22. Research in Higher Education
Paper
The Value of Using a Virtual Community of Practice to Support Early Career Academics in Initial Teacher Science Education
Carolyn Julie Swanson, Karyn Saunders
Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Presenting Author: Swanson, Carolyn Julie
This paper describes a how using an online or virtual Community of Practice (VCoP) supported the professional development of five Early Career Academics (ECA) in science education in New Zealand. Four of the five ECAs were employed in permanent positions in New Zealand universities and the fifth was an independent researcher. All participants had either received their PhD within the last five years or had not been in full-time employment at a university for more than five years when this CoP was formed. The VCoP was facilitated and mentored by an experienced academic.
Becoming an academic can be a stressful, isolating and challenging (Patton & Parker, 2017). Juggling a high teaching load, and endeavouring to produce quality research to obtain or maintain permanency can impact one’s health and career longevity (Hollywood et al., 2020). For ECAs in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) the transition may be difficult as they seek to balance their teacher identity with their researcher identity (van Lankveld et al., 2017). Professional development and mentoring may support ECA’s successful transition (Rienties & Hosein, 2020). However, as most ITE ECA come to academia with a background as a practicing teacher, there is a need for professional development that recognises their expertise in teaching (MacPhail et al., 2014) but also their need for development as researchers.
This study used Wenger’s (2018) Communities of Practice (CoP) as a conceptual framework to explore the social learning that was undertaken in the online ECA community as well as an analytical lens (see methodology). His theory of learning incorporates four components – the community in which the learning takes place, our identity within that community, how we discuss our practice and make meaning. A CoP has been described as “groups of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn how to do it as they interact regularly” (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015, p. 2). CoP vary in configuration – ranging from those intentionally devised by management to support learning to those facilitated and others that are self-driven and organic in nature (McDonald et al., 2012). This particular VCoP meets online and uses a virtual space for “socializing, learning, identification and emotional and affective exchange”(Maretti et al., 2022, p. 336).
This study will add to the literature on Communities of Practice exploring Initial Teacher Education (MacPhail et al., 2014; Patton & Parker, 2017) and supporting ECAs (Mulholland et al., 2023; Rienties & Hosein, 2020). It seeks to answer the following research question:
How does this Community of Practice support ECAs in science education to develop their practice and research capabilities?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe methodology used in this research is embedded in the identities of the two researchers – who identify as pracdemics –practitioners (science teacher) and academics (lecturing in initial Teacher Education) (Dickinson & Griffiths, 2023). They wanted to explore how the online community of which they were members, supported the development of its members in their research and practice dimensions. Ethics approval was obtained to investigate the phenomena and consent obtained. Only limited confidentiality was possible due to the small number of academics in the field in New Zealand.
The participants in this study were the members of an online CoP initiated in 2022 to support the development of ECAs in science education. Four of the five ECAs were involved in Initial Teacher Education, with the fifth working in primary education and independently researching. The sixth member was an experienced academic who recognised that there were several ECA in science education and wanted to support their transition into academia. The CoP met online monthly to talk about research and practice within the science education field.
The study is positioned within an interpretivist-constructivist worldview (Cohen et al., 2018) where reality is viewed as fluid, containing multiple perspectives and meaning is produced and reproduced out of social interactions between the participants and the researchers. All participants were interviewed by the two researchers. Semi-structured interviews were chosen to allow the participants to express their views of the community of practice and allow for in depth probing and spontaneity (Cohen et al., 2018). The interviews were conducted by TEAMS with the audio being recorded as well as the first transcription of the interview. A form of collaborative reflexive thematic analysis was undertaken (Braun & Clarke, 2019). Initial familiarisation with the data occurred after the interviews when the researchers discussed the interviews. The initial TEAMS transcriptions were reviewed, and transcripts searched for codes. To allow for transferability, it was decided to use Wenger’s (2018) Community of Practice categories – community, identity, practice and meaning-making as overarching themes. Both researchers reviewed the themes and data segments attached and interpreted the findings through the lens of current literature. The findings obtained have been checked for validity by providing a rich description, member checking, acknowledging disconfirming evidence and peer review (Creswell, 2018).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsFindings show that belonging to this VCoP was important for all members including the mentor/facilitator. Members prioritised the time allocated to the meeting monthly due to the ‘warm relationships’ they had with each other. They wanted to share the personal as well as the professional. However, this trust occurred over time. Choosing to have the CoP online mitigated geographic isolation. Despite not being able to meet face-to-face, members found the community useful in lessening their perception of being an ‘impostor’ and legitimising their identity (Pyrko et al., 2017) as an academic within science education. Having a regular time to share what one was doing in practice and research was important as it provided space to check feasibility of future projects, clarify expectation, discuss challenges and share successes to others in the field, rather than to management where stakes may be higher (Mulholland et al., 2023). While the major focus of this VCoP was research focused, knowledge about science learning, effective practice and curricular reform was supported through conversations that occurred in the community (Patton & Parker, 2017), albeit in an oblique rather than focused manner. The VCoP allowed education and our individual and collective place within academia (Pyrko et al., 2017). It also provided the participants with confidence and competence to participate in research, attending conferences, writing for academic purposes, teaching in ITE. It widened member’s access to resources and connections with the science community both nationally and internationally through invited guests and contacts from other members.
