22. Research in Higher Education
Paper
Research Groups and Research Group Membership: What Works and Why?
Kathleen Smithers2, Thomas Blom1, Lennart Karlsson1, Susanne Francisco2, Anette Forssten Seiser1
1Karlstad University, Sweden; 2Charles Stuart University, School of Education, Australia
Presenting Author: Smithers, Kathleen;
Blom, Thomas
Many university researchers belong to research groups, yet little is known about what makes a research group effective or how they benefit members in terms of developing their capacity to produce high-quality research. This project seeks to examine research groups and their members in order to determine the factors that contribute to an effective research group and to collective as well as individual development within those groups.
For the purposes of this project, we use a broad definition of research groups. Research groups
include any group that engage in research activities as a collective. These activities might include reading groups/circles, peer review, research projects or reflections on research endeavors. These groups may be part of an institution, through internal or external funding, or may exist separately from an institutional structure.
Based on established contacts, this study will be conducted as parallel studies focusing on two regional areas, Australia and the Nordic countries, with similar aims and research questions The Australian study is conducted at Charles Sturt University, Australia. The Swedish one at Karlstad University, Sweden. The fact that these two studies are carried out around the same time and with similar aims, research questions, and methodology and data construction tools creates opportunities for regional in-depth knowledge and understanding as well as international comparisons.
Some argue that research groups (Ion & Del Mar Duran Belloch, 2013) and networks (Heffernan, 2021) are the key to an academic’s career success, with other research suggesting that the support offered in the first five years significantly influences an individual’s career trajectory (Browning et al., 2014).
Previous research has examined the functioning of research groups (Park et al., 2017), the size and composition of research groups (Joshi, 2014) and leadership in research groups (Ion & Del Mar Duran Belloch, 2013; Vebree et al., 2012). Most research focuses on case study groups, how they function and the particular practices that are made possible within them (c.f. Degn, 2018; Mahon et al., 2018). There are also reports of research groups as a method to speak back to, or work within the constraints of, the neoliberal institutions’ metric driven and individualizing nature (Degn, 2018; Mahon et al., 2018).
Research groups have been investigated in many countries including Australia (Mahon et al., 2018), Spain (Ion & Del Mar Duran Belloch, 2013), Denmark (Degn, 2018) and the Netherlands (Degn, 2018). In Australia, there is little research that has explored the functioning of research groups or the factors that make them effective; rather, most studies have focused on the benefits of the group for members (c.f. Larsen et al., 2023; Mahon et al., 2018). Given the Australian research context is slightly different to that of the Nordic countries, with its hyperfocus on productivity and performative metrics, it is important and timely to consider the functioning of research groups in Australia and in the Nordic countries and what role they play for individual researchers.
By examining members’ experiences, research groups can develop targeted strategies to support their members and build research capability. Likewise, institutions will benefit by having qualitative data in relation to the effectiveness of research groups, which may assist with policy and funding decisions.
The research questions are:
1. What factors contribute to effective research groups?
2. Why do researchers belong to research groups?
3. How do researchers define a high-quality research group?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis qualitative study will utilize a range of data collection and analysis methods based on a two-phase approach, as follows:
Phase 1: Research group member perspectives. The initial phase of the project will survey members of research groups in terms of their perceptions about the effectiveness of the group(s) to which they belong, as well as about their own research careers. An online qualitative survey consisting of multiple choice and open-ended questions will be used. The data will be analysed based on the following membership groupings: higher degree by research student members, early career researcher members, middle career researcher members and established researcher members.
Phase 2: Research group functioning. Based on the findings of Phase 1, this phase of the project will utilize document analysis of policies, meeting minutes and other sources to build a picture of how research groups function. Phase 2 will also use in-depth interviews to determine how the functioning of research groups impacts members and their perceptions as to why this is the case, as well as look at the benefits to members of belonging to a research group. Data will be drawn from the responses to a range of semi-structured open-ended questions asked of participants. Zoom/Teams will be utilized to conduct interviews as these are familiar means of communication.
