The New Labour government identified the further education (FE) sector as a vehicle to deliver its central policies on social justice and economic competitiveness in England, which has led to a torrent of initiatives that have increased central scrutiny and control over FE. Although the connections between social justice, economic competitiveness…

The professional status of further education lecturers has been widely debated and contested within the published literature. This article presents the results of a series of semi-structured interviews undertaken with a small sample of college lecturers working within a partner college network in south-west England. Regardless of the level of the…

This study aims to explore the faculty and academic administrators' perception of strategic planning effectiveness (SPE) in a reform environment, measuring the impact of university type, gender, and job role. A total of 338 faculty members and 183 academic administrators who enrolled during the first semester of the 2007-08 term at a public and a…

The current policy intention, that all young people remain in some form of accredited education or training to the age of 18 by 2015, poses significant challenges. The jobs without training (JWT) group includes young people who are in full-time work and not in receipt of training leading to National Vocational Qualification level 2 (or above);…

This paper is a reflection on my journey in a work-based (WB) research project while completing my PhD at a large Australian university. The paper explores issues that arose as I studied strategic change in the university and my role evolved from that of a "change agent" working as part of a project team to that of a researcher. A case study…

Learners preferentially take in and process information in diverse ways whilst teaching methods also vary presenting the possibility for mismatching teaching methods with learners' preferences leading to disengagement, ineffective learning and potential underperformance. Different research instruments have been used in the past to assess the…

This prison-based research is grounded upon "reflection-in-action", intertwining the accounts of a reflective prisoner and a reflective practitioner. Through use of ethnographic methods it seeks to make sense of the contradictions encountered while tutoring prisoners. The research story shows how meaning conflicts have been negotiated, not always…

School, parental and peer group effects have been identified as being influential in shaping the decision of students to participate in post-compulsory education, but the analysis of each effect separately is rare. Using a random effects logistic regression approach, estimates of the importance of school, parental and peer group effects on student…

In Scotland, both the present Scottish Government and previous Scottish Executive have put a great deal of emphasis on the continuing professional development (CPD) of educators. The further education (FE) sector has not been exempt, notably with the introduction of the "Teaching qualification (Further Education)" (TQFE) followed by "The review of…

Within education, the term "research" is used in a multiplicity of ways. This paper draws on my own reflection of how educational practitioners experience shifting relationships to research. It suggests that within the further education (FE) sector, professionalism in teaching is measured through observation in the form of the Ofsted inspection.…

The current paper draws on data derived from a small-scale ongoing longitudinal study of further education trainee teachers. It examines their experiences during and after the completion of their training. The study was conducted at a university in the English Midlands and sets trainees' experiences within the socio-economic and policy context.…

This paper provides a case study of personal development planning (PDP) within an initial teacher training course for the post-compulsory sector, delivered through a large consortium in the north of England. The paper reviews conceptual and empirical studies of PDP in higher education and reports on the practice and perceptions of students and…

The evidence suggests that working-class students are disadvantaged in the graduate labour market. This article focuses on the extent to which students from working-class backgrounds are disadvantaged in the career decision-making process because of their lack of social capital. The study is based on in-depth interviews with 30 final-year…

Much has been written about the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in distance learning environments. A quick Google search turns up as many as 178,000 links to the term. ICT has been less used and discussed as a means of communication between research student and supervisor--particularly where this is the major means of student…

This study examines the relationship between the most popular major field of degrees awarded by baccalaureate colleges in the USA and the organisational language used to identify themselves as liberal arts institutions. Informed by competing theoretical frameworks (neoinstitutional theory and strategic adaptation), two primary research questions…