Like many lecturers in higher education I weary of the techno-managed, audited and performance-reviewed life we lead. I can’t believe in it and it all seems so poor and, contrary to the...
I wrote this whilst at BERA conference in Belfast and pondered the extent to which we can deepen the links between the school system and HEIs in England. From a school leader perspective I see a...
The impact of globalisation on research ethics The ethical principles we draw on in UK Higher Education Institutions are Western-based traditions for moral action. However, on a practical level...
Whatever your thoughts about the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), the higher education initiative proposed by Jo Johnson and open to consultation, it is an opportunity to focus on what should...
Theorising student transition Transition is replete within the human world. That is as much to say that it is impossible to entirely ‘stand still’. From one day to the next, one place to...
The English education system is riddled with contradictions and the call for teaching to become more of a research based profession is just one of them. This call raises a number of problems for...
With new students arriving in campuses across the country, now is a good a time as any to think about what it means to be, and to be seen as, a student in the UK. In July the Independent...
How young people make choices about university, where and what to study has been a question asked by many social researchers, policy-makers and practitioners alike. Research has shown that when...
“The first step in solving a problem is recognizing that there is one.”- Will McAvoy, ‘The Newsroom’, 2012. This should be extremely obvious, yet within our education system, we face a...
A colleague recently applauded the professionalism of educators, quoting in particular the ‘inquisitive minds’ they possess. The positive definitions of inquisitiveness - inclined to...
This research (for the British Academy/Leverhulme) set out to gather evidence on the effects of the National Student Survey (NSS) ten years after its introduction. The effects of the survey go...
Is it any wonder that there is discussion about the structure of such programmes and what works best for those concerned? What is a doctoral programme? An advanced study of a defined topic? A...