This paper reports on a study that explored the engagement of 17 academic staff with video confer... more This paper reports on a study that explored the engagement of 17 academic staff with video conferencing technology in four large first-year classes in higher education during 2011. While the video conferencing brought a number of benefits, its implementation was far from straightforward, raising many issues about whether it should endure, and if so, in what form. Using an insider research approach, this paper considers „grounds-eye‟ perspectives from teachers involved with the video conferencing. The findings identify three key issues that affected the sustainability of the video conferencing: a lack of synergy between individual, pedagogical, and organisational levels; the adoption of „safe‟ practices by teachers when faced with uncertain learning settings; and the endurance of the video conferencing in an altered form. The paper casts some doubt on the positioning of teachers as „future makers‟, showing how teachers can retreat into established practices when technology creates un...
Journal of educational leadership, policy and practice, 2008
With increased global mobility, the demographics of societies are changing to create diverse comm... more With increased global mobility, the demographics of societies are changing to create diverse communities. Aoteoroa/New Zealand is experiencing increasing migration which is resulting in communities becoming less homogeneous and culturally stable. The consequence of these changes is reflected at the national and local level, but also within the micro-community of the school. In this environment school leadership has become more complex. This qualitative New Zealand research study contributes to current research on leadership within multicultural populations (see Dimmock and Walker, 2005; Palmer, 2005), by addressing the question of how principals lead ethnically diverse schools. Interviews were held with the principals of secondary schools, the findings highlighting strategies employed by principals to legitimate student difference and develop school communities with an ethos of inclusivity. To date, research studies have searched for meaning within the concepts of educational leader...
A wide range of literature reveals the pervasive and directing influence that physical and virtua... more A wide range of literature reveals the pervasive and directing influence that physical and virtual spaces and the role of place have on teaching practice, and the need to better understand these influences. The experiences of teachers transitioning into new spaces, pedagogies and practices has been under-researched, particularly when learning spaces do not work as expected. This paper reports on a study that aimed to provide ground-level views of teachers’ experiences in redesigned lecture spaces that incorporated videoconferencing technology. Using an ethnographic approach, the on-going activities of the teachers using the video conferencing were obtained through video recordings, individual accounts, and interview and focus group dialogues. This paper examines how teachers were able to harness these changed lecture spaces to produce what they perceived to be effective learning places. It considers the factors that affected the transformation of the space into a place for teaching ...
Scholars who prioritise teaching and learning research over disciplinary research are faced with ... more Scholars who prioritise teaching and learning research over disciplinary research are faced with multiple challenges in the academic workplace. Although there are increasing calls within Higher Education (HE) for pedagogical research, institutions vary in their capacity and willingness to integrate and support such cross-disciplinary work (McKinney, 2006). Ambiguity and lack of shared meaning contribute to differences in the perceptions and standards of evaluation for the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) work. In some institutions this type of research is not recognised within assessment criteria for promotion and/or tenure. SoTL researchers may encounter difficulty finding colleagues with similar research interests and their transitions between disciplinary research and SoTL methodologies may be complex. These contextual tensions provide a conflict for scholars, since establishing research credibility and value in the workplace is key for academics. As members of an Inte...
In the context of a dynamic New Zealand tertiary environment, this paper examines the policy that... more In the context of a dynamic New Zealand tertiary environment, this paper examines the policy that has restructured the research funding regime and the consequent impacts of these changes upon academic identity/identities. As institutions strategise to meet increased competition and changed expectations for funding (academic staff have had to modify their role (Ashcroft, 2005; Middleton, 2005). We refer to our research project (Billot & Smith, 2007, 2008; Smith & Billot, 2007) whose aim was to map the research environments in two emerging applied institutions one a relatively new university and the other a leading polytechnic in order answer the research question of how the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) has affected staff roles and responsibilities and also the academic ‘identities’ of staff. The qualitative study involved case studies of both institutions, focusing on the disciplines of Education, Design and Nursing. We outline the research methodology and methods including...
