The influence of sociocultural and structural contexts in academic change and development in higher education

Higher Education, Mar 2018

Teaching quality improvements frequently focus upon the ‘development’ of individual academics in higher education. However, research also shows that the academics’ context has considerable influence upon their practices. This study examines the working environments of teachers on an online pharmacy programme, investigating contextual conditions that facilitate or impede academic change and development. Interview data and institutional policy documents are examined within a Cultural-Historical Activity Theory framework. Distinct differences in the teachers’ sociocultural context were identified as influencing change and development. Departmental teaching cultures and patterns of communication influenced practice both positively, by offering collegial support, and negatively by impeding change. The findings have significance for academic development strategies. They suggest that departmental-level support should include communicative pathways that promote reflection upon and development of conceptions of teaching and learning.

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The influence of sociocultural and structural contexts in academic change and development in higher education

The influence of sociocultural and structural contexts in academic change and development in higher education Claire Englund 0 1 2 Anders D. Olofsson 0 1 2 Linda Price 0 1 2 Claire Englund 0 1 2 Linda Price 0 1 2 0 Centre for Learning Excellence, University of Bedfordshire, University Square , Luton, Bedfordshire LU1 3JU , UK 1 Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå University , SE-90187 Umeå , Sweden 2 Centre for Educational Development, Umeå University , SE-90187 Umeå , Sweden Teaching quality improvements frequently focus upon the 'development' of individual academics in higher education. However, research also shows that the academics' context has considerable influence upon their practices. This study examines the working environments of teachers on an online pharmacy programme, investigating contextual conditions that facilitate or impede academic change and development. Interview data and institutional policy documents are examined within a Cultural-Historical Activity Theory framework. Distinct differences in the teachers' sociocultural context were identified as influencing change and development. Departmental teaching cultures and patterns of communication influenced practice both positively, by offering collegial support, and negatively by impeding change. The findings have significance for academic development strategies. They suggest that departmental-level support should include communicative pathways that promote reflection upon and development of conceptions of teaching and learning. Academic development; Cultural-historical activity theory; Teaching cultures; Structural teaching context; Pharmacy programme Introduction Academic development activities frequently focus upon the individual development of academics (Kirkwood and Price 2006) . However, research also shows that the context within which academics work has considerable influence upon practice (Van Schalkwyk et al. 2015; Leibowitz et al. 2014) . Building on earlier research by the authors (Englund et al. 2016) , the present study examines the working environments of higher education (HE) teachers on an online Master of Science in Pharmacy (MSc Pharm) programme. Specifically, it investigates the sociocultural and structural context within which the teachers act in an effort to understand previously identified differences in conceptions of teaching and learning. The contextual conditions examined include disciplinary and departmental cultures and institutional policy and strategy (Mathieson 2011; Zhu and Engels 2014; Fanghanel 2007) . Interview data and contextual data concerning the HE educational setting spanning a 12-year period are analysed within a Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) framework (Engeström 1987, 2001). This sociocultural framework is used to enable an examination of how teaching practice at the microlevel of the individual is influenced by the sociocultural context at the meso-level of the department and the structural context of the institution at macro-level. Specifically, we investigated the question: How do sociocultural and structural contextual conditions impact on the way university teachers conceptualise and approach teaching and learning? The teaching and learning context in higher education Price, Kirkwood and Richardson (2016) emphasise that to gain a deeper understanding of the complexity of teaching in HE it is necessary to adopt a holistic approach, taking into consideration individual differences in teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning, the sociocultural and the structural context within which they work and the relationship between these conditions. A CHAT framework is therefore applied in the present study to investigate the activity systems within which the teachers operate and their interrelationships. This makes it possible to analyse the multiple relationships within the system and explore tensions and contradictions that may facilitate or impede academic change and development. CHAT offers a broad approach to analysing organisational and contextual issues and is increasingly being used in HE to consider the tensions and contradictions within given educational contexts (Kaatrakoski et al. 2016; Ellis et al. 2010) . Teachers’ academic context At micro-level, the authors previously found distinct differences in the degree to which conceptions of teaching and learning changed among teachers on the MSc Pharm in a 10year longitudinal study (Englund et al. 2016) . Findings indicated that a number of sociocultural and structural contextual conditions were significant. One important conclusion was that a deeper understanding of contextual conditions, such as the influence of departmental teaching cultures and the organisational structures of the context of practice, is necessary. Teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning and how these influence approaches to teaching is a well-researched field (Prosser and Trigwell 2014; Kember and Kwan 200 (...truncated)


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Claire Englund, Anders D. Olofsson, Linda Price. The influence of sociocultural and structural contexts in academic change and development in higher education, Higher Education, 2018, pp. 1-19, DOI: 10.1007/s10734-018-0254-1