This article examines recent UK policy initiatives to enhance teaching and learning in higher education in the UK, and the quality of the student experience there. The Higher Education Academy has recently begun to work in this area and the Higher Education Bill (2004) has passed into law. A reflective review of previous initiatives is therefore very timely. The article shows that, while these different initiatives have been explicitly addressed at different levels of analysis, the meso level-a particularly significant one-has been largely forgotten. Meanwhile these interventions have been based on contrasting underlying theories of change and development. One hegemonic theory relates to the notion of the reflective practitioner, which addresses itself to the micro (individual) level of analysis. It sees reflective practitioners as potential change agents. Another relates to the theory of the learning organization, which addresses the macro level of analysis and sees change as stemming from alterations in organizational routines, values and practices. A third is based on a theory of epistemological determinism and sees the discipline as the salient level of analysis for change. Meanwhile, other higher education policies exist alongside those mentioned above, not overtly connected to the enhancement of teaching and learning but impinging upon it in very significant ways in a bundle of disjointed strategies and tacit theories. Of particular relevance here are policies on funding, on research and on widening participation, all implemented in an increasingly managerialist environment in which work intensification and degradation of resources are occurring. Missing in all this is coherence across the policies, and their underlying theories, at the different analytical levels. Because there is disjointedness in various government and other agencies, higher education policies they have tended to obstruct rather than complement each other. Hence our use of a metaphor from Eastern philosophy-the notion of blocked chi. Also missing is a robust theory of change and associated set of policies at the meso level of analysis-the departmental level. We suggest ways in which the latter omission might be rectified, thus freeing the 'chi of change'.

The application of educational research to practice remains an issue of concern, and yet there has been relatively little consideration of this in relation to reviews of research. While the professional user review hitherto represents the most relevant approach, this involves users applying the findings of an earlier review rather than carrying out an original review. Through a case study, we propose an interpretive approach to reviewing research literature that is fully rooted in practitioner perspectives. We argue that our review methodology maintains a balance between contributions from the research literature and from practitioner perspectives; with both extracted data and practitioner commentary incorporated into our synthesis, alongside a dialogue incorporating alternative voices. Our methodology thus represents a novel way to develop applicable forms of understanding within the field.

An educational development issue common to all disciplines and countries is how to combine generic development of staff as teachers with appropriate engagement with the specificities of teaching individual subjects. This article explores the nature of the relationship between the generic and the discipline specific, defines the role of the disciplines in educational development, and describes a residential workshop used by geographers, environmental and earth scientists in the UK to deal with their disciplines’ needs in the context of newly appointed lecturers.The workshop was marked by a high level of interaction and the sharing of ideas among the facilitators and participants. The article describes how the lecturers developed the discipline-specific element, reports on the workshop’s evaluation and suggests ways in which other disciplines and staff in other countries might adapt the ideas here.

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