What is the role of an educational developer in the neoliberal university?

1. What is the role of an educational
developer in the neoliberal university?
Professor Debby Cotton
Head of Educational Development
Pedagogic Research Institute and Observatory (PedRIO)
University of Plymouth, UK
SEDA Conference 2017
Twitter: @profdcotton

2. What is the role of an educational
developer in the neoliberal university?
Tensions, teamwork and transformation
• What are the tensions in the educational
developer’s role in contemporary UK HE?
• What are the benefits and risks of
increasing teamwork in higher education?
• How can we enhance the effectiveness of
teamwork in higher education?

3. The neoliberal university
• University study increasingly expensive, and
costs borne largely by the individual
• Value of a university education judged by how
well students perform in the labour market
• Research and teaching subject to national
evaluation (Research Excellence Framework,
REF and Teaching Excellence Framework, TEF)
• Individual academics subject to progressively
more stringent performance management

4. Higher education has seen ..
• Increased managerial control
(managerialism);
• Increased competition (marketisation);
• Increased scrutiny alongside greater devolved
responsibility (audit);
• Remodelling of structures and operations on
corporate organisations (corporatisation),
(Szekeres, 2004)

5. How do you feel about these changes?
How have they impacted on your
work?
• Increased managerial control
(managerialism);
• Increased competition (marketisation);
• Increased scrutiny alongside greater devolved
responsibility (audit);
• Remodelling of structures and operations on
corporate organisations (corporatisation)
(Szekeres, 2004)

6. What are the tensions in the
educational developer’s role?

7. Educational Developers
Do we occupy roles as academics, as professional
staff, or as administrators?
Or are we instead in a liminal or ‘third space’,
outside the binary of academic/manager?
Or are we perhaps ‘para-academics’?
(See Green and Little, 2016)

8. Tensions in the ED role (1):
Bottom-up or Top-Down?
• Is the educational development unit there to
help at the chalk face or to set and support
strategic agendas?
• Who are we working for/with? Individuals?
Departments? Or the University Management?

9. Tensions in the ED role (1):
Bottom-up or Top-Down?
“There are pressures on academic development
work to meet intensifying institutional
accountability requirements at the same time
meeting the needs of individual academics”
(Lee & McWilliam, 2008, p. 71).

10. Tensions in the ED role (2):
Unreliable Metrics
We increasingly use metrics
(e.g. NSS, DLHE) which we
know to be flawed. The
university’s survival
depends on us doing well!

11. The problems with student
evaluation of teaching
• Student evaluations positively
correlate with the grade they
receive. Some studies found
teaching effectiveness to be
negatively correlated with student
evaluations. (Braga et al., 2014)
• Student evaluations of teaching are
significantly correlated with
instructor gender, with students
regularly rating female instructors
lower than male peers. (Boring,
2015; MacNell et al., 2015)

12. An example from ‘Rate My
Professor’
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/upshot/is-the-professor-bossy-or-brilliant-much-depends-on-
gender.html?action=click&contentCollection=The%20Upshot%C2%AEion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article&abt=0002&abg=1&_r=1

13. Where does this leave us?
There are different views on what the
educational developer’s role should be, even
from amongst those doing it!
“Whereas some see themselves as primarily
functioning in support of the strategic objectives
of the institution, others position themselves in a
more neutral stance of supporting staff to cope
with, or even subvert, some of the changes
required by senior management.”
(Gosling, 2009)

14. What are the benefits and risks of
increasing teamwork in HE?
jobs.drivetime

15. Teamwork benefits
Teamwork is increasingly considered important
in higher education, especially for educational
developers and professional services staff.
It is seen as being a key area where universities
can have impact on the student experience.

16. Teamwork benefits
Thomas, L. (2012) Building student engagement and belonging in Higher Education
at a time of change.
https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/what_works_final_report_0.pdf

17. Teamwork benefits
Thomas, L. (2012) Building student engagement and belonging in Higher Education
at a time of change.
https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/what_works_final_report_0.pdf
“…. thus a partnership approach
in which everyone is responsible
for improving student belonging,
retention and success is required”
(Thomas, 2012, p. 17)

18. Teamwork benefits
• Collaboration between programme teams (and
beyond) enhances cohesiveness of offer to students
(Bulpitt 2012)
• Collaboration between different groups of staff (and
students) offers the benefits of drawing on different
areas of expertise
• Professional services often more effective when
delivered in collaboration with academics
• Teamwork encourages innovation (Duke 2003)
• Teamwork helps institutional cohesion and
communication across the institution (Parkes et al.
2014)

19. What do University strategies say
about teamwork?
In a small study of 20 publicly available
strategies, 12 either don’t mention teamwork,
or only mention it in relation to research. Others
state:
“[Staff are] encouraged to be creative and are
part of a team that achieves more together”
“[We will] foster interdisciplinary endeavours
and promote cross-team working”

20. What do University strategies say
about teamwork?
“[We have] Fit-for-purpose facilities which
enable us to learn and work together in teams”
“We are proud to build inclusive and diverse
teams, because we believe that diversity in all its
forms delivers greater impact in our research
and teaching ...”
“[We will] Introduce a simple, timely and
effective means to reward individual and team
excellence.”

