Academic Development in the Managerial University: A Case of Peer Observation

The expectation to advance and demonstrate ‘quality’ in tertiary teaching presents complex challenges for contemporary universities, reflecting a shift in institutional strategy and practices to align with market-oriented agendas. This shift has generated tensions in the idea of ‘academic development’ as the process by which quality is enhanced/assured. These tensions are expressed through contested conceptions of the aims and scope of practices that constitute academic development. This PhD research is a case study that identifies and explores tensions between the different ways ‘academic development’ and ‘quality’ are conceived, enacted, and experienced in the contemporary managerial university context. As ‘insider research,’ the study adopted and augmented Brookfield’s approach to critical reflection, integrating concepts from critical educational theory to shape an innovative conceptual framework and methodology that was used to explore a peer observation academic development program that ran in an Australian University between 2013 and 2017, called ‘Peer Partnerships.’ The case of Peer Partnerships illustrates the impact of the contemporary managerial context on the conceptualisation and practices of academic development, highlighting the contradictions between formative/developmental and summative approaches, correspondingly different conceptions of quality, and the significance of the socio-political context. The perspective of the program’s academic participants reflected and, in some instances, enacted these contradictions; however other experiences reported by participants also indicated the potential for academic development to empower academics’ sense of agency and community. While elements of the case study reflect the specific time and place in which Peer Partnerships occurred, there are findings of broader significance for any university seeking to develop its academic capability. These include the importance of clarity regarding the role and purposes of academic developers in processes of academic development. The research contributes: a) From the case study findings: i. detailed knowledge of factors enabling and constraining the developmental aims of academic development in the contemporary institutional context; and ii. knowledge of the contradictory impacts of competing conceptions of quality and their effect in shaping the field of academic development. From the methodology, a novel approach to insider research that contextualises researcher positionality using both the perspectives of other actors, and a conceptual framework that positions the actors in the broader institutional context.<p></p>