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Although academic identity has received attention in the literature, there have been few attempts to understand the influence on identity from engagement with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). In this paper, we (a group of eight scholars from five different countries) describe how our interactions with SoTL have impacted the shaping of our academic identities. We have struggled to define the value, purpose, outcomes, and meanings of being a disciplined SoTL scholar, sometimes in addition to and sometimes in opposition to being a disciplinary scholar. Through analysis of our own 100-word reflective narratives, we identify common conflicts and configurations around our experiences of developing a SoTL identity. We describe how navigating among conflicting identities can lead us into a troublesome but deeply reflective liminal space, prompting profound realizations and the reconstruction of academic identity. Drawing on this notion of liminality helps us to understand our journeys as moving through a necessary and important transformational landscape, and allows us to suggest ways to support those engaging with SoTL to develop an integrative SoTL identity

This paper assesses university students' acquisition of simple and complex knowledge, in exploring whether the knowledge gap hypothesis (KGH) with its origins in community-based research into people's informal learning from mass media, provides insights into students' acquisition and retention of information. The KGH posits that attempts to equalise knowledge within a community by releasing new information into it often either has no such effect, or even worsens knowledge inequities. The present study set out to discover if members of a diverse student class, when presented with the same course-related information, both simple and complex, acquired knowledge at similar rates. After formal university education, those with less prior education acquired less knowledge from the same learning opportunities than those with more prior education at each survey point. Second, although entry education level led to different learning outcomes initially, those with less prior education did subsequently achieve the same level of knowledge as those with more prior education. The paper finally reflects on whether existing KGH claims, based on informal education through the media, apply in a formal education environment. (Contains 4 figures and 5 tables.)

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to respond to calls for higher education institutions to address sustainability within the curriculum. Institutions that aim to graduate citizens with prescribed attributes relevant to sustainability may need to develop teaching and learning support-programmes appropriate to the varied nature of students' worldviews. Design/methodology/approach: The research described here used the NEP (Revised New Ecological Paradigm) and statistical cluster-analysis to explore if individuals within cohorts of students could reasonably be clustered into subgroups with identified sustainability attributes relevant to the design of learner-support programmes. Findings: All seven programme cohorts in one institution's annual intake clustered into three subgroups with identifiable attributes. Practical implications: The results are discussed in relation to how post-compulsory education institutions can define the sustainability characteristics of their students and to the pedagogic literature that addresses diversity in student groups. Originality/value: The approach may help higher education institutions better understand the needs of individual students within large groups and to develop appropriate support programmes for students with similar attributes and needs. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

