Name: Christine Adu-Yeboah
Research theme: Christine's research examined 'Experiences of mature female undergraduate students in a Ghanaian public university'. Her work was influenced by the expansion of higher education systems in many contexts including Ghana, and the widening participation strategies that were established to include those still under-represented. Her study used life history narratives to explore the experiences of mature female students and investigated what influenced their difficulties and successes, and how the institution catered for their needs.
Name: Jennifer (Jenny) Jomafuvwe Agbaire
Research theme: Jennifer's research focussed on the complex admissions system through which students are recruited to federal universities in Nigeria. The quota-based system emphasises academic merit and involves consideration of applicants' place of origin, whilst excluding gender and socio-economic status linked to widening inequalities in university access across the country. Using focus groups and semi-structured individual interviews, Jennifer explores equity dilemmas and tensions arising from admissions policy and practices through the experiences of current and aspiring students as well as the views of admissions staff. She seeks to understand the impact of the admissions system on inclusion, and how individual or collective socio-ethnic characteristics may influence construction of meaning around the concept of equity in access to higher education.
Name: Ekua Amua-Sekyi
Research theme: Ekua researched transitions into higher education, massification and issues in higher education pedagogy in Ghana. Her particular interest was in whether the development of critical thinking remained possible in a mass higher education system.
Name: Figen Arkin
Research theme: On 17th July 2012, Figen successfully defended her research in her Viva Voce examination for the International Doctor of Education (EdD) award. Her research study was on The imapacts of quality assurance processes on academics in Northern Cyprus: Perspectives, experiences and professional practices.
Name: Lisa Blatch
Research theme: An interpretive case study of a small number of higher education teachers of entrepreneurship which aimed to provide a "snapshot" of how teachers conceptualise the nature and purpose of entrepreneurship. These understandings are potentially shaped by a range of competing, contradictory and complementary ideas, arising from social, policy, business, and research contexts that have different objectives for entrepreneurship and its teaching. The inherent contention in this background results in the lack a consistent orthodoxy to guide teaching, and against this background, it seems important to understand what expressions of entrepreneurship are being communicated to students.
Name: Sue Clayton
Research theme: Sue's research area was professional development policy and practices in higher education. She used narrative methodology to investigate how the policy discourse of higher education intersects with the lived experiences of individuals - particularly women. Her thesis explored stories of personal engagement with notions of career development, and whether these can illuminate institutional approaches to academic development.
Name: Sara Corcoran
Research theme: Sara's research looked at perspectives of engagement of academic staff with their employing institutions.
Name: Jane Creaton
Research theme: Jane's research focussed on academic writing practices and how they are acquired, embedded and transmitted within specific disciplinary and institutional contexts. For the final phase of her professional doctorate she used an ethnographic approach to explore writing cultures in criminology.
Name: Emily Danvers
Research theme: Emily's research looked at students' experiences of critical thinking in higher education using mixed qualitative research methods with two cohorts of first-year undergraduate students at the 海角社区. It considered how students define critical thinking, if and where they believe they experienced it, and what expectations, if any, they have about its impact on their education and life after university. In order to disrupt normative understandings of the identity of 'student', the research also reflected on whether students' individual starting points at university (life experience, knowledge and social characteristics such as class, gender, race and culture) affect their engagement with critical thinking. In doing so, the research employed a broad conceptualisation of critical thinking to consider a range of undergraduate experiences as 'sites' of critical thinking going beyond the classroom to explore whether critical thinking can be an emotional and social experience, as well as a pedagogical and intellectual one.
Name: Ellen Fagbemi
Research theme: Ellen’s research critically engaged with the concepts and meanings of pedagogic renewal in Sub-Saharan Africa. Teachers in the region - particularly Ghana - have retained some traditional classroom practices which may or may not help their learners, yet little seems to be known about why they continue to use such practices. Ellen's study probed the sources of these pedagogic strategies to understand their context and also to appreciate the knowledge systems, values and skills which may serve as filters in classroom contexts
Name: Sara-Maria Camacho Felix
Research theme: Sara researched the concept of critical thinking and how it is fostered in higher education - specifically in the context of a state university in Kazakhstan. She re-conceptualized "critical thinking" by considering the questioning of tacit assumptions in specific socio-political contexts (in addition to the cognitive process). Critical thinking should then attempt to understand underpinning reasons for these assumptions and envision alternative 'realities' to these assumptions. Her empirical research focused on her own practice in a classroom of first year social science students.