During the last two decades, there have been significant changes within the New Zealand tertiary ... more During the last two decades, there have been significant changes within the New Zealand tertiary sector due to Government, stakeholder and community demands. The result has been an altered context for learning and a need for continual reassessment of the learning environment. This paper discusses a case study that used survey and focus group data to uncover the concerns and issues faced by postgraduate research students in relation to developing and enhancing a research culture. Moreover, since a student will engage with tertiary study both cognitively and emotionally, the focus was on how the students identified their own needs within their research experience. As a university’s particular context frames and supports the development of its research culture, student voices were deemed to best represent the student experience of the research community. Our study identifies that the student research experience is shaped by the support and interactions that they encounter. Coded and th...
Global movements of people are resulting in increasingly diverse societies and principals are enc... more Global movements of people are resulting in increasingly diverse societies and principals are encountering more complex and challenging school communities. This paper presents the results of a tri-national study that sought to identify how principals manage ethnocultural diversity in schools in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. The research context of the three cities is provided by describing their ethnocultural diversity, relevant literature is examined and the research methodology discussed. Two major themes of the study findings are identified. Firstly, there appear to be similarities in the ethnocultural diversity evident in contemporary high schools in all three locations and how principals identified the effect of such diversity on their school. The second identifies similarities in how principals perceived and managed the resultant challenges in the three ethnoculturally diverse locations. Implications and conclusions from the findings are discussed, with suggestions for fu...
ABSTRACT A growing expectation that academic staff in higher education institutions (HEIs) will b... more ABSTRACT A growing expectation that academic staff in higher education institutions (HEIs) will be qualified to doctoral level can mean that doctoral study must be juggled alongside administration, teaching, and academic duties. Many academics study in their own institutions. We wished to explore their perspectives on (i) how the two roles, of being an academic as well as a doctoral candidate, interact or not and (ii) the influences and resources at play in navigating the processes. The qualitative study explored staff experiences in two HEIs in the United Kingdom and one in New Zealand. Using Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a theoretical framework, we identified the contradictions within and between academic life and doctoral candidature activity systems. However, we focus on the tools and rules that frame daily academic life and doctoral study, and suggest remodelling systems to be kinder to academic staff brave enough to engage in doctoral study.
Focus on health professional education : a multi-disciplinary journal, 2005
Background: Research methods courses often focus on discipline-specific understandings or one par... more Background: Research methods courses often focus on discipline-specific understandings or one particular type of research typically identified as appropriate for that field. According to Tashakkori and Teddlie (2003), research methodology needs to adapt to the ever-increasing complexity of questions being asked and applied researchers need to work across research approaches. With a non-homogeneous postgraduate student community and an increasing demand for students to access programs from a distance, a course that is accessible through on-campus sessions and complemented or substituted by online direction and support enables competency in qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches. Method: This paper outlines a course developed for health professionals that incorporates generic elements of research with discipline-specific content and context-appropriate methods and which effectively caters for a diverse student population.
In this workshop report, we acknowledge the difficult nature of the academic workplace and the ch... more In this workshop report, we acknowledge the difficult nature of the academic workplace and the challenges this brings to new academics' socialization. We introduce a potentially generalizable strategy which has been used successfully with academic colleagues to demystify the field of research into higher education. Our strategy builds on BOURDIEU's concepts of 'field', 'habitus' and 'capital' to explore the issues which make this aspect of academic practice mystifying. We note the limitations of a workshop approach in satisfying individual needs, and look to future virtual and personalized provision.