While this study closely examined one small COP in ITE in science education in New Zealand, the findings could easily be transferred to other educational settings, especially where the members are geographically isolated. Supporting ECAs in this manner is a useful method of developing their research and practice capabilities.
ReferencesBraun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport Exercise and Health, 11(4), 589-597. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806
Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2018). Research methods in education (Eighth edition. ed.). Routledge. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/AUT/detail.action?docID=5103697
Creswell, J. W. (2018). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (Third edition. ed.). SAGE.
Dickinson, J., & Griffiths, T.-L. (2023). Introduction. In J. Dickinson & T.-L. Griffiths (Eds.), Professional development for practitioners in academia: Pracademia (Vol. 13, pp. 1-10). Springer. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33746-8
Hollywood, A., McCarthy, D., Spencely, C., & Winstone, N. (2020). ‘Overwhelmed at first’: the experience of career development in early career academics [Article]. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 44(7), 998-1012-1012. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2019.1636213
MacPhail, A., Patton, K., Parker, M., & Tannehill, D. (2014). Leading by example: Teacher educators' professional learning through communities of practice. Quest (00336297), 66(1), 39-56. https://ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=s3h&AN=94241256
Maretti, M., Russo, V., & Lucini, B. (2022). Resilience in online communities of practice during the COVID-19 pandemic: an Italian case study [Article]. International Review of Sociology, 32(2), 332-351. https://doi.org/10.1080/03906701.2022.2114871
McDonald, J., Star, C., & Margetts, F. (2012). Identifying, building and sustaining leadership capacity for communities of practice in higher education. . www.olt.gov.au
Mulholland, K., Nichol, D., & Gillespie, A. (2023). ‘It feels like you’re going back to the beginning…’: addressing imposter feelings in early career academics through the creation of communities of practice [Article]. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 47(1), 89-104-104. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2022.2095896
Patton, K., & Parker, M. (2017). Teacher education communities of practice: More than a culture of collaboration [Article]. Teaching and Teacher Education, 67, 351-360. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.06.013
Pyrko, I., Dörfler, V., & Eden, C. (2017). Thinking together: What makes Communities of Practice work? [Article]. Human Relations, 70(4), 389-409. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726716661040
Rienties, B., & Hosein, A. (2020). Complex transitions of early career academics (eca): A mixed method study of with whom eca develop and maintain new networks [Article]. Frontiers in Education, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2020.00137
van Lankveld, T., Schoonenboom, J., Beishuizen, J., Croiset, G., & Volman, M. (2017). Developing a teacher identity in the university context: a systematic review of the literature [Review]. Higher Education Research and Development, 36(2), 325-342. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2016.1208154
Wenger-Trayner, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015). An introduction to communities of practice: A brief overview of the concept and its uses. . http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/
Wenger, E. (2018). A social theory of learning. . In K. Illeris (Ed.), Contemporary theories of learning : learning theorists ... in their own words (Second edition. ed., pp. 209-218). Routledge. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315147277
22. Research in Higher Education
Paper
Experience as Learnt, A Conceptual Re-work of Early Career Academic Experiences of Teaching and Academic Work through Perezhivanie.
