TY - JOUR

T1 - 'Teaching excellence' in higher education: a comparative study of English and Australian academics' perspectives

AU - Bartram, Brendan

AU - Hathaway, Tanya

AU - Rao, Namrata

PY - 2018/10

Y1 - 2018/10

N2 - In the current higher education (HE) environment, indicators of ‘teaching excellence’ (TE) are increasingly under the spotlight. The literature offers a wide range of models and perspectives, but also highlights the need for greater (comparative) scrutiny of the perceptions of those at the centre – staff teaching across the disciplines in different countries. This article aims to contribute to ongoing debates by investigating and comparing the views of 120 academic staff teaching in one of two countries – England and Australia – in an attempt to deepen our appreciation of their definitions and understandings. The findings from this two-stage enquiry using online questionnaires and interviews indicate broad commonalities in the ways in which academics define TE, centred on facilitative, interactive pedagogy related to individual professional aspirations; they also reveal widely shared reservations about the term’s legitimacy and institutional/marketised (ab)use. As such, the findings offer policy-makers and institutions useful insights at a time when TE definitions and metrics are growing global pre-occupations.

AB - In the current higher education (HE) environment, indicators of ‘teaching excellence’ (TE) are increasingly under the spotlight. The literature offers a wide range of models and perspectives, but also highlights the need for greater (comparative) scrutiny of the perceptions of those at the centre – staff teaching across the disciplines in different countries. This article aims to contribute to ongoing debates by investigating and comparing the views of 120 academic staff teaching in one of two countries – England and Australia – in an attempt to deepen our appreciation of their definitions and understandings. The findings from this two-stage enquiry using online questionnaires and interviews indicate broad commonalities in the ways in which academics define TE, centred on facilitative, interactive pedagogy related to individual professional aspirations; they also reveal widely shared reservations about the term’s legitimacy and institutional/marketised (ab)use. As such, the findings offer policy-makers and institutions useful insights at a time when TE definitions and metrics are growing global pre-occupations.

KW - teaching excellence

KW - higher education

KW - pedagogy

KW - staff perceptions

U2 - 10.1080/0309877X.2018.1479518

DO - 10.1080/0309877X.2018.1479518

M3 - Article

VL - 43

SP - 1284

EP - 1298

JO - Journal of Further and Higher Education

JF - Journal of Further and Higher Education

SN - 0309-877X

IS - 9

ER -