Quality in Research, Quality in Teaching and Quality in Debate: a response to Graham Gibbs

Graham Gibbs and his colleagues at Oxford Brookes University have done much to promote parity of esteem for teaching with research in UK universities, to advance high quality teaching and learning throughout the higher education sector, and to innovate with teaching, learning and assessment methods in an era of rapidly diminishing resources. Thus it is a pity that his recent paper in this journal fails to display the rigour of analysis and standard of argument that one expects in an academic journal (Gibbs, 1995). His polarisation of teaching and research as conflicting rather than complementary activities, his unsubstantiated empirical generalisations, and his intemperate descriptions of academic colleagues will only harden divisions rather than promote reasoned debate.