The Phase 1 data collection will be a qualitative survey, targeted at any social sciences researcher in Australia and in the Nordic countries who is a member of a research group. The researchers will utilize convenience sampling to distribute the survey outside their own universities, by sending the information to their networks and posting about the survey on social media (such as Twitter/X and LinkedIn). Using snowball sampling, respondents will be asked to send the survey to others in their own network. Phase 1 will commence in February 2024, and this presentation will address the initial findings from this stage. The findings from Phase 1 will inform the development of interview questions for Phase 2.
In Phase 2 it is anticipated that between 20 and 25 participants may be interviewed and that up to 10 research groups will provide documents for analysis.
NVIVO software will be used for data analysis and it will be based on the thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2015). Thematic analysis was chosen as it can be applied in different ways to address different research questions.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe research aims to qualify the value of research groups to members as well as to universities. Publication in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at research conferences will disseminate the findings.
While it is difficult to determine prior to data collection, expected outcomes from the survey in phase 1 will hopefully include a broad overview of factors that researchers think contribute to effective research groups. This will allow us to probe more deeply into these factors in the second phase of the project, and perhaps give us the opportunity to explore what enables and constrains the development of these factors for research groups.
Similarly, the overview provided by the survey into the various reasons why researchers belong to research groups, and their interpretations of ‘quality’ of research groups will enable us to delve into these reasons in more detail in Phase 2.
An important aspect of this research is that it is a parallel project between a research group at Karlstad University, Sweden (SOL), and Charles Sturt University, Australia (PPLE). Part of the value in this project will be the development of a greater understanding of approaches used in each research group and learning from each other.
ReferencesBrowning, L., Thompson, K., & Dawson, D. (2014). Developing future research leaders: Designing early career researcher programs to enhance track record. International Journal for Researcher Development, 5(2), 123-134
Clarke, V., Braun, V., & Hayfield, N. (2015). Thematic analysis. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods, 3, 222-248.
Degn, L., Franssen, T., Sørensen, M. P., & de Rijcke, S. (2018). Research groups as communities of practice—a case study of four high-performing research groups. Higher Education, 76, 231-246.
Heffernan, T. (2021). Academic networks and career trajectory: ‘There’s no career in academia without networks’. Higher Education Research & Development, 40(5), 981-994.
Ion, G., & Del Mar Duran Belloch, M. (2013). Successful Women Researchers in the Social Sciences: A case study of Catalan public universities. Tertiary Education and Management, 19, 68-84.
Larsen, E., Salton, Y., Fanshawe, M., Gaunt, L., Ryan, L., Findlay, Y., & Albion, P. (2023). Early career researchers’ collective advocacy work within an Australian university context. The Australian Educational Researcher, 1-22
Mahon, K., Francisco, S., & Lloyd, A. (2018). Practice architectures and being stirred into academic practices of a research group. In Education in an Era of Schooling: Critical perspectives of Educational Practice and Action Research. A Festschrift for Stephen Kemmis (pp. 167-181). Springer Singapore.
22. Research in Higher Education
Paper
Concepts of Scholarly Publishing and the Novice Author through Metaphor Analysis
Sefika Mertkan1, Gulen Onurkan Aliusta2, Hatice Bayraklı3
1Eastern Mediterranean Uni, Cyprus; 2Eastern Mediterranean Uni, Cyprus; 3Eastern Mediterranean Uni, Cyprus
Presenting Author: Mertkan, Sefika
Neoliberal policies of performativity played a crucial role in creating a higher education system where 'publish or perish' and more recently 'publish or no degree' is the norm in many contexts. These neoliberal manifestations have moulded institutional cultures and practices, transforming higher education institutions into commercial enterprises where competitiveness is promoted (Croucher & Lacy 2022) and a new form of governance based on principles of performativity reigns (Mula-Falcón et al., 2022). By putting pressure on scholars to comply with performative values (Aguinis et al., 2020), this transformation has encouraged scholars to prove their worth through publication performance most often measured by research quantity, impact and reach (Sandy & Shen, 2019) to benefit from research funding, promotion and tenure opportunities (Casadevall & Fang, 2012), also accelerating institutionalization of publishing during candidature (Lei 2019).
