Exploring the complex interplay of national learning and teaching policy and academic development practice

Abstract

Academic developers are important interpreters of policy, yet little research has focussed on the interplay of policy and academic development practice. Using methods from critical discourse analysis, this article analyses a national learning and teaching policy, charts its development, and explores its interpretation by the academic development community. The findings suggest that while developers played a strategic role in the policy’s development nationally, their influence on and use of policy institutionally was more limited. The article calls on developers to take a more overt leadership role in an area of higher education practice where they clearly have (often unharnessed) expertise.

Keywords:

• Academic development
• critical discourse analysis
• learning and teaching
• policy
• quality assurance

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the support of SEDA, whose Research Legacy Grant made this work possible.

Notes

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2014 ICED Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. This article is dedicated to Cecilia Mpamhanga, who was there throughout.