Purpose: Agricultural extension services in poor countries often identify opinion leaders based on criteria such as wealth and social status. We explore the effectiveness of this top-down approach by analysing the role of so-called model and nodal farmers in the diffusion of malt barley in a highland community in Ethiopia. Research approach: We…

Research honours programs are traditionally used in Australian universities to build and evaluate research capacity in undergraduate health students. The effectiveness of such programs in achieving this in the current higher education landscape has not recently been explored. This mixed methods study examined 66 health research honours programs.…

Within the discourse about the professionalisation of adult and continuing education, an extensive discussion about how adult and continuing education can become a profession has taken place. Based on 'classic professionalisation theories', which are guided by the concept of 'traditional professionals', this discussion was about the fulfilment of…

The idea of the research/teaching nexus has become of increasing importance in thinking about higher education over the last three decades. In essence, this idea recognizes the two key functions of higher education--teaching and research--and argues that they are, or should be, closely linked. This article explores the derivation and development…

There has been an increasing interest within the academic literature on the role played by Higher Education Institutions in the social and economic development of their communities. The Australia Government has recently released its National Science and Innovation Agenda (NISA) which is designed to incentivise university-community research…

Research on engineering practice is scarce and sharing of qualitative research data can reduce the effort required for an aspiring researcher to obtain enough data from engineering workplaces to draw generalizable conclusions, both qualitative and quantitative. This paper describes how a large shareable qualitative data set on engineering…

This article focuses on teacher commitment, and particularly on teachers displaying sustained high levels of commitment throughout their teaching careers (over 15 years). Graduates from one Teacher Education programme responded to an open-ended questionnaire conducted on 10 occasions concerning their work as teachers, from graduation in 1993 to…

Collective approaches to practice development are increasingly common in the teaching profession. Such initiatives frequently involve groups of teachers taking responsibility for introducing, sharing and developing new pedagogical resources and for aiding their integration into existing practices. This article explores teachers' knowledge work as…