Lynn McAlpine

Analyzing Interview Data: The Development and Evolution of a Coding System

This paper describes the process used by a research team to develop a coding system for analyzing data from interview transcripts and situates the process within approaches to qualitative analysis. Successive versions of the coding scheme illustrate its development over several years; the role of team members and verification in this evolution are discussed. Several lessons emerge from our experience: a) coding is not what happens before analysis, but constitutes an important part of the analysis; b) a team builds codes and coding builds a team through the creation of a shared understanding of the phenomenon; and c) collaborative qualitative research requires a kind of rigor that an independent researcher might not be aware of or need.

Reframing our approach to doctoral programs: an integrative framework for action and research

A serious problem exists in the academic world, namely doctoral education attrition rates that approach 50% in some disciplines. Yet, calls for action have generally been ad hoc rather than theory driven. Further, research has not been conceived and implemented with sufficient breadth to integrate factors influencing the outcomes across the societal/supra‐societal, institutional and departmental/disciplinary contexts. Concurrently, epistemological questions are being directed at the appropriateness of both the content and the process of doctoral programs. In this paper, we propose as a heuristic, an integrative framework of nested contexts to guide both research and action. The framework integrates the range of factors influencing doctoral student experience, so that we can envision responding to this issue in a coherent and effective fashion.

Building a metacognitive model of reflection

An increased value is being placed on quality teaching in higher education. An important step in developing approaches to better instruction is understanding how those who are successful go about improving their teaching. Thus, several years ago we undertook a program of research in which the concept of “reflection” provided the frame of reference. We envisaged reflection as a process of formative evaluation, and also saw links between reflection and metacognition. What we have documented and analyzed in detail are the reflective processes of six university professors in their day-to-day planning, instructing and evaluating of learners. The result is a metacognitive model and coding scheme that operationalize the process of reflection. Both provide a language for describing reflection and therefore a way to think about how to improve teaching. In this paper, we describe the research and the model and the contributions they make to our understanding of teacher thinking in higher education.

Identity and Agency: Pleasures and Collegiality among the Challenges of the Doctoral Journey.

How do doctoral students develop their identities as academics? In this analysis, we explore identity from the perspective of agency – humans as active agents. The analysis was based on the collective data from three earlier studies in different contexts. Embedded in the data were expressions of agency linked to affect – both positive and negative – in which doctoral students were acting to shape and not just be shaped by their experiences. Key findings were evidence of collective student identity as well as supervisors modeling and affirming student agency. Both these findings are pertinent in rethinking doctoral pedagogies: the latter provides a model for supervisors to explicitly model student agency, and the former suggests the value of creating opportunities for collective identity in which students act as positive agents in improving their own doctoral experiences.

A model for understanding formative evaluation in instructional design

The model elaborated here provides a common language for analyzing and understanding the literature on formative evaluation by identifying four components: who participates, what roles can be taken, what techniques can be used, and in what situations these can occur. Premised on the design process, intentional decisions about these components must be made after establishing goals of the instruction and considering the constraints. The model was validated by analyzing 11 instructional design texts. The analysis revealed many assumptions embedded in the language that is used to talk about formative evaluation and highlighted what is emphasized and what is not addressed about the process. The model provides a decision-making template for designing an effective formative evaluation.

‘Learning supervision’: trial by fire

This paper explores the experiences of new graduate supervisors, individuals who have just moved as it were from one side of ‘the table’ to the other. We describe how their learning to ‘do supervision’ relates to their understanding of academic work and how they make sense of the transition from doctoral student, someone supervised, to someone supervising, how they connect the past to the present (and future). The particular contribution is the examination of new academics’ experience of supervision within the broader context of undertaking to establish oneself as an academic. This study is part of a broad research programme in Canada that investigates the experiences of doctoral students and the academic staff who support them and then works collaboratively with those in the units in which we are collecting data to ensure the findings can inform and support doctoral policies and pedagogies.

