for each area of literature. Data were

then analysed to gain second-order interpretations and to develop third-order

interpretations that synthesised the issues across the studies; the themes of

practice, transfer and community; and the three areas of practitioner, policy

and development communities.


Findings of overall synthesis from the literature

Undertaking third-level synthesis meant that new knowledge was brought to

bear on existing material. In practice this meant locating particular issues

related to influencing thinking and practices about teaching and learning in

higher education, in ways that transcended the areas of practice, transfer and

community. These issues shed light on areas that would bear further research

and exploration, and that in many cases need to be focused on more

frequently by those involved in thinking about teaching and learning.

Conclusion

What was found to be particularly useful about the research method selected,

meta-ethnography, was the examination of issues, methods and concepts

across the studies. Interpretive meta-ethnography affords an opportunity not

only to compare studies and the themes identified by the authors but also to

construct an (always contestable) interpretation. However, the difficulty with

this approach is that there is a tendency to privilege similarity (and sometimes

difference), because the process of sense-making across studies tends to

focus on ordering and cohesion rather than exploring conflicting datasets and

contestable positions.

We began this review trying to find key themes in the literature on teaching

and learning thinking and practices by examining areas of influence and

mapping ideas about the themes of practice, transfer and communities in

higher education or related contexts. What we have mapped are the varieties,

versatility and vagaries of influencing thinking and practice about teaching and

learning in higher education. We wanted to demonstrate the kinds of research

and possibilities that are available through an examination of this literature,

but as we have drawn it together we realise that perhaps we have done

something different. Thus, we believe this review presents research and

practice; disciplinary differences and similarities. However, it also shows that

issues of pedagogical stance, disjunction, learning spaces, learning diversity,

notions of improvement, communities of interest and agency help to locate

overarching themes and hidden subtexts that are strong influences on areas


of practice, transfer and community. Nevertheless, these are areas that are

sometimes ignored, marginalised or dislocated from the central arguments

about teaching and learning thinking and practices in higher education.

Moreover, although there is a significant body of work that can inform

practice, transfer and communities, in the main these are underused in the

processes of design and decision-making to implement innovation and

change, or to guide communities in ways of thinking and practising.

Recommendations

1. There is a need to develop commonly-understood discourses about

teaching and learning, as a prerequisite to being able to make teaching

and learning regimes explicit and challenging them openly.

2. The changing nature of the university experience, combined with the

changing nature of the student body, has produced significant shifts in

the experience of higher education that are not fully visible or

understood in all their implications. This higher education culture shift

has affected institutional ability to respond to diverse needs and

expectations, and this requires further research.

3. There is a need to continue to explore the impact of assessment on

teaching and learning practices.

4. There remains relatively little understanding of the impact of

disciplinary differences across teaching and learning research and

practices, and this requires further research.

5. The impact of academic identities and in particular staff pedagogical

stances in ways of thinking and practising requires still further research.

6. The issue of gender equality (for staff and students) within the higher

education system requires further research.


7. There needs to be further exploration into the impact of diverse

teaching methods on the students’ experience.

8. There is a need for more qualitative interpretivist studies into the

relationship between learning and work, and the ways in which both

national culture and work cultures influence and impact on learning.

9. There is a need for further studies into conceptions of interactivity and

related practices.

10. Research needs to be undertaken in relation to the impact of changes

in teaching and learning approaches on staff and students.

11. The professionalisation of teaching remains problematic, and requires

further research and changes in funding and university practices to

engage with this.

12. e-Learning pedagogy is largely missing from the literature and needs to

be developed and researched.

13. The lack of availability and/or opportunity for appropriate professional

development in e-learning is an institutional issue that needs to be

addressed.

14. The practices and pedagogy associated with inquiry-based forms of

learning continue to be troublesome, and require further research.

15. The understanding and impact of disjunction and troublesome

knowledge on students would bear further research and exploration.

16. Research into learning spaces (that reaches beyond that of design for

learning) requires further study.


17. Learning diversity is largely unacknowledged in the literature about

teaching and learning practices, and would bear further exploration.

18. There needs to be a reconsideration of power relationships in the

implementation of innovation and change.


1. Introduction

1.1 Overview This review focussed on key areas in the literature on teaching and learning

thinking and practices. It examined the themes of practice, transfer and

communities in higher education or related contexts. In particular it set out to

explore the following questions:

• What does the literature indicate about teaching and learning thinking

and practices in higher education?

• What are the tensions and differences across practice and

communities?

• What is the relationship between theories of teaching and learning and

actual practices?

The review adopted interpretive meta-ethnography as a qualitative approach

to present an analysis of findings across studies.

1.2 Aims of the review The review examined the literatures of individual, team and organisational

professional learning as a means of exploring conceptions of knowledge and

learning. The focus was thus to:

• identify the key literature that problematised and clarified the ways in

which practice, transfer and communities may be viewed;

• explore the ways in which practitioner, policy and development

literature understands and uses these key terms, noting that these are

not entirely discrete categories of literature;

• examine the tensions among these audiences, in relation to differing

conceptions and practices;

• explore areas in which available knowledge is not used to inform

thinking and practices;

• locate areas requiring further research to provide evidence that

supports or challenges current practices.


2. Background

The continuing debates about the nature and process of learning and

teaching in higher education have created a minefield of overlapping

concepts, with few clear frameworks for understanding the relationship across

practice, transfer and community. Traditionally, learning theories have been

grouped into categories, from the behavioural traditions through to the critical

awareness theorists, but with full acknowledgment that one may overlap with

another.

The cognitive tradition could be said to be one of the most influential areas in

the last thirty years, regarding the impact of teaching practices in higher

education. For example, Ausubel et al., (1978) argued that new information

has to be interpreted in relation to both prior knowledge and shared

perspectives. Thus, the existing cognitive structure is the principal factor

influencing meaningful learning. In practice, this means that meaningful

material can only be learned in relation to a previously-learned background of

relevant concepts. The concept of deep and surface approaches to learning

has been perhaps one of the most influential authorities on teaching practices

in higher education. These ideas emerged from the work of Marton and Säljö

(1984), who distinguished two different approaches to learning: those learners

who could concentrate on memorising what the author wrote (surface

approaches) and those who gave the authors' words meaning in their own

terms (deep approaches). Surface approaches to learning are characterised

by a reproductive concept of learning that means that the learner is more-or-

less forced to adopt a rote-learning strategy. Deep approaches to learning are

characterised by 'making sense'; comprehending what is being said by an

author in the text. This work has been promoted further by Biggs’ popular

notion of constructive alignment (Biggs, 1999). However, Haggis (2002) has

suggested that, over time, the focus on these approaches has resulted in

assumptions being made that the study by Marton and Säljö (1984) has

described a highly significant set of relationships about how students learn.

This, in turn, has resulted in the promotion of types of learning environments

that are expected to enhance deep approaches to learning; in many cases


this would seem to be problem-based approaches. Although learners may

change their approach according to their conception of the learning task, there

is still an assumption that deep approaches are somehow necessarily better.

As Haggis points out, many of these discussions about the promotion of deep

approaches seem to avoid the paradox that a surface approach can lead to

successful learning and that changing one's approach is actually quite difficult.

One of the central issues to emerge from the cognitive tradition was that of the

‘learning context’, promoted most notably by Ramsden (1988). The notion of

learning context has been seen as important because although students’

learning strategies and the processes they have adopted do have a certain

stability over time, the learning context affects the quality of student learning

(Marton et al., 1984). The acknowledgment of the importance of the learning

context has thus not only begun to raise concerns about student learning per

se but has also brought to the fore the importance of the learner as a person

whose experience is often somewhat marginalised in studies about ways in

which students learn. The work of Prosser and Trigwell (1999), also stemming

from the cognitive tradition, has been highly influential with regard to not only

the arguments for conceptions of teaching and learning but also the

popularisation of the methodological approach of phenomenography: an

approach that in the early 2000s is less popular that it was some ten years

ago.

The impact of the cognitive tradition can also be seen in the area of e-

learning, where authors such as Laurillard have overlaid cognitive

perspectives on learning in virtual environments. For example, several authors

(Crawley, 1999; Britain and Liber, 2000) have advocated the use of

Laurillard's conversational model (Laurillard, 1993) as a means of evaluating

virtual learning environments, since it can be used to examine constructivist

and conversational approaches to learning. Although this model has

considerable use as a device for evaluating computer-mediated learning, it is

problematic for two reasons. First, the focus is largely on teacher guidance

and direction, rather than developing student autonomy and peer discussion.

Second, because it only really deals with interactions between a single


student and a teacher, and thus omits peer group interaction and the tools

required by the teacher to facilitate a number of students. Further, there

continue to be debates, about the form and content of online education; this

has been captured by Mason who has argued that:

Many computer-based teaching programs whether stand alone, or on an

Intranet or the Web, fall into one of two categories: all glitz and no

substance, or content that reflects a rote-learning, right/wrong approach to

learning. (Mason 1998, p. 4)

In many curricula it could be argued that this is still very much the case.

However, the work of Salmon has been influential in helping staff to consider

ways of teaching in online environments. Salmon has provided a

comprehensive guide to ‘e-moderating'. An electronic moderator is someone

who ‘presides over an electronic online meeting or conference’ (Salmon 2000,

p. 3), although, again, the focus of the learning would seem to be more on

teaching than learning.

Other influences on ways of thinking about teaching and learning practices

include those, such as Rogers (1969) in the humanistic field, who contended

that significant learning is to be obtained only within situations that are both

defined by, and under the control of, the learner. Here the aims of education

are upon self-development and the development of a fully functioning person.

The prior experience of the learner is acknowledged and it is also recognised

that students may be constrained by their own negative experiences of

learning. The teacher (as a traditional facilitator) helps to provide a supportive

environment in which learners are enabled to recognise and explore their

needs. Learning in this tradition is seen as involving the whole person, and

not just the intellect, thus educators in this tradition aim to liberate learners

and allow them freedom to learn. The work of Schön (1983) on reflective

practice, followed later by Boud et al. (1985), has had lasting impact on the

value and use of reflection in learning. Schön began by arguing that problem-

solving was not a linear process, and that often professionals found

themselves in a situation that demanded a more ‘messy’ approach to


problem-management. Boud et al. developed Schön’s work by arguing for

different forms of reflection and this has been developed in a series of practice

guides by Moon (1999, 2004). The body of work on reflection continues to

flourish, although as Kreber (2004) points out, what is espoused and what is

practised remains an area that requires further research as well as

development.

The developmental theorists provide models that in many ways seem to take

account of cognition and development. The teacher's concern here is in

enabling students to develop both understandings of the nature of knowledge

and ways of handling different conceptions of the world, so that knowledge

acquisition is seen as an active process. It has been from this field that a

number of innovative studies have arisen. For example, from a qualitative

study of men at Harvard, Perry devised nine positions that described how

students’ conceptions of the nature and origins of knowledge evolved (Perry,

1970, 1988). This classic study put issues of learner experience centre stage

and argued that students proceed through a sequence of developmental

stages. In this description of the attainment of intellectual and emotional

maturity the student moves from an authoritarian, polarised view of the world,

through stages of uncertainty and accepting uncertainty, to finally an

understanding of the implications of managing this uncertainty. The student

then accepts the need for orientation by a commitment to values, and

eventually gains a distinct identity through a thoughtful and constantly

developing commitment to a set of values. Belenky et al. (1986) were

stimulated by Perry’s work to explore diverse women’s perspectives; they

identified five categories of ‘ways of knowing’ and from this drew conclusions

about the way women see truth, knowledge and authority. For example,

women began from a position of silence where they saw themselves as

mindless and voiceless, and subject to the whims of external authority. In later

stages women constructed knowledge; this was where the women viewed all

knowledge as related to the context in which it occurred, and experienced

themselves as creators of knowledge. It is the work of these developmental

theorists that seems to offer some of the more tenable models of learning.

They are models which, to a degree, acknowledge that what is missing from


many curricula is recognition of the role and relevance of learning from and

through experience, which can prompt the shaping and reconstructing of

peoples’ lives as learners and teachers.

Much of the work across the humanistic and developmental traditions has

been embraced by those in areas of educational development and in problem-

based learning. For example, McGill and Beaty (2001) were influential in

introducing action learning in educational development programmes. Earlier

work on problem-based learning (Savin, 1987) has also suggested that

problem-based learning can promote progression through Perry's nine

positions, which described how students' conceptions of the nature and

origins of knowledge evolved (Perry, 1970, 1988). The qualitative research in

the field of problem-based learning demonstrates that the students'

experiences of problem-based learning have been more meaningful and

relevant to them and their lives than many lecture-based programmes they

have experienced (Taylor, 1997; Savin-Baden, 2000a; Wilkie 2002).

A strand that appears to have received relatively little attention in the area of

thinking and practice in higher education is that of the critical awareness

tradition. While the work of Mezirow (1981) built upon the ideas of Frieire

(1972, 1974) and Schön (1983), Mezirow suggested that learning occurred as

a result of reflecting upon experience. Thus, content reflection is an

examination of the content or description of a problem, process reflection

involves checking on problem-solving strategies that are being used, while

premise reflection leads the learner to a transformation of meaning

perspectives (Mezirow, 1991). While these types of reflection encourage

learners to think reflectively around their situation, in earlier work (Mezirow,

1981, pp. 12–13) seven levels of reflection were suggested, some of which

are more likely to occur in adulthood. Yet those in the field of critical

awareness have argued that theirs is not simply another perspective on adult

learning, but rather a shift in ideology. The ideals of this tradition stem largely

from theorists such as Freire (1972, 1974), who argued that social and

historical forces shape the processes through which people come to know

themselves and develop their view of the world. Learning is, therefore ,seen to


occur in a social and cultural context and this necessarily influences what and

how people learn. Learners, therefore, must seek to transcend the constraints

their world places upon them in order to liberate themselves and become

critically aware. More recently, the work of hooks* (1994) has helped to further

this work, and to some extent Pratt et al. (1998); however, it remains a

tradition that has gained relatively little attention, although this may change

with the onset of the Web 2.0 movement, the increasing shift toward learning

as social networking and the interest in Bauman’s work on liquidity (Bauman

2000).

However, it could be argued that a theorist such as Barnett (1987, 1990,

1994, 2000a, 2000b) has straddled both a cognitive tradition and a critical

awareness tradition through the way in which he has theorised the position of

higher education over the last twenty years. Drawing on Bernstein he has

argued that curricula may be either ‘inward-looking, reflecting a project of

introjections where they are largely the outcome of academic influence’, or

‘outward looking, reflecting a project of projection, where they are subject to

external influences’ (Barnett, 2000b, pp. 263–4). Barnett predicts that at the

macro level (state and institutional policy) change will be in the direction of

projection, and from insulated singulars towards increasingly multi-or inter-

disciplinary regions. Yet despite the multiple claims from outside academe, he

suggested that ‘the discipline (or knowledge field) constitutes the largest claim

on the identity of academics’ (Barnett, 2000b, p. 264); consequently the micro

level of actual curricular changes will reflect both the extent to which

disciplines within institutions are yielding their insularity, and the changes

within disciplinary fields of inquiry. Thus Barnett believes that change will

largely depend upon the relative strength of institutions against that of their

constituent disciplines, and the positioning of individual institutions within the

higher education system. What is interesting about this argument is Barnett's

belief that disciplinary identities will necessarily prevail over performativity

where institutions are powerfully positioned in the national hierarchy of

universities. Furthermore, his more recent work argues for a curriculum based

* hooks is not a typographical error. The author chooses not to have upper case initial letter.


on an understanding of modern curricula as an educational project forming

identities founded in three domains: those of knowledge, action and self. The

'knowledge' domain refers to the discipline-specific competences. The 'action'

domain includes those competences acquired through 'doing', such as an oral

presentation in art history. The 'self' domain develops an educational identity

in relation to the subject areas. What he suggests is that the weight of each of

the three domains varies across curricula; that the domains may be integrated

or held separate (but it is not entirely clear how this works); and, finally, that

curricular changes tend to be dominated by epistemological differences in the

disciplines.

Although the work of Becher (1989), and more recently Becher and Trowler

(2001), has raised awareness of possible disciplinary difference, research into

teacher knowledge is relatively new to higher education. Teacher knowledge

and beliefs about what to do, how to do it, and under which circumstances,

can affect the way that students learn a particular subject matter. Shulman’s

work (1986; 1987) provides a framework for understanding teacher knowledge

in which he describes several layers that include both subject knowledge and

pedagogical knowledge. Subject or content knowledge comprises the

theories, principles and concepts of a particular discipline. In addition to this

subject matter knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge or knowledge

about teaching itself is an important aspect of teacher knowledge. This

general pedagogical knowledge has been the focus of most of the research

on teaching. While subject knowledge and pedagogical knowledge are

perhaps self-evident, Shulman (1986, p. 6) asks: ‘why this sharp distinction

between content and pedagogical process?’ Somewhere between subject

matter knowledge and pedagogical knowledge lies pedagogical content

knowledge. Pedagogical content knowledge, he asserts, draws upon

knowledge that is specific to teaching a particular subject matter and he

describes pedagogical content knowledge as:

the ways of representing and formulating the subject that make it

comprehensible to others….Pedagogical content knowledge also

includes an understanding of what makes the learning of specific topics


easy or difficult: the conceptions and preconceptions that students of

different ages and backgrounds bring with them to the learning of those

most frequently taught topics and lessons. (Shulman, 1986, pp. 9–10)

In the UK, there has been increasing discussion about discipline-based

pedagogy (which we suggest is parallel to pedagogical content knowledge),

particularly in the debates about the relationship between research and

teaching. Jenkins and Zetter (2003) argued that disciplines shape the nature

of pedagogy, and that such pedagogies reflect the practices and culture of the

discipline. However, what is not clear in the studies and discussions about

discipline-based pedagogy is how it can be that faculty break down

disciplinary restrictions and instead search for more interdisciplinary

approaches.

More recently studies into disciplinary difference have been explored by

Meyer and Land (2003), who argued for the notion of a ‘threshold concept’;

the idea of a portal that opens up a way of thinking that was previously

inaccessible. Although initially Meyer and Land argued for such a concept as

being something distinct within a set of core material that university lecturers

would teach, more recently they have broadened this to include wider

concepts such as staff experiences (Meyer and Land, 2004). This work is

gaining increasing acclaim, possible because of the resonance it has with

many staff about why it is that students become ‘stuck’ in learning.

Thus, amid this broad canvass of traditions, philosophy and research, this

review will use interpretive meta-ethnography to explore what the literature

since the 1990s indicates about the extent to which the above ideas have in

fact influenced ways of thinking and practising about higher education.


3. Outline of methodological approach

3.1 Review topic areas This review maps the literature, including evaluative reports produced by

development agencies and practitioners, to establish what influences thinking

and practices about teaching and learning in higher education, and the

conditions under which it is most likely to occur. Literature that is intended

directly to inform the practice of practitioners, and educational leaders and

developers has been included, to explore the ways in which teaching and

learning is being understood in relation to these communities. The review also

examines the nature and extent of engagement with these ideas in the

literature intended for “stakeholder” groups: academic teaching staff

(practitioners); institutional policy makers; and educational developers, as

represented in Figure 1, in order to make recommendations to guide future

policy, practice and research.

Figure 1: Overall focus of the review


3.1.1 Practice

The idea of practice is examined and the review considers the literature that

explores the nature of teaching and learning practices, including those that

are tacit and those that are highly situated. Issues in the identification of ‘good’

and ‘best practice’ are highlighted; conceptions that are open to critique.

3.1.2 Transfer

The literature that critiques ideas about transfer, and thus offers a

sophisticated understanding of issues in knowledge transfer is included.

Further, the study also examines the possibilities for, and realities of transfer,

across both knowledge domains and areas of practice. A mapping of

conceptions of and approaches to change, particularly in academic contexts,

give this part of the review a wider base in the literature on change.

3.1.3 Community

The literature that relates to an understanding of the communities includes

literature on: academic identity; networks and communities of practice;

knowledge management; and the role and orientations of change agents,

including educational development agencies and practitioners.

Key areas explored across the three themes include:

• learning and teaching theories

• knowledge management

• educational development

• academic practice

• discipline-based pedagogy

• e-pedagogy

• research

• HE policy.

3.2 Methodology


3.2.1 Interpretive meta-ethnography

The review adopted interpretive meta-ethnography as an approach, which is a

qualitative approach (from the qualitative interpretivist tradition) to managing a

large range of literature in a way that presents an analysis of the findings

across studies, and then interprets it in relations to core themes that emerge

across studies. Interpretive meta-ethnography is thus a systematic approach

that enables comparison, analysis and interpretations to be made that can

inform theorising and practice. Noblit and Hare (1988) who were early

developers of this approach, suggested that through interpretation and by

acknowledging the researchers as interpretivists, it is possible to recover the

social and theoretical context of research and thus reveal further noteworthy

findings. In practice, interpretive meta-ethnography involves developing

inclusion and exclusion criteria, applying these to studies, and then applying a

three-stage process. This three-stage process was developed by Savin-

Baden and Major (2007) for managing, analysing and interpreting the selected

studies. What is important about interpretive meta-ethnography is that it

allows researchers to:

1. Collate qualitative studies across a large area of literature;

2. Examine the methodology and findings of each study in-depth;

3. Compare and analyse data and findings for each study;

4. Undertake an interpretation of data across the studies;

5. Develop a narrative that emerges from the interpretation;

6. Provide an overarching interpretation of the central themes that emerge

across studies;

7. Present an interpretive narrative about the findings across studies;

8. Provide a series of recommendations that relate to the interpretive

narrative about the findings across studies.

Although meta-analysis (the process of combining the result of several studies

that address a set of related research hypotheses) has developed

considerably in medicine and health research, it remains rare amongst

educational researchers and developers. Furthermore, meta-analysis remains

rare among those using collaborative and interpretative inquiry, and few

researchers have undertaken an integration of findings from these kinds of


studies. Those who have undertaken such a task have tended either to

impose the frameworks and values of quantitative systematic reviews on

qualitative studies, or to move towards the use of meta-synthesis. The use of

systematic reviews, of whatever sort, implies that the drawing up of a set of

rules for ‘systematically’ reviewing evidence will necessarily make the process

of the review and research transparent. Yet there are degrees of transparency

and points beyond which it is not possible to go when undertaking such

reviews. The difficulty with meta-analysis that is not located in an interpretive

tradition is the propensity to decontextualise material, thin descriptions and

ignore methodological difference.

We set out to undertake an analysis and synthesis of findings from different

studies using interpretive meta-ethnography. Our approach draws upon meta-

ethnography as defined by Noblit and Hare (1988) but firmly locates the

management and synthesis of findings in interpretivism. In practice, this

meant not only that a transition and synthesis of one study into and across

another was required but also that, with the inclusion of an interpretive stance,

data were reinterpreted. While such reinterpretation of data was important,

We were also aware of the need to preserve the structure of the relationships

between the concepts in the given studies.

3.2.2 Justification of method

Recent developments in approaches to teaching and learning have led to new

inquiry into how these methods affect the staff who employ them, for example,

growth in work-based learning, blended learning approaches and diverse

forms of inquiry-based learning. This trend, coupled with new developments in

interpretive and qualitative methods, provides a rich vein of possible lenses to

add to understanding. Yet, to date, few researchers have integrated findings

across qualitative studies that have explored ways of influencing teaching and

learning thinking and practices in higher education; an area ripe for such

investigation.


The rationale for using this approach was threefold. First, We wanted to

examine the issues that influenced thinking and practices about teaching and

learning in higher education, since we felt that this was an under-explored

area in the field of higher education globally. Second, we judged that the

studies in this area conducted prior to 1990 would not provide us with in-depth

interpretative data or relevant cross-comparisons of studies, as most of the

studies until that time had been mixed method or quantitative in nature. Third,

as we wanted to be able to compare study data in an interpretivist way,

excluding studies that relied on quantitative data would enable us to

concentrate on those studies in which it would be possible to reanalyse data.

3.2.3 Other methods considered

A more traditional literature review had been considered that compared issues

and themes that emerged. A quantitative meta-analysis had also been

considered. We rejected both methods as neither would allow an in-depth

exploration to be undertaken that would inform the higher education

community about the influences on thinking and practices. For example, a

traditional literature review would be unlikely to uncover diversity in the

methodologies adopted within the post positivist paradigm, or delineate the

broad focus of most educational research related to ways of thinking and

practising. Finally, and perhaps more importantly, it would not look at studies

and their data in an in-depth interpretivist way. A quantitative meta-analysis

would offer very little to the understanding of ways of thinking and practising

as most educational research since the 1990s is qualitative.

3.2.4 Reflections on the methodology

Much of the desired information was lacking from some research abstracts.

For example, many abstracts offered no notion of validity to the research,

which is surprising since transparency is a major consideration for qualitative

researchers. A major part of some papers had to be read before it became

clear that they fell outside the inclusion criteria.


The importance of a fully self-contained, good abstract has been highlighted

as an area that warrants further research and exploration in the future.


4. Identification, selection and analysis of the literature

This literature review used the approach of meta-ethnography in its literature

analysis. The initial search yielded over 6,000 items, two further searches

produced 10,100 and 11757 results, and level 1 analysis then reduced these

to 83 items.

4.1 Methods

The methods used to undertake interpretive meta-ethnography included:

Level 1: searching and analysing abstracts of articles to include and exclude.

