There is increasing pressure toward professionalisation of university teaching, through the attendance of academic development courses and programmes. This is based on the expectation that such courses lead to more student-focused perspectives on teaching and learning and more effective teaching and learning practices. In this study we interviewed…

This paper argues that lecturer development programmes can best be evaluated by theory-informed, contextualised evaluations involving a structured approach. The self-knowledge obtained by course teams who engage with such an approach outweighs wisdom received from external evaluators within large-scale evaluation initiatives, although these can…

The literature concerning formal and informal mentoring relationships commonly focuses on mentors giving and mentees receiving certain benefits. This paper gives voice to mentees' reflections on their participation in a formal mentoring program. It extends the literature by identifying and examining the notion of gift in mentoring. Through…

This paper explores the implications of the effective integration of research, teaching and learning for academic development through the lens of an international multi-institutional comparison of student perceptions of research and its impact on their learning environment. The study, with a sample of over 500 final-year undergraduate students…

Educational development over the last 35 years has progressed from an informal set of instructional improvement activities to a scholarly field of study and practice. At the same time, its scope has evolved to include a broad range of services, resources, programs and initiatives (e.g., curriculum development, action research, mentoring) designed…

This paper explores issues relating to programmes for doctoral students wishing to gain experience of, and develop skills in, teaching. The focus is on "Developing Learning and Teaching"--a new provision at the University of Oxford. The purpose is to exemplify how activity theory can be used to situate particular programmes and individual…

Teaching Portfolios are now common in higher education. They are used both developmentally and summatively in spite of the fact that many academics find them generically quite unfamiliar. This paper explores, primarily conceptually, the experience of one institution as to the ways in which portfolios have functioned in its processes and its…

As research demands continue to weigh heavily on junior and non-tenured faculty, the need to maintain and develop sound teaching is crucial. Yet few studies have systematically explored how a faculty development program (FDP) can impact the way that faculty experience or conceive of teaching. In this study, we examine how a year-long FDP impacts…

The purpose of this study was to better identify directions for addressing the needs of academics in institutions of higher education who teach technologically-mediated, distance-delivered courses. This single-case study aimed to examine the factor structure of a 16-item survey. The data for this study were drawn from a larger survey which…

In the current context of higher education, those working in academic development feel the need to demonstrate the impact that their work makes on achieving desired institutional outcomes. In this paper, we examine the concept of impact, consider the various meanings of impact and review ways that the term has been used rhetorically and…

A key component of academic development is the improvement of teaching with the express purpose of improving student learning. To achieve that end, we work toward helping faculty members develop increasingly sophisticated and complex conceptions of teaching so that they might more readily think about teaching in new ways. Models of learning and…

The authors review research literature on coherent theoretically based approaches to the use of reflective processes within programmes of initial professional education for new academic staff. Employing a novel methodology that incorporates practitioner perspectives, they establish a framework that highlights the role of personal and social…

This article explores the anxieties and political struggles around the professionalisation of academic development in contemporary universities. It seeks to go beyond the work of classification and categorisation of "roles and identities" of academic developers with its attendant oppositional or conciliatory metaphors, to re-describe the…

This paper explores the predominance and importance of emotions in teaching in higher educational settings through a qualitative analysis of a total of 139 brief statements provided by a cohort of past students at the University of Limerick in Ireland when asked to nominate a single faculty member for a teaching award, and to provide reasons for…

One aim of student evaluation of instruction is the improvement of teaching quality, but there is little evidence that student assessment of instruction alone improves teaching. This study tried to improve the effects of evaluation by combining evaluation with individual counselling in an institutional development approach. Evaluation was…