Teaching & Learning Inquiry: The ISSOTL Journal, 2017
Teaching and learning research in higher education, often referred to as the Scholarship of Teach... more Teaching and learning research in higher education, often referred to as the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), is still relatively novel in many academic contexts compared to the mainstay of disciplinary research. One indication of this is the challenges those who engage in SoTL report in terms of how this work is valued or considered credible amongst disciplinary colleagues and in the face of institutional policies and practices. This paper moves beyond the literature that describes these specific challenges to investigate how 23 experienced SoTL researchers from five different countries understood the notion of credibility in relationship to their SoTL research and how they went about developing credibility for their work. Semistructured interviews were facilitated and analyzed using inductive analysis. Findings indicate that notions of credibility encompassed putting SoTL research into action and building capacity and community around research findings, as well as gaining external validation through traditional indicators such as publishing. SoTL researchers reported a variety of strategies and approaches they were using, both formal and informal, to develop credibility for their work. The direct focus of this paper on credibility of SoTL work as perceived by experienced SoTL researchers, and how they go about developing credibility, is a distinct contribution to the discussions about the valuing of SoTL work. KEYWORDS credibility of SoTL research, valuing of SoTL research, SoTL researchers While there is much literature that focuses on how Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) research informs teaching practice (c.f. Hutchings, Huber, & Ciccone, 2011; Trigwell, Martin, Benjamin, & Prosser, 2000), less attention has been directed to how researchers develop credibility for this work. A previous International Collaborative Writing Group (ICWG) supported by the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) focused on SoTL researchers' identity development, including challenging questions about the credibility of their work (Simmons, Abrahamson, Deshler, Kensington-Miller, Manarin, Morón-García, Oliver, & Renc-Roe, 2013). Our group used this ICWG paper, as well as the broader literature, as a jumping-off point for our research. We wanted to move beyond a description of the challenges surrounding credibility to develop a better understanding of what constitutes credibility for SoTL researchers and how they personally go
This paper presents the findings from a project that explored teachers' adaptations to technologi... more This paper presents the findings from a project that explored teachers' adaptations to technological change in four large classes in higher education. In these classes, lecturers changed from single-to multi-lecture settings mediated by videoconferencing, requiring them to transfer their beliefs and practices into a new pedagogical space. The intent of the study was to obtain a ground-level view of teaching with videoconferencing to better reveal the complex relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices around technological integration. An ethnographic approach was used and data were collected through semi-structured accounts, focus group interviews and video recordings of lectures. By conceptualising teachers' adaptation to technology as resituation, the authors highlight how teachers' beliefs and practices are integrated, negotiated and reconciled with the demands of a changed context. They argue that, for any technological initiative to result in positive outcomes, teachers need a clearly communicated plan that provides scaffolding through the transitional stages.
Mentoring provides an effective way of assisting emerging researchers to understand more fully ho... more Mentoring provides an effective way of assisting emerging researchers to understand more fully how academics engage in research activities, enhance their research skills and gain confidence in pursuing their own research interests. Although mentoring can be constructed in diverse ways, the most valuable mentoring is that tailored appropriately to meet the developmental needs of the mentee (Brown & Daly, 2009). In this paper we examine mentoring as a form of researcher development and our own approach which emphasises mentoring with, and alongside, other researchers. Two academics assembled a research team for a collaborative project and, while they oversaw the project, roles were assigned to individuals through discussion and consensus. This paper identifies the parameters for the collaborative venture, identifies the focus for mentoring and provides the reflections of the two mentees who look back on their experiences of being part of a research team. We affirm our contention that mentoring can be an evolving process as well as an active relationship in which assistance and reflection go hand in hand. The narratives provided by the mentees indicate that mentoring as part of a collaborative research project is not an occurrence, but an ongoing developmental process and an opportunity to learn and contribute simultaneously.
The excitement and challenge of undertaking research is an integral part of an academic staff mem... more The excitement and challenge of undertaking research is an integral part of an academic staff member's role. There are a multitude of reasons which encourage academics to undertake collaborative research. These range from the enthusiasm that arises from particular discipline interests, through to the pressure from tertiary contexts to be actively engaged in research and to produce research outputs. This paper uses the experiences of an international academic research team to explore the nature of the collaborative academic research process, including the perils and pitfalls, as well as the joys and enthusiasms. The three researchers are convinced that there are many positives to be gained from international collaboration. By critically reflecting on the dynamics of the research process employed by the tri-national team, (as against the research project itself), and identifying 'lessons learned' by the researchers themselves, suggestions for productive and enjoyable research relationships are offered.
