Q methodology (Q) offers a scientific way to study subjectivity, meaning people's viewpoints about a topic. The underlying assumption of Q is that when people share an experience, they do not necessarily form the same viewpoint about that experience. This is different from the use of Likert-scale surveys that report results using aggregate…

The higher education sector has been slow to respond to charges of institutional racism, which is reflected in what research is regarded as valid and what is funded. Further, many areas of student provision fall outside of the direct control of higher education institutions, for example, accommodation which may be operated by private landlords.…

In this case study we reflect on a review we conducted of the English-language research literature on carers in academia. For the purpose of this study, we define a "carer" as an individual who self-identifies as having caring responsibilities, including, but not limited to, individuals looking after children, parents, grandparents,…

This case study discusses how autoethnographic approaches can be used as a qualitative research tool. Based in a U.K. university Faculty of Education, it outlines a collaborative project designed to investigate barriers to engagement with academic writing development for early career researchers. After a brief overview of the project and its…

This case study describes a project that combined speculative fiction and co-design as qualitative social science research methods. It also describes how planned methods had to be adapted from physically co-present to online implementation and how we also had to change our expectations regarding the outcomes of the project. The combination of…

This research took place in a U.K. higher education institution. It was concerned with the professional learning of academic staff and examined what enables and encumbers work-based professional learning. A two-stage photovoice methodology was chosen because it presented two advantages. First, it was the best way of including participants in the…

The purpose of this three-phase multiple methods, qualitative research project was to examine faculty members' understandings of immersive learning in face-to-face settings in order to add a definition of immersive learning to the literature and fill a gap for this pedagogical method. Immersive learning can be broadly defined as an educational…

In 2014, I began dissertation research examining the leadership of Father Paul Reinert, S.J., former president and chancellor at Saint Louis University. Father Reinert was an influential figure within the field of Catholic higher education at the local, national, and international levels; however, despite his significant contributions to higher…

In 2015, a vision-construction experiment on the future of business higher education took place in Hungary. This was part of a so-called participatory backcasting process. This particular form of vision-construction does not attempt to identify and extrapolate from current trends but to visualize an ideal scenario in the not-too-near but…

This case provides an account of conducting an institutional ethnographic study, as part of doctoral study, to explore the experiences of students in higher education, who have caring responsibilities for children under 18 years of age. Previous research into the experiences of these students had focused on a particular issue a researcher wished…

Through our experience, we aim to encourage researchers to consider various technical and methodological aspects of possible educational research that can be undertaken from a virtual learning environment, defined as a system for delivering learning materials to students via the web. This system includes assessment, student tracking, collaboration…

This case study is based on a research conducted in 2014, whose framework is the integration of Information and Communication Technologies as learning tools in educational contexts. During the last decades, the number of works about this topic has increased exponentially, yet some key points of this phenomenon are still unknown, largely as a…

Phenomenography is a research approach that seeks to identify "variation" in experiences of a particular phenomenon among a sample population. It includes particular procedures for writing research questions, designing data collection tools, and analyzing findings. Sustainability in higher education has attracted considerable interest in…

Employability is an issue which is often referred to in the design and marketing of higher education courses, with many institutions providing awards or content said to enhance student employability. A recent systematic review of the literature regarding employability suggests that when people talk of employability, they may not always be…

The case presented below describes the methodology used for my doctoral thesis which mapped the development of 'higher education internationalisation' through the autobiographical journey taken by way of the researcher's life. In doing so, I drew on the interpretive research method reflective topical autobiography to present a subjective…