In this article, the implications of foregrounding ontology for teaching and learning in higher education are explored. In conventional approaches to higher education programs, ontology has tended to be subordinated to epistemological concerns. This has meant the flourishing of notions such as transfer and acquisition of knowledge and skills, either generic or discipline-specific. The authors challenge this emphasis on what students acquire through education by foregrounding instead the question of who they become. They do this through a theoretical/conceptual exploration of an approach to learning that undermines a narrow focus on the intellect by promoting the integration of knowing, acting and being.
While much research focuses on factors contributing to doctoral completion, few studies explore the role of the doctorate in forming active researchers with the skills, knowhow and appetite to pursue research post-completion. This article investigates fifteen existing studies for evidence of what factors in the doctoral experience may contribute to the formation of an active researcher with a capacity for later research productivity. The analysis reveals a productive advisor may be key to forming an active researcher and, although inconclusive, productivity post-completion. Further detailed research is required, however, into how the advisor influences candidates' productivity. The article also points to other potentially influential factors requiring further investigation, such as: developing collaborative capacities, conceptualising the purpose of the doctorate as forming an active researcher, advisor mentoring and fostering emotional engagement with research.
In higher education, the conventional design of educational programs emphasises imparting knowledge and skills, in line with traditional Western epistemology. This emphasis is particularly evident in the design and implementation of many undergraduate programs in which bodies of knowledge and skills are decontextualised from the practices to which they belong .In contrast, the notion of knowledge as foundational and absolute has been extensively challenged. A transformation and pluralisation has occurred: knowledge has come to be seen as situated and localized into various 'knowledges', and the status of the body has taken on renewed significance in epistemological debates. Rather than thinking of knowledge as transcending the body, the embodiment of knowledge has become a key factor in understanding the nature of knowledge and what it means to know.In this paper, we adopt a phenomenological perspective in exploring the notion of embodied knowing as it relates to higher education programs and, more specifically, the ways in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) are used in these programs.
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