This paper reports on a study that explored the engagement of 17 academic staff with video confer... more This paper reports on a study that explored the engagement of 17 academic staff with video conferencing technology in four large first-year classes in higher education during 2011. While the video conferencing brought a number of benefits, its implementation was far from straightforward, raising many issues about whether it should endure, and if so, in what form. Using an insider research approach, this paper considers „grounds-eye‟ perspectives from teachers involved with the video conferencing. The findings identify three key issues that affected the sustainability of the video conferencing: a lack of synergy between individual, pedagogical, and organisational levels; the adoption of „safe‟ practices by teachers when faced with uncertain learning settings; and the endurance of the video conferencing in an altered form. The paper casts some doubt on the positioning of teachers as „future makers‟, showing how teachers can retreat into established practices when technology creates un...
Journal of educational leadership, policy and practice, 2008
With increased global mobility, the demographics of societies are changing to create diverse comm... more With increased global mobility, the demographics of societies are changing to create diverse communities. Aoteoroa/New Zealand is experiencing increasing migration which is resulting in communities becoming less homogeneous and culturally stable. The consequence of these changes is reflected at the national and local level, but also within the micro-community of the school. In this environment school leadership has become more complex. This qualitative New Zealand research study contributes to current research on leadership within multicultural populations (see Dimmock and Walker, 2005; Palmer, 2005), by addressing the question of how principals lead ethnically diverse schools. Interviews were held with the principals of secondary schools, the findings highlighting strategies employed by principals to legitimate student difference and develop school communities with an ethos of inclusivity. To date, research studies have searched for meaning within the concepts of educational leader...
A wide range of literature reveals the pervasive and directing influence that physical and virtua... more A wide range of literature reveals the pervasive and directing influence that physical and virtual spaces and the role of place have on teaching practice, and the need to better understand these influences. The experiences of teachers transitioning into new spaces, pedagogies and practices has been under-researched, particularly when learning spaces do not work as expected. This paper reports on a study that aimed to provide ground-level views of teachers’ experiences in redesigned lecture spaces that incorporated videoconferencing technology. Using an ethnographic approach, the on-going activities of the teachers using the video conferencing were obtained through video recordings, individual accounts, and interview and focus group dialogues. This paper examines how teachers were able to harness these changed lecture spaces to produce what they perceived to be effective learning places. It considers the factors that affected the transformation of the space into a place for teaching ...
Scholars who prioritise teaching and learning research over disciplinary research are faced with ... more Scholars who prioritise teaching and learning research over disciplinary research are faced with multiple challenges in the academic workplace. Although there are increasing calls within Higher Education (HE) for pedagogical research, institutions vary in their capacity and willingness to integrate and support such cross-disciplinary work (McKinney, 2006). Ambiguity and lack of shared meaning contribute to differences in the perceptions and standards of evaluation for the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) work. In some institutions this type of research is not recognised within assessment criteria for promotion and/or tenure. SoTL researchers may encounter difficulty finding colleagues with similar research interests and their transitions between disciplinary research and SoTL methodologies may be complex. These contextual tensions provide a conflict for scholars, since establishing research credibility and value in the workplace is key for academics. As members of an Inte...
In the context of a dynamic New Zealand tertiary environment, this paper examines the policy that... more In the context of a dynamic New Zealand tertiary environment, this paper examines the policy that has restructured the research funding regime and the consequent impacts of these changes upon academic identity/identities. As institutions strategise to meet increased competition and changed expectations for funding (academic staff have had to modify their role (Ashcroft, 2005; Middleton, 2005). We refer to our research project (Billot & Smith, 2007, 2008; Smith & Billot, 2007) whose aim was to map the research environments in two emerging applied institutions one a relatively new university and the other a leading polytechnic in order answer the research question of how the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) has affected staff roles and responsibilities and also the academic ‘identities’ of staff. The qualitative study involved case studies of both institutions, focusing on the disciplines of Education, Design and Nursing. We outline the research methodology and methods including...
