Increasing numbers of researchers in the field of higher education research are searching for meaning rather than metrics: something in their data that call to them and that make their hearts soar. This paper leans into post-qualitative approaches and attempts to resist methodological arrest, drawing on the disciplinary language of literary…

This article considers how the performing arts integrate with research, learning and teaching. In doing so, it addresses the relation between research and performance practice, and the connections between research/practice with learning and teaching. Reference to A/R/Tography is made as a constructivist praxis facilitating integration of these…

Postgraduate education has grown enormously worldwide, which has led to supervisors being expected to take on a supervisor's role immediately upon graduation. But crossing the border from being a doctoral candidate to becoming a doctoral supervisor entails significant shifts in identity and an understanding of postgraduate pedagogy and…

This paper describes a study investigating the effectiveness of an online group supervision model developed to respond to the plight of postgraduate students forced to complete their research theses in China due to the COVID-19 pandemic border closures in 2020-2022. The supervisory group included academics with variable supervision experience who…

This research is based on an empirical study exploring how academics make curriculum decisions and their perceptions of the influences that shape their decisions. Interviews were held with 20 academics from diverse disciplines, who were both research active and committed to teaching. The higher education curriculum was conceptualised as a field of…

This study explores the challenges faced by young lecturers in managerial transformation in elite Chinese academic institutions which aim to develop into world-class universities. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews, the paper discusses how a group of lecturers on tenure-track contracts at a research university in China perceived the impacts…

There are many challenges that undergraduate students face when studying an honours research degree. Honours programmes though traditionally considered within the business discipline as a loss leader, nevertheless, form a direct entry requirement for PhD programmes. The honours degree can be considered a formative research programme for student…

In this article, the author discusses how universities and the academics who work in them understand the relationship between teaching and research. In several countries, acknowledgement of the need to link teaching and research has led to the development of institutional strategies to achieve this goal. In South Africa, the linking of teaching…

Creating space for Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) to work as active members of the department and take ownership of certain learning and teaching activities has many potential benefits. Allowing GTAs the autonomy to pursue personal projects and share their enthusiasm for their subjects could help GTAs to develop a sense of professional…

While achieving research independence by becoming a principal investigator (PI) is a key aspiration for many postdocs, little is known of the trajectory from PhD graduation to first PI grant. This interview-based study examined how 16 PIs in science, technology engineering, mathematics or medicine, in the UK and continental Europe, prepared for…

Within the policy discourse of academic work, teaching, research and administration are seen as discrete elements of practice. We explore the assumptions evident in this "official story" and contrast it with the messy experience of academic work, drawing upon empirical studies and conceptualisations from our own research and from recent…

Working in teams is widely recognised as an important skill across a range of occupations and professions, with the teaching of teamwork now a feature of the higher education curriculum. The success of teamwork, however, depends to a large extent on the mediated management of complex variables such as individual conduct, collective action,…

This paper provides a critique of academic experiences of neoliberal economic reform at a New Zealand (NZ) university. The authors engaged in a collaborative inquiry that was based upon a developing theoretical perspective of the reform process and how this affected their academic lives. We were keen to develop an understanding of liberal…

Universities are supposed to be institutes where research and teaching are closely related. To understand this relationship fully, it is necessary to learn how academics perceive these key components. Different conceptions among academics may stem from varying conceptions of knowledge. Thirty academics were interviewed by means of metaphors about…

This paper explores the use of situated cognition theory to investigate how new academics learn to judge complex student performance in an academic department at a South African university. The analysis revealed the existence of two largely separate communities of practice within the department, one centred on the provision of undergraduate…