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Article
Publication date: 1 June 1996

David R. Jones and Edward A. Holdaway

Describes a study which examined expectations for academic leadership of, and sharing of authority by, departmental heads in a community college, a technical institute, and a…

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Abstract

Describes a study which examined expectations for academic leadership of, and sharing of authority by, departmental heads in a community college, a technical institute, and a university in Alberta, Canada. Information was obtained from questionnaires completed by 20 deans, 123 incumbent department heads, and 17 faculty association executive members; and also from interviews with 17 department heads and three senior administrators. Several substantial differences were noted in the information provided by respondents classified by position and type of institution.

Details

International Journal of Educational Management, vol. 10 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-354X

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 12 December 2023

Ravit Mizrahi-Shtelman and Gili S. Drori

The study discusses the professionalization of academic leadership in Israel by analyzing and comparing two different training programs: the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s…

Abstract

The study discusses the professionalization of academic leadership in Israel by analyzing and comparing two different training programs: the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s (HUJI) program and the CHE-Rothschild program. The HUJI program began in 2016 to train the professoriate to take charge of leadership positions alongside a separate program for administrative staff, while the CHE-Rothschild program was launched in 2019 to train academic leaders, both professors and administrators from universities and colleges nationwide. The analysis reveals two “ideal types” of collegiality: While Model A (exemplified by the HUJI program) bifurcates between the professoriate and administrative staff, Model B (exemplified by the CHE-Rothschild program) binds administrative and academic staff members through course composition, pedagogy, and content. The study suggests a pattern of redefinition of collegiality in academia: we find that while academic hierarchies are maintained (between academic faculty and administrative staff and between universities and colleges), collegiality in academia is being redefined as extending beyond the boundaries of the professoriate and emphasizing a partnership approach to collegial ties.

Details

Revitalizing Collegiality: Restoring Faculty Authority in Universities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-818-8

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 7 September 2012

Rachel Pasternak

Purpose – This chapter presents a new model for the classification of parental discipline styles (PDS), constructed in an attempt to understand the relationship between parenting…

Abstract

Purpose – This chapter presents a new model for the classification of parental discipline styles (PDS), constructed in an attempt to understand the relationship between parenting and children's school success. The model includes six PDSs, based on four criteria: making demands, enforcement, punishment, and responsiveness to children's requests.

Methodology – Methodology includes quantitative research based on self-report questionnaire.

Finding – The findings indicate that (1) PDS has a crucial effect on a child's academic achievement even after controlling for parents’ and children's demographic characteristics; (2) The progressive authoritative style has the greatest effect on academic achievement, whereas the punitive style has the smallest effect; and (3) punishment has a negative effect on academic achievement, whereas responsiveness to children's requests has the greatest positive effect.

Originality/value – PDS is distinguished from the broader concept parenting style in its reference to the daily behaviors that comprise the exercise of discipline.

Practical implications – Awareness of the salience of discipline for improving academic achievement can influence patterns of parenting in general, and PDS in particular.

Social implications – PDS indicates the quality of the education and socialization being transmitted. It has a crucial impact on children's school success that is crucial for occupational and economic success.

Article
Publication date: 16 October 2009

Suzana Sukovic

The purpose of this paper is to explore roles of electronic texts (e‐texts) in research enquiry in literary and historical studies, and to deepen the understanding of the nature…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore roles of electronic texts (e‐texts) in research enquiry in literary and historical studies, and to deepen the understanding of the nature of scholars' engagement with e‐texts as primary materials. The study includes an investigation of references to e‐texts and discussions about researchers' citation practices in interviews.

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative methodology was used to explore scholars' interactions with e‐texts in 30 research projects. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used to examine citations and any other acknowledgments of e‐texts in participants' prepublications and published works. In‐depth semi‐structured interviews provided data for findings about researchers' citation practices.

Findings

Formal acknowledgments of e‐texts do not represent the depth and breadth of researchers' interactions with e‐texts. Assessments of the relevance and trustworthiness of e‐texts, as well as considerations of disciplinary cultures, had some impact on researchers' citation practices.

Research limitations/implications

The study was based on in‐depth data‐gathering from a small group of participants. It does not have any statistical significance and the findings cannot be generalized, but comparisons with other scholars in literary and historical studies are possible. The study indicated a need for further investigation of changing academic practices in general and citation practices in particular.

