Advancing Scholarship and Research in Higher Education
ASRHE has introduced a novel article category named ‘Research in Progress’. While the journal’s w... more ASRHE has introduced a novel article category named ‘Research in Progress’. While the journal’s website provides a succinct definition of this category, initial submissions indicate that further guidance is required to highlight requirements and opportunities. The editors have decided to approach this challenge by constructing an audio editorial, recorded in a conversational format, allowing for multiple voices and nuances to come across. Important aspects of Research in Progress lie in facilitating publication of tentative results, sharing of research approaches and discussion of research designs. The editors emphasize the need for a strong research foundation, as in literature grounding or careful research question design, and open and honest discussion of successes and failures. Research in Progress is strongly placed to invite collaborations and authors are reminded to be explicit in specifying how they want to work with others to take research forward. The editorial also addres...
Advancing Scholarship and Research in Higher Education
This editorial introduces the articles published in the 2022 edition of the journal Advancing Sch... more This editorial introduces the articles published in the 2022 edition of the journal Advancing Scholarship and Research in Higher Education. The journal’s editors reflect on the journal operations and on publishing in higher education in times of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Advancing Scholarship and Research in Higher Education
This book review illuminates Pollock’s (2021) text ‘How to use storytelling in your academic writ... more This book review illuminates Pollock’s (2021) text ‘How to use storytelling in your academic writing’. In the longstanding discipline of literary criticism/study, a book review is often the work of a single author and written to expose the reader/audience to the contents of the book under investigation (Campbell & Jamieson, 1978). The review we have offered here adopts a writing style of a conversation about the book between two academics, and thus posits a new mode of book-review writing. The intent of the article is to challenge expectations of what counts as a book review. The review itself recommends the book as a valuable contribution to the collection of academic books on academic writing.
The study of professional practice is but one of many foci within Organisational inquiry. A disco... more The study of professional practice is but one of many foci within Organisational inquiry. A discourse devoted to professional practice, currently typified by ideological critique along with interpretations of professionalism (Evetts, 2014), emerged in the early 20th century and evolved through different writing phases. The discourse predominantly identified literature informing professional practice investigation.
Sankaran, S., Swepson, P. & Hill, G. (2005) Do research thesis examiners need training? : practitioner stories. The Qualitative Report, 10(4), pp. 817-835
Graduate Research Capabilities: A New Agenda for Research Supervisors
Australian Journal of Career Development, 2010
There has been a conversation about university graduate employability within the Higher Education... more There has been a conversation about university graduate employability within the Higher Education literature for some time (Cryer, 1997; Barrie, 2004, 2006, 2007; Murray, 2000; McAlpine, 2005). Within this, and often under the banner of questioning the relevance of the PhD (Murray, 2000), there have been discussions about the employability of research postgraduates. Both the broad discussion of graduate employment and the specific discussion of research degree graduate employment have produced an agenda of graduate research capabilities. Traditionally, assisting research higher degree (RHD) students with their career development has not been an articulated part of the research supervision process. However, the graduate research capabilities agenda has added a new element to the practices of research supervision, in that it brings with it a mandate for research graduates to be aware of the range of capabilities they have acquired through their research degree candidature and how these apply in the workforce. Additionally, there is an emphasis on preparing students for varied career paths rather than a traditional academic route (e.g., in industry or government). Supervisors have a vital role to play in assisting students with these important career development tasks. In this practice application brief we report on a strategy recently used at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) to assist supervisors understand their role in a student’s career development.
We are thesis examiners within the Australian academic system who formed a “community of practice... more We are thesis examiners within the Australian academic system who formed a “community of practice” to try to resolve some of the issues we were facing. Stories of examiners reflecting on and examining their own practice are a notable silence in the higher degree research literature. In this study we have adopted a storytelling inquiry method that involved telling our practitioner stories, firstly to each other and then to a wider audience through this paper. We then identified issues that we believe are relevant to other thesis examiners. We have also found that engaging in a “community of practice” is itself a valuable form of examiner professional development.