Level 2: locating articles in relation to themes through different levels of

analysis

Level 3: synthesising data.

4.1.1 Level 1: Searching

In addition to standard searching methods, we engaged in several other

approaches to identify potential studies, including scanning bibliographies of

original and review articles for other suitable studies, hand searching,

reviewing Listservs and other relevant mailing lists, and searching the

Cochrane networks. Our initial search yielded over 6,000 articles, edited

collections and monographs, resulting from using a combination of the

following search terms:

• higher education

• teaching and learning

• qualitative research

• education-based development,


• knowledge transfer

• academic practice, leadership

• problem-based learning

• influence

• communities

• policy development


• transfer

• reflective practice

• interprofessional education

• phenomenology

• e-learning

• discipline–based pedagogy.

The following databases were included in the initial search:

• Academic Search Premier (through EBSCOhost)

• AMED (Allied and Complementary Medicine Database)

• ASSIA (Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts)

• BIDS (Bath Information and Data Services)

• CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature)

• The Cochrane Library (the Cochrane Database of Systematic

Reviews(CDSR); the Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL);

and the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE))

• EMBASE (European version of MEDLINE)

• International ERIC (contains a cluster of education databases)

• MEDLINE (predominately American peer-reviewed journals)

• NRR (National Research Register)

• PsychInfo (psychology and related disciplines)

• Sociological Abstracts (sociology and related disciplines)

• SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway), now part of Intute:

Social Sciences

• Arts and Creative Industries (ACI) Hub.

Additional methods to identify further potential research studies were then

employed, including:

• on-line searches of university-based education research centres. The

methods included following their links to further education resources;

• an on-line search of Educause Review, which offered a further 10100

articles;

• a search of the Educational Resources Information Centre (ERIC) from

1990 to 2007 which yielded 11757 results.


4.1.2 Level 1: Analysing articles to include and exclude

The inclusion and exclusion criteria used in the analysis are listed in Table 1, and had the effect of reducing the searched items to 83 studies.

Table 1: Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Criteria Included studies Excluded studies

Topic Learning and teaching theories

Knowledge management

Educational development

Academic practice

Discipline-based pedagogy

e-Pedagogy

Higher education research

Training

Question About way literature informs understandings of practice, transfer and community

Learning spaces design

Date Conducted 1990 or later Conducted prior to 1990

Design Using a qualitative design Using a quantitative design

Data Relying on interviews, focus groups, online discussions, observations

Quantitative questionnaires, surveys

By including the term ‘qualitative research’, the results were reduced to more

manageable proportions. The combination of search terms, for example,

‘teaching and learning theory’ and ‘knowledge development’ presented

overlapping research papers.

As examples, the searching, then following analysis by the Table 1 criteria,

yielded articles as follows:

a) MEDLINE offered 759 articles of which 20 met the criteria. The articles

on this site mostly focused on training, which was part of our exclusion

criteria, or were based on health interventions and patient education.

b) SOSIG highlighted 138 articles. None met the criteria.


c) The Cochrane Review covers medical conditions and promotes

quantitative research, so produced no suitable material.

d) The Campbell libraries do not cover higher education. Hence, neither

yielded any material for inclusion.

e) The British Educational Research Journal includes mainly school

research and produced no results for inclusion.

f) A number of education resource establishments were visited online

with little success. These included:

• Centre for Applied Research in Education, the University of East Anglia

• Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) Qualidata, the University of

Essex

• The Oxford Learning Institute

• The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching .

• Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, UCL

• COPAC, the University of Manchester

• The Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre, the

University of Loughborough

• Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University (LETI)

• Commonwealth Higher Education Management Service (CHEMS)

• The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education

• Association of Commonwealth Universities

• Individual Education Researchers, the University of Bristol

• Individual Education Researchers, the University of Bath

• Individual Education Researchers, Lancaster University

• The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

• The Council for Industry and Higher Education (CIHE)

• Department for Employment and Learning

• Department of Trade and Industry - Higher Education Innovation Fund

(HEIF)

• Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

Of the initial 150 articles located from all sources, 47 were rejected, mainly for

using mixed methodologies, although this had not been apparent from the


abstract. The remaining 103 articles were selected for entry onto the

database. However, on reading the whole articles, a further 20 were excluded

due to the use of mixed methods or the quantitative operationalisation of

qualitative research findings.

4.1.3 Level 2: Locating articles in relation to themes through different levels of

analysis

Annotations, maps, tables and grids were used to identify and connect studies

with the key themes. The mapping of methods, concepts and findings was

undertaken as presented in Table 2, in order to illustrate how analysis moved

beyond mere summary, and is included in the EndNote database.

Table 2: Mapping of methods, concepts and findings

Methods,

perceptions

and concepts

Article 1 Article 2 Article 3 Article 4 Article 5 And

so

on…

Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of

validity

Positioning of

researcher

Themes and

concepts


4.1.4 Level 3: Synthesising data

We analysed data by interpretative comparison and inductive analysis. Rather

than just starting with raw data, we began with predetermined themes and

descriptions that the original authors had chosen to include. Indeed, it is

unusual in meta-ethnography completely to reinterpret the original data. In

practice this meant that not only were data compared across the studies, but

also metaphors, ideas, concepts and contexts were revisited in order to

review how the initial findings had been contextualised and presented. In

practice this meant:

a) reading the studies carefully and examining the relationship between

them to determine common themes;

b) synthesising data and discussing this in order to gain second-order

interpretations;

c) developing third-order interpretations that added something that went

beyond the mere comparisons of the findings of all the studies.

In order to share our findings, it is not necessary to preserve the structure of

relationships between data and findings within each study; arguably, as data

were interpreted interactively, reusing some themes may have proved useful

in some instances. However, as forcing all data into common themes results

in questionable research practices, we retained issues that diverged, pointing

out differences.

Analysis of studies was undertaken in relation to three initial themes (practice,

transfer and community), and across the three ‘stakeholders’ (academic

teaching staff (practitioners), institutional policy makers and educational

developers). References to our themes were mapped, for each area of

literature, using the matrix shown in Table 3. Data were then analysed to gain

second-order interpretations, and then develop third-order interpretations (see

Table 3) that synthesise the issues across:

o the studies

o the initial themes of practice, transfer and community

o the three areas of practitioner, policy and development

communities.


Table 3: Cross-study analysis, synthesis and interpretation of data

Initial themes Second-order

interpretations (i.e.,

analysis and

comparisons)

Third-order

interpretations (data and

conceptual

interpretations)

Practice

Transfer

Community

4.1.5 Database

The database holds the 83 selected reviews, all fully recorded on EndNote,

along with some extra excluded articles, which may be of interest to those

doing related research in this area. The research papers have been

categorised into application to practice, transfer and/or community. Most of

the research was found to cover practice.

The following Tables 4 to 9, starting on page 34, map the methods, concepts

and findings from each article.


5. Level 2 findings: development of second-order analysis

5.1 Introduction to level 2 findings and analysis

The literature included is presented in Tables 4 to 9. A narrative is provided to

explain each table. All of the selected papers were read thoroughly to record

the details of the study and to identify the main concepts. Each article was

categorised under the initial themes.

The literature included largely focuses on the area of practice, but data were

analysed not only within the initial themes of practice, transfer and community,

but also across themes. This cross-referencing enabled comparisons to be

made about not only the interrelationship between the initial three themes, but

also how knowledge, learning, research and pedagogy was seen and

understood across communities and disciplines. Data were collated across

themes to develop second-order interpretations, enabling articles to be

located and tabulated as follows:

• Table 4: Practice

• Table 5: Transfer

• Table 6: Community

• Table 7: Community and practice

• Table 8: Community and transfer

• Table 9: Practice and transfer

It is important to note that originally it had been assumed that practice,

transfer and community would be the initial themes. However, through

analysis of the studies it became apparent that practice and community were

relevant, that transfer was implicit in both practice and community, and that

policy was also a significant element. Here data were tabulated across the

themes that emerged below:


Practice

The sub-themes within this category included:

• improving practice;

• changing practice;

• the impact of innovation;

• creation of theory through the exploration of practice;

• students’ experiences;

• staff experiences.

Community

Literature that related to an understanding of the communities included the

sub-themes:

• disciplinary communities;

• online/e-learning communities;

• staff and educational development communities;

• inquiry-based and problem-based learning communities.

Transfer

The sub-themes within this category included:

• transfer for shared practice

• transfer related to policy.

34

Table 4 Practice: Mapping of methods, concepts and findings

This table provides a descriptive summary of each of the studies that were found to relate to practice.

Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity

Positioning of researcher

Themes and concepts

Clarke, (2004) 21 undergraduate medical students

Medical Examination Australian university

Qualitative pattern codes

Semi-structured interview

Transcript feedback

Not identified specifically

PBL student guidance. Causes of examination failure. Lack of PBL definition

Clegg, (2005) Specific examples Lecturers

Pedagogic practice

Qualitative Data Samples and theorising

Interview No mention Critical Realist

How change is understood and contributes to broader insights

Linder, Leonard -McIntyre, Marshall, NcHodu(1997)

10 Tutors (undergraduate)

Physics South African university

Qualitative Longitudinal

Critical reflection Interview Journal

No mention No mention Tutors’ teaching and learning

Barrow, Lyte, Butterworth, (2002)

33 undergraduate Nursing students

PBL Nursing UK university

Responsive Evaluation

Observation Focus groups Questionnaire

Member checks, peer debriefing

No mention Evaluation of PBL

Styles, Beltman, Radloff, (2001)

67 graduate and undergraduate students

Education 1 private and 1 public Australian university

Naturalistic approach

Case studies Open-ended questions Reflective report

Independent coding

No mention Students’ conceptualisation of learning strategies

Selander, (2002)

4 University staff in FL environment

Social Sciences Australian university

Qualitative design Inductive analysis

Semi-structured interview transcribed

No mention Constructivist Process of change in the role of staff in a flexible learning environment

35

Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity


Themes and concepts

Hara, Kling, (2000)

6 postgraduate students

Educational technology US university

Qualitative case study Observation Interview Informal conversation, Document review

Observation Interview Document review

Participant validation

No mention Distressing experiences in web-based distance education

Poldma, Stewart, (2004)

2 students Doctoral dissertation Canadian university

Narrative Phenomenographic

Research texts No mention Doctoral students

Exploring research ideas, uncovering meaning in data analysis

Turner, Hocking, (2004)

1 tutor, 10 MA Arts students

Fine Art tutoring UK University

Linguistic analysis Written/tutorial

Verbal/written text

No mention No mention Visual arts traits. Synergistic relationship in art and language

Lawrie, (2004)

20 undergraduate students

Graphic Design US university

Subjective interpretation

Written responses

No mention Students’ tutor

Development of verbal competency

Ashley, Gibson, Daly, Baker, Newton, (2006)

25 undergraduate and postgraduate students

Dental Institute UK 3 sites

Reflection on action 5 focus groups Written response Reflective groups

Peer analysis

No mention Putting theory/learning into practice

Light, (2002) 40 Creative Writing students

3 UK universities Qualitative Phenomenographic


Interviews

No mention Students’ conceptions of creative writing

Samuelowicz, Bain, (2001)

39 academics from various disciplines

3 Australian universities

Qualitative Semi-structured interview

Constant comparison consistency check

No mention How academics conceptualise teaching and learning

36

Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity


Themes and concepts

Mullins, Kiley, (2002)

30 PhD examiners

Australian universities

Interpretive research


Participant validation

No mention Process of PhD examination

Carson, (2001) 31 female and 17 male university staff

2 traditional UK universities

Qualitative information

Self-report postal questionnaire

No mention No mention Gender effects on lecturer ratings by students

Cooper, Fromer, Gordon, Nicholas, (2002)

16 staff in Maths, Physics and Physiology

Australian university

Phenomenography In-depth interview

Team discussion

Relevant discipline member of the project team

Conceptions of the role of memorising and its relationship with understanding

Pollock, Cornford, (2002)

Technology staff

Technology department UK university

Participant-observation study

Participant-observation

No mention No mention Potential of the ‘virtual’ university

Trowler, Cooper, (2002)

Academic staff

University

Qualitative study Participants’ writing Interviews, Observation

No mention No mention Teaching and learning regimes’ influences on educational development programmes

Wilcox, Winn, Fyvie-Gauld, (2005)

34 first-year students

Applied Social Science UK university

Qualitative Grounded theory

Interview No mention No mention Social integration influences upon students’ decisions to leave university

Bradshaw, Moxham, (2005)


Mental Health Australian university

Constructivist Reflective paper No mention No mention Subject development

37

Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity


Themes and concepts

Ozga, Sukhnandan, (1998)

41 withdrawn students 14 academic staff

Student withdrawal at ‘campus’ university

Qualitative Questionnaire Telephone interview Face-to-face interview

No mention No mention Exploratory model of undergraduate non-completion

Huang, (2005) 85 undergraduate and postgraduate Tourism students

PBL courses UK universities

Qualitative Questionnaire Interview

Member checking

No mention Chinese international students’ perspectives on PBL

Bebb, Pittam, (2004)

15 first-year undergraduate Nursing students

IBL course UK university

Qualitative Group and individual questionnaire Interview

No mention No mention Student adaptation to IBL and small group learning

Hutchings, O’Rourke, (2006)

English undergraduate students

Enquiry-Based Learning course UK university

Qualitative student response data

Evaluation forms Focus groups Observation

No mention No mention Problems encountered by students making a transition to PBL

Reynolds (2006)

3 cohorts HRM students and tutors

Southampton Solent University, UK

Phenomenological Surveys Focus groups Tutor interviews Students diaries

No mention No mention PBL facilitates independent learning

Wilkie, (2004) 18 Nursing staff


Constructivist interpretivist paradigm

Semi-structured interviews Audio taping of seminars

Trustworthi-ness and reflexivity

Co-inquirer Facilitator approaches are affected by conceptions of learning

Savin-Baden, (2000a)

22 Nursing, Social Work and Engineering staff

Four departments in four UK universities

New paradigm research and narrative inquiry

Semi-structured interviews

Trustworthi-ness and reflexivity

Inquirer and reflexive learner

Disjunction causes faculty change in pedagogical stance

38

Table 5 Transfer: Mapping of methods, concepts and findings This table provides a descriptive summary of each of the studies that were found to relate to transfer. Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity


Themes and concepts

Mullins, Kiley, (2002)

30 PhD examiners Australian universities

Interpretive research


Participant confirmation/ consistency

Process of PhD examination

Pritchard, Heatly, Trigwell, (2005)

24 students, Fashion Design, Animation, Photographic Arts

Undergraduate Art and Design

Qualitative interview Phenomenographic

Semi structured Interview

No mention No mention Students’ approach to dissertation and practice relationships

Kreber, (2004)

36 academic staff 31 Science instructors

Canadian university

Interviews Qualitative Reflective

Interviews (9 questions) Repertory grid

No mention Understanding of educational development. How reflection may improve teaching practice

Sims, (2003) 20 students Architectural Education

Qualitative Survey (3 questions) /NUD*IST

Survey NUD*IST No mention Expectations of online learning interactivity

Crossman, (2005)

9 Thai doctoral students Australian universities

Qualitative Participant journals, Open questionnaire, Dialogic email

Triangulation and multiple perspectives

No mention Experiences of transnational students while working in HE

Burke, (2003) 70 implementers 8 NHS regions Qualitative Template analysis

Policy analysis Interviews

Triangulation/ naturalistic generalisation

No mention Integration of nursing into HE/ Policy

39

Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity


Themes and concepts

Macy, Neal, Waner, (1998)

10 Faculty University Quality management

Qualitative Management and faculty interviews

Consensus of researchers

No mention Change in practice

Harvey, (2004)

53 academics and administrators

Higher Education Mainly UK

Qualitative perceptions

Email correspondence Discussion

No mention Ideological framework

Subject accreditation

Ozga, Sukhnandan, (1998)

41 withdrawn students 14 academic staff

Student withdrawal at ‘campus’ university

Qualitative Questionnaire Telephone interview Face-to-face interview

No mention No mention Exploratory model of undergraduate non-completion

Burke (2005) 30 senior individuals NHS and HE Qualitative Template analysis

Policy analysis Interviews

Triangulation/ naturalistic generalisation

No mention Integration of nursing into HE/ Policy

40

Table 6 Community: Mapping of methods, concepts and findings

This table provides a descriptive summary of each of the studies that were found to relate to community.

Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity


Themes and concepts

Becher, Trowler (2001)

221 academics 24 new academics

12 subject disciplines UK and Canadian universities

Reflective discussion Focus group

Semi-structured interviews

No mention No mention Systematic and discernible differences between disciplines

Lucas, (1998) 10 lecturers 10 students

UK universities Phenomenographic Semi-structured interview

No mention No mention Understanding key accounting concepts

Jensen, (2005) 133 alumni Texas University research

Naturalistic Grounded theory

Open-ended questions

Triangulation No mention Public view of university research

Land, (2004)

35 educational developers

Several UK universities

Narrative Interviews No mention No mention Staff perceptions of educational development

Samuelowicz, Bain, (2001)

39 academics 3 Australian universities Several disciplines

Qualitative Semi-structured interviews

Constant comparison Consistency check

No mention How academics conceptualise teaching and learning

Howe, Billingham, Walters, (2002)

47 stakeholders Healthcare and Education GPs,students, tutors

The University of Sheffield

Framework analysis Semi-structured interview Focus groups

Separate analysis Constant comparison

No mention Influences on identity of tomorrow’s doctors

Booth, Anderberg, (2005)

23 staff University educational development

Phenomenography Variation theory

Interview No mention No mention Principles and practices of course design in HE

41

Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity


Themes and concepts

Jarvis, (2000) 36 female students studying for entry to higher education

UK FE college Faculty

Qualitative study Participant observation Semi-structured interview

Triangulation Taught all sessions

Changes in beliefs about knowledge

Trowler, Cooper, (2002)

Academic staff

UK university

Qualitative study Participants’ writing Observation Secondary sources Data from eight interviews

No mention No mention Teaching and learning regimes’ influences on educational development programmes

Biley, Smith, (1999)


UK undergraduate degree course

Interpretive ethnographic study

Interviews Observation

Trustworthiness No mention How students managed and made sense of PBL

Miles, (2005/6) MEd students of cultural diversity

UK university Qualitative study Interviews No mention No mention Conditions to make inquiry-based learning successful

Hutchings, O’Rourke, (2006)

English undergraduate students

Enquiry-based learning course UK university

Qualitative student response data

Evaluation forms Focus groups Observation

No mention No mention Problems encountered by students making a transition to PBL

Bebb, Pittam, (2004)

15 first-year undergraduate Nursing students

IBL course UK university

Qualitative Group and individual questionnaire Interview

No mention No mention Student adaptation to IBL and small group learning

42

Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity


Themes and concepts

Barrow, Lyte, Butterworth, (2002)



Responsive evaluation

Observation Focus groups Questionnaire

Member checks Peer debriefing

No mention Evaluation of PBL

Trigwell, Martin, Prosser, (2000)

20 faculty staff University Phenomenography Interview No mention No mention How academic staff consider and develop the scholarship of teaching

Bayne, (2005) Staff and students

UK university Qualitative study Interviews No mention No mention Issues of identity in online spaces

Darvill, (2003)

20 diploma student nurses and their lecturers

UK university Qualitative research Case study Participant observation Focus groups Diaries Field notes

No mention No mention Staff and student experience of knowledge development and PBL process

Morris, Turnbull, (2004)

240 student nurses

UK university Qualitative Thematic analysis

Observation Focus group Interviews

No mention No mention Student experience

Anderburg, (2000)

27 students 2 HE institutions Qualitative Interview No mention No mention Relationships of verbal expressions in understanding and learning

Souleles, (2005)

Humanities, Education, and Business/ Accounting students

HE institution Qualitative Interviews No mention No mention Relationship between the rhetoric and the practice of e-learning

Jones and Cooke, (2006)

Students UK university Qualitative case analysis

Online discussion forum

No mention No mention Understanding how students learn

43

Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity


Themes and concepts

Johnson, (2005) 67 Health- and Social-care students

HE institution Qualitative comparison

Qualitative comments

No mention No mention Quality of facilitation and group dynamics

Johnson, (2007)

300 university students

NZ university Qualitative investigation


No mention No mention Perceptions of online learning

Reynolds (2003) 157 undergraduate first-year OT/Physio students

Brunel University, UK

Qualitative evaluation

Qualitative comments

No mention No mention PBL useful to interprofessional learning

Carey, Whittaker, (2002)

58 post- registration community specialist practitioners

PBL UK university

Humanistic perspective

Questionnaires Interviews

No mention No mention PBL experiences

Reynolds, (2006)

3 cohorts HRM students and tutors

Southampton Solent University, UK

Phenomenological Surveys Focus groups Tutor interviews, Students diaries

No mention No mention PBL facilitates independent learning

Ashby et al, (2000)

Tutors, post- registration and pre-registration Nursing students

The University of Nottingham, UK

Qualitative evaluation

Focus groups Interviews

No mention No mention Staff and students had disparate views of PBL

Biley, (1999) 45 undergraduate nurses

The University of Wales, UK

Grounded theory Unstructured questionnaires Focus groups

No mention No mention Students experience of disjunction

44

Table 7 Community/Practice: Mapping of methods, concepts and findings This table provides a descriptive summary of each of the studies that were found to relate to community and practice.

Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity


Themes and concepts

Borg, (2004) MA student Fine Arts practice, UK university

Case study Written dialogue

Documents Written guidance Interviews

No mention No mention Academic writing. Auto-ethnography

Quin, Hunt, Sparrow, (2005)

6 Performing Arts staff

Performing Arts university Australia

Qualitative Structured in-depth interview

Separate coding

No mention Staff attitudes towards learning. Evaluation and values

Macy, Neal, Waner, (1998)

10 faculty University Quality management

Qualitative Management and faculty interviews

Consensus of researchers

No mention Change in practice

Dahlgren, Castensson, Dahlgren, (1998)

7 staff

PBL Environmental Science Netherlands university

Qualitative Phenomenographic

Interview No mention No mention Implementation evaluation. Meaning of teachers role in PBL

Becher, Trowler, (2001)

221 academics 24 new academics

12 subject disciplines, UK and Canadian Universities

Reflective discussion Focus group


No mention No mention Systematic and discernable differences between disciplines

45

Table 8 Community/Transfer: Mapping of methods, concepts and findings This table provides a descriptive summary of each of the studies that were found to relate to both community and transfer.

Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity


Themes and concepts

Howe, Billingham, Walters, (2002)

47 stakeholders Healthcare and Education GPs/students/tutors

The University of Sheffield

Framework analysis

Semi-structured interview Focus groups

Separate analysis and constant comparison

No mention Influences on identity of tomorrow’s doctors

Jensen, (2005) 133 alumni Texas University research

Naturalistic Grounded theory

Open-ended questions

Triangulation No mention Public view of university research

46

Table 9 Practice/Transfer: Mapping of methods, concepts and findings This table provides a descriptive summary of each of the studies that were found to relate to both practice and transfer.

Study Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of validity


Themes and concepts

Sims, (2003)

20 students Architectural Education

Qualitative Survey (3 questions) /NUD*IST

Survey NUD*IST No mention Expectations of online learning interactivity

Dahlgren, Oberg, (2001)

9 student groups of 5-8

Swedish universities Environmental Science

Qualitative Diary Notes No mention No mention Learning process/ application to future profession

47

5.1 Practice

Several different concepts of practice were evident across the studies. These

included improving practice, changing practice and the impact of innovation.

Table 4 provides a descriptive summary of each of the studies that were found

to relate to practice.

5.1.1 Improving practice

The theme of improving practice related to the recognition by staff of particular

difficulties with teaching, assessment or course design, where particular

issues had become apparent. Many of the issues in this theme related to

trying to gain parity across staff practices, as well as improving practice

relating to areas such as assessment.

5.1.1.1 Teaching and learning regimes Trowler and Cooper (2002) used the concept of teaching and learning

regimes (TLRs) to explore why academic staff either benefit from, resist or

drop out of ‘educational development programmes’. ’TLR’ is a shorthand term

for a constellation of rules, assumptions, practices and relationships such as:

identities in interaction; power relations; codes of signification; tacit

assumptions; rules of appropriateness; recurrent practices; discursive

repertoires; and implicit theories of learning and of teaching. Participants bring

to programmes sets of assumptions and practices rooted in TLRs, while the

programmes themselves instantiate TLRs that may or may not be compatible

with these. Incongruities between the two need not be fatal, if participants are

able or encouraged to reflect on previously tacit assumptions or are able to

exercise discretion over the application of aspects of different regimes:

It intrigues me why it is that some participants in our … course are mad

about it, and respond with great enthusiasm to everything it offers,

whereas others are lukewarm and need convincing, and yet others

simply don’t want to know, and appear deaf to every entreaty… (p. 222)

Some participants made significant challenges to the course:

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Dave, with only months of recent HE lecturing experience having worked

in industry for many years, requested a high level discussion between a

member of his faculty management and the educational development

programme leaders to express his firm belief that the programme was

inappropriate and irrelevant to the needs of all the participants. (p.227-8)

Simon appealed against his failing part of the assessment … he deemed

the judgement of failure to be inappropriate to someone who has been

teaching for nine years. (p. 228)

In some research-oriented departments or institutions an interest in teaching

or involvement in educational development programmes can be interpreted by

staff in one of two ways. Either the person is a poor teacher and needs help,

or they are a poor researcher and have turned to teaching as a second best.

