This article is written with the recognition that, as higher education studies evolve as a multidisciplinary area of inquiry, there is a need to reflect on the theoretical and practical concerns emerging from conducting higher education research. This is especially the case for early-career researchers who enter this relatively new field of study.…

Higher education (HE) research often draws on a range of qualitative research approaches. However, some methods developed in other fields are underutilised in HE research, even though they could be of great use for answering particular kinds of research questions, or for involving students more actively in the research process. In this article, we…

Over the last decade, there has been a steady increase in the number of Indigenous graduate research students in Australia, yet research and pedagogy has not kept pace with changes underway in the sector. From an extensive search of literature published between 2000 and 2017, 15 papers (representing 10 research projects conducted by seven teams or…

In the field of higher education there are few places reserved for philosophical exploration, and this, this author argues, can limit and distort the cartography. Higher education research tends to be framed as the empirical process of collecting and analysing qualitative or quantitative data. But this conception of research leaves little space…

Supervision of doctoral students needs to be improved to increase completion rates, reduce attrition rates (estimated to be at 25% or more) and improve quality of research. The current literature review aimed to explore the contribution that technology can make to higher degree research supervision. The articles selected included empirical studies…

This article reports on a case study of one New Zealand university faculty involved in the second phase of a three-phase study investigating the experiences of talented undergraduate students. Talented undergraduate students are a largely forgotten group in research. The current study sought to investigate who the talented students were, and then…

This study, set in a New Zealand Business School, takes an integrative view of the university as an "inequality regime" Acker, J. (2006b). Inequality regimes: Gender, class and race in organizations. "Gender and Society," 20(4), 441-464 including all types of women staff: academic women in permanent positions, academics on…

This paper reports on the third phase of a study of Australian Teaching and Learning Centres to identify factors that contribute to the effective strategic leadership of Centres. Focus groups at 10 Australian universities included 66 respondents, providing a diverse range of perspectives, from students to members of the university executive.…

Identifies five methods of phenomenographic research in early work at Gothenburg University (Sweden): discursive; experimental; naturalistic; hermeneutic; and phenomenological. Argues that phenomenography is a productive form of research, even if the degree of methodological reflection applied by phenomenographers to their work is found wanting.…

Raises concerns about using interview data in phenomenological research, arguing such data are more related to discourse and the interviewee's perception of what is appropriate to say in the context than to "ways of experiencing," which is the object of study in phenomenography. Also argues that in important respects, discursive…

As more digital data become publicly available new opportunities for researchers in education are arising. Researchers may be unaware of the existence and usefulness of such data even though these are freely available. In this article the use of one such source of information is described and its potential for research into research education…