Name: Jessica Gagnon
Research theme: Through a qualitative study conducted in the UK, Jessica explored the identity formations of the daughters of single mothers pursuing undergraduate degrees as first-generation university students. Her study also examined the language used to construct single-mother families through the media, politics and social policies. Examining the ways that single-mother families are constructed by public discourse as typically negative and problematic, and comparing and contrasting this socially constructed identity with the identities of the daughters themselves as they negotiate university life, provided a framework for understanding their experience. The study was intended to inform the creation of new - or the improvement of exisiting - social and educational programmes and policies aimed at encouraging and supporting historically underrepresented students in their endeavours to earn university degrees.
Name: Cecilia Ibarra
Research theme: Cecilia's doctoral research looked at work trajectories of doctoral graduates in three economic sectors from the natural resources based industries in Chile - copper mining, aquaculture and fruit growing.
Name: Mark Irwin
Research theme: Mark's research addressed whether auto-didactic learning through a community of practice affects the way musicians teach in formal settings. His studies also examined the nature of musical learning and whether we should see music education as skills or knowledge-based training, or adopt a more aesthetic approach that embraces composition as a key to drawing on the inherent musicality of human beings. Mark aimed to identify and trial approaches to improving pedagogical practice in music teaching at higher education level.
Name: Tanja Jonanovic
Research theme: An empirical investigation of the experiences of Roma people in accessing higher education (HE) in Serbia through qualitative research. The study is important because access to HE is integral in improving Roma people’s life chances and employment opportunities, which subsequently affect their welfare, enabling social mobility. Tanja drew on post-colonial feminist theories in order to analyse the effects of racism, marginalisation and exclusion. Adopting a qualitative approach, she conducted life history interviews with the six participants who had studied - or were currently studying - higher education. Related documents were also analysed.
Name: Matthew Karikari-Ababio
Research theme: Matthew was an International EdD student from Ghana researching the analysis of the development of Science Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy at the higher education level in Ghana. His research focussed on: ‘how the STI policy is formulated and what the implication of this are (whether for dependency relations or equity issues)’. This study was an insider in-depth case study, an approach to research that enabled the researcher to recognise his position and experience and to use them productively to analyse the development of a policy.
Name: Rose Rutagemwa Kiishweko
Research theme: People with albinism in Tanzania typically face socio-cultural challenges in the form of discrimination, superstition and social prejudice. However, some are successful in negotiating their way into and through higher education. Rose's research explored the factors that contribute to the success of Tanzanian albinos studying HE, the challenges they have had to overcome, and the opportunities they have been able to create for themselves - or been able to take advantage of.
Name: Yasser Kosbar
Research theme: Yasser’s research looked at the complexity of constructing personal development relationships (ie. mentoring, peer relationships, coaching, action-learning and structured networks) and its effects on the success and retention of early career female researchers. In particular, the research investigated the challenges facing junior female researchers who studied abroad (ie. in the UK) in overcoming their; a) sense of shock at new values and norms in host universities; b) intensified feelings of isolation and disenfranchisement after their return to home universities. Using semi-structured individual interviews and focus groups, the research also considered the extent to which mentoring can be an empowering and transformative tool for change within universities - or a control tool to “better fit the gendered status quo without addressing the need for organisational cultures and practices to be transformed” (Morley, 2011). Furthermore, the study sought to investigate whether and how gender-inclusive leadership of higher education can contribute to knowledge production and increased partnership with communities that face severe social and economic inequality.
Name: Hilary Lawson
Research theme: Hilary's research concerned the development of identity in young people as they move from sixth form college to university. Transition is a much-used concept when thinking about moving from one educational context to the next, but how is it experienced by the young people themselves, and how does it impact on 'identity-work'? Hilary's research suggested that the transition to sixth form is as significant for young people as the transition to higher education. It also emphasised the dominance of group-life in young peoples' lives and the way identities are both facilitated and constrained by group processes.
Name: Yves Le Juen
Research theme: Yves researched the fit between institutional and learner expectations in the teaching/learning of modern foreign languages to/by students with dyslexia. His study was broadly qualitative in focus and narratological in methodology: the narratives being contrasted emanating from (i) a cohort of dyslexic students; (ii) institutional managers; and (iii) institutional dyslexia advisors. Stories were framed by a narrative derived from the researcher's own journey in accessing the realities of the various participants and in making their voices heard. Findings suggested that 'impossibility' of second language acquisition by adults with dyslexia derived more from self-fulfilling, negative institutional expectations and practices, than from other factors. The underlying problem to be resolved was how institutional 'professional good practice' and assumptions in one area can resolve into 'dysphronetic' knowledge and practice in another - and what the data itself suggested could be done about it.