Research has a higher status than teaching; the perception is that it is not

possible to do both successfully:

…an early member of the Institute for Learning and Teaching (ILT)

commented of that membership that ‘I’m proud of it, but I don’t

particularly want it spread around in my department’. Her reasons were

associated with the lower status of teaching compared with research;

she was acutely aware that in her departmental culture enthusiasm for

teaching might inhibit her eligibility for promotion and status. Another

academic asked that his participation on an educational development

programme be kept from his departmental colleagues: he believed that

expressing an interest in teaching in his department signified a

weakness in his commitment or ability to do high level research. (p. 229)

Thus one young participant ventured the suggestion with departmental

colleagues that the students needed more help to become better

learners, to be told sharply that ‘we are not teachers, we are academics;

that is not our job. (p. 230)

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The ability of an educational development programme to steer a course

through the exploration and critical analysis of different (and sometimes

opposing) TLRs, without either seeming to promulgate a rigid, preferred

model, or causing anxiety to novices by offering no value judgments, seems to

be the ideal to aspire to. This is not always successful:

Ruth dropped out of the educational development programme soon after

receiving feedback on her observed lecture (40 students) and her tutorial

(9 students) …She rejected the tutor’s argument that students need to

engage in talk as part of the meaning-making process as being

inappropriate and unnecessary for teaching her subject discipline.(p.232)

Bob, an inexperienced HE teacher ... from his perspective the tutors

were the experts who held the fixed knowledge and it was their role to

teach it to him … Somewhat ironically, because of other factors … power

relations, tacit assumptions and recurrent practices, he refuted the

validity, authority and relevance of almost all the content that was offered

him about teaching and learning. He did not complete the programme.

(p. 233-4)

Trowler and Cooper asserted that there is a need to develop commonly-

understood discourses about teaching and learning as a prerequisite to being

able to make TLRs explicit and to challenging them openly. As Brookfield

says:

When we become aware of the pervasiveness of power, we start to

notice the oppressive dimensions to practices that we thought were

neutral or even benevolent… (many of which reflect an unquestioned

acceptance of values, norms and practices defined for us by others)…

[This] is often the first step in working more democratically and

cooperatively with students and colleagues. (Brookfield, 1995, p. 9)

An educational development programme depends on the compatibility

between the TLRs in which participants are located and the educational

development programme itself, and the extent to which participants are able

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to tolerate, and even manipulate, differences and ambiguities, as they develop

their awareness and explicit understandings about teaching and learning.

5.1.1.2 Memorisation Cooper et al. (2002) described science lecturers’ conceptions of the role of

memorising and the relationship between memorising and understanding in

their disciplines. Their findings indicated a set of conceptions of memorising

including memorising as rote learning for reproduction, as facilitating learning

(a way to progress), and as a key component of the learning process. These

three conceptions were verbalised respectively as:

You can get very good marks by memorising and writing down lists of

items, because facts still get you marks. (Male Associate Professor of

Physiology, p. 312)

without memorising a lot of key points to start with, you haven’t got a

framework to work on. … You’ve got to know the terminology, and have

parrot-fashion learnt something, and then later on as you apply it into

different contexts, you start to learn where it fits in. (Male Associate

Professor of Physics, p. 312)

I think it’s completely wrong to say that good students don’t memorise. I

think the good students understand, but mere understanding by itself

won’t get you there. (Male Associate Professor of Physics, p. 314)

All the lecturers interviewed stated that students needed to understand the big

picture of their discipline, and how connections were made within it:

It’s not sufficient just to memorise the facts without any understanding of

them. It’s not sufficient just to parrot off a passage from Shakespeare

without understanding its context… what the character is thinking at the

time, the location of the character in the play and so on. Without such

understanding, there’s no point in knowing, learning. (Male Associate

Professor of Mathematics, p. 315)

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Lecturers had opposing views on whether memorising and understanding

were either unrelated processes or dynamically interwoven:

They’ve memorised a certain pathway but they really don’t understand it,

so when you ask them to apply it they find that difficult. (Female

Associate Lecturer in Physiology, p. 316)

My memorising would never be like the lecturer wrote it … (gives an

example) … So my memorising isn’t direct remembering, it’s

remembering according to my understanding. (Female Lecturer in

Mathematics, p. 317)

Cooper et al. suggested the beginnings of a theoretical two-dimensional

model for relating memorising and understanding in science; either static

(memorising and understanding are independent of each other) or dynamic

(memorising and understanding are interdependent).

The study concluded by hypothesising how lecturers’ conceptions surrounding

memorisation might relate to their teaching strategies of either a teacher-

focused, information transmission approach, or a student-centred conceptual

change approach.

5.1.1.3 Assessment of students Clarke (2004) explored the reasons for failure in written examinations of

students in a four-year graduate-entry programme in medicine at the

University of Sydney. The course used problem-based learning (PBL) in small

groups, with written ‘barrier’ examinations in the second and third years in the

form of computer-marked multiple-choice tests and modified essay question

papers (based on a clinical scenario), which were marked by staff members.

Two significant reasons for failure were identified as lack of definition of the

curriculum, and lack of congruence between the PBL approach and the

written examination:

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We lack a clear syllabus as a guideline, so how far should we go, which

area is this, and which certain diseases should we tackle – and it’s [very

difficult to prepare for the examination. (p. 34)

I did study all the PBLs and that’s the best guideline that I’ve got as to

what I should know, and when the exam doesn’t quite reflect that then it

makes life a bit difficult. (p. 34)

Despite PBL being introduced as a practice improvement, explicitly setting out

to encourage self-directed learning, the impact of medical education policy

(the use of outcome–based assessment in a process–based programme),

significantly impaired the improvement’s effectiveness.

The findings of this study reinforce the frequently ignored dictum that:

‘in many institutions, assessment practices misdirect student learning

activities in ways that may seriously undermine the aims of the curriculum.’

(Newble, 1998).

The findings of this study have been addressed by improvements such as

formal statements concerning examinations, the development of an

examination blueprint, and a diagnostic interview programme designed to

identify potential impediments to examination success.

Clegg (2005) also focused on assessment and undertook a critical realist

analysis of the significance of agency, as developed by Archer. Clegg

explored particular practices and argued that human agency was important to

both theorising practice and understanding its process. She focused on

specific accounts of what teachers practise when they design assignments,

how they reach marking conclusions, and if they refer to course

documentation in which learning outcomes are expressed. The results

suggested that while assessment practices were embedded in different

disciplinary and professional contexts, there was a gap between descriptions

of practice and initiation of an intuitive element when making marking

judgments. Clegg (2005) suggests that the rightness of a marking decision is

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an important component in what, on the surface, appears to be a textual

practice of setting and marking assignments:

Right. I have the [marking] grid in front of me. The grid isn’t the model

answer kind so it isn’t the case of going through and ticking every good

point. It is a case of reading the material that they have got. I don’t know

whether I’m allowed to say this but there is certainly an element of gut

feeling at the end of having read. I’m probably a top down sort of person.

I probably get a feel this is a 55 and then justify that in the marking grid.

(p. 155)

It could be suggested that the ‘intuitive element’ injected by the teacher into

the marking conclusions adds an instinctive improvement to course

documentation. The significance of human agency is apparent in this

quotation. The teacher is, therefore, an agent for change through the

translation of theory into practice, which is then delivered to the student body.

Thus this top-down approach to improving practice has commonality with

reflective practice; a recognised pedagogic method that encourages active

learning because experiences are considered by thought, feeling and action

(Kuit et al., 2001), and may also contribute to changing practice.

Mullins and Kiley (2002) identified a similar observation in the assessment of

PhDs. PhD examiners indicated that they checked guidelines, but only a third

took institution-specific criteria into account while assessing. Most examiners

structured their reports in the manner requested by the institution, but when it

came to the point of making a judgment, they regarded themselves as the

arbiters of a satisfactory thesis:

No first rate researcher is without a belief that they understand the

standards in that field and can recognise excellence in that field … So if

you ask me to examine, you are going to get [my] standard. (p. 380)

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5.1.2 Changing practice

There is a considerable body of literature on changing practice. The emphasis

in this theme was on the implementation of a specific change in the

curriculum, often an innovation, where the introduction of the change was

relatively untheorised (pedagogically) and seemed to be related to a particular

teacher’s interest in making the change.

5.1.2.1 Reflection on learning Ashley et al. (2006) explored undergraduate and postgraduate dental

students' understanding of a good learning experience by using Schön‘s

'reflection on learning'. Four groups of fourth-year undergraduates and one of

postgraduates in dental public health took part in a series of focus-group

discussions. The responses were grouped into four broad themes: (a) active,

practical and positive learning; (b) interactive/together learning; (c) personal

learning; and (d) theory into practice. This study explored the use of a theory

of reflective practice in improving both student learning and student/tutor

interaction, and considered students’ awareness and learning techniques.

While teachers implemented an intuitive perspective into their practice, Ashley

et al. (2006) note a dilemma between the development of independent critical

thinkers and students’ own desire for a rigidly defined structure:

…everybody should have the same kind of teaching and interactions

with the tutor…different tutors have different styles of teaching, and

styles practiced [sic]. And you find, on more than one occasion, that one

tutor says one thing and one tutor says another thing, and you’re just

confused, you can’t remember what to do or what’s right or wrong. And

that just kind of makes matters worse. (p. 13-14)

Yeah, I think, well I felt that…my best learning experience has been with

teachers who, or demonstrators who I felt comfortable and I felt

confident in and I think that’s where you’re pointing, because they,

hopefully they know what they are talking about, they’re moulding us to

be the dentists we’re going to be later on… (p. 14-15)

55

Thus, conflicting information from teachers in a formal setting created

confusion, while informal group interaction with peers is seen to be of value

but could also lead to confusion for some. Learning through interaction

appears to have some of its value based upon the degree of formality.

However, when it came to putting theory into practice, the dentistry students

reflected upon the experiential nature of learning to practise dentistry and the

value of learning through making mistakes. Putting theory into practice was

also related to students assessing varying degrees of relevance with regard to

lectures, handouts and availability of staff for informal discussion:

I think that getting together with my friends and them teaching me things

that they’ve been taught and are being demonstrated. Because you don’t

always get all the things that you’re told in the class. The important bits

of information, getting together with them, you’re exchanging

information. That was really good. Especially with these classes. (p. 15)

The study concluded that students preferred an approach to learning that was

graded and cumulative; being exposed to introductory principles that are later

built upon. They also placed an emphasis on practical applications of

knowledge and learning through observation, although this may be a

particular result of the dentistry discipline. Ashley et al. argued that their

findings were of value to curriculum planners in suggesting specific ways in

which students’ learning can be maximised. However, they were perhaps of

limited value to those outside dentistry, given the characteristics of that

particular discipline.

5.1.2.2 Dialogue and narratives

Lawrie (2004) described continuing research into the role of dialogue journals

within a history of graphic design course in the United States. Identified

student needs included: a need to expand students' conception of graphic

design beyond a preoccupation with computer software; a need for students

to understand design activity within a broader cultural context than their own

studio or personal life experiences; and a need for them to be verbally as well

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as visually literate. Students were regarded as being more comfortable in

expressing their thoughts privately, in writing, rather than publicly, during

presentations and discussions. Each fortnight they were given a journal article

to critique in writing. In this excerpt the student was responding to ideas that

challenged her existing beliefs about typography, communication and

effective design:

Maybe I’m not fully grasping the meaning behind this article. But it

seems that Dexel is saying that ‘new typography’ should be so standard,

so sterile and without personality that the only purpose it serves is to

convey a message as quickly as possible…. people out there … won’t all

identify with one standard font… It is much more natural to connect with

an emotion … isn’t that why we have 2000 plus fonts to choose from and

not just [one] standard, cold font meant to be legible? (p. 83–4)

In this excerpt the student was developing his/her thoughts about the role of

design within the culture, as well as their role as a designer within the culture:

[The] article ... gave me a lot to think about ... There is a lot of garbage

out their [sic] being produced by anyone [with] access to a computer. we,

as designers do need to go beyond producing ... what our client wants

and dig deeper into the project. Like with Camel cigarette ads, I wonder

if the designers for them really thought about how there would be kids

seeing the ads then smoking cigarettes at 14, then getting hooked, and

then dying of lung cancer at the age of 40. The designer was probably

just thinking that their client was happy with the ... camel ... and here

comes the big pay check [sic] ... (p. 84)

Overall, the dialogue journal was received positively; students appreciated its

informal nature, the chance to have an extended exchange of ideas with the

teacher, being ‘forced’ to write meant they retained information better, giving

them confidence to participate in class discussions because they realised they

had something to contribute. Some of the few students who responded

negatively to journals were considered by the tutor to exhibit good quality in

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their writing. Lawrie concluded that journal use could be improved by

occasional follow-up discussions in class, and by students responding directly

to each other’s critiques in writing. She also concluded that journals had wider

application to the studio, in facilitating verbal competency within the visual

environment, and in enabling students to connect their own artwork to the

bigger picture of concept development, visual decision-making and sensitivity

to viewer needs.

The link to understanding text and language was also evident in the study by

Poldma and Stewart (2004), who used artful methods combined with more

traditional qualitative methodologies to uncover meaning in research texts

during data analysis. The authors aimed to show how both the phenomenon

used and the method applied to data analysis offered a creative way to allow

for meaning to emerge, while situating the research firmly in a

phenomenological perspective of lived experience of the researcher through a

collaborative conversation. They came together in a research group to explore

artful forms of analysis in qualitative research and:

The narratives of Tiiu and Mary explored Tiiu’s experiences in trying to

understand her emerging data research, and how simultaneously both

Tiiu and Mary arrived at uncovering new meanings in her research

through the intertwined lived experiences of conversation and visual

concept sketching, that they describe as a ‘eureka’ moment. (p. 142)

Mary and I simultaneously sketch some concept and relational diagrams.

Not only am I making meaning in the method … but I am also seeing the

data differently … Mary identifies how we made sense of the data,

shoulder to shoulder, both of us drawing and learning from our own

sketches and from each other. We create meaning through conceptual

conversational meaning making, and this occurs while we talk and draw.

(Vaikla-Poldma, 2003, p.177-8)

The research suggested that conceptual ideas could be expressed

simultaneously while exploring research ideas, when situated in the lived

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experiences of the subjects. Concept maps and collage were two of many

artful analytic methods that can be used as a means to visualise the narrative

conceptually. The visual and textual interface of these tools can help students

both to generate visual images to express verbal concepts, and to formulate

ways to write about the visual experiences they have in the classroom.

5.1.2.3 Learning strategies Styles et al. (2001) examined the learning strategies of undergraduate and

graduate education students from a private and a public university in

Australia. At the beginning and end of the semester, as an integral part of a

unit of study, students were asked to report on their learning strategies related

to the learning task and to themselves as learners. The findings are discussed

with regard to the range and diversity of reported learning strategies, and

students' self-awareness regarding their own learning. Students reported

greater awareness of their use of study strategies by the end of the semester.

Two factors led to these changes: learning about learning strategies and self-

regulation, and the requirement to reflect upon themselves as learners:

Others felt no changes were necessary:

I believe I am fairly set in my learning strategies. They have worked for

me so far, so there was really no great need to change them. (Student

D19, p. 8)

Styles et al. suggested that the opportunity to test out practices allowed

students to recognise latent abilities and change their learning approach:

I have become a metacognitive learner...Once reflecting on the data

obtained, I am now able to change or modify my learning strategies in

order to achieve my learning goals. (Student M02, p. 8)

When I was using a surface approach early in the semester, constantly

'flicking' from one subject to another, my concentration levels were

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down, my morale was low and I felt I wasn't 'getting anywhere'. I soon

realised I had to change my approach. After changing to a deep

approach, enthusiasm reappeared together with a sense of

achievement. (Student M04, p. 8)

The experiences of learning about new strategies and reflecting on

themselves as learners would change their way of learning in future, and

would make them more aware of these issues in their role as future teachers:

(The assignment) has also highlighted the worth of having my own

students reflecting and defining the goals and strategies of their own

learning in an effort to make improvements or simply to reinforce what

they would normally do. (Student D21, p. 10)

This study was based on students’ self reports of their strategy use that were

part of an assessable assignment, so students may have been concerned to

report what they thought the teacher wanted, rather than what they actually

did. However, the impression gained from reading the case studies was that

students were prepared to be open and honest about themselves.

It cannot be assumed that undergraduates or postgraduates will be aware of

and use higher-order strategies to enhance their learning. This study

recommended that knowledge of effective learning strategies be incorporated

into course content, and that students be encouraged to develop their meta-

cognitive awareness. Teacher education courses especially need to develop

effective learning skills in their students, preferably in the context of their

regular studies, and tutors need to model such strategies and provide support

and feedback for students.

5.1.2.4 reflection Linder et al. (1997) explored the use of a reflective practicum based on a

Schönian-framed coaching experience. Qualitative data were collected and

used to generate characteristics of Physics tutors’ meta-learning, while they

were concurrently studying other undergraduate courses. The findings

60

indicate that Schön’s notion of the role of reflection in teaching can be

extended to the context of student learning. The study identified seven

learning transformations and five meta-learning inducers: prior learning

experiences; tutor coaching experiences; being a role model; keeping a

journal; and recognising lack of meta-learning awareness in students. Tutors’

reflections on their own recent learning experiences led to changes in their

tutoring:

Now I try to tell the students how pointless it is to learn just to pass or get

good marks. This tutoring has made me realise that the only point of

learning is for yourself. (p. 828)

Now I challenge the students with questions that go deeper and deeper.

(p. 826)

In the first semester … students would ask me a question, and I would

give them a direct answer … I now try and let the students know that

they themselves actually know what the answer is. (p. 829)

Linder et al. created a reflective environment for tutors that led them to

thinking about teaching and learning in new ways. It provided a critical

framework for them to build meta-learning awareness in both the content and

process of learning, and helped them to generate significant changes in their

learning approaches.

5.1.3 Impact of major innovation

Although this section could be seen as a subsection of changing practice, it

goes beyond decisions to change practice at course, subject, departmental or

faculty level. The impact of major innovation reflects institutional leadership,

decisions to devote significant resource allocations in order to support major

innovations.

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5.1.3.1 Flexible learning environments

In 1998, Griffith University, Australia opened its newly constructed Logan

Campus with many small group and study rooms, computerised work stations,

and only a few large rooms for traditional teaching. Students’ primary sources

of flexible learning were to be through interactive web-based classes and

online activities. This pedagogical approach was based on a large body of

research, in particular Biggs’ (1996) theory of selecting appropriate teaching

and learning activities to address the desired level of student understanding.

Selander (2002) investigated how four university teachers experienced their

new role as teachers for two to three years in the new flexible learning

environment, compared with their past roles as traditional university lecturers

over periods of four to ten years. Results showed that all four teachers

experienced change, which for two had been dramatic. The major difference

was that flexible learning meant a greater need for detailed course planning in

advance:

You need to be prepared and you need to be organised, and that suits

me personally, but for someone else, who does not like to work like this,

they probably hate it. (Teacher B, p. 5)

Other differences in the change to flexible learning experienced by staff were

that they made much more use of educational technology, worked more in

educational teams, had less social contact with students and experienced a

decrease in workload:

FL allows you to teach your subject in a way that you think will improve

the student’s learning best, and I think the students learn more. I also

think that it creates independence in the students. (Teacher D, p. 5)

I love working in a team! Besides having the opportunity to discuss

subject related questions with my colleagues, we get pedagogical and

technological help from other members of the team — that’s great!

(Teacher A, p. 5)

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Days, sometimes weeks, can pass without meeting even one student.

(Teacher A, p. 5)

If I run, plan a subject really well it takes a lot of planning the first time I

run the course, but the second time it does not …. Today it basically

runs itself, and the planning and preparation that has to be put into that

course each year is minimal. (Teacher B, p. 4-5)

The overall opinion was that working in a flexible learning environment was

more satisfying than working in a traditional university setting, for a variety of

reasons:

The students that we manage to nurture and keep going through the

system here, would just drop out at a traditional university, and I think

this is because here the students can choose their method of learning, to

some extent, and because they feel more in control of the whole

process. (Teacher D, p. 5)

At the end of a course I said to the students, ok, tell me one thing that

you have learned from this course, and one of them said, ‘in this course I

learned how to think’. That really made me feel good. (Teacher A, p. 5)

This study showed the Logan Campus innovation to be very successful,

particularly regarding tutor and student satisfaction and student retention.

5.1.3.2 Web-based technologies

Pollock and Cornford (2002) carried out a participant observation study in an

established UK university with a significant commitment to the application of

the internet and other web-based technologies. Drawing upon insights from

the sociology of technology, this paper reported on the University’s attempts

to reconcile ideas about ‘virtuality’ with the more established networks and

infrastructures of traditional university life. Its three themes were enriching

existing courses by implementing new Information Communication

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Technologies (ICTs), replacing other existing print-based courses by

transferring them to the internet, and attracting new distance students by a

‘Cyber Culture’ module. Staff experienced it as:

In the last 18 months or so, there’s been another big push…to find

markets outside the University … we interface with them (students)

mediated through the technologies. (p. 364)

There has been a massive shift... About 2 months ago a directive from

above…get the old print-based courses that are working well …convert

them to run on the web. (p. 364)

Initially planning, preparation and piloting went well:

we did a pilot this year … The [Belgian partner] suggested a module of

study to follow, and then everyone threw in different papers. . . . They

took it in turns to present their papers . . . and the students from all four

universities sat in and listened to those talks. There was about five

minutes at the end of each talk for the students to ask genuine questions

to the lecturer who had just spoken… the lecturers then put the stuff up

on the Web … And then, the most important bit – is the seminar part …

the students were allowed to go and email ... So it is like a live open

forum. And the students can start to follow things up. [The e-mails] get

quite long. There were really quite considered contributions. (p. 366)

Several months after implementation many projects stalled: international

partners left for financial reasons; teaching staff considered existing courses

better than online versions; and only one student enrolled on ‘Cyber Culture.’

Three reasons are commonly advanced to explain failed attempts to introduce

such innovations: (1) the technology does not work (or does not work as

expected); (2) staff, in particular teaching staff, resist the introduction of any

technology that threatens their autonomy; and (3) the costs of technology

development are simply too high, certainly when spread across small

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numbers. The University’s development staff were philosophical about ‘Cyber

Culture’:

In terms of a fully on-line course, it will never happen. we will never go

electronic. Internally for ourselves we have got to persuade students that

this is a good route to choose while there is still a choice between using

the printed versions and the web versions. (p. 369)

It’s so difficult you see, because [the on-line courses] don’t exist. I can’t

bring any to show you. And that is what we want the print [material] to

do, to turn them into ‘things’. And that is why we slipped back to this idea

of at least giving them a diskette for the first one, and then we can have

students coming along to LDS and we can give them a disk out over the

table, over our reception desk. (p. 370)

Pollock and Cornford (2002) assert that the three common reasons are

superficial, surface manifestations of much deeper tensions surrounding new

technological configurations, between established staff networks and online

networks, and concerning conventional course cost-accounting as against

revealed costs of virtual courses.

The picture at this university is ambiguous. Despite ‘top-down’ decision-

making, once the projects left the close confines of development they ‘stalled’.

They demanded the rethinking, and more significantly, the reworking, of

relationships.

5.1.4 Creation of theory through exploration of practice

5.1.4.1 Communication contexts

Turner and Hocking (2004) explored data from the University of London

collected to identify generic characteristics of two contexts in contemporary

fine art study; the tutorial and the postgraduate dissertation. The aim of both

genres is seen to be facilitating the individual student's development of

practice, and integrating theoretical perspectives into assessed writing. While

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the spoken tutorial primarily mediates reflection on, critique of, and therefore

development of practice, the written mode promotes an engagement with

theory that is reflected back in the writing. Initially this paper described a focus

group recording of fine art students discussing the purpose of tutorials:

[Students] frequently spoke of ‘finding their position’, ‘positioning

themselves’, or being ‘oriented’ in a particular ‘direction.’ The role of the

tutor was seen as ‘opening up’ possibilities for them or ‘gearing’ them

towards particular things, but the choice of direction lay ultimately with

the student. (p. 152)

The bulk of the paper then explored good examples of MA dissertations. The

written guidelines assert that it is the argument with or against conceptual or

theoretical frameworks that is fundamental to the dissertation. The argument

can be taken up by any:

way of exploiting, developing, negating, diverting and affirming theories,

histories, ideas and practices. It doesn’t matter which of these take place

so long as it is clear that there is a critical engagement with, and a

considered reflective understanding of whatever you’re working with. (p.

155)

While much of the writing in visual arts is not unique to the discipline, there

are expressions of personal investment not normally seen in other subjects,

as well as mimicry of the discourse found in tutorials justifying processes of

development, critique and reflection:

In this essay I set out to establish my investment or current interest in …

(p. 153)

It is how I have come upon X as a channel for artistic expression that lies

at the source to this essay research. (p. 153)

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Turner and Hocking suggested that the language work and visual work

together have synergistic effects, which can be re-enacted in collaborative

strategies between art tutors and language tutors in the wider development of

students' communicative practice. Art staff can assist language staff in

identifying what the targets are for the students, and language staff can

therefore help those students (not only those from overseas) who need to

develop their understanding of how language works or can work. Language

staff can assist in making their art colleagues aware of the rhetorical

complexity and subject specificity of the language and genres that frame their

teaching and assessment processes, hopefully resulting in the integration of

appropriate courses into the curriculum, which seek to make such processes

transparent. Here, the teaching of language for the framing of arguments can

be invaluable for such students, who often need that kind of scaffolding

assistance. Furthermore, finding one’s way into a disciplinary discourse from

individual lexical items, identified for their relevance, can enhance the

accessibility of the discourse for the student. Ultimately such collaboration

between different kinds of practitioners and pedagogues is also synergistic.

