Download The contrasting environments that early career academics

The contrasting environments that
early career academics experience
in their departmental teaching and
on programmes of initial
professional development
Dr Peter Kahn, University of Liverpool
Introduction
• Dissonances identified between these two
environments (Trowler and Cooper, 2002; and
Fanghanel, 2004) , seen for instance in:
– practices, structures, attitudes, discourses.
• One key source of dissonance concerns the
extent to which practices promoted on the
programme are suited for introduction into
practice within departmental settings.
Theoretical considerations
• Theoretical basis for research into higher
remains relatively weak (Tight, 2004):
– field is thematic rather than disciplinary in nature.
• One consequence is that wide ranging
theories are often neglected:
– Bourdieu’s theory of action;
– Critical realism: e.g. social realism of Margaret
Archer.
Aims
• To develop understanding of one potential
source of dissonance
– What factors influence which practices are
actually adopted by participants?
• To introduce two key (but neglected)
theoretical paradigms relevant to research
into higher education
Bourdieu
• Action is explained primarily through objective
considerations, with one’s position within a social
environment (field) shaping dispositions (habitus)
and the resources available (capital), that then
determine one’s choices and practices.
– One’s conception of teaching is shaped primarily by
social environment, rather than something that is
more openly chosen.
– Social conditioning largely determines individual
action in this theoretical perspective.
Archer
• Through patterns of reflexive deliberation,
individuals choose to pursue sets of concerns,
which are subjectively experienced in relation to
natural, practical and social realms.
• Concerns lead agents to undertake projects, and
thus to establish practices; as set within
structural and cultural contexts that objectively
constrain and enable action.
– A role for human agency is retained more directly,
while still acknowledging the contribution of social
constraints.
Applications to the development of
early career academics?
• What is the balance between habituated
action and the challenges of a new context –
when first teaching?
• How do you motivate someone to navigate
their way through a new context when their
immediate concerns are focused around
research?
Methodology
• Three exploratory interviews with staff from a
programme of initial professional development at
the University of Liverpool.
• Semi-structured (transcribed) interviews
– Can you give an example of a practice promoted on …
that fitted - didn’t fit – proved problematic?
– Why did you adopt/ not adopt these practices.
• Data collected and analysed conducted in light of
potential match with the two theoretical
perspectives.
Interviewees
Participant - ‘AH’
Participant - ‘P’
Participant – ‘SE’
Arts and Humanities
Professional
Science and Engineering
No prior teaching
experience
3 years experience as a
postgraduate teaching
assistant
No prior teaching
experience
Female
Female
Male
UK national
Overseas
Overseas
Recently completed the
programme
Current participant on the
programme
Recently completed the
programme
Data analysis
• Focus for exploratory data analysis:
consideration of factors influencing the
adoption of practices, in light of the potential
match with these theoretical perspectives.
– A connection is more directly in evidence with
Archer rather than Bourdieu.
Cultural and social context
• Teaching is seen in these three cases to provide a
highly context-specific set of practices.
– Significant variation evident in social and cultural
context, covering class sizes, practices already in
operation, particular concerns and attitudes of the
given students, roles undertaken, and disciplinary
considerations of suitability.
• Teaching here provides a context with a different
pattern of demands to those experienced in
relation to research; suggesting that a contextual
discontinuity applies during the transition.
Resources
• The capital involved in influencing practice in the
cases considered stems most directly from the
immediate context (e.g. support and workload)
rather than, say, cultural or social capital.
• Experience of teaching seen to play a significant
role in relation to adoption of practice
– Cultural capital here seen to stem from personal
engagement with the given context (but shifts also
evident in conception of teaching)
Reflexive deliberation
• Concerns experienced by the three lecturers
within the immediate teaching situation, and
especially those related to students, give rise to
reflexive deliberation, and changed practice.
– Reflexive deliberation accentuated through contextual
discontinuity, as participants seek to make their way
in what is a new context.
• Concerns
Courses of action
Practices
Contrasts across the environments
• We see a series of ways in which there is a
potential mismatch in assumptions between
the three given contexts and a programme:
– Significant variation in the disciplinary contexts
– Focus of reflexive deliberation on teaching and
appreciation of its role
– Extent to which support and other resources
enable the introduction of different sets of
practices.
Potential mismatches on
reflexive deliberation
• Limited attention in evidence during a recent
review of reflective practice in relation to
addressing or motivating concerns on the part of
the participants:
– Focus often on change in the wider context (and the
resulting need to develop practice) and wider aspects
or conceptions of practice.
– Role of contextual discontinuity in motivating a
reflective process not in evidence in the review. How
might you motivate the need for reflexive deliberation
in the absence of contextual discontinuity?
(See Kahn et al, 2006)
Practical consequences
• Implications for teaching on programmes of initial
professional development
– Explicit consideration of variation in context
– How best to prepare participants for subsequent roles
or contexts?
• Implications for professional development prior
to a first lecturing post?
• On the theoretical perspectives – perhaps greater
scope for use of Bourdieu when considering
more experienced academics.
References
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Archer M (2000) Being Human: the problem of agency, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge
Bourdieu P (1998) Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action, Stanford University
Press, Palo Alto, CA
Fanghanel J (2004) Capturing dissonance in university teacher education, Studies
in Higher Education, 29, 575-590
Kahn P et al (2006) The role and effectiveness of reflective practices in
programmes for new academic staff , Higher Education Academy, York, [Online,
accessed 7 April 2008],
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/research/litreviews/2005_06
Tight, M. (2004) ‘Research into higher education: an a-theoretical community of
practice?’Higher Education Research and Development, 23, 395-411
Trowler P and Cooper A (2002) ‘Teaching and learning regimes: implicit theories
and recurrent practices in the enhancement of teaching and learning through
educational development programmes’, Higher Education Research and
Development 21, 222-24