Felipe Sanchez1,2
1Lancaster Univesity, United Kingdom; 2Universidad de los Andes, Chile
Presenting Author: Sanchez, Felipe
The challenges of early career academics (ECA) in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) have been extensively described in the literature; the learning processes academics face in their careers are inherently emotional (Bloch, 2016; Walker, 2017), yet that needs some unpacking. ECA in European HEI face precarious working conditions, high competition, etc., to which teaching labour is added. The literature shows that ECA work in Europe can be experienced both positively and negatively (Hollywood et al., 2020; Nästesjö, 2020; 2022; Stupnisky et al., 2016), or succinctly stated: mixed (Bloch, 2016). Additionally, teaching is often identified as one of the major duties of early career academics. Thus, the pressure to perform in all fronts and levels undoubtedly frames the experience of entering this field of work. Still, the literature has been inconsistent when describing their experiences and therefore some have concluded that what predominates here are mixed feelings.
This article works with the idea that teaching is only one aspect of an already emotionally demanding job and yet it is not necessarily intentionally or formally in advance. This would be a contrasting point with what research training in a doctoral programme or industry/practice professional background would offer to a job-seeking novel academic. Thus, this article also draws from the research on doctoral education for teaching and the emotionality that plays out from the experiences of the role, of teaching and of learning, to get a better sense of the phenomenon.
Managing the emotions related to teaching has been considered the emotional labour of teaching in HE (Salisbury, 2014), and some of the ECA struggles arise from managing the demands of the teaching role plus the intrinsically emotional aspects of it. In this sense, how early career academic experience their academic work at the start of their journey in a broad sense would be complemented by how they experience teaching as something still to be learnt and developed.
Within this context, ECA experiences of the role and of teaching may also reflect their experiences of learning. Thus, other concepts like affection and emotions of/in learning become relevant to understand this field. Arguably, mainstream research in Europe on this topic has turned towards analysing if emotions foster or hinder learning (Loon & Bell, 2018; Pekrun, 2011). Diffusive research outcomes on the field have been synthesised in a recent literature review where Mustafina et al. (2020) argue that both positive and negative emotions can affect learning either positively or negatively. This idea, although an accurate representation of the field, is not particularly helpful.
Within these fields of research, the argument stated here is that early career academics experience their role in different ways, just as they experience learning in different ways. This realization paves the way for the main contribution of this paper: a theorical re-work of an already researched area. The aim here is to articulate a body of literature that arguably showcases contradictory experiences of teaching of academics in their early years of entering this field of work, which is also congruent with the contradictory experiences of learning.
This paper contributes to the field by conceptually re-working ECA experiences of work in European HEI in general, and teaching and learning in particular, to argue that experiencing itself might be inscribed within a learning process. To do so, this paper explores the concept of perezhivanie by Vygotski (1994) to provide a theorical framework to examine the phenomenon from another light. Re-working this phenomenon through perezhivanie means that the experience of ECA could be collectively learnt and thus, that it could be intentionally produced and transformed in specific ways in different educational settings.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe field of educational research often has been described as lacking some strong theoretical frameworks (Aswin, 2012; Tight, 2012). However, recent ideas such as “theory work” (Hamann & Kosmützky, 2021) depart from a theory deficit approach towards looking into how exploring different academic fields working-through them from different theoretical frameworks might lead to innovation and interesting discoveries. Certainly, such practice is not new. Exemplified notably in conceptual enterprises such as Habermas re-reading of the work of Horkheimer and Adorno (Habermas & Levin, 1984), or the more recent book edited by Murphy & Costa (2015) regarding the use of Bourdieusean theory to re-work educational research issues, it is clear that old problems benefit from looking at them through different ideas and theories.
Thus, this article first explores how clearly distinct experiences have been described in the literature. Understanding the necessity of learning for the role and, in particular, learning to teach as something that has no necessary prior training before appointment, this paper then outlines how learning to teach might feel according to the literature. As a further development, this paper explores and synthesises some of the literature on how learning feels, looking to find parallels between both bodies of knowledge. There, the argument will be extended to include that learning itself is experienced in different ways.