5.1.4.2 Student perceptions of staff gender

Carson (2001) explored teachers' specific views about student perceptions

and behaviour. Previous quantitative evidence suggests that higher education

students may exhibit gender bias against women, when evaluating the

teaching of male and female staff. This study explored the issue qualitatively

in a group of academics teaching in traditional (non-vocational) subject areas,

in two traditional British universities. Women’s’ concerns about and

experiences of students were voiced concerning academic credibility:

Women are treated as if they are not equal to male colleagues perhaps

because students tend to see women in clerical, administrative and

research roles, not as lecturers. (S6, p. 341)

I have to overcome their scepticism about whether I know what I’m

talking about. (SP. 3, p. 341)

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These led to changes in their initial approaches to teaching students new to

them, so that some adopted a more authoritarian stance. Others could do little

when confronted by physical remarks:

I have had insulting remarks … about the pitch of my voice, dress, legs,

being attractive. (S1, p. 342)

‘Dressing down’ to avoid physical remarks would arguably lead to a loss of

academic credibility. Yet after gaining that credibility some women were able

to return to practices they felt more comfortable with:

Some colleagues feel if they have to adopt an authoritative tone, ie over

assessment deadlines etc. they are considered ‘shrill’ … I find I need to

adopt a less authoritarian more nurturing style. (N1, p. 343)

Most respondents felt that some male students will always try to take

advantage, whether it be over classroom misdemeanours, coursework

extensions or increased marks:

Any tendency to be firm or speak negatively to latecomers or chatterers

is regarded as ‘bossy’ or ‘schoolmarmish’ and attracts some very rude

comments from male students. (NP. 2, p. 342)

They are less inclined to take no for an answer … eg for an extension to

a deadline even when I’ve said my decision is final. (A9, p. 343)

In informal situations you get arrogance from male students questioning

marks because they think you are a soft touch. (N7, p. 347)

5.1.4.3 Student attitudes to the mentally ill

Bradshaw and Moxham (2005) conducted research into student nurses’

attitudes towards the mentally ill, following curriculum change at the University

of Sydney. This change sought to foster positive attitudes, as well as to teach

necessary care skills. Students wrote a reflective paper describing a

significant interaction with a mentally ill person. The authors then conducted a

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qualitative research project that allowed them to undertake a thematic content

analysis of students’ reflections. Almost all participants demonstrated positive

attitudes with some describing often profound interactions, such as their

starting experience:

Throughout my life I have had little experience with mental illness,

and the little experience that I had had ... came from television

programs, movies and societies views on mental health. That is

why it was so hard for me personally when my sister was

diagnosed with juvenile schizophrenia. (p. 42)

As a child during this period I lived a life of fear … Paranoia was a

huge factor in my mother’s illness and it was soon instilled in us

too. The conspiracy way of life. (p. 42)

Some students were concerned by their experience of healthcare or so-

called friends of the person with mental illness:

… it did not take much acuity to realise that this particular patient

received no more than the absolute necessity of nursing care while

on the ward. I did not observe any effort or attempt by any of the

nurses to establish a therapeutic relationship … The lack of

attention given to this patient quite embarrassed me. (p. 43)

…after S had recovered only an extremely small minority of his

long-time friends wanted to know him. They did not understand his

illness and made comments like ‘he’s lost his mind’ … Many people

had told me not to visit S because he was crazy, he didn’t make

sense and might even attack me … (p. 42)

Bradshaw and Moxham realised it was imperative that these experiences

were acknowledged and built upon as learning experiences, so results

contributed towards the development of a new subject in the Bachelor of

Nursing program called ‘The Psychiatric Consumer’. Authentic student

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learning was enhanced as subject development was grounded in the

student’s reality. This research also informed the development of ‘The

Psychiatric Consumer’ in another unforeseen way. It taught the authors that

they were not always the expert, as neither of the authors had lived with or

been a ‘psychiatric consumer’.

Grounding the development of the subject in student experience facilitated a

better understanding of potential students, for a subject whose content

abounds with negative and stigmatising attitudes. It allowed the authors to

adopt a constructivist approach to the subject development by understanding

what the students’ experiences were, and by ensuring the process of the

subject acknowledges and builds upon these experiences. The structure is

then based on findings from real life experiences, and therefore has the

potential to encourage authentic learning.

5.1.5 Student experience

5.1.5.1 Student retention

This section begins by considering two papers on student retention. Wilcox et

al. (2005) identified that while much of the recent work on retention had

emphasised the importance of the teaching process for academic and social

integration into the institution, equal emphasis needed to be placed on

successful integration into the social world of the university. Their data

supported the claim that making compatible friends was essential to retention,

and that first-year students’ principal social networks were centred not on their

course but on their accommodation:

Basically, [making friends] was through halls at first and the people I was

living with and then you got to know the people they were with, then it

was people on the course. (Stella, 18, withdrew, p. 714)

You don’t know who you are going to live with and that’s the most

scariest thing ever, that you are going to have to live with seven other

people that you have never met before in your life … I was so scared, it

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was like going into the Big Brother house or something. (Caroline, 19,

stayed p. 714)

Such friends provided direct emotional support, equivalent to family

relationships, as well as ‘buffering’ support in stressful situations. Many

university accommodation services offer applicants the option of single-sex

accommodation, some ask whether or not they smoke, but only a minority

consider other preferences, such as for lively or quiet flatmates. Although a

more complex system of allocating accommodation would increase

administrative costs, the large number of students in our sample for whom

incompatible flatmates was a central factor in their decision to withdraw

suggests that such an initiative could play a vital role in improving retention. It

seems likely that the costs would not only be small relative to the social

benefits to students, but would also be offset by the financial gains to the

institution from increased retention.

Course friendships and relationships with personal tutors were important but

less significant, providing primarily instrumental, informational and appraisive

support:

She is brilliant, [my personal tutor] is really, really, good actually, if I have

had any problems, because I was quite confused about whether I was

going to change my course or not … She fills you with confidence. When

I had my exam results … I wasn’t that pleased with them and she’s still

like, ‘Well, you’ve done pretty well’. (Louise, 21, stayed, p. 716)

Students living at home with their parents and mature students benefit

particularly from approaches that foster friendships between students on a

course, and for other students as well social networks on the course provide

support in relation to academic work that is not available elsewhere:

… a few of us said it would be a good idea to have a study group. So

what we are doing is we are going in there and just going through the

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questions, sample exam questions and just discussing them, essay plan

ideas and that kind of thing. (Maureen, 31, stayed, p. 717)

Ozga and Sukhnandan (1998) argued that the causes of non-completion

could only be fully understood as the culmination of a complex social process

of student-institution interaction, which operated within the context of change

in higher education. They found the process of withdrawal for conventional

students (ie students who enter HE through the traditional academic route)

was markedly different from that for mature students. For conventional

students the factors which appeared to be of central importance were student

preparedness, compatibility of choice and time of exit, while mature students

were often forced into non-completion because of external circumstances.

Completers tended to make proactive choices to enter HE, emphasising the

importance of personal interests, ambitions and career opportunities. In

contrast, non-completers often chose to enter HE for reactive reasons, such

as the expectations of parents, friends or teachers and because it was a

‘natural progression’ having gained the necessary entrance requirements:

It seemed like a natural progression at the time. I don’t think I really gave

it much thought, it was what everyone else was doing ... also leaving

home was important. A degree was the last thing on my list. (Lisa, p.

322)

Once at university students could be struck by reality immediately, or after

some time:

I remember when I arrived, I cried when I saw my room because it was

just such a shock. I don’t come from a big house, but I couldn’t believe I

had to share a bathroom and kitchen with 30 other people, and the size

of the room was unbelievable and it just had painted breeze blocks.

(Rachel, p. 322)

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It was building up, a combination of things - I got really down about the

course ‘cause I felt that I wasn’t learning anything, and I didn’t like

Campus as much as I thought I would. ... I thought about changing

course and made some enquiries, but decided that it wasn’t worth it

because I still didn’t like being at Campus. (David, withdrew, p. 325).

This study showed that in general, conventional non-completers’ under-

preparedness for university life combined with their incompatible choice-

making to contribute to their eventual withdrawal. The majority of non-

completers then went back into HE, confirming the argument that most made

poor choices of institution and/or course with regard to their levels of

compatibility. In this mass-market era with highly developed promotional

strategies, it is not surprising that some students may be vulnerable to

uncritically assimilating expertly marketed, incorrect or outdated information.

The study concluded by recommending intervention strategies at the national

UCAS and institutional levels, which are detailed in the transfer related to

policy section.

5.1.5.2 Students’ creative writing

Light (2002) sought to understand student conceptions of creative writing in

order to inform practice. Light interviewed 40 students from three UK

institutions, ranging from those taking a single undergraduate module to those

taking a Masters. The interviews focused on the students' conceptions and

practice of creative writing, and revealed an underlying subjectivist

epistemology in the students' general assumptions and perception of the

nature of creative writing vis-à-vis other forms of academic writing. Awareness

of the reader was defined as the central feature in conceptions of creative

writing, these two excerpts highlighting their addressivity and awareness:

I’m aware of trying to make sense to other people, yet at the same time

… I think I make the reader work. (Carol, p. 266)

Even if it’s socially unaccepted, I’d still write it, if that’s what was coming

out. (Joel, p. 267)

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Creative writing can also be viewed as more personal and private:

I’m sure that most people who write, who have any interest in writing

cannot handle the idea of sharing, sharing their ideas. If they do its very

superficial. (Scott, p. 268)

At a more advanced and objective stage, writing can be structured:

I think there are techniques that you can deploy … things you should do

and shouldn’t do … consistency of tone and, deciding who’s point of

view this story is going to be told from, and writing in such a way that the

reader’s gonna be engaged. (Paul, p. 270)

Light’s findings support an academic literacy model in that students’

understandings of a discipline’s readership become a significant part of writing

within it. Hence they suggest the perceived shortcomings in student writing

may be the gaps between tutor expectations and student understandings in

the discipline.

5.1.5.3 Problem-based learning

In Clarke (2004), Australian medical students’ experience of a mismatch

between the pedagogical approaches of problem-based learning and imposed

written assessment procedures was explored. Students identified difficulty in

deciding the depth of knowledge required:

we lack a clear syllabus as a guideline, so how far should we go, which

area is this. (p. 34)

There was no way of knowing what was going to be important to you and

what wasn’t, so you could get terribly side tracked with something that

was very interesting that wasn’t going to be high-yield. (p. 34)

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Students also felt that the examination did not match up to the expectations

they gained from the emphases of the curriculum:

I did study all the PBLs and that’s the best guideline that I’ve got as to

what I should know, and when the exam doesn’t quite reflect that then it

makes life a bit difficult. (p. 34)

In a number of studies relating to the use of E/PBL, most students were

overwhelmed by the learning that occurred through others, and valued the

opportunity to share information and experiences. For example, in Barrow et

al. (2002) students argued:

You come back and you’ve got to have it done (other members agree)

otherwise you’re letting everybody down. (p. 59)

A few students wondered about the value that E/PBL had been to them as

individuals, resenting the losses of their time and opinions through committing

themselves to the group. Students in the study by Bebb and Pittam (2004)

argued:

I think initially IBL was very hard to get used to because you’re used to

sitting in class and listening to someone lecture you and tell you what to

do and when to do it. Then you come into IBL and it’s – ‘what do you

think it should be’, and you think, ‘well you’re the teacher’ – so it did take

a lot of getting used to. (p. 146)

However, one study raised interesting cultural concerns. Haung (2005)

undertook an exploratory study of Chinese international students’ perceptions

of their PBL experience, in tourism-related courses at universities in the UK.

Students found the PBL more interactive than their old learning style, and that

it allowed them to learn on their own. However, the students had a large

psychological obstacle when it came to debating a subject with their lecturers.

For example, one student explained:

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I am happy to discuss problems with my team mates. However, I did find

that I had a huge difficulty when arguing with my lecturers, especially

when they were wrong about some issues. I think this is a problem that

most Chinese students in the UK would have. (p. 41)

Students also did not seem to trust the material that they had researched for

themselves. Yet across the studies the approach would seem to help students

to debate issues and concerns in ways they had been unfamiliar with in earlier

learning experiences, as exemplified by this student:

It’s hard enough during presentations to stand up there and strut your

stuff as it were, but to actually, I mean right down to, ‘God is my spelling

right’ or ‘Am I pronouncing this properly’, so we gave up on the whole

situation. … we just find it better; we’d rather get into a full blown

discussion and battle it out that way, as a debate. (Bebb and Pittam,

2004, p. 149)

Others felt this equipped them to be ‘good nurses’ for the future:

In my group we call it DIY not IBL, because it’s do-it-yourself, you go out

and find the information yourself, and for some people that works, but …

you have to be very self disciplined to find this information out.

Personally, I feel if I want to be a good nurse then I need to read around

the subject a lot more than just to pass an exam. (p. 150)

These examples illustrate how pedagogy in E/PBL is continually changing and

both this and the pedagogy of E/PBL are mutually shaping and changing each

other. Students’ experiences were similar in the study by Hutchings and

O'Rourke (2006a), who gathered qualitative student response data from the

implementation of EBL methods in third-year English Literature courses. Five

main issues emerged: general anxiety about the introduction of innovatory

methods; group dynamics; the absence of a familiar framework; continual

pressure; and the rigidity of conventional PBL methods. In this study students

valued the collaboration and one student explained:

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Peer feedback lends itself to PBL. The nature of PBL is that we are all

working together so we get to know each other really well so you

wouldn’t be too shy in saying ‘listen, mate, that bit was really good but

you could improve on that bit’. You wouldn’t feel any qualms with that

because we all know each other, it’s not as if we’re dealing with

strangers and we wouldn’t have known each other if it wasn’t for the

style of the course and the group work. (p. 5)

Similarly Reynolds et al. (2006) found that use of enquiry-based learning and

problem-based learning in a human resource management undergraduate

programme had a significant role to play in the development of independent

learning, team working skills and the acquisition of deeper knowledge. Even

though a few tensions were reported, data indicated that students valued and

enjoyed working in teams:

I built a sound relationship with my fellow course mates, which I feel is

extremely helpful and important as it allowed us to help each other out in

other modules. (p. 364)

Perhaps more importantly though, students found that working through E/PBL

was an effective way of learning and they believed that they had gained a

deeper understanding of the topic than they had in other lecture-based

learning.

5.1.5.4 Student experiences of distance education

Hara and Kling (2000) undertook a qualitative case study of a small, graduate-

level, web-based, distance education course in educational technology at a

major US university. This paper examined students' distressing experiences

due to communication breakdowns and technical difficulties:

..the biggest problem is the instruction of our assignments. I usually don’t

understand what she wants … those instructions were so ambiguous

that it’s very confusing. Sometimes she takes all kinds of responses and

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she would say, ‘its good you are creative,’ but sometimes I got her

response saying this is not what I want. (Sheryl, p. 570)

in her instructions sometimes I can follow steps 1 and 2, and then I can’t

follow from steps 2 to 3 … the instruction is all in text, no graphics (Amy,

p. 569)

People can often adequately resolve ambiguities of human communication

when they are face-to-face. With written text, resolving ambiguities is more

difficult. Students reported confusion, anxiety and frustration when they

wanted prompt feedback from the instructor. The instructor believed that

anxieties and frustrations had been eliminated during the term and suggested

that:

They [the students] thought that the problems they had were basically

their own; other people did not have the same problem until we opened

up the conversation and they realised that, oh, yeah, we were all in the

same boat. Now, they have this peer support coming in. That [problem], I

think, we took care of pretty well. (Instructor, p. 573)

However, students still expressed frustrations and anxieties late in the

semester, but were reluctant to express them to the instructor, resulting in a

misperception of student attitudes. These difficulties were exacerbated by the

weaker social cues of asynchronous text-based communication. In general,

the students wanted ‘prompt, unambiguous feedback,’ but often worked late

at night or at weekends. Both instructors and students need to manage their

expectations about when they should be able to have fast communicative

responses.

Hara and Kling assert that there is broad public appeal for inexpensive and

convenient education, especially for people who are working or who have

extensive family commitments. Unfortunately, little of the practitioner literature

and even less of the popular literature about distance education effectively

identifies the complexities of working and communicating with ‘new media.’

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5.1.6 Staff experiences

Many studies portray the challenge and complexity of being a teacher in

higher education. Staff seemed to question what it meant to 'be’ a teacher, not

only regarding portrayal and presentation, but also in relation to pedagogy

and action.

5.1.6.1 Staff expectations of themselves

Staff expectations of themselves seemed to be a concern for many. For

example, in a number of studies relating to staff experiences, tutors spoke of

wanting to devolve power to the students, yet in practice they were either not

prepared to devolve it or not capable of doing so. Staff in other studies

realised this of themselves, as exemplified in Savin-Baden (2000a, b), who

presented the findings of a longitudinal study that used collaborative inquiry to

explore tutors’ expectations and experiences of being problem-based learning

facilitators. The findings indicated that tutors’ pedagogical stances influenced

not only the ways in which they operated and affected the problem-based

learning teams, but also impacted on the student learning experience. Savin-

Baden located four approaches:

a) Reproductive pedagogy: In this domain tutors see themselves as the

suppliers of all legitimate knowledge, since anything less will result in

inefficiency in their role as tutor, and risk and failure for the students.

b) Strategic pedagogy: Tutors here offer students different learning

strategies, but all are within the remit of what is acceptable to the authorities

(ie institution, tutors and profession):

I find myself during the feedback sessions giving, tending to give more

information than I did initially. Again just filling in gaps where I could see

that they had missed something in what they went out to look at, and

asking them, ‘Did you think about . . . ?’ whatever it is. (p. 104)

c) Pedagogical autonomy: Here tutors offer students learning opportunities

that will give them a means of meeting their own personally defined needs as

learners, while also ensuring that they will pass the course.

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d) Reflective pedagogy: Tutors here see their role as enabling students to

realise that learning is a flexible entity and to understand that there are also

other valid ways of seeing things besides their own perspective. Tutors thus

help students to see that knowledge is contingent, contextual and

constructed, and understand themselves and their students as reflexive

projects. For example, the tutor here found it difficult to discuss PBL

separately from her perspective on life and saw students engaging with

learning as a life-process:

By the end of the second year the students say, ‘It's beginning to make

sense, it's beginning to fit together with theory and the practice, I know

what you're on about now, I can see that.’ As it were, the penny has

dropped, and you can see the knowledge being used to underpin

practice and to question practice. And also similarly, certainly half way

through the third year, the students that have made it, they're using

practice to question—as a relative form of theory (p. 105).

Wilkie (2004) explored nursing lecturers’ espoused and actual conceptions of

facilitation on a problem-based learning undergraduate nursing programme.

Wilkie found four approaches to facilitation, namely:

1) Liberating supporter: characterised by minimal facilitator intervention and

promotion of self-directed learning, with the focus on content acquisition:

My role as a facilitator is, well, it’s really prompting the group to

look at the trigger … I tended to turn it back on the group … trying

to get them to look at things in a different way. (James, lecturer,

adult branch, first year of the study, p. 85)

This approach was also evident in Hutchings and O’ Rourke’s study (2006b):

PBL promotes personal research….the student becomes more familiar

with the multifarious resources at their disposal, such as e-journals and

databases. There is the opportunity to support one another in the

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research and explore different avenues of information. The whole

experience becomes one of interchange where students share opinions,

research and experience in order to achieve an end result. (p. 6)

2) Directive conventionalist: this group of facilitators retained control of both

the learning material and the method:

My biggest concern, I think, was, I just, I felt that I wasn’t free to

just facilitate, that I really felt that it was far too active and far too

directive, for my own comfort. (Gordon, lecturer, mental health

branch, interview, first year of the study, Wilkie, 2004, p. 86)

3) Nurturing socialiser: this approach was student-centred, nurturing and

supportive with an emphasis on socialising students into ‘good’ standards:

It’s not so much about teaching them the hip bone’s connected to

the thigh bone stuff, but more about the essence of nursing, about

being with people. This caring, nurturing empathy that makes

people feel valued. That’s what we need to get across. (Karen,

interview, third year of the study, p. 88)

4) Pragmatic enabler: this approach developed with facilitators’ experience –

one style of facilitation did not meet the needs of all and the problem-based

process was affected by factors such as student characteristics, the nature of

the problem, frame factors and the amount of dialogue:

The group are perfectly capable of dealing with the issues

without me having to prompt them at all. I don’t know if it is

because I started out better, or if it is the personalities that are in

it. (Gordon, interview, third year of the study, p. 89)

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5.1.6.2 Staff role confusion

However, staff across many studies spoke of the role confusion they

experienced as a facilitator and their difficulty in managing their role, which is

explored later under the section on disjunction.

In a study by Samuelowicz and Bain (2001), 39 academics from a range of

disciplines were interviewed and, in accordance with a ’beliefs’ framework,

their typical ways of thinking about teaching and learning, and their

dispositions to teach in particular ways, were sought. Firstly, teaching-centred

learning was characterised by imparting information, transmitting structured

knowledge, and providing and facilitating understanding. An academic

verbalised this learning:

I give them some facts and then I play with the facts and try to drag

answers out of them, and try to connect it to many things in the world

around them. (Academic A, p. 314)

I try to teach it maybe three different ways in case they didn’t understand

one view and then I say ‘there is the book.’ I try to keep with the book.

(Academic A, p. 314)

Secondly, and by contrast, learning-centred learning involved helping

students develop expertise, preventing misunderstandings, negotiating

meaning, and encouraging knowledge creation. This can be described as:

Enabling the student, coaxing the student and in some ways convincing

the student that it is possible for them to do it. (Academic B, p. 316)

The hardest part for the novice students is to withdraw from the security

of ‘there is a right answer, its in the book, I’ll look it up, I’ll write it down

and you’ll like it. (Academic B, p. 316)

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I say to them, ‘stop sucking my brain out of my ear; it’s my brain, it’s not

going to help you. You need to make it your own work.’ (Academic B, p.

316)

Samuelowicz and Bain concluded that although academics in both

orientations of teaching-centred learning and learning-centred learning want

their students to gain a thorough subject understanding, their beliefs about the

nature of understanding and knowledge differ substantially; the orientation

boundary between them was ‘hard’, although shifts between the two can

occur. They identified the need for future research on the influence of

academics’ beliefs on the uptake of alternative teaching methods, and the

adaptation of staff development methods to address beliefs as well as

practices.

Carson (2001) explored teachers' specific views about student perceptions

and behaviour. Previous quantitative evidence suggests that higher education

students may exhibit gender bias against women when evaluating the

teaching of male and female staff. This study explored this issue qualitatively,

in a group of academics teaching in traditional (non-vocational) subject areas

in two traditional British universities. Some women respondents stated that

students had negative views of female staff:

They take me less seriously than my male colleagues …. I’m ‘Ms’ rather

than ‘Dr’ while my male colleagues become ‘Prof’ rather than ‘Mr’ which

is their proper title. (S1, p. 341)

I feel less respect is accorded my teaching and I have to work hard to

earn their respect. I feel male colleagues are given this respect

automatically. (SP. 3, p. 341)

Males are assumed to be knowledgeable, females have to prove it. Any

failings in female lecturers are picked up on and seen to be fatal … (SP.

5, p. 341)

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Other women saw student prejudice as something that could be overcome:

… students expect men to be more authoritative on their subject but

once they hear what their teacher has to say, they forget about gender.

(A9, p. 342)

Women appeared entirely confident in their identities as conscientious

teachers, a circumstance which related empirically (and possibly theoretically)

to an almost unanimous derogation of their male colleagues:

I have always had very positive teaching evaluations (from students) …

they are less in awe of me than if I were a man. (A9, p. 344)

Females put in more effort (than males): (1) to overcome bias in the

system; and (2) because they have a more caring ethos to their teaching

therefore try harder. (SP. 5, p. 345)

The women consider themselves to be (and are seen as) more conscientious,

better communicators and more sensitive to the need for careful preparation.

Male academics are seen as primarily being concerned with furthering their

own careers exclusively, whereas women enjoy working as a team. A male

respondent stated:

Men may bull**** more in teaching but this could be because they’re

more confident because they are taken more seriously. You have to be

very well organised to make sure you succeed – if you’re a man you can

‘trade on your status.’ (S1, p. 348)

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5.2 Transfer

This theme examines the possibilities for and realities of transfer, across both

knowledge domains and areas of practice. The issue of knowledge transfer is

explored in more depth in the third-level analysis; particularly in the

discussion. Staff in the studies in this theme re-examined their understanding

of their roles as the lecturer, of their students’ role as learners, of the

structures of their disciplines, and of their views of teaching. The combined

effect of time, resources, support for risk-taking and collegial discussion

presented an unusual gateway for the transformation of their pedagogical

stances, knowledge and practice. Transfer is a complex concept, which

includes knowledge of learners, knowledge of subject matter, previous

experiences, ideas about pedagogical practice and contextual cues in a

dynamic iterative process, which can be supported and encouraged through

institutional intervention. However, the central themes in this section are:

• transfer for shared practice

• transfer related to policy.


to relate to transfer.

