The importance of national and institutional context: implications for research on teaching development programmes

ABSTRACT

This paper offers reflections on the role of context for teaching development programmes, stimulated by participating in European staff mobility. It is presented in two parts. Part 1 discusses the differences between the national and institutional contexts encountered during a UK-German partnership, as case studies of the varying contexts in which such programmes are situated. The following differences emerged as crucial: whether programmes were compulsory, credit-bearing, formally assessed, and located in a teaching or research-focused institutional environment. Part 2 uses selected publications as exemplars to explore the extremely variable ways in which context features in research on teaching development programmes. With reference to theorisations of context, it is concluded that future research should more explicitly consider the varying contexts of teaching development programmes and investigate a wider range of national and institutional contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Teaching development
• educational development
• pedagogical training
• context
• mobility
• ERASMUS+

Acknowledgments

We are extremely grateful to peers reviewing earlier versions of this article and to Susan Mathieson in particular whose insightful comments helped us to progress theorisations of context.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. These include pedagogical training, educational, academic, faculty, instructional and teaching development programmes or courses.

2. Since undertaking the mobility, provision in the German institution has remained constant, while provision at Northumbria University has already changed in response to the rapidly moving policy context outlined above.

3. This programme was subsequently withdrawn and replaced by a direct application route to HEA Fellowship. Most recently a new programme aligned to the academic professional apprenticeship was introduced.

4. Scopus metrics: 91 citations; field-weighted citation impact: 2.69. According to Scopus, a value greater than 1 implies that the article is cited more frequently than expected.

5. Scopus metrics: 177 citations; field-weighted citation impact: 2.3.

6. The reader is not told which countries have been included in the study and the number of institutions from each country.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicola Reimann

Nicola Reimann works in the School of Education and the Durham Centre for Academic Development at Durham University. She is an educational developer and has taught and led a wide range of teaching development programmes. She has researched educational development and has a particular interest in assessment in higher education. She currently leads an Erasmus+ project on intercultural reflection on teaching.

Sabine Fabriz

Sabine Fabriz has worked in academic development at Goethe University since 2011 and regularly contributes to the university’s teaching development programme. She is an educational psychologist whose research focuses on learning and teaching in higher education, with a particular interest in self-regulated learning and (e-)assessment. She currently coordinates an interdisciplinary project on computerised adaptive testing in higher education.

Miriam Hansen

Miriam Hansen has worked in academic development at Goethe University since 2008. She is an educational psychologist and coordinates the university’s teaching development programme, to which she also contributes. Her research focuses on cross-cultural perspectives of communication and emotions in higher education.