Mapping the field of Higher Education Research using PhD examination reports
- McKenna, Sioux, Quinn, Lynn, Vorster, Jo-Anne E
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Quinn, Lynn , Vorster, Jo-Anne E
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66669 , vital:28979 , ISSN 1469-8366 , https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2018.1428178
- Description: Pre-print , The PhD is the highest formal qualification and signifies a scholar’s rite of passage as a legitimate contributor of new knowledge in a field. Examiner reports make claims about what is legitimate in a thesis and what is not and thus articulate the organising principles through which participation in a field is measured. The authors analysed 39 examiners’ reports on 13 PhDs produced over a five-year period by scholars from the Higher Education Research doctoral studies programme at Rhodes University in South Africa. Drawing on aspects of Karl Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), this study uses the dimensions of LCT:Specialisation and LCT:Semantics to explore what kinds of knowledge, skills and procedures and what kinds of knowers are validated in the field of Higher Education Research through the examination process. The study found that despite concerns in the literature about the a-theoretical nature of the Higher Education Studies field, examiners valued high-level theoretical and meta-theoretical engagement as well as methodological rigour. In addition, examiners prized the ability to demonstrate a strong ideological position, to use a clear doctoral voice, and to recognise the axiological drive of the field. The analysis showed that examiners were interested in strong contextualisation of the problem-spaces in higher education in South Africa but also commented positively on candidates’ ability to move from troubling an issue within its context to being able to abstract findings so as to contribute to the field as a whole.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Quinn, Lynn , Vorster, Jo-Anne E
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66669 , vital:28979 , ISSN 1469-8366 , https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2018.1428178
- Description: Pre-print , The PhD is the highest formal qualification and signifies a scholar’s rite of passage as a legitimate contributor of new knowledge in a field. Examiner reports make claims about what is legitimate in a thesis and what is not and thus articulate the organising principles through which participation in a field is measured. The authors analysed 39 examiners’ reports on 13 PhDs produced over a five-year period by scholars from the Higher Education Research doctoral studies programme at Rhodes University in South Africa. Drawing on aspects of Karl Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), this study uses the dimensions of LCT:Specialisation and LCT:Semantics to explore what kinds of knowledge, skills and procedures and what kinds of knowers are validated in the field of Higher Education Research through the examination process. The study found that despite concerns in the literature about the a-theoretical nature of the Higher Education Studies field, examiners valued high-level theoretical and meta-theoretical engagement as well as methodological rigour. In addition, examiners prized the ability to demonstrate a strong ideological position, to use a clear doctoral voice, and to recognise the axiological drive of the field. The analysis showed that examiners were interested in strong contextualisation of the problem-spaces in higher education in South Africa but also commented positively on candidates’ ability to move from troubling an issue within its context to being able to abstract findings so as to contribute to the field as a whole.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
From contradictions to complementarities: a social realist analysis of the evolution of academic development within a department
- Case, Jennifer M, Heydenrych, Hilton, Kotta, Linda, Marshall, Delia, McKenna, Sioux, Willliams, Kevin
- Authors: Case, Jennifer M , Heydenrych, Hilton , Kotta, Linda , Marshall, Delia , McKenna, Sioux , Willliams, Kevin
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66752 , vital:28990 , ISSN 1470-1294 , https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1045479
- Description: Publisher version , Academic development is a recent project in the university, intended to enable the university to respond to the needs of a more diverse student body. In South Africa, such work arose during late apartheid, and has now moved to a more central institutional position advocating responsiveness in the light of the educational disparities that are the legacy of apartheid. The present study uses a social realist perspective to analyse the 25-year evolution of an academic development project within an engineering department at a South African university. The findings show that while academic development initially posed a contradictory logic to the department, the response was to reform the nature of this project into one that suited the other commitments of the department: a logic of complementarity. The department's relationships with industry were shown to have played a key role in fostering this form of change.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Case, Jennifer M , Heydenrych, Hilton , Kotta, Linda , Marshall, Delia , McKenna, Sioux , Willliams, Kevin
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66752 , vital:28990 , ISSN 1470-1294 , https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1045479
- Description: Publisher version , Academic development is a recent project in the university, intended to enable the university to respond to the needs of a more diverse student body. In South Africa, such work arose during late apartheid, and has now moved to a more central institutional position advocating responsiveness in the light of the educational disparities that are the legacy of apartheid. The present study uses a social realist perspective to analyse the 25-year evolution of an academic development project within an engineering department at a South African university. The findings show that while academic development initially posed a contradictory logic to the department, the response was to reform the nature of this project into one that suited the other commitments of the department: a logic of complementarity. The department's relationships with industry were shown to have played a key role in fostering this form of change.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »