The article draws on two research projects to explore the implications of policy change in the UK for academic identities within a predominantly communitarian theoretical perspective. It focuses on biological scientists and science policies. It examines the impacts of changes upon the dynamic between individuals, disciplines and universities…

This article argues (a) that universities are profoundly ambivalent institutions; (b) that this ambivalence explains a great deal about their behavior that would otherwise remain inexplicable; (c) that one of the most striking manifestations of this ambivalence can be found in universities' attitudes towards change; and (d) that this ambivalence…

This study was aimed at clarifying relations between the way students learn and personal, contextual and performance variables. Students from seven different academic disciplines completed the Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS). Besides, data about their age, gender, academic discipline, prior education and exam performance were gathered.…

University students' experience of cross-disciplinary collegiality and interaction with research-active teachers are explored using the results from two separate, but related, studies. In the first study, variation in students' understanding of collegiality and how it is experienced is investigated. The second (quantitative) study explores the…

Findings are presented from an ongoing study of three final-year, honors-level course units in the biosciences with a combined intake of 85 students. The data on which the analysis draws comprise semi-structured interviews with students together with findings from an Experiences of Teaching and Learning questionnaire. The investigation forms part…

It has been shown earlier that while some high school students (younger on the average) do not differentiate between memorization and understanding, others (older on the average) do so (Marton, Watkins and Tang, Learning and Instruction 7, 21-48, 1997). Those who do differentiate impose a sequential ordering on the two: "When you learn you…

Recent research on student learning has given close attention to how students' experiences and actions are mediated by the whole university learning-teaching environment in which they find themselves. The current article pursues this focus on learning-teaching environments in two stages. Guided by socio-cultural perspectives on learning, the first…

This paper argues that the teaching of a subject can change our understanding of what it means to know, to teach and learn that subject. It also argues that when our understanding is questioned and changes then academic work can become an emotionally charged endeavour. This paper reports on a study where, over a semester's teaching, around two…

This paper backgrounds and illustrates an approach to researching didactic knowledge. Underlying the approach are some of the frameworks developed from the student learning research. Based on these frameworks the experience of learning about a particular phenomenon is theorised as having educationally critical aspects. Without addressing these…

The present study builds on earlier work by Meyer and Land (2003) which introduced the generative notion of "threshold concepts" within (and across) disciplines, in the sense of transforming the internal view of subject matter or part thereof. In this earlier work such concepts were further linked to forms of knowledge that are "troublesome",…

This paper argues that the teaching of a subject can change our understanding of what it means to know, to teach and learn that subject. It also argues that when our understanding is questioned and changes then academic work can become an emotionally charged endeavour. This paper reports on a study where, over a semester's teaching, around two…

As faculty, our goals for students are often tacit, hidden not only from students but from ourselves as well. We present a conceptual framework for considering teaching goals--what we want our students to achieve--that encourages us to think more broadly about what we mean by achieving in our knowledge domains. This framework includes declarative…

This study examines the influence of family on Thai students' choices of international education. A qualitative phase indicated that influence from family can be slotted into one of five categories: finance, information, expectation, persuasion, and competition. The choices of international education can be classified into the decision to study…

The article examines whether the increase in international contacts among university researchers is an impact of a general globalisation trend, or whether it is an effect of policy initiatives on national and supranational levels such as EU research programmes. The present study demonstrates that the sheer volume of international contacts among…

This article examines the distinct differences between "distance education" and "e-learning" in higher education settings. Since the emergence of the new information and communication technologies (ICT), many have related to them as the new generation of distance education, and some have referred to their implementation in academia as challenging…