An International Approach to Developing Early Career Researchers


Book Description

This edited volume illustrates the idea of a successful research capacity model, critically addressing preconceived notions of early career research projects’ impact and drawing together insights and implications around the encouragement of newer researchers to conduct useful, robust studies with real-world effect. Centring on research undertaken at the UK Durham University Evidence Centre, the volume features contributions from authors based at universities in the US, China, India, and Pakistan. The book discusses 15 substantial studies which explore themes such as children’s wider outcomes in school; disadvantage in education; and the supply of professionals for the teaching workforce. Novel in approach and highly interdisciplinary in nature, the book showcases a broad range of experience and knowledge sharing, from experienced researchers and policymakers to new academic staff, current doctoral students, and masters’ students conducting ambitious large-scale projects, thereby giving voice to those just starting out in their career. Illustrating powerful studies that are feasible for students and beginners with limited or no resources, this book will appeal to new researchers, scholars and academics involved in the fields of educational research and research methods, continuing professional development, and education policy more broadly.




Advancing School-University Partnerships and Professional Development Schools through National Research


Book Description

This book offers a comprehensive guide to the impact of professional development schools and school–university partnerships (PDSs-SUPs), articulating both the major issues that confront PDSs-SUPs and the various research methods shaping the field. Stemming from a national PDS research conference and project funded by the American Educational Research Association, this collaborative effort presents a vision aimed at promoting inclusive, equity-focused research within PDSs-SUPs and delves into the insights of researchers as they examine revitalized perspectives, persistent challenges, and emerging areas of study. This volume will appeal to scholars, teachers, teacher educators, university students, and education policymakers with interest in social justice in research, teacher education, and P-12 partnerships.




The Development of University Teaching Over Time


Book Description

Examining two centuries of university education, this book charts the development of pedagogical approaches since the year 1800 and how they have transformed higher education. While institutions for promoting advanced learning in various forms have existed in Asia, Africa, and the Arab world for centuries, the beginning of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of the modern model of a university with which we are familiar today. This book argues that, in the time since, seven broad teaching approaches were developed across the world which continue to be used today: the disputation, the lecture, the tutorial, the research seminar, workplace teaching, teaching through material making, and role-play. O’Donoghue demonstrates how each has been reconfigured and developed over time in response to the changing nature of higher education, as well as society more generally. This expansive book will be of great interest to historians of education, scholars of education more generally, and teacher practitioners interested in the pedagogical models that shape modern academia.




Developing Feedback Literacy for Academic Journal Peer Review


Book Description

This edited volume showcases first-hand accounts of crafting and handling feedback during the peer review process from early career researchers (ECRs), journal editors and experienced reviewers to develop the concept of ‘feedback literacy’ in academic peer review contexts. This novel collection of research uses personal reflections, disseminations of good practices, research syntheses and small-scale primary studies to highlight implications for feedback practices, demonstrating how academics’ capacity, disposition and skills in providing and engaging with constructive, professional and actionable feedback are crucial to ensure a comprehensive and worthwhile process. Chapters draw attention to the need for academics to develop feedback literacy, both at the ECR level and for more experienced peer reviewers, journal editors and authors, furthering discussion on improvement strategies and solutions to current feedback practices. Reimagining journal peer review as an inclusive and sustainable participatory system, this book will appeal to scholars and researchers working in higher education and educational assessment. There will be particular interest among postgraduate students and ECRs across the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences disciplines for whom journal peer review has a particular relevance.




Experiential Learning and Community Partnerships for Sustainable Development


Book Description

This book addresses the growing demand for applied experiences that move students beyond learning into the realm of doing by supporting the development of skills and competencies that align with emerging areas of innovation and work. It considers the urgent need to promote and invest in skills that support sustainable development, such as those needed to analyze and mitigate climate change. The authors argue that this challenge provides an opportunity to reimagine the use of Experiential Learning, connecting students with community-based partners doing the work of sustainable development around the world. Featuring compelling case studies of project partners in Nigeria, Uganda, and Tanzania working to address the complexities of climate change, they offer a practical model for implementing Experiential Learning that can be translated and scaled across sectors and resource environments. It is aimed at scholars and educators working across higher education and international education with interests in digital and experiential education.