Influenced by these developments, the task role of doctoral students and early career researchers has undergone a significant transformation in way that require them 'to be, or to quickly become, proficient and prolific writers' (Aitchison et al. 2012, 435) in early or preparatory stages of their faculty careers (Horta and Santos 2016; Xu 2022). This study focuses on the metaphorical images doctoral students and early career researchers use to describe the publishing process and themselves as novice authors in relation to their publishing experiences while also exploring conceptual themes that emerge from these metaphorical images.
The paper is guided by the figured world and socialization theories. We conceptualize socialization as a process bound to influence inexperienced scholars’ publication experiences (Ramirez, 2016) and their conceptualizations of the publishing process and themselves as novice authors. It is a means through which inexperienced scholars (i.e. doctoral students and early career researchers) get to know the figured world of publishing, a socially constructed realm where certain acts, capitals, discourses and outcomes are privileged over others (Holland et al., 1998). A “discursive social practice embedded in a tangle of cultural, historical practices that are both institutional and disciplinary” (Kamler and Thomson, 2008, p. 508), publishing is loaded with many challenges for inexperienced scholars whose attempts at ‘becoming’ are coupled with the threat of ‘unbecoming’ (Archer, 2008). This is a truism particularly in higher education systems characterized by the use of publications as a basis for recruitment, promotion and funding decisions (Lei, 2021).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe study employs qualitative methodology and uses data generated through semi-structured interviews conducted with 6 early career researchers and 5 doctoral students situated in a context characterized by neoliberal orientations of performativity. Metaphorical images were generated by asking participants to select metaphors that describe themselves as novice authors. Before we asked participants to determine a metaphor that would describe themselves as novice authors, we asked them for a historical timeline of their publications (if any) and inquired about their publishing experiences through a range of questions generated throughout the interviews based on their answers. Following this stage, metaphors were initiated from participating scholars and scholars-to-be, who were also asked to elaborate on their chosen metaphor. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. First, all initiated metaphorical images were coded and a list of metaphors was prepared. The list was used to group metaphors into conceptual themes, which were abstracted following the analysis of metaphors according to its parts – the target (also called topic), source (also called vehicle) and the ground. Following this stage, metaphors were discussed in relation to participants’ publishing experiences.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsSeveral important findings have emerged from our analysis. Metaphorical images of inexperienced scholars reveal the role systemic inequalities embedded in the socialization process play in how they conceptualize the publishing process and themselves as novice authors. Ethically questionable publication practices increasingly evident in different geographies, lack of supervisor support and unsupportive peer review processes were among the most noticeable challenges participants faced, reflected in negative visualizations of publishing as swamp or war and of novice authors as Don Quixote or scattered Lego pieces. Feelings of loneliness, being torn between doing what’s ethical vs what’s profitable, despair and exhaustion prevail in these constructs. The negative influence of these challenges on conceptualizations of publishing and novice authorship was found to be significantly reduced when participants had access to the support of a peer with accumulated cultural capital valued in the figured world of publishing acquired through education or experience.
ReferencesAguinis, H., Cummings, C., Ramani, R.S., & Cummings, T.G. (2020). An A is an A”: The new bottom line for valuing academic research. Academy of Management Perspectives, 34(1), 135-154.
Croucher, G., & Lacy, W.B. (2022). The emergence of academic capitalism and university liberalism: Perspectives of Australian higher education leadership. Higher Education, 83(2), 279-295.
Holland, D., Lachicotte, D., Skinner, D., and Cain, C. (1998). Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Horta, H., and J. M. Santos. 2016. “The Impact of Publishing during PhD Studies on Career Research Publication, Visibility, and Collaborations.” Research in Higher Education 57 (1): 28–50.
Kamler, B., and P. Thomson. 2008. “The Failure of Dissertation Advice Books: Toward Alternative Pedagogies for Doctoral Writing.” Educational Researcher 37 (8): 507–14.