Practitioner stories have been recognised as a valuable insight into practice as well as a means ... more Practitioner stories have been recognised as a valuable insight into practice as well as a means by which practice can inform theory. Our practitioner stories about our experiences of being cosupervisors in Higher Degree Research (HDR) supervision have enabled us to further our resonance with HDR literature and at the same time contribute to literature by proposing new issues related to this specific form of practice. Out of our juxtaposed stories we advocate a new model of co-supervision which addresses what we have experienced as levels of inequity within this professional relationship. This model advocates the explication of transparent expectations and opens the possibilities for mentorship and professional development in a realigned supervisory relationship. This paper has arisen from a Community of Practice that was
Professional practice literature acknowledges the value for practitioners inquiring into and crit... more Professional practice literature acknowledges the value for practitioners inquiring into and critically reflecting on their professional practice . This approach to professional practice inquiry, initiated and undertaken by the professionals themselves, has been labelled ‘practitioner research’ in educational literature and ‘first-person action research’ in research literature. The approach can also be seen as a response to Davide Nicolini’s call for broader than ethnographic methodologies within the ‘practice-turn’. The paradigm dialogue’s people-centred inquiry approach generated multiple alternative investigative methodologies to the scientific method, an approach which until that time had dominated research practices. Several of the alternate approaches were relevant for professional practice investigation. The propositions within this paper are contextualised within one of the posited alternate methodologies, ‘practice-led inquiry’ , distinguished from other forms of practition...
Making use of pedagogic models as reflective catalysts for investigating pedagogic practice
The notion of pedagogy for anyone in the teaching profession is innocuous. The term itself, is st... more The notion of pedagogy for anyone in the teaching profession is innocuous. The term itself, is steeped in history but the details of the practice can be elusive. What does it mean for an academic to be embracing pedagogy? The problem is not limited to academics; most teachers baulk at the introduction of a pedagogic agenda and resist attempts to have them reflect on their classroom teaching practice, where ever that classroom might be constituted. This paper explores the application of a pedagogic model (Education Queensland, 2001) which was developed in the context of primary and secondary teaching and was part of a schooling agenda to improve pedagogy. As a teacher educator I introduced the model to classroom teachers (Hill, 2002) using an Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider and Srivastva 1987) model and at the same time applied the model to my own pedagogy as an academic. Despite being instigated as a model for classroom teachers, I found through my own practitioner investigation t...
Practitioner stories have been recognised as a valuable insight into practice as well as a means ... more Practitioner stories have been recognised as a valuable insight into practice as well as a means by which practice can inform theory. Our practitioner stories about our experiences of being co-supervisors in Higher Degree Research (HDR) supervision have enabled us to further our resonance with HDR literature and at the same time contribute to literature by proposing new issues related to this specific form of practice. Out of our juxtaposed stories we advocate a new model of co-supervision which addresses what we have experienced as levels of inequity within this professional relationship. This model advocates the explication of transparent expectations and opens the possibilities for mentorship and professional development in a realigned supervisory relationship.
This paper considers a particular creative process, entitled ‘Human Sculpture,’ as a professional... more This paper considers a particular creative process, entitled ‘Human Sculpture,’ as a professional reflective learning tool for groups and organisations. Along with other arts-based learning processes being used in professional management, the authors argue that the embodied characteristic of human sculpture can assist people to generate awareness of their senses and aesthetic sensibilities. In doing so it provides a unique form by which to generate information and to discuss that information. The metaphorical and artful nature of human sculpture engenders a different quality of discussion and an alternative journey by which to reflect on individual, group, and organisational life. This paper draws on the masters and doctoral research of the authors as well as their professional practice.
Pedagogy of feedback on student academic writing : research supervisor practices for the end of the research degree candidature
All academic writing is advanced with the benefit of feedback about the writing. In the case of t... more All academic writing is advanced with the benefit of feedback about the writing. In the case of the academic writing genres of the research proposal and the dissertation, feedback is usually provided by the research supervisor. Given that academic writing development is a process, and in the case of the research proposal and dissertation, writing which develops over time, it seems likely that the nature of feedback on drafts written early in the candidature may be different from feedback provided by the research supervisor later in a student’s candidature. ----- ----- When a research supervisor has been reading a student’s writing over a period of time, their own familiarity with the writing generates a risk to their ability to provide critical and objective feedback. Particularly by the end of a student’s candidature, the research supervisor’s familiarity with the work may cause them to miss elements of writing improvement. ----- ----- The author, as a research supervisor, has deve...
ALAR: Action Learning and Action Research Journal, 2002
This paper is about an inquiry methodology and its use for undertaking workplace investigations. ... more This paper is about an inquiry methodology and its use for undertaking workplace investigations. My own view of research and inquiry methodologies is that they can be explained and justified through four different pathways.
ALAR: Action Learning and Action Research Journal, 2008
ALARA is the world's oldest professional association for Action Researchers and Action Learne... more ALARA is the world's oldest professional association for Action Researchers and Action Learners. Established in 1991, it has hosted seven World Congresses and many national and regional Australian events to support practitioners and advance the action research and action learning fields both locally and globally.
G. Hill & S. Vaughan (eds) Ten ways to investigate research supervision, SEDA Special 43,... more G. Hill & S. Vaughan (eds) Ten ways to investigate research supervision, SEDA Special 43, London: SEDA
Uploads
Papers by Geof Hill