5.2.1 Transfer for shared practice

Staff here saw teaching as a rich activity, worthy of thought, reflection and

investigation, and as something that was important to share with others.

Studies in this theme sought to illuminate current practices to understand

them and also to raise awareness to prompt change. There was an

overarching sense of wanting to understand staff and students’ stances or

positions toward a particular issue – such as methodological stance,

pedagogical stance or reflective stance.

5.2.1.1 Methodological stance

Mullins and Kiley (2002) examined the influence of the examiner’s

methodological stance on the examination of a PhD. Examiners working in the

sciences, mathematics and engineering looked for ‘good science’ when

examining. Good science included ‘a pertinent literature review, clear

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hypothesis, a do-able problem, sound data analysis and methodology and

justifiable conclusions’. In the humanities and social sciences, examiners

described themselves as ‘eclectic’, ‘catholic’ or ‘generalist’, and had become

far less ‘doctrinaire’ with experience, considering themselves more able to

examine across a range of paradigms because of their experience. A strong

assertion was that they checked for consistency and that students had

actually done what they had intended, rather than adhere to a particular

paradigm or methodology: Experienced examiners suggested that their work

was well known for their sub-discipline or methodological approach, and it was

unlikely that they would be required to examine in a paradigm with which they

were not sympathetic:

I try in my reading of theses to understand where the student is coming

from. Even if I don’t agree with the perspective they have, or if there are

gaps, I try to see it from their eyes and whether they have been true to

what they set out to do. (p. 375)

Pritchard et al. (2005) examined students’ conceptions of theory and practice,

their understanding of learning experiences, and how students conceived of

that relationship in art, media and design undergraduate education. This was

considered specifically in relation to the dissertation, which most final-year

arts practice undergraduates undertake. The study was based on interviews

conducted within one institution, where theory and practice is normally

delivered, supported and assessed by the tutors who teach students both

theory and practice. An analysis of interviews of a sample of 24 students from

the disciplines of fashion design, animation and photographic arts, yielded

four qualitatively different ways, or categories, of conceiving the relations

between dissertation and practice. These different conceptions appeared to

be related to variations in students' views of the role of their involvement in

preparing and writing the dissertation.

In category A, Pritchard et al. (2005) suggest that the dissertation was integral

to everything the student produced as a practitioner. They concluded that

theory was inseparable and was thus an expression of students’ work. The

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relevance of the dissertation was regarded as a taken-for-granted aspect of

the work. For example,

And I truly believe that without the theory and without the dissertation ...

you know ... and the writing ... um ... I don’t think my designing would be

what it is, they sit together ... to be informed you need theory. (p. 10)

Whereas in category B the dissertation and the practice were seen to be

related. The choice to write a paper or complete another practice piece was

linked to how relevant they believed the dissertation was:

I think [the dissertation] is very relevant, like if you just had the practical

without the theory it would become - it would become really bland and

there just wouldn’t be anything there. (p. 11)

In category C the dissertation and practice parts were seen as separate and

unrelated entities. The relevance of the dissertation emerged from the

academic credibility that it offers the degree:

Rather than a collection of clothes, it’s going to be something that will be

art based, static, where people come along and instead of saying oh you

make dresses don’t you? Oh it’s a fashion designer we think, and with

the honours, the dissertation, she can read and write as well as

designing the dress or drawing or painting. And I think it just gives that

little extra academic cherry on the top of the cake. (p. 11)

In category D the dissertation was regarded as irrelevant, and it was

suggested that, given the choice, students would not include a dissertation in

their degree. When asked if theory got in the way of the practice one of the

animation students replied:

Well yes really because it kind of slows you down if you are working on

your practical assignment then theory will take a hefty portion of your

time as well, so I suppose in a way it does get in the way. (p. 12)

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5.2.1.1 Reflective stance

Rather than seeking to understand students’ pedagogical location, Kreber

(2004) sought to understand staffs’ understanding and stance towards

reflection. While there is largely global acceptance of the notion of the value of

reflective practice, there is relatively little empirical research to support its use

and claims, and Kreber’s findings illustrate less practice occurring than was

originally thought. The study illuminated the realities of practice that staff

espoused:

The problem I need to solve here is clarifying my goals (I describe the

content of the problem and this time for the domain of curricular

knowledge) and my main goal is to encourage deep approaches to

learning.

The problem I need to solve here is to help students engage in deep

approaches to learning (here, again, I describe the content of the

problem but this time for the domain of pedagogical knowledge) and I do

this by providing them with choice, challenge, control and collaboration

in their learning tasks.

The problem I need to solve here is (for example) to provide students

with choices (here I describe the content of the problem I need to

address in the domain of instructional knowledge) and I do this by using

learning contracts. (all p. 32)

Kreber suggests that the above examples demonstrate a mere description of

a problem and how it is habitually solved. Content reflection does not actually

constitute learning, but rather remembering what is known. Differences were

found in the extent to which academics said they reflected, and a few

examples of reflection were provided in the interviews. For example:

Sure, I reflect on this all the time. (p. 36)

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All participants were able to articulate what they knew about instruction,

pedagogy and curriculum, and revealed vast differences in what they thought

they knew. Incidents or specific behaviours were described that suggested an

engagement in process reflection in the domains of instructional and

pedagogical knowledge. Few participants were able to recall incidents that

provided evidence of process reflection in curricular knowledge. Although

most people said they reflected, few could provide convincing accounts that

demonstrated engagement in the kinds of reflection that could lead to a

transformation of assumption.

5.2.1.3 Pedagogical stance

Crossman (2005) essentially explored staff pedagogical stances: the ways

tutors see themselves as teachers in particular educational environments.

Crossman described a qualitative study concerning the experiences of nine

Thai transnational distance learners, who were enrolled in doctoral programs

in Australian universities while working in higher educational contexts in their

own country. Data were collected from participant journals, an open

questionnaire and dialogic email communications. The study revealed that the

workplace is an important influence upon the nature and quality of the

learning experience, largely through issues relating to finance, time

management and technology or other resources. Learning, in turn, influenced

the workplace with individuals operating as educational change agents

applying their learning about student-centred methods to classroom practice.

One participant, Pornkasem, recounted how applications from global to local,

theory to practice, and learning to workplace were undertaken with

consciousness, discrimination and discernment:

It makes me go to see the wide world of everything I wish to - both good

and bad things! I myself have discovered a lot of wisdom from the other

side of the globe…. It is beautiful time for me to mix my local knowledge

and global one for our peaceful world confronting with globalisation. (p.

23)

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Another participant, Pongsin, writing in the context of encouraging surface and

deep learning, suggested that change agency presented a challenge within

his classroom and the institution. Pongsin reflected on the difficulty and

complexity of change, and his journal revealed how he identified the East with

traditional learning and the West with modern approaches and innovation:

I enjoy learning new concepts and new ideas about education that are

common in the western world…What I mean is that the kind of

knowledge in the western world is generally placed in the front line of

modern education, but the old tradition in my workplace is predominant.

(p. 24)

The focus in this study, then, was on the relationship between learning and

work, and the ways in which both national culture and work cultures influence

and impact on learning. However, the study also examined workplace learning

and learning at university in the context of increasingly global systems of

higher education. The author argued:

There are a number of reasons why universities should explore the

implications of transnational distance learning for Thai teachers. Despite

a tradition of Australians and Thais learning from one another . . . very

little literature has been generated on the subject. Also, international

education has become Australia’s third largest service export industry . .

. with 50 programs being offered to Thai transnational distance learners .

. . Given such expansion, universities need to become aware of issues

that influence these learners in their own contexts and explore any

implications for teaching, learning and quality assurance. (p. 18)

Whereas in Macy et al. (1998) (discussed in detail in the section on transfer in

relation to policy), transfer was seen as a means of shifting staff pedagogical

stances into a clearer more outcome-focused model, such as reproductive

pedagogy (Savin-Baden, 2003). Here, tutors see themselves as the suppliers

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of all legitimate knowledge; stances in this domain are characterised by

adopting methods of teaching that maintain the status quo both for student

and in relation to the learning context.

Much of the literature in this theme related to using theories and approaches

to learning as a means of making sense of transfer. Although the use of

learning theory was not always explicit, the recognition of differing learner

approaches was often central to the research and future plan for changes in

practice. For example, an exploration of conceptions/perceptions and

expectations of interactivity was undertaken by Sims (2003), located in an

online community. Sims suggested that the discourse of flexible and online

learning echoed with terms such as communication, collaboration,

engagement and interactivity. Yet interactivity as a concept has received

comparatively little research attention. Based on a qualitative analysis of

responses from 68 participants, Sims found that participants had specific

expectations of interactivity that not only were consistent with theoretical

frameworks of learning, but also provided insights for the design of online

collaborative learning environments. Sims suggested that the factors that

impacted on the effectiveness of the interactive learning experience were

diverse, complex and dynamic. The study considered a particular section of

the online community, and issues of expectations, understanding and realities

of practice appeared to be uppermost. Concepts of interactivity were identified

within educational psychology theory, the construct of interactivity, the

technology and the criticality of human–computer interface factors,

communication and collaboration, and the design, deployment and

maintenance of learning environments.

Findings suggested that flexible online learning lost human interaction and

that there was a need for people to talk to each other rather than just seeking

an answer and getting it right. Thus the advantages of technology would not

be met if they were decontextualised from human experience. For example

staff argued:

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Student can tailor learning to personal needs—(to some extent); variety

of system responses makes for more interesting experience; potential to

include more information without it needing to be relevant to all, or most

students; feeling of control over the learning experience may increase

student’s acceptance and enthusiasm. (p. 94)

Thus understandings of interactivity related to the need to provide diversity,

which would promote and enhance students’ engagement:

Interactivity means it must work both ways. Instead of the information

simply being presented on the screen, the user should be able to fiddle

around, look at certain things in depth. (p. 97)

Participant’s responses offered insights into their expectations of what

interactivity should offer, in the context of online and flexible learning

environments. The study identified interactivity as providing benefits to

learning, and challenges to creating learning environments that will manifest

the conditions for effective interaction. Similar explorations of approaches to

learning were seen in studies by Selendar (2002), Savin-Baden (2000a,b) and

Wilkie (2004) in the practice and community sections above.

5.2.2 Transfer in relation to policy

One of the central difficulties with universities is that, as organisations, they

nowadays tend to adopt strategies focussed upon solving problems. The

epitome of this could be said to be in the Dearing Report’s (NCIHE, 1997)

emphasis on predominantly operational solutions. In recent years, shifts in the

structure of universities worldwide have been designed to emulate business

organisations, as seen in the adoption of an enterprise culture.

Simultaneously, Government attention to detail in the areas of teaching,

research quality and standards is expected to improve the overall efficiency

and effectiveness of the university as an organisation. The themes in this

section reflected the increasing control exerted, largely worldwide, on higher

education via different systems and practices. Thus the key themes that

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emerged in transfer related to policy could be located in institutional systems

of:

- accreditation

- student retention

- quality control.

However, what was also apparent was the impact of policy on disciplines and

vice versa, as discussed in the studies by Burke (2003, 2005) and Macy et al.

(1998).

5.2.2.1 Quality control

Macy et al. (1998) described the implementation of a Total Quality

Management (TQM) approach in a US university business school. TQM

embodies a set of beliefs about the right way to conduct business, and the

process was undertaken using a system of Continuous Process Improvement

(CPI). In practice the principles included focusing students’ learning,

teamwork, students demonstrating what they knew through action,

developing and assessing skills in a variety of settings, and ensuring explicit

criteria, feedback and self-assessment would promote continuous

improvement. The findings indicated that the CPI heightened staff awareness

of what and how they taught and assessed students, but also enabled them

to make their aims and outcomes clear to students. For example, one tutor

felt that the rationality of CPI gave it some credibility:

It relates to a lot of things, general idea that we talked about in

management, human resource management, where we let people know

what we expect of them, help them along, and so on. Because then for a

performance appraisal, they know what is expected, they know where

they stand. So that kind of fits that same model, so it made a lot more

sense to me. (p. 35)

Others were more cautious about the approach:

I used CPI as a program made up of many parts …. I pick from this

smorgasbord table those things that will help me to be a better teacher in

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my particular point of view … I take those tools that I feel I can use and

which compliment my teaching style, as a pragmatic point of view, with

less emphasis on theory, but rather what can you do with the theory and

apply it to the workplace, how can you help the students to be a better

worker. Theory is great, but if you can’t apply it, it is excess baggage. (p.

39)

It was evident in this study, as with many innovations and change processes,

that the very act of engaging in change activities resulted in new

understandings of the relationship between theory and practice. However,

changing practice also enables and allows staff opportunities to discuss ways

of thinking about practising teaching. Thus, this kind of sharing in a change

process not only makes practices more explicit, but also enables transfer of

change experiences to be shared within and across higher education

communities.

However, it may be that change such as this, despite seeming to be a shift

toward reproductive pedagogy, may instead prompt shifts towards

pedagogical autonomy, whereby tutors offer students kinds of learning

opportunities that will give them a means of meeting their own personally

defined needs as learners, while also ensuring that they will pass the course.

5.2.2.2 Accreditation

Harvey (2004) explored the perspectives of accreditation in Britain, the United

States and Canada. Data were derived from literature on participants’ views of

accreditation and the responses of 53 academics and administrators that had

been involved in accreditation processes. Such processes, he argued, were

not benign or apolitical, but represented a power struggle that impinges on

academic freedom, and impose an extensive bureaucratic burden. The

qualitative comments were used by Harvey to deconstruct the notion of

accreditation:

Accreditation can . . . act as a restraint on innovation and run counter to

pedagogic improvement processes. There is a taken-for-granted

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underlying myth of an abstract authorising power, which legitimates the

accreditation activity. This myth of benign guidance is perpetuated by the

powerful as a control on those who provide the education and represents

a shift of power from educators to bureaucrats. (p. 207)

The main overarching issue that emerged from this study was the perception

that accreditation was necessary for professional employment and practice,

and creating and maintaining uniformity. One academic argued:

My impression from the central administration is that accreditation (the

kitemark rather than the process) is highly valued: students are looking

for an accredited programme, therefore the absence or loss of

accreditation would cause great anxiety from the point of view of student

recruitment. (p. 213)

In terms of the need for uniformity another suggested:

Sometimes it seems to be about how powerful the agencies are—the

professional body or the institution and I’ve had experience of it going

both ways …In relation to psychology, it initially resulted in inflexibility in

relation to residential schools—mandatory to get a named degree. And

this disadvantaged women with childcare needs. we then renegotiated

after much feedback and because student voted with their feet (didn’t

sign up) and we then found money to provide an alternative, and an on-

line experience was developed. (p. 214)

5.2.2.3 Non-completion

Furthermore, Ozga and Sukhnandan (1998) explored undergraduate non-

completion, in the context of the market-driven UK system of higher education

in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The article, while focusing on the student

experience, as delineated in the practice section, indicated some useful

implications for higher education policy. It found that the changing nature of

the university experience, combined with the changing nature of the student

body, produced significant shifts in the experience of HE that are not fully

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visible or understood in all their implications. This HE culture shift has affected

institutional ability to respond to diverse needs and expectations.

They argued for change, nationally and institutionally, so that ’choice’ be

supported by national agencies that could assist UCAS in similar ways to the

support provided for school choice, meaning students are aware of the need

to make informed and responsible choices and provided with nationally

available resources to support informed selection. At the institutional level

there were expectations of improved internal record-keeping by institutions

(including a more systematic and uniform method of recording and coding

reasons for withdrawal), and of promoting active learning in the early stages of

a degree and early formative assessments in the first part of the first

semester/term. The issue of what constituted ‘choice’ would seem to imply a

lack of strong links between policy and ways of thinking and practices about

teaching and learning in higher education, which would seem to be supported

by Burke’s studies, below.

5.2.2.4 Course integration

The first study by Burke (2003) explored the opinions of the key individuals

involved in implementing the integration of nurse education into higher

education in the UK, as to why nurse education moved into higher education,

and why this happened when it did. Overall 70 implementers involved in the

integration process were asked for their views on this issue.

Although the findings indicate that participants believed that integration had

occurred because of a combination of complex factors, there was a division

between those who thought that it was centrally planned and others who felt

that it was an accidental outcome of the particular events of the time. This

article locates transfer not in relation to the implications or the impact of policy

on changing practices of teaching and learning in higher education, but in

relation to the broader issues of the transfer of a discipline from a health

service setting to a higher education location. Although those involved in the

process of transfer were interviewed, much of the data indicates beliefs about

the bearing of the change rather than any particular analytical discussion of

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the impact on practice or community. Neither is there a great deal of

discussion about the way in which integration into the higher education

community changed the way the nursing profession was valued and seen to

have currency, as well as locating it more as a profession than an

apprenticeship. For example one participant remarked:

Moving nurse education from the NHS into higher education is the

right move because of the expectation of young people leaving

school…we were not always satisfied with the quality of education in an

NHS college, they weren’t subject to same academic rigor and the

common currency of actually getting a university diploma or degree. The

Region wasn’t that keen but when it became national policy we all went,

if it hadn’t become national policy we wouldn’t have gone. (p. 386)

Conversely, six other participants believed it was because colleges could not

survive as stand alone, financially viable institutions:

The colleges could not work because they had no credible management

status and it was difficult to quality assure the education. (p. 386)

However, it was apparent that nurses’ views were rarely taken into account,

as few implementers had paid attention to the views of the professional bodies

and there was little evidence of any attempt at consultation with nurses. A

more recent article by Burke (2005) also explored the process of integrating

schools of nursing into higher education in England from the perspectives of

key individuals involved. Interviews were conducted with a national, purposive

sample of 30 senior individuals involved in healthcare education in the late

1990s, selected from higher education institutions, national and regional

offices of the Department of Health and professional bodies. The study found

that there was a need for greater clarity of policy aims, and sensitivity to the

culture in which change was taking place. The author also argued for the

importance of ensuring that individuals had the skills to make effective

change.

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A number of issues emerged about the way in which this profession was

moved into higher education, relating to both the process of the integration

and the forms of, and level of consultation, that took place. This introduced

some interesting issues related to the notion of improvement for change

management and the impact on learning for the professional, which will be

discussed in the level 3 analysis.

However, what was perhaps most revealing about participants’ voices in the

policy related studies is the lack of ownership or location of themselves in the

various instructional processes. The adoption of the position as ‘author’ of

some of these processes was often veiled by the use of ‘we’ or ‘the university’,

‘they’ or the ‘institution’/‘the professional body’, and yet academics were

invariably member of these communities. The implication is that academics

denied that they had preceded the texts and the decisions inherent in them.

For example, for Foucault the authorial functions are associated with systems

of ownership. While current conceptions of authorship are generally perceived

to be positive, with the authors being a fount of meaning, Foucault argued that

the author should be reconfigured as someone who ‘does not precede the

works, he is a certain functional principle by which, in our culture, one limits,

excludes, and chooses’ (Foucault, 1988, p. 209).

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5.3 Community

A traditional concept of academic communities has been a division by

disciplines (Becher and Trowler, 2001), each discipline encouraging social

relationships and cultures within and across institutions. Gender can create

community divisions with regard to culture and economics. The increasing

audit requirements of universities have seen practices imported from the

private business sector and the enhancement of managerial communities.

Technological development has caused radical changes in the way university

staff and students interact and create knowledge (Land and Bayne, 2005),

and has also resulted in the rise of e-learning communities.

Literature that relates to an understanding of the communities includes:

academic identity; networks and communities of practice; knowledge

management; and the role and orientations of change agents, including

educational development agencies and practitioners. Table 6 provides a

descriptive summary of each of the studies that were found to relate to

community.

Overlaps across practice that relate to community and types of community

are:


• disciplinary communities

• staff and educational development communities

• academic identity

• online/e-learning communities

• inquiry-based learning communities.


to relate to both community and practice.

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5.3.1 Knowledge management

5.3.1.1 Teaching

Shulman (1993) referred to teaching as community property, and considered

communication as a key element. He described the contrast between the

experience of pedagogical solitude and the life of scholars, who were

‘members of active communities: communities of conversation, communities

of evaluation, communities in which we gather with others in our invisible

colleges to exchange our findings, our methods, and our excuses’ (p. 6). He

suggested that scholarship ‘entails an artifact, a product, some form of

community property that can be shared, discussed, critiqued, exchanged, and

built on’ (p. 7). Peer review is the final element.

Trigwell et al. (2000) examined the meaning of scholarship of teaching as it is

understood by academic staff. Staff approached scholarship with the intention

of improving student learning generally, not just the learning of their own

students. They ventured beyond literature collection and the investigation of

student learning, to the communication of the results of their own work on

teaching and learning to a larger audience:

Improve student learning generally, by communicating the results of

one’s own work on teaching and learning to a larger audience. I think it

resembles a regular research process … You research how the

knowledge is known and practiced and applied within the discipline …

and then you plan your program and you monitor the results and

improve it … It’s about reflective practice and it’s about active

dissemination of that practice for the benefit of learning and teaching. (p.

161)

5.3.2 Disciplinary communities

There were some disciplines that clearly had very strong communities, such

as medicine, dentistry and the pure sciences. Other disciplines had a weaker,

more dispersed community, such as the social sciences and business-related

subjects.

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5.3.2.1 Teaching and learning

Lucas’ (1998) phenomenographic research project in accounting revealed the

teaching and learning of introductory accounting as a more complex and

contested area than might have been envisaged. There was a lack of lecturer

consensus about what constituted ’accounting’ within the introductory

accounting curriculum, and ‘teaching accounting’ at this level was seen as

overcoming student preconceptions about the nature of the subject. Students’

perceptions of the discipline were largely that it was boring to study but had to

be passed, it was worrying and about numbers, and that it would be useful in

the future. A key motivation was the need to pass the examination:

I knew it was going to be difficult … It does sound quite a dull subject.

It’s quite easy to go into your lecture in a negative frame of mind….

… if I do want to establish my own business then I am going to have to

go back to accounts … I’m going to have to try and get to grips with it

and put all my fears aside.

The lecturers suggested that teaching accounting was about the ability to

‘change their minds’, to ‘transfer your enthusiasm to the students’, and of

‘you've got to win them back’.

Students’ disengagement from accounting was due to preconceptions about

accounting, and their motivation to pass the examination arose from future

requirements of the business world they would enter. Students’ individual

agenda reflected their willingness or not to access the knowledge available,

and defined the areas of their intellectual curiosity.

5.3.2.2 Alumni’s reflections

Findings by Jensen (2005) provided insights into whether 133 university

alumni from agriculture and engineering believed university research was

important, how they learnt about research, whether public relations programs

were effective, and the types of research they wanted universities to pursue.

The study considered how well the public understands science, and measured

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the effectiveness of media and education programs to raise science

awareness and understanding of science. Research information was sourced

through the news media, by email and from university websites:

I don’t think academics do a good job of explaining their research…

They think the public is stupid… Professors need to be willing and able

to communicate. (p. 4)

If you don’t have good research, the institution dies. p.4

Some considered that professors should be allowed to concentrate on

research or teaching – not both – they did not have to be researchers in order

to be good teachers:

Teaching is a gift. Some people can get the point across beautifully while

others are gifted in research... we need to cultivate the gifts individuals

have. (p. 4)

I’ve never understood the requirement that you have to do research to

be able to teach. (p. 4)

Don’t expose researchers to the kids, unless the professors are natural

teachers. The best and brightest kids go to [universities] and their

parents and taxpayers are paying substantial sums for them to be there.

Don’t waste their money and time with people who can’t teach. Don’t

inflict an incoherent or incompetent teacher on students. (p. 4)

The participants’ assessment of a good teacher was based upon past

experience and reflected their own tutors’ interest in their welfare, in

assessing that the worst classes were those delivered by academics who

conducted research. The role of teacher and of researcher appeared to be

divided into two distinct academic communities.

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5.3.3 Staff and educational development communities

5.3.3.1 Educational development units

Since the growth of educational development units in universities in the

1970s, there has always been a difficulty about their role and place within any

university. Many people involved in educational development would suggest

that the popularity of such units within a given university changes on a five-

year cycle, and this can be seen in the way such units are placed both

physically and metaphorically within the university. Many educational

development units have sought to be independent from faculties, particularly

education faculties, and for most this has been both a source of strength and

of weakness. What has been interesting with the new focus on teaching in

universities, has been the raise in status of such units. They have become the

producers and implementers of programmes to teach staff how to teach

effectively, and the reason that many universities have secured large sums of

money for teaching. Take, for example, the post-1992 universities, who

already valued teaching highly, and were able to bid for large sums of money

to support their current practices and develop new ones. While this is both

valuable and commendable, there still appears to be a lack of criticality in

many of the programmes, whereby new staff are inducted into a language of

professional learning and particular kinds of teaching and learning techniques.