Doctoral student experience in Education: Activities and difficulties influencing identity development

This paper explores variation in the events or activities Education doctoral students describe as contributing to their feeling of being an academic or belonging to an academic community as well as difficulties they experience. The results (drawing principally on students in a Canadian research‐intensive university though with some in a UK university) demonstrate a rich variation in multiple formative activities that are experienced as contributing to a developing identity as an academic, with many lying outside formal and semi‐formal aspects of the doctorate. Yet, at the same time students report tensions in the very sorts of activities they often find significant and positive in the development of their identity. We see this analysis as offering much‐needed insights into the formative role of cumulative day‐to‐day activities in the development of academic identity.

Designing Learning as Well as Teaching A Research-Based Model for Instruction that Emphasizes Learner Practice

Many teachers of higher education wish to provide instruction that supports student learning while not always finding it easy to implement the desire. The model for a unit of instruction described here provides a mental map to overlay decisions about instructional strategies in order to assess the extent to which they align with theories of learning and with research in higher education directed to supporting learning. The model provides a framework that highlights the critical role of practice, structure and formative feedback in the learner’s preparation for formal summative assessment and is proposed as a design tool and a chronology for instruction and for learning.

Doctoral education : research-based strategies for doctoral students, supervisors and administrators

Acknowledgments.- About the Contributors.- 1. To Be or Not To Be? The Challenges of Learning Academic Work, Lynn McAlpine & Cheryl Amundsen.- Section 1: Being ... Becoming Academics.- 2. Tracking Doctoral Student Experience Over Time: Cultivating Agency in Diverse Spaces, Marian Jazvac-Martek, Shuhua Chen & Lynn McAlpine.- 3. New Academics as Supervisors: A Steep Learning Curve with Challenges, Tensions and Pleasures, Cheryl Amundsen & Lynn McAlpine.- Section 2: Writing and Speaking-Learning the Disciplinary Language, Talking the Talk.- 4. Speaking of Writing: Supervisory Feedback and the Dissertation, Anthony Pare.- 5. The Paradox of Writing in Doctoral Education: Student Experiences, Doreen Starke-Meyerring.- 6. Making Sense of the Doctoral Dissertation Defense: A Student-Experience-Based Perspective, Shuhua Chen.- Section 3: Gender, Genre, and Disciplinary Identity-Negotiating Borders.- 7. Gender and Doctoral Physics Education: Are We Asking the Right Questions?, Allison Gonsalves.- 8. Genre and Disciplinary Identity: The Challenge of Grant Writing for New Non-Anglophone Scientists, Larissa Yousoubova.- 9. Disciplinary Voices: A Shifting Landscape for English Doctoral, Education in the 21st Century.- Lynn McAlpine, Anthony Pare & Doreen Starke-Meyerring.- Section 4: Supporting the Doctoral Process Through Research-Based Strategies.- 10. Making Meaning of Diverse Experiences: Constructing an Identity Through Time, Lynn McAlpine & Cheryl Amundsen.- 11. Challenging the Taken-For-Granted: How Research Can Inform Doctoral Education Policy and Practice, Lynn McAlpine & Cheryl Amundsen.- 12. Moving From Evidence to Action, Cheryl Amundsen & Lynn McAlpine.

Evaluating teaching effectiveness and teaching improvement: A language for institutional policies and academic development practices

Demands for institutional accountability in higher education have been increasing and have led to greater attention to the evaluation of teaching, the assumption being that improved teaching will result in enhanced learning. In our work as academic developers, we are increasingly helping academic managers make explicit teaching policies and practices that seem fair and equitable. To help us in this work, we have developed a framework for evaluating the practice of teaching. What is unique about this framework is the language it provides to differentiate aspects of teaching. For instance, it provides a basis for differentiating and linking criteria to standards, i.e. the level of achievement desired or expected. Standards are critical if the evaluation of teaching is to be seen as fair and equitable, yet they are often unexamined in other representations of the evaluation of teaching. Although the original intent of our efforts was to provide a framework for academic managers, we have come to find it useful in our own work as university teachers and as academic developers. Examples of all three uses are provided in the paper.