A family of strangers: the fragmented nature of academic development

Abstract

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 model that could be everything to everyone and one that could be distinguished as more conventionally 'academic' with theoretical knowledge as the basis for practice. Against the proposition, there was evidence of shared values and acceptance of diversity of purpose. We conclude that academic development has been fragmented since its inception and it remains resistant to cohesive change. Data suggest that to develop a unified community, academic development could seek field-status by encouraging all staff to provide their services by way of research-led teaching with each developer using their research knowledge and experiences of academic life to underpin practice. Only then will it have the necessary credibility and foundation from which it can work out its broader purposes and provide a quality service.

Educational development as a field: are we there yet?

“…context related and specific' (p. 411). Harland and Staniforth (2008) are less flattering: pointing to its theoretical fragmentation they describe educational development as a 'family of strangers' (p. 669). With respect to its relationship to its 'parent' disciplines, Haggis (2009) compares the theorization of learning in the disciplines of Sociology and Psychology with the theorization of learning in two of the UK's most prestigious higher education journals.…”

“…The knowledge-building process is thus an iterative movement from the particular to the general and then back to a re-conceptualized particular, from our context-rich understandings and experiences to generalizable principles that can speak across our varied contexts. Harland and Staniforth (2008) are right; our work is theoretically fragmented. Knowledge-building will require working collaboratively and comparatively, building up across our respective languages of description -whether it be critical discourse analysis or activity theory or whether we are using Bourdieu, Bernstein or Vygotsky -to develop more elaborated languages of description.…”

“…I first focus on the outward face. In the recent literature on the nature and identity of educational development there seems to be a broad consensus that educational development is a distinctive field of practice (Boughey, 2007;Clegg, 2009aClegg, , 2009bGrant et al, 2009;Harland & Staniforth, 2008;Scott 2009aScott , 2009b. These practices have been structurally formalized into units established across the higher education sector from the 1970s in the USA, the UK and Australia and from the 1980s in South Africa in response to a rapidly changing higher education system.…”

Academic development as educational inquiry? Insights from established practices

“…In this scenario, starting an ADU from scratch is a huge enterprise. Given our previous engagement in professional development and SoTL projects, we decided to carry out a study that aimed at gaining insight into current practices in established ADUs, with a focus on structural and operational aspects (Bergquist & Phillips, 1975;Harland & Staniforth, 2008). A small-scale, qualitative study of six ADUs at US universities was carried out.…”

Foundational academic development: building collegiality across divides?

“…However, the picture of academic development from an international perspective is both fragmented and diverse (Harland & Staniforth, 2008), given the 'fundamental ways' that national and disciplinary contexts vary (Taylor, 2010, p. 1). Studies in academic development are also diverse, ranging from those taking a broad view of academic professional development, such as a project on preparing academics to teach in higher education (Hicks, Smigiel, Wilson, & Luzeckyj, 2010), to those with a more specific focus, such as international staff acculturation (Green & Myatt, 2011;Jiang et al, 2010), evolving disciplinary identity (Kreber, 2010) or specific disciplinary induction (Fulton, 2006;Pugsley & McCrorie, 2007).…”