For example, there is often an unquestioning adoption of the notion of deep

and surface approaches to learning, reflective practice and learning styles,

with little recourse to the current literature that contests such work. For

example, Barnett (1997) has argued for more complex undertakings of

reflection to be taken up, and Haggis (2002) has suggested the continued

adherence to deep and surface approaches to learning is misplaced. This is

not the case in every university, but it appears to be a trend. The difficulty with

this kind of professionalisation of learning is that issues of self- and learner-

identity and learning context are largely ignored; in fact these vital

components need to be explored in-depth when introducing staff to learning

practices (such as problem-based learning) that demand a recognition of the

stances of both learners and teachers in the learning context.

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The study by Land (2004) revealed a fragmented community of practice.

Interviews with educational developers disclosed multi-faceted academic and

professional identities within the context of their work. Coexisting forms of

agency may be perceived to be representative of the academic cultures within

which the participants practice. Thus, it is suggested that an educational

practitioner is seen to adopt differing orientations in different strategic

contexts. Many of the diversities and differences that constitute the

development communities are similarly situated as represented below:

I remember once- someone who said to me ‘Oh you’re an educational

developer!’ and I said ‘No, I’m not!’ (laughs). And I think that was

because I didn’t see myself as –and you know I could have put up some

names of people – and I just thought ‘But I’m not really like them’.

Because I didn’t come from that type of background and base. (p. 14)

When departmental managerial roles are given to academics on a rotational

basis, as is often the case, they are seen within the department as not ‘willing

to commit’ to the role, being eager to return to their past individual areas of

interest. Leadership is considered voluntary and ‘amateur’, reflected in issues

of dress code (the adoption of formal attire) and being identified as

management, therefore no longer as bona fide researchers:

This is a problem for the old universities who are trying to balance these

conflicting demands. The basic problem, I suppose, for these kind of

people is that they can’t distinguish between managerialism and

effective management. They can’t see the difference between business-

like and being a businessman. (p. 15)

Land (2004) suggested that educational development can be directed towards

supporting the academic as an individual, to promote personal well-being and

growth.

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It really is important to go home at night with that feeling inside that you

have been effective, and the most important way that I know that I get

that feeling is when I work effectively and see an individual, see change

or enabling change with someone, in a context which is concrete, and

where someone is going to try something that you have hoped to lead

them towards, or support. Or even better, when you get feedback from it

and someone has been successful. I think that is just rich. It is terribly

important. (p. 51)

Levels of academic development tend to be at the institutional level, the

departmental or disciplinary level, and the personal level of the individual.

Major contributions and skills are considered most effective when working at a

personal level and on a one-to-one basis:

If you come down to my own level of working it is in the same mould. If I

work with an individual I never represent myself as an expert; it is always

the ‘enabling’. If you like, the counselling, rapport, enablement of other

people to find within themselves. (p. 52)

Land (2004) suggested that approaches that at first appear to be concerned

with strategic or operational issues, may instead relate to personal concerns:

I felt the strength of [name of EDU] was that it intervened at every level.

That it was represented on the committees … it advised the Deputy

Vice-Chancellor, and that anyone, virtually, not just academics could ring

up and say will you help me with this?... Some people come along and

say ‘My head of department sent me along because I have real trouble

teaching large groups of two hundred students’. And it wouldn’t take long

to discover that what was happening was a crisis of confidence … So

you could talk about some techniques that might help, but you couldn’t

help but address issues a bit more personal than that. (p. 52)

The study suggested the existence of a fractured community within higher

education, occupying a variety of educational spaces reflected in competing

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narratives and conflicting positions. Educational developers seek to define the

meaning of their role, consider how they make sense of their practice and

clarify it to others. The fracture can be seen at an individual and national level,

suggesting that the community is in a process of transformation. It could be

suggested that the data also reveal the effect of a fragmented community on

an individual’s sense of professional identity. Each transcript showed the

individual referring to a personal zone where they felt comfortable with their

identity. Extending assistance to others and the sense of gratification operate

more effectively on this level.

5.3.3.2 Staff views on teaching and learning

Samuelowicz and Bain (2001) evaluated the adequacy of the belief

dimensions and categories, and considered whether there is a ‘transitional’

orientation to teaching and learning. Thirty-nine academics from a wide range

of disciplines were interviewed to establish how they thought about teaching

and learning, and their dispositions to teach in particular ways. The results

demonstrated fundamental differences between teaching-centred and

learning-centred approaches to teaching and learning.

A Chemistry lecturer aimed to establish an understanding of his subject

matter, so that students would be able to use the knowledge and recall his

reasoning in the future:

You end up in Siberian oil fields and the boss says ‘Analyse this oil and

tell us if it’s worth drilling for more’. What do you do? Phone me? No, you

think about it and say ‘how would Peter do it’ and you do it. (p. 313)

The teacher illustrated with techniques and methods that can be reproduced

to solve problems likely to arise in the future, and expected that students

would be able to apply the knowledge to situations in their professional

practice. Equally, the teacher stressed his personal enthusiasm, expertise and

interest in the course content, as factors that should have motivated the

students.

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Using a learning-centred approach to Architecture, another lecturer believed

that students had to become independent learners. Becoming an independent

learner was considered crucial in the personal and professional development

of students, as a lifelong process that would lead to the acquisition of

knowledge, skills and attitudes required to function as a practitioner. In this

case knowledge is not dispensed to students, but is a challenging two-way

process. The study distinguished Architecture from other disciplines as its

thinking is grounded in the knowledge and experience of the discipline and

practitioners. Students were expected to develop their knowledge, unpack

and repack, analyse and synthesise, and transform the knowledge to make it

their own. Tasks were set that balanced the level of challenge, because

projects that were too easy did not sustain the students ‘interest and

enthusiasm’.

5.3.3.3 Tuition for competency or attitudes

The study by Howe et al. (2002) examined undergraduate medical education,

and the balance between scientific knowledge and the enhancement of

desirable professional attitudes. The analysis suggested that the professional

identity of the future doctor is contested, its goals reflective of the ‘world view’

of the stakeholder, and that it is seen as being dependent on the contexts in

which students learn. Competing discourses are evident in community-based

medical education, which reflect the embedded efforts by stakeholder groups

to exert power and influence. The stakeholders expressed their perception of

the ‘ideal’ doctor that medical education should be producing, regarding

personal characteristics, professional roles and professional perspectives.

Health service users defined an acceptable doctor by personal characteristics

of communication and information handling:

‘If they speak in a clear simple form and get that confidence across’ as

against ‘you are telling him something; he doesn’t look up …, someone

who has read your background’ not ‘What’s the matter with you—are you

deaf?’…though it’s in my notes. (p. 382)

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Acknowledging an ‘awareness of people as individuals and their individual

needs’ was also seen as important. This was supported by general

practitioner (GP) tutors, who suggested that the aim of medical education was

‘trying to understand the human being in front of them’ with skills that show

students can ‘relate to real people’. (p. 382)

Students, however, expressed their goal in relation to workplace activities

rather than personal characteristics, suggesting that their main goal was being

able to participate in hospital practice:

‘What we’re going to be doing as house officers’, ‘getting involved on the

wards’ and ‘doing house officer shadowing’. (p. 382)

GP tutors regarded medical education as giving students a particular

professional perspective and being able to create doctors who ‘look at the

individual and take into consideration family and social issues’. However, they

expressed regret that the dominant culture of basic medical training was still

the traditional ‘medical’ model of focus on diseases, rather than the patients’

experiences:

If you’ve got a strong empathy for the medical model running through,

then … anything else is going to be secondary’, ‘by the fifth year you can

see them very much drifting into the medical model (and) we’re losing

them. (p. 383)

This concern about the breadth of understanding of students was reiterated by

the community tutors, who perceived that students predominantly aspired to

learn their technical skills rather than other aspects of their work:

Getting a spirometer out impresses them… it’s a doctory thing isn’t it? (p.

383)

As with previous studies, this research revealed a series of fractured

communities within the health care environment. The students’ engagement in

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the practising community may not be as simple as taking on a role and

participating in hospital practice. The study added further conflicting evidence

that differentiated students’ motivation to take on knowledge for future

practice, and the inability of students to utilise imparted knowledge regarding

patient experiences, without then reverting back to the medical model with a

display of medical equipment that marked them out as a doctor.

5.3.3.4 Staff pedagogical development

Booth and Anderberg (2005) described and analysed the ways tutors

experienced educational development courses, and how they related them to

their teaching practice with regard to the understanding and development of

their pedagogical knowledge, and putting that knowledge into practice in the

environment of their departments. Participants found the courses abstract and

theoretical, rather than including the concrete content they had expected. The

authors suggested that this implied that they were not ready to embrace

pedagogical ways of understanding their actions as teachers. Other tutors

reported that they had developed valuable knowledge for their work, including

knowledge on student learning. They reported changing their teaching after

participating in the courses, suggesting that the courses make a practical

impact. Often radical changes were implemented so as to become more able

to support student learning, while others made small changes in order to

improve their teaching in a particular way. Participants confirmed the

overriding intentions of the course:

OK, it was actually what they should have said was the goal of the

course, that pedagogy is not about how to act as a teacher, but it is

about how students learn. Then, how you act as a teacher naturally has

consequences for that, but the goal is that the students should learn, and

there are a number of stages to get there, and that you shifted your

focus from your own way of acting to how students function. (p. 379)

The acquisition of a common and conceptually grounded language is one of

the most important features of developing understanding (Anderberg, 2000).

Staff spoke of developing a language for their practice:

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…and for me that was pretty significant, since I could suddenly sort of

put words to my thoughts a bit better. But before that, I couldn’t

categorize concepts at all, but I could only describe in my own words,

well, now we’ll do this with this course, now we’ll do that with that course.

Suddenly I’ve got concepts and tools to get the courses where I want to

get them. (p. 380)

The study suggested that these statements indicated a development from

finding words for ideas to categorising concepts that can be applied in

practice, and that participants had related practice to experience and to

theory.

5.3.3.5 Student approaches to knowledge

Jarvis (2000) discussed changes in beliefs about knowledge by participants

on an English Literature course in preparation for entry to higher education.

The study explored how literature could contribute to the development of

increasingly complex views of knowledge, and revealed the development of

the participants’ analytical behaviour:

I think I see things differently, there are lots of things I see differently

now, with doing critical analysis in English. I’ve, the piece, if I find a piece

in a magazine or newspaper I find I am subconsciously pulling it to bits

whereas I didn’t used to do that before. Now I’m reading it and I tend to

go that bit deeper and I think, ‘do I have to do this? ’ It’s like college

coming out again. (p. 541)

Feelings about right and wrong interpretations were being questioned thus

suggesting that ideas about knowledge were in transition:

Yeah I need to know everything. I need to know why it is like that and

things. When, um you read somebody’s interpretation, a critic, are they

right or have I misread it? Look at it another way, are you right or wrong,

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how would an examiner see it if you’ve interpreted something completely

different from a professional critic, say? (p. 542)

The author suggested that this demonstrated a concern with the opinion of

authorities, who could decide whether someone’s interpretation was right or

wrong. This concurred with the study by Lucas (1998) in which students

learned what they felt was required to pass an examination. However, the

study uncovered a synergy between changing perceptions about knowledge

and increased self confidence. The author determined that the process of

engaging in literary criticism made it difficult for students to retain their existing

beliefs about knowledge as a fixed entity received from an authority or

acquired by direct observation.

5.3.4 Academic identity

The concept of identity is important, but is often lost in the literature on the

impact of educational development programmes. Trowler and Cooper (2002)

argued that there was a clear, but unacknowledged, causal link between

taking up new ways of operating as a teacher and changes to one’s personal

and professional identity. In the classroom context individual identity needed

to be considered in relation to others; the academic takes up a professional

identity and positions students in other identities. Trowler and Cooper (2002)

suggested that an educational development programme leader’s identity will

change when moving between universities. Underlying beliefs and values may

remain unchanged, but the positioning of teaching, research and professional

development within different HE institutions necessitated significant

readjustments in thinking, practices, and sense of self to fit into the new

culture. The new community context offers new choices within parameters set

by the teaching and learning regimes (TLRs), and there may be new risks

associated with moving beyond those parameters. Educational development

programmes may reposition a university tutor as ‘a novice’, which may cause

rejection:

Sally’s instinctive response was to critique the premises of the

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programme from her academic social scientific perspective, attempting

to deconstruct and challenge the philosophical underpinnings of the

programme, particularly in relation to assessment. She critiqued the

existence of a set of criteria through which her identity as a teacher

could be scrutinised—she wanted to define the criteria herself and not

be subjected to an assessment regime predetermined by someone

else—challenging the authority and legitimacy of the programme leader

and the validating body, seeing it as irrelevant and challenging to her

academic identity as a social scientist. Significantly, assessment was the

critical issue that brought to the surface the incongruities of identity—she

was rebelling against a subject positioning. This focused in particular on

the explicit values and principles laid down by the external accrediting

body, which used terms such as ‘must’ and ‘should’ apparently to

prescribe what participants needed to demonstrate and achieve. Sally

read these as imposing a conformity upon her practices and thinking,

thereby challenging her identity as autonomous and self-determining.

Her identity as teacher and subject expert was so intertwined, having

taught for two years and being an accomplished researcher and scholar

in the field she was teaching, that she was neither willing nor able to be

re-positioned as she saw it as a novice teacher. (p. 227)

5.3.5 Online/e-learning communities

The development and availability of online tools for communication has led to

a simultaneous rise in the concept of an online community (Harasim, 1993).

The community of people might communicate or ‘meet’ exclusively online, or

they may meet face-to-face, but use online technologies to extend their

communication modes. The predominant feature of a ‘community’ is a group

of people with shared interests using information and communication

technologies.

The difficulty with the perception of e-learning communities and the digital

spaces they inhabit is that there is often a sense that they are seen as being

dislocated from physical spaces, and yet they are not. Web spaces are largely

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viewed as necessarily freer locations, where there is sense that it is both

possible and desirable to ‘do things differently’. The consequence is that

digital pedagogies tend to be or at least feel less ordered than much of face-

to-face learning, forcing a reconsideration of how learning spaces in digital

contexts are to be constituted. Digital spaces demand that we confront the

possibility of new types of visuality, literacy, pedagogy, representations of

knowledge, communication and embodiment. Thus, as Pelletier has argued,

‘technologies are systems of cultural transmission, creating new contexts

within which existing social interests express themselves’ (Pelletier, 2005, p.

12). The literature in this section largely indicates that technology has led the

pedagogy, but Sharpe et al. (2006) have pointed out that successful

institutions’ rationales for implementing e-learning have included flexibility of

provision, supporting diversity, enhancing the campus experience, operating

in a global context and efficiency. This Academy report identified that critical

success factors for blended e-learning were to use the term ‘blended

learning’, work with and within your context, use blended learning as a driver

for transformative course redesign, help students develop their conceptions of

the learning process, and disseminate and communicate results of

evaluations.

5.3.5.1 Rhetoric and practice

Souleles (2005) examined the relationship between the rhetoric and the

practice of e-learning, and argued that issues associated with professional

development exist at both institute and staff levels, as HE prepares its

students for employability and competence in the knowledge economy (KE):

…there is a lack of academic staff with experience in teaching and

learning using e-learning ... there is lack of staff dedicated to the issue of

assisting pedagogical uses of e-learning ... we develop skills in software,

but there have been no discussions on pedagogical issues. (Interviewee

D, p. 234)

D felt unsupported both on a personal professional level, and as to how he

could help his students develop:

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I don’t think at the moment students are acquiring any additional skills ...

we are not there yet ... we’ve got to think very carefully what we want to

do ... it is patchy provision at the moment… it is left at the discretion of

tutors how much you do. (Interviewee D, p. 233)

A seemed to see technology only in relation to how it could help him or her in

existing practice. Students were not particularly encouraged to use the

available technology, and were perceived to prefer tutorials:

I use technology in my lectures but the actual teaching has not changed

because of Blackboard. The only difference is that now students

participate in online discussions and I can post questions. This is a minor

change in teaching. In terms of learning the students now can go

through the lecture material in Blackboard. (Interviewee A, p. 232)

The students use the discussion board ... It is there and if they want to

use it they can, but they prefer to ask questions in the tutorials … I use

Blackboard as a facility to inform ... I don’t use any specific techniques to

engage the students ... There is no formal collaborative process.

(Interviewee A, p. 232)

D sought to use technology more actively, despite lack of support, and did

experience success:

Yes it has changed ... it would seem that students have more access to

me because of the technology ... they tend to ask questions which

require a more involved response ... we help students navigate through

the material ... increasingly students are asking me to add another level

to the one I am already doing ... I respond with more considered

answers. (Interviewee D, p. 232)

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B understood that developing technological expertise necessarily led to

improving other life skills, as well as being a valid tool in continuing lifelong

learning:

If you are learning at a distance you need to be able to manage and

structure your life ... you need to develop strategic use of time ... I think it

is inevitable that e-learning students develop time management skills.

Learning at a distance you face a steep learning curve in organising your

life. (Interviewee B, p. 233)

If one learns at a distance online and becomes comfortable with that

then perhaps this mode will allow them periodically to upgrade and

facilitate their professional development. (Interviewee B, p. 233)

The vignettes confirmed the lack of appropriate professional development and

comprehensive awareness of the benefits of e-learning. In most cases in this

study, e-learning is a passive medium occasionally supplementing existing

practices and rarely used for meta-skills. Desired graduate skills and

competencies include a group of meta-skills, such as intellectual flexibility and

adaptability in changing working environments, the ability to deal with large

amounts of information and to handle team and project work, and readiness

and aptitude for lifelong learning. There is an almost universal claim that staff

need to undertake training that provides for technical knowledge and includes

pedagogies associated with e-learning.

The study also indicated that some staff have learning theories that are

suitable for e-learning, and an enduring belief contrary to research that there

are potential benefits at least for lifelong learning. New pedagogies are

unlikely to develop only ‘bottom-up’ and without organisational support. The

lack of availability and/or opportunity for appropriate professional development

in e-learning is an institutional issue. The misalignment between rhetoric and

practice manifests in some use of e-learning tools, but delivery and outcomes

do not match expectations claimed by such rhetoric. The reasons for this

misalignment are attributed to the combination of both staff and institutional

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practices. Prescriptive and empirical studies on the management of

technological change do not question the need to address the lack of

graduate competencies and comprehensive staff development, nor do they

question the significance of ‘enlightened’ senior management. Increasingly,

government and funding bodies will confront HE institutions on their policies

and strategies on e-learning, and for a brief period, this may shift the focus

away from individual staff attitudes and practices. Inevitably a complementary

approach to implementing e-learning – that is, one that combines staff

development backed by comprehensive policies – is likely to yield better

results.

5.3.5.2 Student online discussion

Jones and Cooke (2006) used two case studies to explore students’ online

discussion to enhance understanding of how students learn. Students were

very positive overall about their online experience, even if they did encounter

problems:

… by making use of the dedicated area on the discussion boards, we

could post our initial thoughts and provide easy access to them for the

whole group. The boards became very useful for this work, in that we

could ‘float’ potential ideas between ourselves and also let each other

know where we had got to in our individual research … However,—if a

group member chooses not to access the boards (as happened with our

team) then unfortunately there is little the others can do to maintain the

balance. (p. 270)

In this instance, online contributions were then monitored, and in conjunction

with other evidence led to moderation of marks for individual group members.

Some students found the process opened up learning in other areas of their

lives:

Overall, I would say that I have found this whole process utterly

absorbing, not just for the research undertaken, but for the introspective

examination it has provoked. I have discovered that despite my natural

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inclination towards detail and exactness, I am able to relinquish some

control. Looking back, I can appreciate the team effort put into our

presentation and am very proud of the outcome. (p. 270)

It is argued that these insights into students’ learning processes can in turn

offer us the opportunity to adapt our own teaching practices to achieve a

better pedagogical ‘fit’ with the learning needs of our students; for example,

through a more precise or more timely intervention. It is also suggested that

looking through this ‘window’ enables us to concentrate our assessment more

closely on the process of task completion, rather than focusing solely on the

end product.

Johnson (2007) explored third-year undergraduate music students'

perceptions of their learning while using Blackboard's asynchronous

discussion board. Students read a journal article and discussed it with fellow

course members using Blackboard for a week, before moving onto the next

article, over a six week period. Research data included basic appreciation of

using Blackboard:

[I] loved the discussion board because I hate presenting … it makes you

think’; ‘[it] makes you do the reading … I think people had some

interesting point of views that I wouldn't have actually, wouldn't have

thought of looking at something from that kind of angle if I hadn't.

(Rosemary, p. 6)

The act of learning for Rosemary seemed to be an experience based around

the discussion of key points, while what she got out of the task in question

was clearly developed thinking. She identified her learning experience as a

practical one.

Anthony’s main aim was to read the articles and to express his own ideas:

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… as I did the readings I was writing down specific points that were

sticking out to me … I just found a lot of it you know the comments that

people did do was regurgitated. . . , just reworded agreements. Um

which is probably why I didn't sort of go back and sort of say anything

twice really … (Anthony, p. 8)

Anthony made just one posting to each of the six online learning tasks, and

even when Rosemary commented on something Anthony had said, he made

no response. He noted that, for him, the amount of agreement in the

discussion board was not in keeping with his perceptions of the aim of the

task; it was about getting his own thoughts across.

Larry defined online discussion as not only a context for exchanging ideas,

but also one where he could think about ideas before responding to them. For

him, the online environment allowed much more flexibility in learning time than

during in-class discussion:

I was making a point and then I found an example of it (on the web) and

I could just go show and do that within five, ten minutes … if someone

raised that in class there's no way I could really go away, do that and

then bring it back and try and change the ... Larry, p. 9)

Um, well it's really easy to exchange ideas if you sort of put the thought

into it. I think it's not something you can just log on, look at, and then

blurt out an answer in two seconds and then leave … each time I was

sitting there for about half an hour to an hour debating what I was saying

and refining it, sort of just going like, uh, do I want to say that, no that's

not what I mean, how do I write what I'm thinking. (Larry, p. 9)

Larry made time to read other comments and to think about them carefully

before making a response.

This online learning task resulted in a sometimes deep level of learning of

convergent activities such as analysing, synthesising and evaluating not only

the required readings, but also the ideas presented in other postings.

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There were a disappointingly low number of online postings, and a low

number of online interactions (ie, responses to other postings). Only 69% of

students took part in the online discussion, and many of these did not actually

participate in a deep level of online dialogue with other students. The lack of

participation may be linked to only 5% marks being allocated to the task, or to

students having little or no previous experience of using online learning.

5.3.5.3 Online identity

Bayne (2005) studied how students and teachers experienced their identities

online, and how these related to their embodied 'real life' identities. A common

perspective among students emerged in which online modes of identity

formation were viewed negatively, firstly as the true self being deceitfully

threatened by the online being:

I'm not, I couldn't do it! I don't know cos I feel like I'm not being honest,

or I don't feel comfortable in doing it or something, or I feel like I'm going

in a dangerous path. (Paulina, p. 6)

Paulina’s concern was that without the safety net of our commitment to a

truthful, unitary identity, it would be possible to fall into another (untrue) online

version of ourselves permanently. Charlie described it as a personality split:

Sometimes in a tutorial you think 'O I don't think that should be said' cos

you're like, like you'll get shot down, whereas [online] you just type it in

anyway … and by the time you've hit send it's there, you can't take it

back. (Charlie, p. 6)

Richard felt the sense of deceit far more strongly, even though he quite

consciously constructed his online persona:

I didn't switch gender, but I made myself about 20 odd years younger, …

I just felt very uneasy about maintaining that identity cos I just felt it was

very deceptive ... But what I did learn from it is how how easy it would be

to construct and get away with those identities … it felt uneasy kind of

morally ... it just felt a bit pervy I suppose. (Richard, p. 7)

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By contrast, tutors viewed online space in a more 'knowing' perspective as a

place in which their conventional teacher identity could be re-cast:

the classroom situation can be quite intense … it's the stressful part of

teaching. And if you're not feeling too great or there are other things on

your mind, so that you know, to give a really good teaching performance

is I think an art in itself. And I think in the online situation, I think there's a

bit more control, a bit more space. (Tom, p. 8-9)

I think I'm more confident about being stern online than I am in face to

face environments. I think I can sometimes project a much more

confidently authoritarian self, or authoritative self as well… (Delia, p. 9)

The research concluded that tutors’ use of the online space to (re)construct

themselves as authority figures was far less problematic, and far less a cause

of anxiety than the descriptions in identity narratives provided by students.

5.3.6 Inquiry-based learning communities

The reconstruction of what counted as inquiry and problem-based pedagogy

seemed to be one of the most troublesome issues to manage within learning

communities. Changes in perspective, particularly the shift away from some

knowledge necessarily being foundational to other knowledge, resulted in the

breaking down of artificial boundaries within disciplines and in breaking down

barriers across disciplinary areas.

Across the studies in this section it became apparent that staff realised it was

the questions they asked students and the way knowledge was managed that

enabled or prevented the development of criticality in students.

