Discipline and methodology in higher education research

Abstract

Higher education research is a multidisciplinary field, engaging researchers from across the academy who make use of a wide range of methodological approaches. This article examines the relation between discipline and methodology in higher education research, analysing a database of 567 articles published in 15 leading higher education journals internationally during 2010. It finds that, while a wide variety of methods and methodologies are employed to research higher education, their usage is common to researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds. Greater variation is apparent geographically, however, in the use of complex multivariate techniques, with North American researchers more commonly making use of these.

Keywords:

• discipline
• higher education research
• journal articles
• methodology