Early career academic perceptions, attitudes and professional development activities: questioning the teaching and research gap to further academic development

Abstract

Early career academia is a challenging time, particularly as academics are facing increasing pressures to excel across a range of areas. Boyer argued for the ‘true scholar’ versed in the overlapping areas of scholarship in research, teaching, integration and engagement. Academic developers have an important role to play in assisting the transition to academia, particularly as the diverse pathways leading to academia often mean limited knowledge or skills in curriculum development, teaching or assessment of learning. In a quantitative study, self-identified early career academics from three Australian universities reported attitudes and perceptions of teaching and research, and involvement in academic development. The implications of their responses for academic developers are discussed in terms of institutional and disciplinary differences.

Keywords:

• early career academics
• scholarship of teaching and learning
• academic development

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all the ECAs who took the time to complete our survey. The paper was improved based on the thoughtful feedback from the anonymous reviewers.