Lei, J. (2021). Neoliberal Ideologies in a Chinese University’s Requirements and Rewards Schemes for Doctoral Publication. Studies in Continuing Education 43(1), pp. 68-85.
Lei, J., 2019. “Publishing During Doctoral Candidature from an Activity Theory Perspective: The Case of Four Chinese Nursing Doctoral Students.” TESOL Quarterly 53 (3): 655–84.
Mula-Falcón, J., Caballero, K., & Segovia, J.D. (2022). Exploring academics’ identities in today’s universities: A systematic review. Quality Assurance in Education, 30(1), 118-134.
Ramirez, E. (2016). Unequal Socialization: Interrogating the Chicano/Latino (a) Doctoral Education Experience. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education 10(1), pp. 25-38.
Sandy, W. and Shen, H. (2019). Publish to earn incentives: How do Indonesian professors respond to the new policy? Higher Education, 77(2), 247-263.
Xu, L. 2022. “Chinese International Doctoral Students’ Perceptions of Publishing: A Time–Space Perspective.” Teaching in Higher Education 1–18.
22. Research in Higher Education
Paper
Just Because You Are Staying Does Not Mean You Are Stuck: Conceptualisations of Academic Mobility for Precarious Academics
Kathleen Smithers1,2, Nerida Spina3, Jess Harris2, Sarah Gurr1, Troy Heffernan4
1Charles Sturt University, Australia; 2University of Newcastle, Australia; 3Queensland University of Technology, Australia; 4The University of Manchester, UK
Presenting Author: Smithers, Kathleen;
Heffernan, Troy
The romantic image of peregrinate academicus, the privileged scholar who travels in pursuit of knowledge and scholarly exchange (Henderson, 2021), has long been associated with academic life. The wandering intellectual image is built around a particular type of academic, one who can travel freely, without ties like caring responsibilities. In recent years, however, the concept of academic mobility has faced criticism with a growing body of literature exposing how the concept of peregrinate academicus is linked to conditions of inequity (e.g., Henderson, 2021). For many academics in modern, neoliberal universities, the expectation of mobility can be highly problematic – some academics are not afforded opportunities beyond their current institution(s), and many are unable to commit to extended travel for a range of reasons, including finances, care giving responsibilities and safety concerns. Given the increased focus on disparities between academics in insecure work and those in ongoing positions, the issue of mobility warrants further attention.
Binary conceptualisations have previously dominated discussions of academic mobility, with academics perceived as either mobile or immobile (Henderson, 2021). Tzanakou and Henderson’s (2021) concepts of ‘sticky’ and ‘stuck’ were developed to deconstruct this im/mobility binary, with sticky representing remnants of an academic’s past as the “imprint of the previous context in [the academic’s] identity or work practices” (Tzanakou and Henderson, 2021, p. 689). Sticky can also represent mobility that might be restricted through personal circumstances, creating links that ‘stick’ the academic to their family, locality or community. Being ‘stuck’, on the other hand, is conceptualised as being unable to move from a particular location or employment type, which often experienced by those in casual or fixed-term positions.
Changes to the academic workforce, which now see up to 70% of academic staff employed on fixed-term or casual employment contracts, necessitate a reconsideration of the expectation of academic mobility. In this age of uncertainty, academics who are precariously employed often don’t have access to the types of funding, support and international networks required to meet the ideal of the ‘wandering scholar’. Furthermore, privileging the notion of academic mobility creates an inequitable playing field for those who, for myriad reasons, want to maintain specific geographical or institutional ties.