Name: Daniel Leyton Atenas
Research theme: Within the context of Chilean higher education, Daniel's research focused on the relationship between widening participation policies, and the experiences and subjectivities of lower-class university students. His research questioned how these students experienced the demands/incitements of the educational policy discourses and practices that are embedded in a higher education space for which multiple inequalities and misrecognitions abound. Daniel was also interested in the emotions involved in coping and contesting inequalities and how the students' participation in higher education challenges or transforms their identities - and relationships with their families and others. He also looked at how particular students' subjectivities were enacted within the university context and how that challenged the institutional regime.
- Leyton, Daniel (2014). . Universum, 29(2), 169-183 (Scopus, Scielo).
Name: Thomas Lunt
Research theme: Initially drawing on naturalistic, ethnographic and biographic narrative research methods, Tom’s research developed a case study of tutors, students and others working together in virtual and real spaces at a post ’92 University. Examining themes of community, digital literacy, engagement, social capital and trust, Tom’s work evolved to deploy deconstructive, textual approaches to explore radical notions of equality and politics in the practice of teaching and learning in Higher Education.
Name: Rosa Marvell
Research theme: The experiences of UK-domiciled working class students as they make decisions around postgraduate taught (PGT) education in England. Using in-depth biographical narrative interviews, Rosa looked at how experiences, personal histories and lived events shape decision-making and facilitate and constrain the choices made. Rosa's hope was her findings would inform widening participation policy and practice, which has often focused on undergraduate education at the expense of higher-level study.
Name: Elizabeth McCrum
Research theme: Elizabeth researched history teachers' perceptions of the nature of their subject, where their perceptions came from, and how they impacted on their practice - notably their mediation of the school history curriculum.
Name: Helen Murray
Research theme: The role of higher education in societies affected by conflict, with a specific focus on the history of the public university in Lebanon.
Name: Katherine Nielsen
Research theme: Kate completed an ethnographic project examining the experiences of international students in Ireland in order to examine how such educational opportunities shape adult identities. To her research she applied intercultural learning, educational tourism and transformational learning to better understand the learning outcomes of Study Abroad programmes. Kate is also interested in multi-site ethnography and applied the 'anthropology of movement' to her research to better articulate the usefulness of ethnographic methods within educational settings.
Name: Isaac Ohene
Research theme: Isaac's research constituted a case study of the intersection of gender, leadership and higher education at the University of Cape Coast (UCC). It explored the structural and cultural barriers faced by both academic and non-academic women in their quest to climb to leadership positions. Attempts were made to explain the micropolitics being played out on UCC campus regarding gendered processes of power.
Name: Eleni Papouli
Research theme: Eleni's research focused on the development of professional social work values and ethics in the workplace, in particular Greek social work students' perceptions of the development of their professional values and ethics in the workplace during their final practice placement. Data was collected using the critical incident technique using questionnaire comprising a series of open-ended questions. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used to analyse the data.
Name: Paul Roberts
Research theme: Paul's research focused on the changing nature of the UK doctorate, looking at issues around power. Particular areas of interest included the changing nature of UK funding councils in relation to doctoral training, and the implications of the Doctoral Training Partnership model.
Name: Jannie Roed
Research theme: Jannie's doctoral research focused on the viva voce examination as a form of assessment, exploring perceptions of its purpose among academics. The study was comparative for which supervisors and examiners were interviewed from three countries with different approaches to the idea of an oral examination as part of a doctoral degree: the UK where the oral examination is private/'closed', Norway where it is is public, and Australia where there is normally no viva voce examination.
Name: Sarah Varney-Burch
Research theme: Sarah's doctoral research looked at tutors' and students' understandings of the nature of formative feedback on written work. Working mainly with postgraduate students whose first language is not English, she explored students' understanding of, and response to, feedback and its impact on subsequent written work.
Name: Boon Seong Woo
Research theme: Boon worked as an academic staff developer at a polytechnic in Singapore and explored issues relating to the professional development of lecturers in further and higher education. Specifically, he investigated how lecturers learn to be teachers through situated and informal learning opportunities in the workplace, and also how the knowledge and experience of lecturers could be captured as they develop as teaching practitioners. Boon also explored how lecturers provide multiple platforms for sharing and collaboration.