Teacher research in higher education: a social cognitive perspective

Abstract

Against the background of the phenomenal expansion of higher education and the development of neoliberalism and the knowledge society, higher education worldwide has undergone fundamental changes and challenges in unprecedentedly complex and complicated situations. Serving as a powerful tool, teacher research in higher education can help different stakeholders to investigate complexity, promote changes and solving problems in higher education. Since the emergence of the concept of teacher research, most studies have explored teacher research in school settings. However, far too little attention has been paid to teacher research in higher education. There is a lack of research which investigates the change mechanism of teacher research in higher education in terms of what kinds of inputs and activities are required in which contexts to produce intended impacts and what kinds of disruptors might impede the change process.

The thesis aims to explore the change mechanism of teacher research in higher education from a social cognitive perspective. The thesis is underpinned by the theoretical framework of realist programme theory and social cognitive theory. Informed by the worldview of dialectical pluralism, the thesis adopts the mixed methods research design with realist programme theory, the systematic scoping review, the questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The thesis succeeds in building, testifying and refining the theory of change and actors in the development of teacher research in higher education. Moreover, the thesis examines the multiple facets of teacher research in real-life contexts with key stakeholders’ participation. The results provide new insights into how and why the change mechanism of teacher research in higher education is initiated, developed or disrupted and in what ways positive changes can be sustained and further promoted in real-life situations. The thesis intends to raise awareness on the widely existed but often overlooked or even ignored disparity, inequality and injustice which hinder positive changes in higher education. Another significant finding from the thesis is that there were substantial quantities of published teacher research by university teachers. However, very little of it was underpinned by solid theoretical frameworks, which was a defect in the available literature. There is a need for university teachers who develop their career as academics specialising in teaching and educational research to understand what the requirements are of good theory and design that lead to publication in top journals. In addition, the results show that teaching and educational research environments of universities play an important role in shaping university teachers’ attitudes towards and self-efficacy beliefs in teaching and educational research in higher education.

Date of Award	Dec 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Supervisor	Allen Thurston (Supervisor)