In this paper, we take up the call by Tzanakou and Henderson (2021) to use their conceptualisations and further examine the nuances within discussions of academic mobility, particularly with reference to academics employed in fixed-term or casual positions. We conceptualise ‘stickiness’ as the affective strings which metaphorically connect the mobile scholar to particular localities, including the one from which they originate. In practice, residues across the life course create stretchy strings that bind academics to places, people and institutions, even when they are mobile. These strings can influence a scholar’s short-term mobility (such as conference attendance) or long-term mobility, such as relocating overseas. We also expand on the notion of how academics become ‘stuck’, and identify how staying within one location is viewed as a positive for many academics, while for others it remains a source of frustration.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis qualitative, inductive research draws on empirical evidence around academic mobility, collected in interviews with research academics on fixed-term or casual contracts in Australia and the United Kingdom. After institutional Human Ethics approval, participants were recruited through professional networks and a general call on social media. Two of the authors conducted semi-structured interviews (n= 26) which were either face-to-face or via videoconference, depending on the participant’s location or preference. All participants were engaged in, or had been engaged in, some form of contract research. In-depth interviews asked participants about their experiences of precarity, and how it had affected their lives and their beliefs about themselves as academics.
Participants had experience working in a range of institutions in countries including Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. We recruited participants who had experience with contract research; however, due to the nature of precarious employment in the university sector, many were also engaged in casual teaching. It was common for participants to be working on a range of contracts across several institutions at any one time. Most of these participants had spent between 5 and 20 years in a variety of precariously employed academic roles. Each participant has been assigned a pseudonym and we do not report on the specifics of each individual’s institutional history to ensure their identities are obscured. We have, however, found remarkable similarities across the range of countries, employment contracts and disciplinary backgrounds.
Interview transcripts were read, and initially analysed using an inductive open coding format. It was noted that participants frequently talked about travel and were aware of broader institutional discourses around the importance of physical mobility as a lever for acquiring the networks and skills that are valued in Australian universities. After the first round of open coding, we returned to the data and specifically identified instances of participants discussing mobility. At this point, it became apparent that a more theoretically informed analysis was required, and data was reanalysed using the notion of sticky mobilities. We noted that some contract positions were sticky, which created ramifications and responsibilities extending beyond the life of the contract. We identified two dominant forms of how our participants found themselves ‘stuck’: first, as unable to move for ongoing positions because of stickiness to insecure contracts; and second, being ‘stuck’ to an institution.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsOur analysis highlighted that sticky ties can create feelings of being stuck for contract researchers, which can have ramifications for gaining ongoing employment. Personal and professional ties included the need to be networked ‘in’, family responsibilities, personal responsibilities or previous work that stuck to them as they tried to gain future employment. In discussions of how contract researchers could gain ongoing employment, many participants referenced the ideal of the wandering scholar who should be free from the stickiness of familial and geographical ties. Yet, in their own lives, there were complex personal and professional factors that influenced mobility and that held people to institutions.
The need to “sell” oneself is reminiscent of the “idealised entrepreneurial academic self’ (Loveday, 2018, p. 160), through which the individual is hypervigilant in finding and responding to opportunities. In looking to become ‘unstuck’ contract researchers may endure financial costs to improve the likelihood of mobility, whether that be in the form of an ongoing contract at another institution, or one that would continue to employ them under precarious conditions. Although previous research has suggested that networks can be useful in gaining ongoing employment (Heffernan, 2021; Spina et al., 2020), creating such networks can be challenging for precariously employed academics. Concerningly, the feeling of cultivating the ties that hold you to an institution led participants to stretch their capacity and engage in overwork (Smithers et al. 2023).
ReferencesHeffernan, T. (2021). Academic networks and career trajectory: ‘There’s no career in academia without networks’. Higher Education Research & Development, 40(5), 981-994.
Henderson, E. F. (2021). Sticky care and conference travel: unpacking care as an explanatory factor for gendered academic immobility. Higher Education, 82(4), 715-730.
Loveday, V. (2018). The neurotic academic: Anxiety, casualisation, and governance in the neoliberalising university. Journal of Cultural Economy, 11(2), 154-166.
Smithers, K., Spina, N., Harris, J., & Gurr, S. (2023). Working every weekend: The paradox of time for insecurely employed academics. Time & Society, 32(1), 101-122.
Spina, N., Harris, J., Bailey, S. & Goff, M. (2020) Making it as a Contract Researcher: A pragmatic look at precarious work. Routledge.
Tzanakou, C., & Henderson, E. F. (2021). Stuck and sticky in mobile academia: reconfiguring the im/mobility binary. Higher Education, 82(4), 685-693.
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