During the last two decades, there have been significant changes within the New Zealand tertiary ... more During the last two decades, there have been significant changes within the New Zealand tertiary sector due to Government, stakeholder and community demands. The result has been an altered context for learning and a need for continual reassessment of the learning environment. This paper discusses a case study that used survey and focus group data to uncover the concerns and issues faced by postgraduate research students in relation to developing and enhancing a research culture. Moreover, since a student will engage with tertiary study both cognitively and emotionally, the focus was on how the students identified their own needs within their research experience. As a university’s particular context frames and supports the development of its research culture, student voices were deemed to best represent the student experience of the research community. Our study identifies that the student research experience is shaped by the support and interactions that they encounter. Coded and th...
Global movements of people are resulting in increasingly diverse societies and principals are enc... more Global movements of people are resulting in increasingly diverse societies and principals are encountering more complex and challenging school communities. This paper presents the results of a tri-national study that sought to identify how principals manage ethnocultural diversity in schools in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. The research context of the three cities is provided by describing their ethnocultural diversity, relevant literature is examined and the research methodology discussed. Two major themes of the study findings are identified. Firstly, there appear to be similarities in the ethnocultural diversity evident in contemporary high schools in all three locations and how principals identified the effect of such diversity on their school. The second identifies similarities in how principals perceived and managed the resultant challenges in the three ethnoculturally diverse locations. Implications and conclusions from the findings are discussed, with suggestions for fu...
ABSTRACT A growing expectation that academic staff in higher education institutions (HEIs) will b... more ABSTRACT A growing expectation that academic staff in higher education institutions (HEIs) will be qualified to doctoral level can mean that doctoral study must be juggled alongside administration, teaching, and academic duties. Many academics study in their own institutions. We wished to explore their perspectives on (i) how the two roles, of being an academic as well as a doctoral candidate, interact or not and (ii) the influences and resources at play in navigating the processes. The qualitative study explored staff experiences in two HEIs in the United Kingdom and one in New Zealand. Using Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a theoretical framework, we identified the contradictions within and between academic life and doctoral candidature activity systems. However, we focus on the tools and rules that frame daily academic life and doctoral study, and suggest remodelling systems to be kinder to academic staff brave enough to engage in doctoral study.
Focus on health professional education : a multi-disciplinary journal, 2005
Background: Research methods courses often focus on discipline-specific understandings or one par... more Background: Research methods courses often focus on discipline-specific understandings or one particular type of research typically identified as appropriate for that field. According to Tashakkori and Teddlie (2003), research methodology needs to adapt to the ever-increasing complexity of questions being asked and applied researchers need to work across research approaches. With a non-homogeneous postgraduate student community and an increasing demand for students to access programs from a distance, a course that is accessible through on-campus sessions and complemented or substituted by online direction and support enables competency in qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches. Method: This paper outlines a course developed for health professionals that incorporates generic elements of research with discipline-specific content and context-appropriate methods and which effectively caters for a diverse student population.
In this workshop report, we acknowledge the difficult nature of the academic workplace and the ch... more In this workshop report, we acknowledge the difficult nature of the academic workplace and the challenges this brings to new academics' socialization. We introduce a potentially generalizable strategy which has been used successfully with academic colleagues to demystify the field of research into higher education. Our strategy builds on BOURDIEU's concepts of 'field', 'habitus' and 'capital' to explore the issues which make this aspect of academic practice mystifying. We note the limitations of a workshop approach in satisfying individual needs, and look to future virtual and personalized provision.