Purpose – This paper aims to analyse how learning levels differ within and between degrees and diplomas with specific application to the Bachelor of Applied Business Studies degree and the New Zealand Diploma of Business, which are delivered at a New Zealand polytechnic. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review and content analysis of National Qualifications Frameworks was conducted to analyse how learning levels differ within and between degrees and diplomas with specific application to the Bachelor of Applied Business Studies degree and the New Zealand Diploma of Business which are offered at a New Zealand polytechnic. Findings – A literature review and content analysis of National Qualifications Frameworks reveals that learning levels are differentiated by level of complexity, degree of abstraction, depth in a major subject, research competency, learner autonomy and responsibility, relative demand placed on students and increasing complexity and unpredictability of operational context. This analysis failed to find any difference in learning level between Bachelor of Applied Business Studies and New Zealand Diploma of Business papers nominally at the same level on the New Zealand National Qualifications Framework. The degree comprises a portion of papers at a higher learning level than the diploma and it is at this level that the difference is realised. Research limitations/implications – Future research should investigate learning level differences between disciplines, qualifications and institutions. Practical implications – This paper provides a framework on which to base course design, delivery and assessment of the Bachelor of Applied Business Studies degree and the New Zealand Diploma of Business and credit transfer between them. Originality/value – This case study addresses the increasingly important issue of the compatibility of learning levels between different qualifications. As many economies acknowledge the necessity for increasingly skilled workforces, credit transfer to enable seamless transfer between qualifications is becoming a focus in seeking to facilitate lifelong learning. There are few studies that focus on National Qualifications level descriptors and the implications for different qualification types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a comparison is made between the structure and operations of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council and the Ako Aotearoa National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence of New Zealand. Both of these organisations were established in the mid 2000s and were created at a time when higher education institutions in both countries were attempting to increase their research profiles in response to changing funding criteria. Although the two organisations were established for similar reasons they did not operate in quite the same fashion and with the same degree of focus. Instead large differences in the scale of funding has meant that the Australian agency undertakes far more activities than its New Zealand counterpart, although the relative influence of the two bodies in their respective jurisdictions is similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper reveals that the process-oriented learning approaches prescribed for accounting education by various international accounting bodies (e.g., Accounting Education Change Commission), and most recently endorsed by the New Zealand Society of Accountants in its 1994 publication, Admissions Policy , are currently underused at New Zealand tertiary institutions. While reasons for this absence may lie with accounting educators themselves, the New Zealand Society of Accountants also seems partly responsible. In particular, the Society's newly revised admissions policies are silent on the need for process-oriented learning approaches in undergraduate accounting curricula. A greater commitment by the Society to encourage the use of active learning techniques in undergraduate accounting programmes, perhaps by expanding its accreditation review procedures to include the process by which learning occurs, is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the potential of critical systems thinking enacted through 'total systems intervention' to explore quality and to promote improvement in a university academic department. Critical systems approaches, building on commitments to the systems idea, sociological awareness, methodological pluralism and human improvement, can help to structure problems as a precursor to problem solving. Total systems intervention was used initially to structure the 'quality problem' for an academic unit within a university in New Zealand from the perspective of internal stakeholders. For staff and student participants, the quality problem mainly related to better promoting learning. Analysis and reflection on the problem and local context drawing on systems methodologies identified underlying tensions and issues and shaped specific interventions for improvements in learning. A systemic perspective on quality and critical systems approaches are likely to be of value in encouraging debate and promoting different interventions to improve quality. They offer a diversity of methods to help improve complex socio-psychological systems like a university department. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Increasingly, universities are allocating substantial resources and efforts towards developing their own student-led clinical services (SLCS) within university health clinics (UHCs). For that reason, under the umbrella of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Health Professional Educators (ANZAPHE), clinical educationalists from 12 Australian universities have come together as a hot topic action group (HTAG) to collaboratively explore and enhance learning outcomes from this setting. Context: SLCS within UHCs increase placement capacity to meet growing demand. Moreover, SLCS within UHCs have the potential to provide an outstanding learning opportunity through high-quality supervision and activities designed to develop clinical competencies. However, the benefits of providing clinical education experiences for health and medical students in this setting has not been formally assessed. Typically, SLCS within UHCs are developed through consultation between universities and local health providers and are purposefully designed clinical placements with a focus on clinical educational activities for pre-registration students. UHCs may be located on or off campus and offer SLCS or other services to university staff, students and/or the wider community. In SLCS, students' delivery of health services is supervised by university employed health professionals. Scope: The work of the HTAG to date is presented in this paper, which defines the setting and outlines assumptions, aspirations, challenges and enablers. The next phase of work for the HTAG is to formally explore the educational value for health professional students' of SLCS delivered in UHCs and to develop resources and a quality assurance framework to guide the evaluation of these services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Maori goddess, Hinetitama, asked the Maori god, Tane, who her father was, he replied, 'Uia ki nga pou o t whare ... Ask the posts of your house'. This traditional Maori (indigenous people of New Zealand) story implies a cultural teaching pedagogy that utilises the marae (a Maori building complex including a carved meeting house) as a learning and teaching tool. Marae complexes have slowly been embraced by tertiary education institutions throughout New Zealand since the early 1980s, as acknowledgement that they provide an authentic instructional space that enhances quality learning. This article considers the New Zealand university application of traditional marae-based teaching approaches and explores the transformative learning such cultural spaces can encourage. It shares how traditional Maori pedagogies are being modelled by contemporary Maori academics, and how the experiences of learning in a marae environment are perceived by their students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ask lecturers what approach they want students to adopt, and generally they will state that ideally students should adopt a deep approach to learning where they understand, and can apply, what they are studying. This presentation considers how students' perceptions of a heavy workload can interfere with this goal, where workload is defined as the out of class study students engage in. It is shown how assessment and an over-stuffed curriculum can also interfere with the goal of encouraging a deep approach to learning. A number of factors are explored which influence students' perception of their workload and it is argued that if lecturers are aiming to achieve quality learning outcomes and student persistence, it is desirable to find out how students perceive their workload and the effect this has on their approach to learning. Ideally, we want students' perceptions to change to "My workload is manageable and I have time to understand what I'm studying." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how the wide variety of primary source collections held in academic libraries can make a contribution to teaching, learning, and research in higher education. In addition to a survey a current theory highlighting the value of primary sources in information literacy and material culture studies, research was also conducted at Canterbury University in order to discover how information librarians, students, and academics were perceiving and using some of these kinds of collections. The survey focused in particular on our understanding of the term 'primary sources' and our use of some of the many heritage collections held in the Macmillan Brown Library at Canterbury, such as artworks, architectural drawings, and archives. The results may enable academic libraries in New Zealand to consider and discuss more widely how primary source collections are currently being used and thought about. This knowledge could assist libraries in higher education to develop models which we can utilize in order to more fully integrate our primary source collections into teaching, learning and research at university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As neoliberal ideology has come to dominate higher education, the roles and relationships of managers, academics and students have changed radically. This article outlines ways in which neoliberalism and its companion ideology, neoconservatism, have impacted on higher education through a move to individualism, managerialism, measurement and accountability. While the context for this article is New Zealand, the experiences will resonate with academics worldwide. Using a conceptual framework highlighting conscious, unwitting and coercive complicity, the authors analyse their experiences of teaching in the neoliberal university. They discuss three themes to emerge from their findings: (a) universities as instruments of neoliberalism; (b) academics as managed subjects; and (c) students as entitled consumers. They conclude by offering examples of ways to resist the competitive and individualising regime by creating a culture of care and compassion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As digital technologies form an inextricable part of young people's everyday lives, some commentators claim that the current generation of learners think and learn differently from their predecessors. This study investigated the validity of this claim by surveying 799 undergraduate and 81 postgraduate students at a large research-intensive university in New Zealand to document their use of digital technologies on university and social activities and comparing three age groups of students (under 20, 20-30 and over 30) to see whether there were any differences in their learning characteristics. The findings of the study showed that while students spent a large amount of time on digital technologies, the range of digital technologies they used was rather limited. There were also no practical generational differences in the technology use pattern and learning characteristics found in this study. The results of this study suggest that generation is not a determining factor in students' use of digital technologies for learning nor has generation had a radical impact on learning characteristics of higher education students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]