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5.3.6.1 Student misunderstanding

The purposes of problem-based learning were clearly misunderstood by

students in the study undertaken by Biley and Smith (1999), who explored

perceptions and experiences of undergraduate nursing students. Focusing on

the students themselves, the ethnographic study explored how undergraduate

nursing students (n=17) managed and made sense of a problem-based

learning (PBL) programme. Fieldwork and ethnographic interviews revealed

the students’ perceptions of the purpose of PBL, and further issues of concern

were identified and labelled. These were the uncertainty of functioning without

a clearly delineated educational structure, perceptions of knowledge

acquisition, the understanding of group interaction processes, and the role of

the facilitator. For example, they cited students’ comments:

There should be clear guidelines, a syllabus or something, to let you

know what's expected. (p. 1207)

Most days I leave the class and think `What have I learned today?' The

answer's usually `Nothing really.' (p. 1208)

Further, there was confusion over the role of the PBL facilitator:

I don't see how he is much different to a teacher, he directs the sessions

as if he were. He moves us on if he thinks it’s irrelevant and holds us

back if we think it’s irrelevant. (p. 1208)

Thus, although the authors argued for PBL as a curriculum philosophy rather

than as just a teaching approach, there was clearly some curriculum

disjunction occurring between what had been implemented theoretically and

what was occurring in practice. This was clearly an area needing further

research.

5.3.6.2 Student appreciation

In contrast, the study by Miles (2005/6) indicated that students valued and

utilised the opportunity to work collaboratively. Miles evaluated a recent

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initiative within the MEd in Special and Inclusive Education programme, at the

University of Manchester’s School of Education. In October 2005 students

were provided with an opportunity to carry out collaborative research tasks in

four Manchester schools, all of which were involved in the ‘Manchester

Inclusion Standard’. Miles reported that the students said they needed to take

time to listen to each other’s experiences and perspectives. All groups

reported that they had learned to respect each other’s opinions, and one

group in particular had enjoyed their ‘disagreements’. In addition to learning

about teamwork and action research, they had also experienced cross-cultural

learning, ‘It was very creative and there was good cooperation’. Some

students said that ‘it took time to get used to each other’, but that they ‘learnt a

lot from each other’ (p. 9).

Furthermore, the study by Reynolds (2003) explored initial experiences of

interprofessional problem-based learning and compared male and female

students’ views. She found that most students were positive that PBL

contributed to both personal learning and team-working skills. However,

women expressed rather more trust in the information provided by other

students, confirmed greater enjoyment in taking responsibility for their own

learning and had more positive views about working with students from

another course. In their qualitative comments, more women made reference

to enjoying the social aspects of PBL (such as group work, support and

collaboration). The gender differences were not substantial, but those that

were observed support previous researchers' arguments that women are

more inclined to be 'connected learners', who value the social aspects of

learning contexts. The findings overall suggested that PBL made a positive,

well-received contribution to learning during an interprofessional module

Staff believed that the course redesign process towards problem-based

learning made them reconsider their pedagogical stances and their views

about the nature of knowledge. Students began to realise the value of the

knowledge they brought to the course, the value of collaboration, and of

accepting that peers also had important, and often previously disregarded,

forms of knowledge to share. Three studies indicated this, in particular

Johnson (2005), who explored students' views of interprofessional education

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and revealed both positive and negative experiences, relating to the quality of

facilitation and group dynamics. Students were more comfortable with the

enquiry-based learning approach than at level 1 of the course, but many were

unable to relate the module to clinical practice, and expressions of

professional rivalry emerged. For example:

The module was useful for reflective practice, learning how to talk in

front of colleagues, giving feedback and gaining confidence. (p. 217)

Yet some students felt that interprofessional education was not relevant to

practice and that some disciplinary areas dominated the learning.

There seems to be relatively little understanding of how E/PBL might be

constituted, how they might be mapped or seen differently, and the impact

that such spaces are having on the nature of higher education. For example,

the provision of information for students, the structuring of learning, the

development of teams and learning materials such as problems and triggers,

and the changing in patterns of communication. There was a sense that there

was a subtext of control in many of the studies and a tendency to shift to more

ordered and structured forms of E/PBL. Many of the arguments about the

adoption of EBL over PBL related to issues of ordering and flexibility but this

did not seem to be apparent in the subtext evident in the articles. For

example, it seemed that for both staff and students the notion of an ordered

curriculum was something that was seen as scaffolded and structured, but

there was relatively little recognition that in fact such safety suggested stability

and control by staff for students. Thus there was a sense of disjunction across

many of the studies located.

5.3.6.3 Student conflicts

The study undertaken by Bebb and Pittam (2004) explored the experiences of

first-year nursing students in an IBL 'whole-curriculum' strategy for pre-

registration nursing education, primarily to avoid the possibility of educational

dissonance within a mixed methodology approach. An evaluation strategy

was put in place to provide stakeholders with information about processes and

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outcomes. The key issues identified concerned adaptation to the IBL process

and learning within small groups. What was interesting about this study was

the location of IBL as being different from PBL, but in a rather un-theorised

and dislocated position:

Although there are many similarities, IBL differs from pure PBL in its use

of a wider, more flexible range of learning methods, including both group

discussion and resource sessions, and in its promotion of a broader

scope of investigation. In this sense, IBL may be better suited to nursing

education in that nursing problems are often more contextually

complicated and include a greater emphasis on social and emotional

issues. (p. 142)

This would seem to illustrate many of the difficulties inherent in arguing for IBL

or EBL as opposed to PBL, which largely ignore the range of models of PBL

that have been in operation since the mid 1980s. This stance is also taken by

Hutchings and O’Rourke (2006b), who argue:

…that Enquiry-Based Learning methods are conceptually appropriate for

Literary Studies courses when adapted to meet the local needs of the

discipline . . . we defined our procedures in these essays as Problem-

Based Learning in order to highlight the conceptual basis of the learning

method and because we removed all the conventional frameworks of

courses, including reading-lists and syllabus (except as defined by the

course title). Thus the problems themselves were the sole drivers of the

learning. However, Enquiry-Based Learning is a more flexible and

appropriate term, and can readily include forms of Problem-Based

Learning.

Much of what often appears to be argued for is a shift in the conceptualisation

of a ‘problem’ towards the notion of a ‘question’ or ‘issue,’ something that was

dealt with comprehensively in a study by Taylor (1997) and later work by

Savin-Baden (2000b). However, in the study by Reynolds et al. (2006), one

student comment illustrated a useful delineation:

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Problem-solving = coming up with an answer. EBL = learning through

research. PBL = learning by applying to a context. (p. 363)

Although it was apparent in a number of the studies that students and staff

experienced conflict in the relationship between theory and practice, many

students in the study by Barrow et al. (2002) considered that the application of

theory to practice had been valuable:

…skills you could see yourself using on the ward … it’s all very relevant

and I quite enjoyed it because it’s actually relevant to nursing, making

our own decisions, which is what we’re doing on the wards. (p. 60)

5.3.6.4 Student capability

However, the study by Darvill (2003) indicated that undergoing PBL as a

teaching and learning strategy had positive outcomes for the students. Prior

knowledge was utilised in knowledge development relating to the problem,

and was seen as beneficial. Students reported that they felt more confident

and used the knowledge gained to care for patients' cultural needs in practice.

Theory sessions increased knowledge and subsequently personal

confidence in abilities. This resulted in much more thorough plans of

care particularly relating to the ‘cultural dimension’. (Student diary

summary, p. 76)

The development of student capability was also apparent in the study by

Carey and Whittaker (2002), which explored community practitioner students’

experiences of PBL. The study was completed as part of an extended

evaluation of a core module included in a post-registration community

specialist practitioner programme. Data were collected via a self-completion

questionnaire. The findings identified issues relating to the learning process

and its influence on the knowledge gained. They illustrated that while the

journey taken to acquire new knowledge had been difficult for students, they

had benefited from the opportunity to learn with others, learn from the difficult

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experiences they had encountered, and then were able to apply this new

knowledge to their own practice situations, as illustrated below:

Through having a real scenario we have shared real experiences. It

addresses things that couldn’t come across in a formal lecture . . .

finding out what people do and taking it back . . . and thinking I’ll use

that. (p. 664)

An interesting approach to develop capability was undertaken by Morris and

Turnbull (2004), who used student nurses as teachers in inquiry-based

learning. They argued that there was a paucity of literature exploring the use

of undergraduate student nurses as peer teachers, and so explored the

viability of using student nurses as teachers in an inquiry-based nursing

curriculum. The findings suggest that student nurses were uncomfortable with

being used as teachers, often questioned the intrinsic worth of this approach

as a developmental tool, and considered the responsibility for teaching the

content of resource sessions to lie with nurse educators. Thus the strategy of

using student nurses as teachers may be appropriate in some circumstances,

but it requires further research, considerable support and continual evaluation.

While some students valued this and felt it developed teamwork, many

students experienced disjunction and felt they should not be responsible for

developing other students’ learning.

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6. Findings of level 3 synthesis and interpretation

Following level 2 analysis, data were synthesised to explore in more depth the

second-order interpretations and examining, for example, pedagogical stance,

diversity and notions of improvement. Evidence of commonality across articles

was selected in order to reconceptualise findings across studies. The third-

order categories added something that went beyond the mere comparisons of

the findings of all the studies. These third-order interpretations emerged to

reveal a subtext that was not apparent in the initial common themes; tabulated

below:

Table 10: Third-order interpretations

Initial themes

Second-order interpretations Third-order interpretations

Practice Improving practice

Changing practice

The impact of major innovation

Creation of theory

Student experience

Staff experiences

Community Knowledge management

Disciplinary communities

Staff and educational

development communities

Academic identity

Online/e-learning communities

Inquiry-based learning

communities

Transfer Transfer for shared practice

Transfer related to policy

Pedagogical stance

Disjunction

Learning spaces

Learning diversity

Agency Notions of improvement Communities of interest

The findings presented in this section emerged in attempting to answer the

question: how are practice, transfer and community viewed in higher

education, and what are the tensions in relation to differing conceptions and

practices?

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Undertaking third-level synthesis meant that new knowledge was brought to

bear on existing material. In practice this meant locating particular themes that

related to influencing thinking and practices about teaching and learning in

higher education, in ways that transcended the areas of practice, transfer and

community. These themes shed light on areas that would bear further

research and exploration, and which in many cases need to be focused on

more frequently by those involved in thinking about teaching and learning.

6.1 Pedagogical stance

On completion of this interpretive ethnography, one of the central overarching

issues appears to be that the impact of the individual pedagogical stance of

the academic is a powerful influence in the teaching and learning experience.

Pedagogical stance is delineated as the choices and interventions that staff

make within a learning environment, and the particular concerns they bring to

it. Tutors' stances emerge from their prior learning experiences, and their

often taken-for-granted notions of learning and teaching. The notion of stance

encompasses not only conceptions of teaching (Prosser and Trigwell, 1999),

but also the values implicit in staff perspectives of teaching and learning. For

example, Samuelowicz and Bain (2001) suggest staff are either oriented to

teaching-centred learning or learning-centred learning. Between them is a

‘hard’ boundary that is difficult to either cross or temporarily span to ‘snatch’ a

particular approach, method or expertise from the other orientation.

Throughout their career, academic staff will be exposed to both orientations

through a variety of ways: educational/staff/academic development

programmes; other staff from their institution/discipline; at conferences and

through the media; or through top-down implementations within their

institution. Whether staff stances are teacher- or student-centred,

individualistic or reflective, depends not only on their own values and those of

their discipline, but also the forms of academic development programmes they

have (or have not) engaged with.

Academic development programmes may not be compulsory across all

institutions, and even if compulsory they seldom have sanctions against non-

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completion. Trowler and Cooper (2002) have shown that there is a balance

required by staff delivering these programmes, when introducing ‘different’

concepts of teaching and learning that are oppositional to academics’ current

pedagogical stances. Further, forceful delivery is likely to be met by dissenters

leaving the programme (see the section on improving practice).

Furthermore, top-down implementation such as teaching or technological

innovation can often be avoided, as shown in Souleles (2005) in the online/e-

learning communities section:

The students use the discussion board .. it is there and if they want to

use it they can, but they prefer to ask questions in the tutorials … I use

Blackboard as a facility to inform … I don’t use and specific techniques

to engage the students … there is no formal collaborative process. (p.

232)

Similarly, both Savin-Baden (2000b) and Wilkie (2004) in the staff experiences

section, described lecturers’ struggles to become facilitators when teaching

innovation, such as problem-based learning, is implemented. When teaching-

centred oriented academics experience such a learning-centred top-down

implementation, or some might call it imposition, Savin-Baden and Wilkie have

seen entrenched positions that start as non-attendance at facilitator training

courses, developing sometimes into attempted sabotage, and ending in a

switch to another course, department or even institution. Other less

entrenched academics take the line of least resistance, adopting a position of

reproductive pedagogy in the problem-based learning group as a supplier of

all legitimate knowledge, and becoming a directive conventionalist type

facilitator, retaining control of both the material and the learning methods.

Some would still judge this line as sabotaging the innovation, since students

will not gain a credible experience of problem-based learning.

These studies have however shown that, over time, almost all remaining

academics embraced the top-down implementation of the innovation, and

adopted more learning-centred forms of pedagogy and facilitator roles, thus

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granting their students an authentic experience of learning-centred learning in

the form of problem-based learning.

Sabotage was also described by Pollock and Cornford (2002) in the practice

section. They illustrated that despite major institutional backing, once new

projects left the close confines of technological development they could stall.

In this case, library staff could not be convinced that the online version of an

existing ‘Information Skills’ module (intended for 300 first-year students to

familiarise themselves with library procedures and technologies) was superior,

so it was postponed.

An academic’s view of memorisation can also be seen as part of his or her

pedagogical stance. Cooper et al. (2002), in the improving practice section,

found science academics held one of three conceptions of memorising:

memorising as rote learning for reproduction; as facilitating learning (a way to

progress); and as a key component of the learning process. Lecturers had

opposing views on whether memorising and understanding were either

unrelated processes or dynamically interwoven. Their beliefs about

memorisation would thus feed into their orientations of either teaching-centred

learning or learning-centred learning. In turn their beliefs about memorisation

may or may not be shared by their students, and those disagreeing could

experience disjunction.

6.2 Disjunction

Disjunction was apparent across many of the studies, and described here as a

sense of becoming stuck in learning or teaching. For some staff and students

there is a sense of fragmentation and uncertainty, and for others it felt a little

like ‘hitting a brick wall’. Disjunction has similarities with ‘troublesome

knowledge’, Perkins’s (1999) description of conceptually difficult knowledge.

This is knowledge that appears, for example, counter-intuitive, alien

(emanating from another culture or discourse), or incoherent (discrete aspects

are unproblematic, but there is no organising principle). Similarly, disjunction

often feels alien and counter-intuitive. This is because it invariably feels a

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negative place to be, rather than a space for growth and development. It is

also similar to troublesome knowledge because until disjunction is

experienced in a learning environment it is difficult to explain, particularly in

relation to students feeling fragmented; something which for many students

can feel both constructive and destructive at the same time.

It is noticeable that disjunction is an area addressed by few in the literature

about influencing thinking and practices in higher education. Yet disjunction is

not something to be seen as unhelpful and damaging, but instead as dynamic

in the sense that different forms of disjunction: enabling and disabling can

result in transitions in students’ lives. It became apparent that there were

trends across the studies. For example, disjunction did not necessarily always

result in the displacement of identity (in the sense of a shift causing such a

sense of disjunction that it resulted in a cost personally and pedagogically,

and hence had a life cost), but rather in a shift in identity or role perception, so

that issues and concerns were seen and heard in new and different ways. For

instance, the female academics participating in the gender study by Carson

(2001) did not portray themselves as being demoralised, alienated and

experiencing tension between their feminine and academic selves, as some

might have expected. Instead, they went through enabling disjunction in

dealing with sexist male students and colleagues. They were entirely

confident in their identities as conscientious teachers, and were vociferous in

derogating male academics’ contributions to teaching.

The study by Bayne (2005) into the identity of learners and teachers in

cyberspace found that lecturers in general were at ease with their online

identity, experiencing no disjunction. Some students experienced enabling

disjunction, experimenting with their online identity to differentiate it from their

real selves, being initially uneasy about how simple it was to portray those

differences, but ultimately finding an online identity with which they were

satisfied. However, most students experienced disabling disjunction, being

both initially and continually uneasy about their online identities, and how easy

it was for them to be manipulated, both by their real selves and, more

importantly, by online situations.

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Although disjunction occurs in many forms and in diverse ways in different

disciplines, it does seem to be particularly evident in curricula where

innovation has been implemented. In many of the studies there was a general

sense of unmediated disjunction. For example, Ashby et al. (2006) undertook

research in a nursing development initiative group consisting of health

lecturers and lecturer practitioners, and set out to evaluate qualitatively how

learners and teachers felt about the introduction of an enquiry-based learning

(EBL) approach to education. Teachers felt more doubtful and discouraged

than learners. Furthermore, several concerns were raised over the ability of

EBL to establish a foothold in a curriculum more noted for a pedagogical

stance on learning.

Students were also ‘stuck’ in a study by Biley (1999). In this study qualitative

data were collected from undergraduate student nurses (n=45) participating in

a problem-based learning programme of education. A category that was

labelled ‘creating tension’, which consisted of two sub-categories (namely

‘making the transition’ and ‘remembering the aims’), emerged from the data.

‘Making the transition’ highlighted the difficulty in moving to problem-based

learning from more traditional methods of education. ‘Remembering the aims’

described an emphasis on the importance that students place on knowledge

acquisition. Further, a study by Barrow et al. (2002) evaluated the reiterative

PBL approach in a nursing undergraduate programme using multiple methods

of observation, focus group interviews and a questionnaire. Findings revealed

an overall positive student experience of PBL. However, many students found

PBL initially stressful due to the deliberately ambiguous nature of the scenario

and the requirement upon students to direct their own learning. This was also

evident in Haung (2005) and Reynolds et al. (2006). The tutor role was

unclear to some students, while others found the facilitative approach

empowering.

The examples of disjunction described here have been mainly from the

orientation of learning-centred learning, but ‘getting stuck’ can occur in either

orientation, in any discipline. There appear to be more instances in learning-

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centred learning where disjunction can be surmounted through the use of the

different methods, catalysts and approaches present within this orientation.

One such aspect present in learning-centred learning is the use of learning

spaces and reflection.

6.3 Learning spaces

The category ‘learning spaces’ captures the idea that there are diverse forms

of spaces within the life and life-world of the academic, where opportunities to

reflect and critique their own unique learning position occur. The kinds of

spaces being referred to, while also physical, are largely seen as mental and

metaphorical. In such spaces, staff and students often recognise that their

perceptions of learning, teaching, knowledge and learner identity are being

challenged, and realise that they have to make a decision about their own

responses to such challenges. Spaces for learning offer tutors and students

opportunities to examine their cultural context. The frameworks by which

people live and operate may thus be challenged and transcended through the

act of evaluating the world and themselves, and even by that very act of self-

evaluation. Yet opportunities for such individual and corporate reflection can

only emerge within curricula where the belief in reflection is not only

espoused, but also undertaken in practice. Such belief can only emerge from

the premise that independent enquiry and reflection upon one’s life-world is

worthwhile and to be valued within professions and academic institutions.

In Linder et al. (1997), physics tutors reflected on their own recent learning

experiences while undertaking other undergraduate courses such as

Chemistry or Geography, using a Schönian-framed coaching experience.

Linder et al. created a reflective environment for tutors that led them to

thinking about teaching and learning in new ways. It provided a critical

framework for them to build meta-learning awareness in both the content and

process of learning, and helped them generate significant changes in their

teaching approaches. Similarly Ashley et al. (2006) explored undergraduate

and postgraduate dentistry students' understanding of a good learning

experience, by using Schön‘s 'reflection on learning'. While teachers

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implemented an intuitive perspective into their practice, it was noted that a

dilemma existed between the development of independent critical thinking

students and the students’ own desire for a rigidly defined course progression

and structure, with an emphasis on practical applications of knowledge and

learning through observation. Ashley et al. argued that their findings were of

value to curriculum planners in suggesting specific ways in which students’

learning could be maximised.

These two studies are unique examples that, through reflection, changed

practice. It is not known whether staff in either situation incorporated some

sort of learning space for students onto ongoing courses for which they were

responsible, but the following example was not only used in a new course, but

also maintained in an existing course module.

A differing perspective was offered by Bradshaw and Moxham (2005), who

used nursing students’ reflective accounts describing a significant interaction

with a mentally ill person for the development of a new course. Student

learning enhanced subject development, and the authors realised that they

were not always the expert, as neither of them had lived with or been a

mentally ill person. Understanding and using students’ experiences seemed

an important concern in many studies, as did the issue of diversity.

6.4 Learning diversity

In this era of mass student numbers and varying past learning experiences

and achievements, diversity is seen by many institutions as a way of both

attracting and then retaining students. Diversity is defined here as the

provision of variety and flexibility in learning experiences.

The Higher Education Academy report on the undergraduate experience of

blended e-learning (Sharpe et al, 2006) found that one of five key rationales

used by institutions to justify implementing e-learning was to support diversity.

It would seem that in the developed world where most of the population are

overwhelmed by choice, institutions have to provide choice as well or be

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perceived as not worthy of consideration as a place of study. So institutions

provide diversity in learning provision, and students enjoy ‘infotainment’

(Ritzer, 1996) since every module is created as different as possible. This is

illustrated most succinctly at a macro-cultural level in Crossman (2005), by an

Asian student, Pongsin, who identifies the East with traditional learning and

the West with modern approaches and innovation. At a more practical

everyday course level, diversity and choice provides students with all sorts of

opportunities of valid or non-valid avoidance. For example, in Johnson (2007)

there is valid avoidance by student Rosemary, who valued the discussion

board because she disliked presenting in class. Calculated avoidance was

evident in 31% of the course members, who did not participate in any online

discussion as it attracted only 5% of the assessment marks. Whereas a case

study in Jones and Cook (2006) illustrated the issue of non-valid avoidance,

when one student in a group of four refused to use a discussion board, which

led to an unbalanced and impaired experience for the other three. The effect

of the diverse, flexible, interactive, ‘infotaining’ learning experience is

minimised, neutralised or even descends into negativity, as students become

bored or apathetic, and yearn for (long distance) face-to-face contact in the

lecture theatre. For example, Sims’ (2003) study on expected levels of online

interactivity found that flexible online learning lost human interaction, meaning

the advantages of technology would not be met if they were too

decontextualised from human experience. Thus there is a critical level at

which the human/computer interface factor becomes unacceptable, and this

varies for the individual person.

6.5 Agency

Human agency addresses the way in which people’s aspirations,

expectations, and perceptions influence the way that they execute their roles.

By responding to human agency at an individual level, an organisation will be

imbued with a degree of flexibility that will enable adaptation to the needs of

the communities involved. This then leads to the understanding that individual

empowerment is a vector for knowledge transfer, the system itself providing

only a facilitating framework. What is particularly important here is the

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importance of the structure/agency debate that introduces questions about the

nature of social behavior: whether it is ultimately predictable with regard to the

creative volition of the individual, or is largely a product of socialisation,

interaction, and greater social structures. Gidden’s theory of structuration

(1984) is an attempt to reconcile theoretical dichotomies, such as structure

and agency. Giddens suggests human agency and social structure are in a

relationship with each other, and it is the repetition of the acts of individual

agents which reproduces the structure. This means that there is a social

structure - traditions, institutions, moral codes and established ways of doing

things; but it also means that these can be changed when people start to

ignore them, replace them, or reproduce them differently. This is clearly

shown in Land (2004), who demonstrated that educational development can

be directed towards supporting the academic as an individual to promote

personal well-being and growth.

In the study by Trowler and Cooper (2002), a tutor with only months of

teaching experience challenged the programme as inappropriate. The fact

that his inexperience as a teacher was highlighted suggests that his

intervention was regarded as inappropriate for his length of tenure; his prior

experience in industry was disregarded, even though it may have been highly

relevant to his judgment of the appropriateness of the course. Since a core

aim of higher education is the production of people with skills appropriate to

the workplace, the dismissal of an individual’s industrial experience suggests

that the educational institution lends greater weight to teaching experience

than the requirements of future employers. In contrast, a teacher of nine

years’ tenure deemed judgment of his failure to be inappropriate due to his

accumulated experience in teaching.

In contrast, Land (2004) shows that an acceptance of needs at an individual

level has lead to the adoption of a flexible organisation that responds to

personal agency. On an individual level people define their own position and

act accordingly. The studies by Land (2004) shows how teachers, unwilling to

take on managerial roles, appear to perform as required, but are waiting to

resume their own agendas, thus revealing the ingrained nature of pre-learned

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repertoires and personal agency. Clegg (2005) highlights the significance of

individual agency when teachers add an ‘intuitive element’ into their marking

practices, and may indicate subconscious agency at work. Equally,

assessment of PhDs also extends beyond guidelines to individual agency.

The study by Lucas (1998) shows how a lack of engagement of students with

the subject area, and a lack of personal relevance in Accounting, is due to the

agency of the individual student. Many students found the subject dull, only

relevant to the future and a subject that had to be passed at examination. This

personal agency is however misread by lecturers as confusion and insufficient

work input:

Don’t work hard enough, don’t read around the subject, do the work

mechanically, don’t know enough about business, and have confusion

about financial information.

In contrast creative writers showed no interest in discussing their ideas:

I’m sure that most people who write, who have any interest in writing,

cannot handle the idea of sharing, sharing their ideas. If they do its very

superficial. (Light, 2002, p. 268)

Similarly, cultural aspects of human agency are revealed in a study by Haung

(2005), where students found debate with lecturers difficult:

I am happy to discuss problems with my team mates. However, I did find

that I had a huge difficulty when arguing with my lecturers, especially

when they were wrong about some issues. I think this is a problem that

most Chinese students in the UK would have. (p. 41)

The concept that the transfer of information between communities is a simple

mechanistic process falls short of reality, since it regards communities as

uniform assemblages linked by a bureaucratic structure and has little regard

for the complex interplay invoked by human agency. By responding to the role

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of agency at an individual level, an organisation will be imbued with a degree

of flexibility, which will enable adaptation to the needs of the communities

involved.