Teaching & Learning Inquiry: The ISSOTL Journal, 2017
Teaching and learning research in higher education, often referred to as the Scholarship of Teach... more Teaching and learning research in higher education, often referred to as the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), is still relatively novel in many academic contexts compared to the mainstay of disciplinary research. One indication of this is the challenges those who engage in SoTL report in terms of how this work is valued or considered credible amongst disciplinary colleagues and in the face of institutional policies and practices. This paper moves beyond the literature that describes these specific challenges to investigate how 23 experienced SoTL researchers from five different countries understood the notion of credibility in relationship to their SoTL research and how they went about developing credibility for their work. Semistructured interviews were facilitated and analyzed using inductive analysis. Findings indicate that notions of credibility encompassed putting SoTL research into action and building capacity and community around research findings, as well as gaining external validation through traditional indicators such as publishing. SoTL researchers reported a variety of strategies and approaches they were using, both formal and informal, to develop credibility for their work. The direct focus of this paper on credibility of SoTL work as perceived by experienced SoTL researchers, and how they go about developing credibility, is a distinct contribution to the discussions about the valuing of SoTL work. KEYWORDS credibility of SoTL research, valuing of SoTL research, SoTL researchers While there is much literature that focuses on how Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) research informs teaching practice (c.f. Hutchings, Huber, & Ciccone, 2011; Trigwell, Martin, Benjamin, & Prosser, 2000), less attention has been directed to how researchers develop credibility for this work. A previous International Collaborative Writing Group (ICWG) supported by the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) focused on SoTL researchers' identity development, including challenging questions about the credibility of their work (Simmons, Abrahamson, Deshler, Kensington-Miller, Manarin, Morón-García, Oliver, & Renc-Roe, 2013). Our group used this ICWG paper, as well as the broader literature, as a jumping-off point for our research. We wanted to move beyond a description of the challenges surrounding credibility to develop a better understanding of what constitutes credibility for SoTL researchers and how they personally go
This paper presents the findings from a project that explored teachers' adaptations to technologi... more This paper presents the findings from a project that explored teachers' adaptations to technological change in four large classes in higher education. In these classes, lecturers changed from single-to multi-lecture settings mediated by videoconferencing, requiring them to transfer their beliefs and practices into a new pedagogical space. The intent of the study was to obtain a ground-level view of teaching with videoconferencing to better reveal the complex relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices around technological integration. An ethnographic approach was used and data were collected through semi-structured accounts, focus group interviews and video recordings of lectures. By conceptualising teachers' adaptation to technology as resituation, the authors highlight how teachers' beliefs and practices are integrated, negotiated and reconciled with the demands of a changed context. They argue that, for any technological initiative to result in positive outcomes, teachers need a clearly communicated plan that provides scaffolding through the transitional stages.
Mentoring provides an effective way of assisting emerging researchers to understand more fully ho... more Mentoring provides an effective way of assisting emerging researchers to understand more fully how academics engage in research activities, enhance their research skills and gain confidence in pursuing their own research interests. Although mentoring can be constructed in diverse ways, the most valuable mentoring is that tailored appropriately to meet the developmental needs of the mentee (Brown & Daly, 2009). In this paper we examine mentoring as a form of researcher development and our own approach which emphasises mentoring with, and alongside, other researchers. Two academics assembled a research team for a collaborative project and, while they oversaw the project, roles were assigned to individuals through discussion and consensus. This paper identifies the parameters for the collaborative venture, identifies the focus for mentoring and provides the reflections of the two mentees who look back on their experiences of being part of a research team. We affirm our contention that mentoring can be an evolving process as well as an active relationship in which assistance and reflection go hand in hand. The narratives provided by the mentees indicate that mentoring as part of a collaborative research project is not an occurrence, but an ongoing developmental process and an opportunity to learn and contribute simultaneously.
The excitement and challenge of undertaking research is an integral part of an academic staff mem... more The excitement and challenge of undertaking research is an integral part of an academic staff member's role. There are a multitude of reasons which encourage academics to undertake collaborative research. These range from the enthusiasm that arises from particular discipline interests, through to the pressure from tertiary contexts to be actively engaged in research and to produce research outputs. This paper uses the experiences of an international academic research team to explore the nature of the collaborative academic research process, including the perils and pitfalls, as well as the joys and enthusiasms. The three researchers are convinced that there are many positives to be gained from international collaboration. By critically reflecting on the dynamics of the research process employed by the tri-national team, (as against the research project itself), and identifying 'lessons learned' by the researchers themselves, suggestions for productive and enjoyable research relationships are offered.
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Papers by Jennie Billot