Practical implications

The findings have implications for the development of standards and institutional support for research in the humanities.

Originality/value

The study provides new insights into the phenomenon of a very small number of citations of electronic sources in publications in the humanities, and considers issues related to citations from the perspective of changing academic cultures.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 65 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 12 November 2018

Sal Jarvis

A growing body of education research considers practices; however, there is less focus on a methodology that enables practical analysis of practices. Use of practice theory is…

Abstract

A growing body of education research considers practices; however, there is less focus on a methodology that enables practical analysis of practices. Use of practice theory is growing, particularly in work and organisational studies, but practice-focused studies more frequently address theoretical than methodological agenda. This chapter proposes a practice-focused, constructivist grounded theory methodology as one approach which can address this gap. After first considering the ways in which, separately and in combination, practice-theory and constructivist grounded theory can support higher education leadership and management research, the chapter considers implementation of this methodology by drawing on a study into the practice of authority in higher education leadership. It concludes by considering some implications for the ways in which practices can be understood and the affordances and limitations of this methodology.

Details

Theory and Method in Higher Education Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-277-0

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 June 2022

Leigh Settlemoir Dzwik and Sunyoung Park

The purpose of this study is to explore unionization’s impact on university department chairs for academic human resource decision-making in terms of faculty hiring;…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore unionization’s impact on university department chairs for academic human resource decision-making in terms of faculty hiring; re-employment, promotion and tenure; other faculty evaluation decisions; and discipline and discharge.

Design/methodology/approach

The subjects were department chairs with more than one year of experience in institutions with faculty bargaining units in the USA. Half of the department chairs were members of the bargaining unit and half were not members of the bargaining unit. T-test and Chi square statistics were used to examine and compare 136 chair responses.

Findings

While there were significant differences between the groups when making all academic human resource decisions based on role affiliation, there was a weak identification as a bargaining unit member. There was no difference between groups when determining how the participants perceived the process rules, and the majority of the responses indicated membership in the union does not complicate making academic human resource decisions.

Originality/value

Based on these findings, this study provides the first empirical evidence against a long-held administrative belief department chairs should not be unionized as they will side with union colleagues in difficult academic human resource cases. The findings of this study also produce three key recommendations for practice and faculty development.

Details

European Journal of Training and Development, vol. 47 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-9012

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 12 December 2023

Logan Crace, Joel Gehman and Michael Lounsbury

Reality breakdowns generate reflexivity and awareness of the constructed nature of social reality. These pivotal moments can motivate institutional inhabitants to either modify…

Abstract

Reality breakdowns generate reflexivity and awareness of the constructed nature of social reality. These pivotal moments can motivate institutional inhabitants to either modify their social worlds or reaffirm the status quo. Thus, reality breakdowns are the initial points at which actors can conceive of new possibilities for institutional arrangements and initiate change processes to realize them. Studying reality breakdowns enables scholars to understand not just how institutional change occurs, but also why it does or does not do so. In this paper, we investigate how institutional inhabitants responded to a reality breakdown that occurred during our ethnography of collegial governance in a large North American university that was undergoing a strategic change initiative. Our findings suggest that there is a consequential process following reality breakdowns whereby institutional inhabitants construct the severity of these events. In our context, institutional inhabitants first attempted to restore order to their social world by reaffirming the status quo; when their efforts failed, they began to formulate alternative possibilities. Simultaneously, they engaged in a distributed sensemaking process whereby they diminished and reoriented necessary changes, ultimately inhibiting the formulation of these new possibilities. Our findings confirm reality breakdowns and institutional awareness as potential drivers of institutional change and complicate our understanding of antecedent microprocesses that may forestall the initiation of change efforts.