The unique contribution of this paper comes from its “theory work”. Here, experiencing can be thought of as something that is learnt through the concept of perezhivanie by Vygotski (1994). To that end, a brief theorical exploration of the concept of experience is develop as a frame from which to move towards the concept of perezhivanie.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsIn this paper, the contribution to the literature on how ECA experience their role in general, and experience teaching in particular, with perezhivanie would be that such experiences of learning new things and roles are not clear-cut natural phenomena but are socially constructed and learnt over time. In this sense, the scattered findings of the literature on how ECA experience such processes can be better understood when further articulated through the concept of perezhivanie.
Through the concept of perezhivanie, a case can be made for articulating such contradictions by arguing that said phenomena are inscribed in a learning process. In other words, experiencing is learnt. Through the concept of perezhivanie, it can be stated that experiencing is something that is learnt, built over time, and it transforms emotions and meaning making by working-through the experiences collectively and mediately. In this sense, the scattered findings of the literature on how ECA experience such processes can be better understood as articulated through the concept of perezhivanie.
This research show promise of great significance for education as it would elaborate on a way of understanding experiences of learning, newness, change and transitions in a way that is open to transformation. If experiencing in learnt, then how ECA experience their work and teaching can be intentionally fostered in a way that is less disruptive and conflictive for them. These ideas could be extended into the wider field of teacher training and professional development as a way of thinking about workplace insertion schemes such as mentoring programs or certificates.
ReferencesAshwin, P. (2012). How Often are Theories Developed through Empirical Research into Higher Education? Studies in Higher Education, 37(8), 941–955.
Barer-Stein, T. (1987). Learning as a process of experiencing the unfamiliar. Studies in the Education of Adults, 19(2), 87–108. https://doi.org/10.1080/02660830.1987.11730482
Bloch, C. (2016). Passion and paranoia Emotions and the culture of emotion in academia. Routledge.
Habermas, J., & Levin, T. Y. (1982). The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment: Re-Reading Dialectic of Enlightenment. New German Critique, 26, 13-30. https://doi.org/10.2307/488023
Hollywood, A., McCarthy, D., Spencely, C., & Winstone, N. (2020). ‘Overwhelmed at first’: the experience of career development in early career academics. Journal of further and higher education, 44(7), 998-1012. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877x.2019.1636213
Loon, M., & Bell, R. (2018). The moderating effects of emotions on cognitive skills. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 42(5), 694–707. doi:10.1080/0309877x.2017.1311992
Murphy, M., & Costa, C. (Eds.). (2015). Theory as method in research: on Bourdieu, social theory and education. Routledge.
Mustafina, R. F., Ilina, M. S., & Shcherbakova, I. A. (2020). Emotions and their Effect on Learning. Utopía y praxis latinoamericana: revista internacional de filosofía iberoamericana y teoría social, (7), 318-324.
Nästesjö, J. (2020). Navigating uncertainty: Early career academics and practices of appraisal devices. Minerva, 59(2), 237-259. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-020-09425-2
Nästesjö, J. (2022). Managing the rules of recognition: how early career academics negotiate career scripts through identity work. Studies in Higher Education, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2022.2160974
Pekrun, R. (2011). Emotions as drivers of learning and cognitive development. In R. Calvo & S. D'Mello (Eds.). New perspectives on affect and learning technologies (Vol. 3; pp. 23-39). Springer Science & Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9625-1_3
Salisbury, J. (2014). Emotional labour and ethics of care in further education teaching. In L. Gornall, C. Cook, L. Daunton, J. Salisbury, & B. Thomas (Eds.). Academic working lives: Experience, practice and change. Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781472552730.ch-005
Stupnisky, R. H., Pekrun, R., & Lichtenfeld, S. (2016). New faculty members' emotions: a mixed-method study. Studies in Higher Education, 41(7), 1167-1188. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.968546
Tight, M. (2012). Researching Higher Education. Open University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1994). The problem of the environment. In R. van der Veer & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Vygotsky Reader (pp. 338–355). Blackwell.
Walker, J. (2017). Shame and transformation in the theory and practice of adult learning and education. Journal of transformative education, 15(4), 357-374. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344617699591
Walker, J., & Palacios, C. (2016). A pedagogy of emotion in teaching about social movement learning. Teaching in Higher Education, 21(2), 175-190. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2015.1136280
|