Authority, Passion, and Subject-Centered Teaching


Book Description

This book asserts that authority is a contested category and explores why traditional notions of authority are increasingly in tension with progressive and postmodern claims, devolving into stalemate, schizophrenia, or power plays. Offering a Christian framework as a philosophically coherent and practical alternative for teachers, the author argues that Jesus provides a pattern from which to reconstruct our conception of teaching authority in ways that align with evidence-informed teaching practices and cultivate intellectual virtues. Rather than examine “Jesus as teacher,” the book instead applies the central insight on authority that Jesus embodies. This authority with which Jesus taught, it argues, stemmed from his passion—that is, passive, even suffering, experience. The author aligns this to a subject-centered conception of teaching (as opposed to student-centered or teacher-centered) in which the subject is the authority and knowing is identified with being acted upon by the subject. Teaching with authority thereby becomes a matter of unveiling suffering with students and inviting them into their own suffering encounter with the subject. Building on the work on Parker Palmer and exploring pedagogical practice from a Christian perspective, this book will appeal to scholars and researchers with interests in higher education, evidence-based teaching, educational theory, religion and education, and Christian history and thought.




The Layered Landscape of Higher Education


Book Description

This edited collection interrogates notions of curriculum, inclusivity, diversity, and cultures of learning in higher education from a variety of cultural backgrounds and educational perspectives. Bringing together an international selection of contributors from a range of disciplines, this book presents different avenues for rethinking the foundational base of cultures of learning while emphasising the importance of interculturality. The crux of the book lies in the fact that the contributors, living through complex cultures, speak/write from their own experiences of seeing, knowing, and doing. Through insights presented by the authors, the book promotes a broadened and deeper understanding of teaching and learning across diverse fields, including alternative knowledge, creative arts, education, technology, STEM, study skills, and environmental sustainability. Arguing for the need to review curriculum issues and policies at both an institutional and national level, it highlights the importance of creating collaborative spaces for constructing new and alternative scholarship and methods within higher education. Supported by case studies and examples of teaching practice, the text reveals the current state of educational and cultural changes and challenges for students and educators in higher education while looking towards the future. This book is a requisite text for academics, researchers, policymakers, support staff, and postgraduate students in higher education.




Philosophical Adventures in African Higher Education


Book Description

This seminal volume delves into some of the doctoral research and pedagogical experiences within an African higher education context, making a case for the transformative potential of education and the integration of African indigenous philosophies into global educational practices. Through a collection of vivid narratives, the book situates philosophy of higher education by embodying the doctoral researcher and their initiation into academic life, revealing how doctoral pursuits in African higher education are not simply academic endeavours but deeply philosophical adventures that challenge, critique, and reimagine the role of education in society. Chapters advocate for a dynamic educational system that, rooted in African philosophies, nurtures democratic citizenship, embraces critical engagement, and fosters social justice. A call to action for researchers, students, and policy makers alike to view doctoral research as a powerful catalyst for change, the book offers fresh perspectives on addressing the continent's unique challenges, contributing to a more just and inclusive world. Ultimately considering the potential of academic research to shape the future of societies, both within Africa and globally, the book will appeal to researchers, academics and postgraduate students involved with the philosophy of education, higher education, and citizenship education, as well as these areas in African contexts specifically.




Street-Level Bureaucracy in Instructional Design


Book Description

This book explores the role and function of instructional designers in higher education, highlighting the real-world discrepancy between their actual contributions to organizational growth and the official job descriptions provided by universities. Investigating how higher education professionals navigate the daily conflict arising from this misalignment, it highlights a number of approaches including improvising to accommodate additional tasks, or strictly adhering job descriptions. The volume is structured around main three themes: the interpretation of instructional design and the role of instructional designers, the concept of street-level bureaucracy and coping strategies, and the contribution of instructional designers to organizational development. The research is grounded in the sociological and management theory of street-level bureaucracy, allowing the author to dissect employee behavior into microelements and connect these to the macro-outcomes of organizational development. The study employs a qualitative approach, using quantitative content analysis and qualitative interviewing on a sample of 17 instructional designers from three different regions in the US. The findings challenge institutional and practice assumptions, offering a new perspective of understanding which asks whether instructional designers are predominantly acting as street-level bureaucrats, or whether behavior and performance is framed by institutional culture and personal characteristics. The author then discusses the implications of these findings for policy, practice, theory, and future research. It will be of interest to academicians, post-graduate students, and higher education leadership professionals from fields across education, management, instructional design, sociology, and research methods.




Identity-Trajectories of Early Career Researchers


Book Description

The book asks how we can make sense of career paths for PhD graduates, something that has rarely been systematically studied. It offers a coherent synthesis of the empirically-based insights that arose from the experiences of 48 early career researchers, who were participants in a 10-year qualitative longitudinal research program. The book has the power to inform other researchers’ conceptual and methodological approaches to the study of post-PhD career trajectories. The authors draw on the conceptual lens of ‘identity-trajectory’, which emerged from their research program, to examine the decision-making processes underpinning the careers of PhD graduates, whether contingent researchers and teachers, assistant professors within the academy or professionals elsewhere. The book highlights the role of personal agency in negotiating academic and non-academic work and careers within broader personal lives. It will be compelling reading for researchers and students working in the areas of Education and Sociology, particularly those with an interest in examining career development and decision-making.