This paper explores the adoption of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) by 10 Malaysian university academics. SoTL was part of a pioneering sector-wide initiative for improving teaching and learning. The qualitative study showed that there had been no true learning phase for SoTL because academics had high expectations of rapid success…

This paper provides a critique of academic experiences of neoliberal economic reform at a New Zealand (NZ) university. The authors engaged in a collaborative inquiry that was based upon a developing theoretical perspective of the reform process and how this affected their academic lives. We were keen to develop an understanding of liberal…

The study of higher education can seem extraordinarily complex because what counts as knowledge is contestable and the higher education research community is, like Hemingway's Paris, a moveable feast. A lack of epistemological precision and field uncertainty is partly due to the fact that those who study higher education tend to work in higher…

This paper draws on the experiences of 20 academic developers as they examine the proposition that the organisation and work of academic development in higher education is fragmented. Academic development was seen to have neither the status of a field nor a profession, and there was recognised tension between an institutionally focused service…

This article aims to stimulate debate about the nature of field courses in higher education. We use a colloquium format that allows each of us to reflect on the philosophy of field course teaching and our writing endeavours to establish a dialogue between the authors and leave the reader with a sense of curiosity. It starts with a position paper…

This research looks at student experiences of learning in a clinical teaching situation. At the end of a course, students took part in a class that was led by a user of the health system, rather than their usual lecturer. We chose to study this class because we knew that it provided a very different learning experience for the students and…

This paper presents a case study of tutor and student experiences of using a portfolio in a pre-service teacher-education programme for university lecturers. The portfolio aimed to provide a space for 'authentic enquiry' that focused on student self-determination and the process, rather than the outcomes, of learning. The rationale behind the…

This paper presents an action-research case study that focuses on experiences of collaboration in a problem-based learning (PBL) course in Zoology. Our PBL model was developed as a research activity in partnership with a commercial organisation. Consequently, learning was grounded in genuine situations of practice in which a high degree of…