Details

Revitalizing Collegiality: Restoring Faculty Authority in Universities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-818-8

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 June 2010

Hannah Forsyth

When James Conant visited Australia in 1951 he unwittingly entered an existing, lengthy debate about the value of university‐based knowledge in Australia. The Second World War…

Abstract

When James Conant visited Australia in 1951 he unwittingly entered an existing, lengthy debate about the value of university‐based knowledge in Australia. The Second World War, with its significant reliance on academic expertise, had suggested that if knowledge could win wars, the labour of academic staff could be considered to normally have social and economic value to the nation. In 1951 Conant had no way of foreseeing that steps made, in this light, at Federal level during and after the war, would culminate in the 1957 Review of Universities in Australia, chaired by Sir Keith Murray, and the injection of a large amount of funding into the university system. Conant’s confidential report to the Carnegie Corporation does show that he saw the system in desperate need of funding, which wasa reality that everyone agreed upon.1 The long debate included options for university funding and the potential change to the character of universities if the community, rather than the cloister, was to determine the purpose and character of knowledge. Conant’s report reflects this debate, centring (as many other participants did as well) on the value universities would gain if they were more obviously useful and relevant to industry and if their reputation was less stained by elitism and arrogance. Conant could not gather sufficient data in his visit to identify the nuances of this long discussion nor could he see the depth and spread of its influence over the decade or so preceding his visit. As a result, his particular agenda seems to obscure the perception of the threat that change provoked to some of the traditional values associated with academic work. To consider the debate and the character of academic work in the university scene that Conant fleetingly visited, we need to look back just a few years to another, but very different, visitor to the Australian system.

Details

History of Education Review, vol. 39 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0819-8691

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 March 2008

Henk Eijkman

This paper aims to initiate a timely discussion about the epistemological advantages of Web 2.0 as a non‐foundational network‐centric learning space in higher education.

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to initiate a timely discussion about the epistemological advantages of Web 2.0 as a non‐foundational network‐centric learning space in higher education.

Design/methodology/approach

A philosophical analysis of the underpinning design principles of Web 2.0 social media and of conventional “foundational” and emergent “non‐foundational” learning and which uses Wikipedia as a case study.

Findings

For academics in higher education to take a more informed approach to the use of Web 2.0 in formal learning settings and begin to consider integrating Web 2.0's architecture of participation with a non‐foundational architecture of learning, focused on acculturation into networks of practice.

Practical implications

The paper argues that the continuing dominance and therefore likely application of conventional old paradigm foundational learning theory will work against the grain of, if not undermine, the powerful affordances Web 2.0 social media provides for learning focused on social interaction and collaborative knowledge construction. The paper puts the case for non‐foundational learning and draws attention to the importance of aligning Web 2.0's architecture of participation with a non‐foundational architecture of acculturation as the latter is better epistemologically placed to more fully realise the potential of Web 2.0 to position students on trajectories of acculturation into their new networks of practice.

Originality/value

This paper exposes the epistemological dilemma Web 2.0's participatory culture poses for academics wedded to conventional ideas about the nature of knowledge and learning as is, for instance, clearly evidenced by their sceptical disposition towards or outright rejection of, Wikipedia.

Details

Campus-Wide Information Systems, vol. 25 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1065-0741

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 April 2019

Damini Saini and Narendra Singh Chaudhary

The purpose of this paper to explore the factors that act as motivators or demotivators from the perspective of academics in higher educational institutes, especially in the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper to explore the factors that act as motivators or demotivators from the perspective of academics in higher educational institutes, especially in the management context.

Design/methodology/approach

The qualitative research methods were employed in this study, which involved in-depth interviews via semi-structured interviews for the collection of data because of little or none of it has been conducted. Qualitative study consisted a naturalistic approach that provided the opportunity to study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of and to understand phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.

Findings

The study highlighted the motivational and demotivational elements associated with participation in research activity. The following research study found that mostly the motivating factors are centered upon individual, e.g., career growth, whereas the demotivating factors are majorly extrinsic, e.g., mandate policy and framework.

Research limitations/implications

The generalization of this study’s results to circumstances in other parts of the country may not be possible because the target population comprised of the academics working in the institutes of NCR region of India. Further in order to improve the possibility of generalizing the study can be conducted to find differences in relation to the organizations for eg., private and public institutes in higher education.

Originality/value

The study will help the regulatory authorities and employers in higher education to revisit their policy frameworks and come out with the strategies to uplift the motivation level of the teachers to conduct academic research in the fields of their interests. The study will also help to gain deeper insights into the factors that motivate and demotivate teachers to get involved in academic research.

Details

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, vol. 12 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-7003

Keywords

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