The recognition that agency functions at an individual level challenges the

paradigm that people are defined by their roles, rather than by their

individuality. This then leads to the understanding that individual

empowerment is a vector for knowledge transfer, the system itself providing

only a facilitating framework. Thus perhaps what needs to be explored further

in the context of influencing thinking and practices about teaching and

learning in higher education, are the three types of structures (Giddens,1984)

in social systems, those of:

• signification: producing meaning through organised webs of language

• legitimation: producing a moral order via naturalisation in societal

norms, values and standards

• domination: producing (and an exercise of) power, originating from the

control of resources.

These are analytical distinctions, rather than distinct ideal types, that mobilise

and reinforce one another.

6.6 Notions of improvement

‘Notions of improvement’ captures the idea that across the themes of practice,

transfer and community there were particular beliefs about how improvement

should be undertaken. Furthermore, there was often a sense that top-down

improvement was inadvisable, yet this did not always seem to be the case.

Notions of improvement appeared to span four perspectives:

1. Improvement that was imposed by the institution would not be valued,

yet in a number of studies this was not the case.

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2. Improvement was seen as something imposed via government agenda

with little organisation and planning along with mixed messages, and

therefore would not work. Yet this approach also worked to some

degree, for example Burke (2003, 2006), in the move of nursing into

higher education from its past health service position.

3. Bottom-up and top-down approach would work most effectively. This

proved to be the case in many studies, for example Wilkie (2002);

however, there were instances where this was not the case. For

example, Pollock and Cornford (2002) have shown well-funded

innovation stalling through lack of ongoing leadership and support.

4. Bottom-up improvement was expected to be the best approach, but

there were several cases where in fact this approach had relatively little

impact. For example, Souleles (2005) detailed the issues for staff

implementing e-learning innovation with adequate practical support, but

a lack of pedagogical inspiration about how best to use the new

technology to maximise students’ learning opportunities. The study

revealed one academic paying lip-service to the innovation by merely

placing their lecture notes on Blackboard, while others, although

recognising the infinite possibilities of e-learning, lacked guidance in

how to proceed, and were reduced to a trial and error approach in

order to discover which processes and activities resulted in enriched

learning.

The analogy of crossing the chasm (Moore, 1999, following Rogers, 1962) is a

useful way of engaging with many of the issues related to notions of

improvement. Moore’s work relates to the development and adoption of

technology within companies. He argued that there is a chasm between two

distinct marketplaces: an early market that tends to be dominated by those

keen to take it on board (early adopters), along with insiders who quickly see

the benefit of the new development. The second marketplace is characterised

by a range of people who ultimately want the benefits of the new technology,

but are slower to take it up and more cynical about its possibilities. What tends

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to occur is the emergence of a chasm between those in the early market and

those in the later mainstream market. Crossing this chasm is an important

focus for those involved in any innovation since it highlights challenges not

only inherent in technology, but also with any innovation that affects people’s

lives and ways of seeing the world.

6.7 Communities of interest

There has been much discussion on the notion of community, and particular

the idea of communities of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991). The concept of

a community of practice refers to the process of social learning that occurs

when people with a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate

over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions and build innovations.

However, it would seem the term ‘community of interest’ would fit better with

those studies located in the communities section, since it reflects the idea of a

group of people that share a common interest or passion. These people

exchange ideas and thoughts, and engagement in such a community of

interest is often compelling. For some academics it might seem that in a

number of the higher education communities there is an evangelistic strand

that seeks to convert the souls who are perceived to belong to the wider, more

liberal end of the church, while for others there is little real rivalry across the

spectrum. The idea of 'community' from the stance of rhetorical criticism offers

an opportunity to explore both the medium and the message of the approach.

The interpretation of meaning within the communities can help us to

understand the way in which dramatic narratives are projected, to see the

characters, plots and storylines that are at play globally, and thus be able to

locate the hallmarks of a rhetorical community. The kinds of hallmarks that

might be seen are:

1. Ideological and procedural assumptions such as ‘community practices will

be carried out in particular ways’ and ’certain plots and storylines are more

acceptable than others’.

140

2. There are codes, slogans and key words that are accepted by the

community. These are understood by those in the community and

promulgated by those in leading roles, such as consultants, authors of texts

and keynote speakers.

The hallmarks of communities of interest were seen across many studies in

this review, particularly in relation to academic practice (Land, 2004) and

enquiry-based learning ( Savin-Baden, 2000a, b; Willkie, 2004), as well the e-

learning communities.

141

7. Conclusions

What was found particularly useful about the research method selected, meta-

ethnography, was the examination of issues, methods and concepts across

the studies. Interpretive meta-ethnography such as this affords an opportunity

not only to compare studies and the themes identified by the authors, but also

to construct an (always contestable) interpretation. However, the difficulty with

this approach is that there is a tendency to privilege similarity (and sometimes

difference) because the process of sense-making across studies tends to

focus on ordering and cohesion, rather than exploring conflicting datasets and

contestable positions.

We began this review trying to find key themes in the literature on teaching

and learning thinking and practices by examining areas of influence and

mapping ideas about the themes of practice, transfer and communities in

higher education or related contexts. What we have in fact mapped are the

varieties, versatility and vagaries of influencing thinking and practice about

teaching and learning in higher education. We wanted to demonstrate the

kinds of research and possibilities that are available through an examination

of this literature, but as we have drawn it together we realise that perhaps we

have done something different. This review presents, we believe, research

and practice; disciplinary differences and similarities. However, it also shows

that issues of pedagogical stance, disjunction, learning spaces, learning

diversity, notions of improvement, communities of interest and agency help to

locate overarching themes and hidden subtexts that are strong influences on

areas of practice, transfer and community. Nevertheless, these are areas that

are sometimes ignored, marginalised or dislocated from the central arguments

about teaching and learning thinking and practices in higher education.

Moreover, although there is a significant body of work that can inform practice,

transfer and communities, in the main these are underused in the processes

of design and decision-making to implement innovation and change, or to

guide communities in ways of thinking and practising. These concerns are

reflected in the recommendations below.

142

8. Further research and recommendations

Future attempts at meta-ethnography could draw upon what we have done

here, extending and challenging our work. Different criteria for inclusion and

exclusion, and different methods of evaluating research based upon different

philosophical stances in relation to research can only add to the existing body

of research, directing and developing new ways to know and understand.

We would welcome an ongoing discussion in the literature about whether

such approaches are useful, and if so, how they might best be conducted.

However, further research needs to be undertaken as follows:

Recommendations

1) There is a need to develop commonly understood discourses about

teaching and learning as a prerequisite to being able to make teaching

and learning regimes explicit and challenging them openly.

Teaching and learning regimes constitute the constellation of rules,

assumptions, practices and relationships such as: identities in

interaction; power relations; codes of signification; tacit assumptions;

rules of appropriateness; recurrent practices, discursive repertoires;

and implicit theories of learning and of teaching (Trowler and Cooper,

2002). Making them more explicit is vital because an educational

development programme depends on the compatibility between the

teaching and learning regimes in which participants are located and

that of the programme itself, and the extent to which participants are

able to tolerate, and even manipulate, differences and ambiguities as

they develop their awareness and explicit understandings about

teaching and learning.

Furthermore as Styles et al. (2001) found it cannot be assumed that

undergraduates or postgraduates will be aware of and use higher-order

strategies to enhance their learning. This study recommended that

knowledge of effective learning strategies be incorporated into course

143

content, and that students be encouraged to develop their meta-

cognitive awareness. Thus teacher education courses especially need

to develop effective learning skills in their students, preferably in the

context of their regular studies, and tutors need to model such

strategies and provide support and feedback for students.

2) The changing nature of the university experience, combined with the

changing nature of the student body, produced significant shifts in the

experience of HE that are not fully visible or understood in all their

implications. This HE culture shift has affected institutional ability to

respond to diverse needs and expectations and this requires further

research.

For example, Ozga and Sukhnandan (1998) argued for change,

nationally and institutionally, so that ’choice’ be supported by national

agencies that could assist UCAS in similar ways to the support

provided for school choice, This would mean students are aware of the

need to make informed and responsible choices, and are provided with

nationally available resources to support informed selection. At the

institutional level there were expectations of improved internal record-

keeping by institutions, including a more systematic and uniform

method of recording and coding reasons for withdrawal, and of

promoting active learning in the early stages of a degree and early

formative assessments in the first part of the first semester/term.

3) There is a need to continue to explore the impact of assessment on

teaching learning practices.

Many of studies indicated that ‘in many institutions, assessment

practices misdirect student learning activities in ways that may

seriously undermine the aims of the curriculum’. (Newble, 1998)

144

4) There remains relatively little understanding of the impact of

disciplinary differences across teaching and learning research and

practices and this would bear further research.

For example, in dentistry Ashley et al. (2006) concluded that students

preferred an approach to learning that was graded and cumulative;

being exposed to introductory principles which are later built upon.

They also placed an emphasis on practical applications of knowledge,

and learning through observation. Whereas Lawrie (2004) in a graphic

design course found that the issue of a dialogue journal was received

positively; students appreciated its informal nature and chance to have

an extended exchange of ideas with the teacher. Further, being ‘forced’

to write meant they retained information better, giving them confidence

to participate in class discussions because they realised they had

something to contribute.

5) The impact of academic identities and in particular staff pedagogical

stances in ways of thinking and practising requires still further research.

The work of Henkel (2000), Land (2004) and Trowler and Cooper

(2002) adds much to this literature. Staff expectations of themselves

seemed to be a concern for many. For example, in a number of studies

relating to staff experiences, tutors spoke of wanting to devolve power

to the students, yet in practice they were either not prepared to devolve

it or not capable of doing so.

6) The issue of gender equality (for staff and students) within the higher

education system requires further research.

For example, Carson (2001) explored teachers' specific views about

student perceptions and behaviour. Previous quantitative evidence

suggested that higher education students may exhibit gender bias

against women when evaluating the teaching of male and female staff.

This study explored this issue qualitatively in a group of academics

145

teaching in traditional (non-vocational) subject areas in two traditional

British universities. Some women respondents stated that students had

negative views of female staff. Further, it was suggested that women

were more conscientious, better communicators and more sensitive to

the need for careful preparation. Male academics were primarily

concerned with furthering their own careers exclusively, whereas

women enjoy working as a team.

7) There needs to be further exploration into the impact of diverse

teaching methods on the students’ experience.

For example, Samuelowicz and Bain (2001) concluded that although

academics in both orientations of teaching-centred learning and

learning-centred learning wanted their students to gain a thorough

subject understanding, their beliefs about the nature of understanding

and knowledge differ substantially; the orientation boundary between

them was ‘hard’, although shifts between the two could occur. They

identified the need for future research on the influence of academics’

beliefs on the uptake of alternative teaching methods and the

adaptation of staff development methods to address beliefs as well as

practices.

8) There is a need for more qualitative interpretivist studies into the

relationship between learning and work and the ways in which both

national culture and work cultures influence and impact on learning.

While there is much literature on work-based learning there is relatively

little in-depth qualitative data available.

9) There is a need for further studies into conceptions of and the practices

related to interactivity.

Interactivity as a concept has received comparatively little research

attention and tends to be located in relation to educational psychology

146

theory, the construct of interactivity, the technology and the criticality of

human/computer interface factors, communication and collaboration,

and the design, deployment and maintenance of learning

environments. For example in a study by Sims (2003), participant’s

responses offered insights into their expectations of what interactivity

should offer in the context of online and flexible learning environments.

The study identified interactivity as providing benefits to learning and

challenges to creating learning environments that will manifest the

conditions for effective interaction.

10) Research need to be undertaken in relation to the impact of changes

in teaching and learning approaches on staff and students.

It was evident that the very act of engaging in change activities resulted

in new understandings of the relationship between theory and practice.

However, changing practice also offered staff opportunities to discuss

ways of thinking about practising teaching. Thus, this kind of sharing in

a change process not only makes practices more explicit, but enables

transfer of change experiences to be shared within and across higher

education communities.

11) The professionalisation of teaching remains problematic, requiring

further research and changes in both funding and university practices

to engage with the issue.

For example, there is often an unquestioning adoption of the notion of

deep and surface approaches to learning, reflective practice and

learning styles, with little recourse to the current literature that contests

such work. The difficulty with this kind of professionalisation of learning

is that issues of self- and learner-identity and learning context are

largely ignored, when in fact these vital components need to be

explored in-depth when introducing staff to learning practices, such as

problem-based learning, that demand a recognition of the stances of

both learners and teachers in the learning context. Furthermore, the

147

study by Land (2004) revealed a fragmented community of practice.

Interviews with educational developers disclosed multi-faceted

academic and professional identities within the context of their work.

Coexisting forms of agency may be perceived to be representative of

the academic cultures within which the participants practice, yet these

forms of agency tend to be largely ignored in ways of thinking and

teaching learning practices in higher education. Further, Trowler and

Cooper (2002) suggested that an educational development programme

leader’s identity will change when moving between universities.

Underlying beliefs and values may remain unchanged, but the

positioning of teaching, research and professional development within

different HE institutions necessitated significant readjustments in

thinking, practices and sense of self in order to fit into the new culture.

12) e-Learning pedagogy is largely missing from the literature and needs to

be developed and researched.

The literature in this section largely indicates that technology has led

the pedagogy, but Sharpe et al. (2006) have pointed out that

successful institutions’ rationales for implementing e-learning have

included flexibility of provision, supporting diversity, enhancing the

campus experience, operating in a global context and efficiency. Yet

there remains difficulty with the perception of e-learning communities

and the digital spaces they inhabit, in that there is often a sense that

they are seen as being dislocated from physical spaces, and yet they

are not. Web spaces are largely viewed as necessarily freer locations,

where there is sense that it is both possible and desirable to ‘do things

differently’.

13) There is a lack of availability and/or opportunity for appropriate

professional development in e-learning, which is an institutional issue

that needs to be addressed.

148

The misalignment between rhetoric and practice manifests itself in

some use of e-learning tools, but delivery and outcomes do not match

expectations claimed by such rhetoric. The reasons for this

misalignment are attributed to the combination of both staff and

institute practices. Prescriptive and empirical studies on the

management of technological change do not question the need to

address the lack of graduate competencies and comprehensive staff

development, nor do they question the significance of ‘enlightened’

senior management. Increasingly, government and funding bodies will

confront HE institutions on their policies and strategies on e-learning,

and, for a brief period, this may shift the focus away from individual

staff attitudes and practices. Inevitably a complementary approach to

implementing e-learning – that is, one that combines staff development

backed by comprehensive policies – is likely to yield better results.

14) The practices and pedagogy associated with inquiry-based forms of

learning continue to be troublesome and require further research.

The reconstruction of what counted as inquiry- and problem-based

pedagogy seemed to be one of the most troublesome issues to

manage within learning communities. Changes in perspective,

particularly the shift away from some knowledge necessarily being

foundational to other knowledge, resulted in the breaking down of

artificial boundaries within disciplines and in breaking down barriers

across disciplinary areas. Furthermore, it seemed that for both staff and

students the notion of an ordered curriculum was something that was

seen as scaffolded and structured, but there was relatively little

recognition that in fact such safety suggested stability and control by

staff for students. Thus there was a sense of disjunction across many

of the studies located.

15) The understanding and impact of disjunction and troublesome

knowledge on students bears further research and exploration.

149

It is noticeable that the area of disjunction and troublesome knowledge

is addressed by few in the literature about influencing thinking and

practices in higher education. Yet it became apparent though third-

order interpretation that there were trends across the studies. For

example, disjunction did not necessarily always result in the

displacement of identity (in the sense of a shift causing such a sense of

disjunction that it resulted in a cost personally and pedagogically, and

hence had a life cost), but rather in a shift in identity or role perception,

so that issues and concerns were seen and heard in new and different

ways. Furthermore, although disjunction occurred in many forms and in

diverse ways in different disciplines, it seemed to be particularly evident

in curricula where innovation had been implemented. In many of the

studies there was a general sense of unmediated disjunction.

16) Research into learning spaces (that reaches beyond that of design for

learning) requires further study.

The term ‘learning spaces’ acknowledges the idea that there are

diverse forms of spaces within the life and life-world of the academic

where opportunities to reflect and critique their own unique learning

position occur. The kinds of spaces being referred to, while also

physical, are largely seen as mental and metaphorical.

17) Learning diversity is largely unacknowledged in the literature about

teaching and learning practices and bears further exploration.

In this era of mass student numbers and varying past learning

experiences and achievements, diversity is seen by many institutions

as a way of both attracting and then retaining students. Diversity is

defined here as the provision of variety and flexibility in learning

experiences.

18) There needs to be a reconsideration of power relationships in the

implementation of innovation and change.

150

There was often a sense that top-down improvement was inadvisable,

yet this did not always seem to be the case. In many case studies it

proved to be apparent that a bottom-up and top-down approach would

work most effectively, for example Wilkie (2002). However, there were

instances where this was not the case, for example, Pollock and

Cornford (2002) have shown well-funded innovation stalling through

lack of ongoing leadership and support. Further, bottom-up

improvement was expected to be the best approach, but there were

several cases where in fact this approach had relatively little impact.

151

Appendix A

A guide to interpretive meta-ethnography

Maggi Savin-Baden, Coventry University, UK

Interpretive meta-ethnography

Interpretive meta-ethnography draws upon meta-ethnography as defined by

Noblit and Hare (1988), but firmly locates the management and synthesis of

findings in interpretivism.

Background

Meta-analysis remains rare among those using collaborative and

interpretative inquiry, and few researchers have undertaken an integration of

findings from these kinds of studies. Those who have undertaken such a task

have tended either to impose the frameworks and values of quantitative

systematic reviews on qualitative studies, or have moved towards the use of

meta-synthesis. The use of systematic reviews, of whatever sort, implies that

the drawing up of a set of rules for ‘systematically’ reviewing evidence will

necessarily make the process of the review and research transparent. Yet

there are degrees of transparency and points beyond which it is not possible

to go when undertaking such reviews. The difficulty with meta-analysis that is

not located in an interpretive tradition is the propensity to decontextualise

material, thin descriptions, and ignore methodological difference.

Stages of interpretive meta-ethnography

Meta-ethnography is undertaken at three levels described in Figure 1.

152

Figure 1: Stages of interpretive meta-ethnography

Identify area of research and research question

4. Locating themes through different levels of analysis

5. Analyse data across studies

6. Develop second order themes

7. Synthesise data across studies 8. Interpret data 9. Develop third-order themes

1. Developing inclusion/exclusion criteria

2. Searching data bases

3. Analysing articles to include and exclude

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

10. Collate cross-study findings and critique in relation to original research question

4. Locate themes through different levels of analysis


6. Develop second-order themes

1. Develop inclusion/exclusion criteria

2. Search databases

3. Analyse articles to include and exclude

Level 1

Level 2

153

The levels in practice

Level 1

1. Develop inclusion/exclusion criteria

It is important in interpretive meta-ethnography that studies are included that

include qualitative data, otherwise it is not possible to undertake level 2

analysis and level 3 synthesis.

Table 1: Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Criteria Included studies Excluded studies

Topic Learning and teaching theories


Educational development

Academic practice

Discipline-based pedagogy

e-Pedagogy

Higher education research

Training

Question About way literature informs understandings of practice, transfer and community

Learning spaces design

Date Conducted 1990 or later Conducted prior to 1990

Design Using a qualitative design Using a quantitative design

Data Relying on interviews, focus groups, online discussions, observations

Quantitative questionnaires, surveys

154

Wilkie, K. (2004) Becoming facilitative: shifts in lecturers' approaches to

facilitating problem based learning. Challenging Research in Problem Based

Learning. M. Savin-Baden and K. Wilkie. Maidenhead: McGraw Hill.

Abstract

This chapter presents some of the findings of a qualitative study that aimed to explore the espoused and actual conceptions of facilitation adopted by a group of nursing lecturers on an undergraduate nursing programme that utilised problem-based learning. There is very little qualitative research into what actually happens within problem-based learning seminars and research into facilitators’ actions has tended to be quantitative in nature and linked to student perceptions and satisfaction.

Table 2: Example of application of inclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria Evidence of being met

Topic Higher education research

Question Informs both practice and community

Date Data from 2001-2003

Design In-depth interpretive study, with thick

description

Data Interviews with staff

Keywords Higher education

Teaching and learning

Qualitative research

Education-based development


Knowledge transfer

Problem-based learning

Possible themes Staff experience

Implementation of innovation


155

2. Search databases

This should include standard searching methods, as well as other approaches

to identify potential studies, including scanning bibliographies of original and

review articles for other suitable studies, hand searching, reviewing Listservs

and other relevant mailing lists, and searching the Cochrane networks.

For example in this study (Savin-Baden and McFarland, 2007) nearly 6,000

articles resulted from using a combination of the following search terms:

Higher education

Teaching and learning

Qualitative research

Education-based development


Knowledge transfer

Academic practice, leadership


Influence

Communities

Policy development

Transfer

Reflective practice

Interprofessional education

Phenomenology

e-Learning

Discipline-based pedagogy.

3. Analyse articles to include and exclude

It is important to scan articles that have been located to ensure the presence

of data and to ensure studies are qualitative and have not attempted to

undertake quantitative management of qualitative research findings.

156

Level 2

4. Locate themes through different levels of analysis

Scanning all studies it is possible to locate overarching themes that emerge

across all studies in relation to the research question. This is aided in the next

step by comparing articles, as in Table 3 below.

Table 3: Mapping of methods, concepts and findings

Methods,

perceptions

and concepts

Article 1 Article 2 Article 3 Article 4 Article 5 And so

on…

Sample

Setting

Methods

Data collection

Notion of

validity

Positioning of

researcher

Themes and

concepts


Annotations, maps, tables and grids were used to identify and connect studies

with the key themes. For example, mapping of methods, concepts and

findings was undertaken as presented in Table 3 in order to illustrate how

analysis moved beyond mere summary. Each of the selected papers should

be read through in order to record the details of the study including the setting,

participants, notions of validity and positioning of the researcher and to

identify the main concepts.

6. Develop second-order themes

Tables and grids may be used to help to develop second-order categories.

Articles should be categorised under the emerging themes and commonalities

157

and recurring themes arising from the different articles, as in the example in

Table 4.

Table 4: Example of developing second-order themes across studies

Level 3

7. Synthesise data across studies

Data should then be synthesised to enable additional interpretations that may

contribute to the knowledge and understanding. This is a complex process

and requires detailed analysis not only of the studies and their data, but also

of the subtext within and across studies.

8. Interpret data

Data should be interpreted through comparison and inductive analysis, rather

than just starting with raw data, it is useful to use descriptions that the original

authors have chosen to include. Indeed, it is unusual in meta-ethnography

completely to reinterpret the original data. In practice this means that not only

Themes Improving Practice

Changing practice

Impact of innovation

Creating theory thro exploring practice

Student experience

Staff experience

Hara, Kling, (2000)

Yes, students distress in web-based distance courses

No Yes No Yes Yes

Mullins,

Kiley (2002) Yes, improve practice of PhD examiners

No No Moving towards a model

No Yes

Lawrie, (2004)

No Yes Yes, exploring use of dialogue journal

No Yes No

Ashley, Gibson,

Daly, Baker, Newton, (2006)

Yes, used reflective practice to improve learning in dentistry

No No Yes, developed models of good learning

Yes No

Kreber, (2004)

Yes, analysed findings of 2 earlier studies on reflection

No No Yes, meta- analysis of studies

No Yes

158

are data compared across the studies, but also metaphors, ideas, concepts,

and contexts are revisited in order to review how the initial findings have been

contextualised and presented. In practice this means:

a) re-reading the studies carefully and examined the relationship between

them to determine common themes

b) synthesising data and discussing the synthesising in order to gain third

-order interpretations.

Developing third-order interpretations should add something that goes beyond

the mere comparisons of the findings of all the studies.

9. Develop third-order themes

Third-order themes emerge from interactive interpretation, reusing certain

themes that may prove useful in some instances. Third-order interpretations

often emerge from sub-themes that reveal a subtext not apparent in the initial

common themes. For example, in this study (Savin-Baden et al, 2007) the

overarching themes are identified in Table 5.

159

Overarching

concepts/

themes

Second-order interpretations Third-order

interpretations

Practice Improving practice

Changing practice

The impact of major innovation

Creation of theory

Student experience

Staff experiences

Community Knowledge management

Disciplinary communities

Staff and educational

development communities

Academic identity

Online/e-learning communities

Inquiry-based learning

communities

Transfer Transfer for shared practice

Transfer related to policy

Pedagogical stance

Disjunction

Learning spaces

Learning diversity

Agency

Notions of improvement

Communities of interest

Table 5: Developing third-order interpretations

10. Collate cross-study findings and critique in relation to original research

question

This section is a space to discuss and to map the varieties, versatility and

vagaries of the collated findings. It should demonstrate the kinds of research

and possibilities that are available through an examination of this literature.

Thus interpretive meta-ethnography should afford an opportunity not only to

compare studies and the themes identified by the authors, but also to

construct an (always contestable) interpretation.

160

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