In this paper, we suggest that in most cases there is no need for a lengthy description of methodological procedures in qualitative higher education journal articles. Doing so often adds no real value beyond creating a scientific façade, and the space this requires as a proportion of the total paper word limit could be better utilized for crafting…

In recent years, "post-qualitative new empiricist" research has been gaining ground. Such work questions the humanist ontological and epistemological orientation of much mainstream qualitative inquiry and insists on the need to take into account the more-and-other-than-human. Post-qualitative research draws on an eclectic range of…

Arts/Humanities researchers frequently do not explain methodology overtly; instead, they "perform" it through their use of language, textual and historic cross-reference, and theory. Here, methodologies from literary studies are shown to add to Higher Education (HE) an exegetical and critically pluralist approach. This includes…

Numerous higher education researchers have studied the ways in which students' or academics' beliefs and conceptions affect their educational experiences and outcomes. However, studying the learning-teaching relationship has proved challenging, requiring researchers to simultaneously address both the invisible internal world(s) of the student and…

Traditionally there has been a tension between evaluation research and so-called pure research which has resulted in evaluation research seldom being recognized by the UK Research Assessment Exercises. The newly configured Research Excellence Framework (REF) will use similar criteria to judge research, notwithstanding the introduction of…

The article reports on a study of methodological innovation involving occupational therapy (OT) students in higher education (HE). It is based on an original project which examined the experiences and outcomes of non-traditional entrants to pre-registration OT education. A feature of the original project was the application of the epistemological…

Quantitative secondary analysis of large-scale data can be combined with in-depth qualitative methods. In this paper, we discuss the role of this combined methods approach in examining the uptake of physics and chemistry in post compulsory schooling for students in England. The secondary data analysis of the National Pupil Database (NPD) served…

Drawing heavily on my MA dissertation but influenced by subsequent transcription experience, I relate how a technical problem in the recording of an interview necessitated deliberations on the nature and purpose of transcription that continue to have repercussions for my transcription practice and, furthermore, for my understanding of research as…