Abstract
While a vast literature exists on students and their learning, work on lecturers and their teaching continues to lag some way behind. This paper explores the notion that the complexity of Higher Education (HE) today significantly impacts upon what goes on in the classroom through a two-tiered study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore lecturers’ perceptions and experiences of teaching a specific module. Interviewees raised issues pertaining to the wider departmental, institutional and socio-political context. Consequently, focus groups were run with key people in the University to explore their perceptions of teaching and learning within the current HE climate. The findings suggest that lecturers perceive numerous external factors to impinge upon their teaching and attempt to militate against these in various ways in order to achieve ongoing enhancement of learning for students.
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Notes
Since this research was conducted, changes to the RAE have been under discussion and, therefore, these views may now be slightly different.
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Acknowledgements
This research was funded by a National Teaching Fellowship awarded to the first author. The authors wish to thank Dr. Ursula Lanvers for conducting the interviews and focus groups.
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Lea, S.J., Callaghan, L. Lecturers on teaching within the ‘supercomplexity’ of Higher Education. High Educ 55, 171–187 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-006-9041-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-006-9041-5