A phenomenographic approach to research into learning can be appropriate for exploring the approaches geography students adopt in their learning. This resources article provides a brief description of phenomenography. The essence of the approach is that it takes a relational qualitative perspective that aims to describe key aspects of variation in…

Environmental sustainability education, the dissemination of environmental education for sustainable development into the community, should be a lifelong process and not one restricted to a learner's years in higher education. Informal environmental sustainability education, including personal involvement in NGO environmental action, can be an…

This article explores aspects of teacher education and outdoor education and their relationship with sustainability education (SE) in Scotland. It considers recent national and international developments in the field and in particular the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) initiative to "re-orient teacher…

In response to the various calls for sustainable development, a range of activities has been initiated by central and local government, business, NGOs and other institutions. In this paper, the authors focus on the important learning context of higher education. They review the agenda established at Rio and, through a critical examination of…

This paper employs academic and parable forms to evaluate critically the strengths and weaknesses, potentials and lacunae of education for sustainable development (ESD) and other sustainability-related educations. The meteoric rise to prominence of ESD is first briefly reviewed, as is the firm ground it now stands upon as an international and…

This paper discusses the Geography Faculty Development Alliance (GFDA), a five-year project begun in 2002 with funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation. The purpose of the foundation is to improve professional development opportunities for early-career geography faculty members in U.S. colleges and universities, and to improve the…

The apparent absence of learners from the spaces and times of the institution is usually seen as a negative element of distance learning, positioning distance learners as other to the "norm" of the present, on-campus, traditional student. This paper explores the narratives of a group of distance learners, highlighting that these learners primarily…

This paper explores the rhetoric of engagement with diversity in post-compulsory education and discovers paucity in research-informed practice to develop that engagement among staff and leaders. The paper draws upon new and established concepts to consider how and why leadership development, linked to diversity, might be elevated to first-order…

This paper presents analysis of qualitative data from a research project looking at staff perceptions of plagiarism at a post-1992 university. Twenty-six members of staff from departments and academic schools from across the university took part in open and semi-structured interviews. Analysis shows that variable definitions of plagiarism exist;…

Independent learning and independent learning strategies are at present significant topics in educational research. The bulk of this research deals with independent learning in junior and higher education with little based upon the further education sector. The focus of this article is the interpretation of independent learning by 16- to…

This article explores the challenges presented in using the scholarship of teaching as a model of teaching excellence when devising an appropriate approach to reward. It argues that the complexity of staff motivation has to be addressed by a critical evaluation of institutions' commitment to the scholarship of teaching. An expectancy model of…

The available research indicates that the prevalence of stress is increasing among students studying in higher education. Issues such as student retention and student progression are becoming increasingly important for all universities. There are a significant number of studies that have examined stress and this paper critically reviews that…

Researchers identified two divergent theories concerning ethics education. The first states that ethics education increases an individual's ability to reason critically when confronted with decisions through the identification and analysis of problems and various outcomes. The second suggests that ethics training is about manipulating core values…

What might geography in "the universities" look like if geographers seriously confronted the growing dichotomy between research and teaching? This challenge goes to the heart of "the university" as a site of learning. The authors argue that the globalizing character of higher education gives urgency to re-charting the university as an environment…

This paper examines and reflects on the activities of the International Network for Learning and Teaching Geography in Higher Education (INLT) from its founding at the Association of American Geographers' Annual Conference in Hawaii in 1999 to the post-International Geographical Congress workshop in Glasgow five years later. It provides a context…