21. Teamwork risks
http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/3503922/Teamwork/

22. Teamwork risks
• Can be experienced as ‘messy’ or ‘unsettling’ for
collaborators from different areas
• Different discourses used in different subjects
and different domains may make communication
problematic (Becher and Trowler 2001)
• Can get an unequal ‘division of labour’ between
academics and professional staff (Whitchurch,
2012)
• Recognition and reward structures often not set
up for collaborative work (Macfarlane 2011)

23. Teamwork risks
Research on teamwork indicates that it does not
always promote unity:
“Rather than unifying the professions, teamwork
produces unintended divisive effects. These
discursive practices both reflect and reproduce
structural inequality ... The importance of critical
reflection on the nature of teamwork as a
concept is demonstrated.” (Finn, 2008)

24. Teamwork risks
“Our results suggest that some of the traits and
contributions of women remain relatively
unappreciated. Women … may receive less leadership
credit than their male counterparts who possess
some similar traits.” (Neubert and Taggar, 2004)
“Women reported feeling less included in discussions
about research, teaching, and promotion … and three
times less likely to receive career help from
colleagues than men.” (Fowler, 2017)

25. Participation and equity in groups
Average time spent speaking and number of interactions by demographic group
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
UK Male UK Female Overseas Male Overseas Female
Time spent speaking (seconds)
No. of Interactions
(Cotton et al., 2013)
In a group consisting of mixed genders and cultural backgrounds,
certain groups will dominate in unstructured discussion.

26. Transformation: How can we enhance
the effectiveness of teamwork in HE?

27. How can we enhance the
effectiveness of teamwork in HE?
• Encourage academic staff to use programme-level
assessment and curriculum design (Examples
TESTA, PASS project)
• Engage with other university teams to enhance
the student experience (Examples: Extended
induction period/ immersive scheduling to
enhance learning skills; work with Careers team)
• Include students more in our teams (Examples:
Peer review teams including students; co-delivery
of workshops with students)

28. How can we enhance the
effectiveness of teamwork in HE?
• Enhance mechanisms for rewarding teams
(Examples: HEA CATE award; mirror this approach
in our internal schemes)
• Building strong links with academics in different
disciplines (Examples: Faculty/ school links;
business partnering; Utilizing subject level TEF;
communicating with Heads of Department)
• Encourage collaborative pedagogic research
projects with staff & students (Examples: Students
as partners; collaborative publications)

29. Some more difficult issues …
• Can we put pressure on university managers
to include teamwork explicitly in strategies?
• To what extent can we formalise mentoring/
networking/ collaboration to enhance
equality?
• How can we enhance recognition and reward
of teamwork?
• Are there structural changes which can help
educational developers work in teams?

30. Conclusion
• Teamwork requires
different individuals or
groups to acknowledge the
expertise of others
• It requires institutions to
promote it actively and
reward it appropriately
• But it could perhaps
provide an alternative to
increasingly draconian
management measures

31. Thanks for listening.
Any questions?
Professor Debby Cotton
Head of Educational Development and Professor of
Higher Education Pedagogy, University of Plymouth
dcotton@plymouth.ac.uk

32. References
Becher, T. and Trowler, P. (2001) Academic Tribes and Territories
Intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. SRHE/OUP.
Boring, A. (2015) Gender Biases in Student Evaluations of Teachers.
Working Paper. http://www.ofce.sciences-po.fr/pdf/dtravail/WP2015-13.pdf
Braga, M., Paccagnella, M. & Pellizzari, M. (2014) Evaluating students’
evaluations of professors. Economics of Education Review 41: 71–88
Bulpitt, G. (2012) Leading the student experience: Super-convergence
of organisation, structure and business processes. London: Leadership
Foundation for Higher Education.
Cotton, D.R.E., George, R. & Joyner, M. (2013) Interaction and
influence in culturally-mixed groups. Innovations in Education and
Teaching International. 50 (3), 272-283
Duke, C. (2003) Changing identity in an ambiguous environment: A
work in progress report. Higher Education Management and Policy. 15
(3): 51-67.

33. References
Finn, R. (2008) The language of teamwork: Reproducing professional
divisions in the operating theatre Human Relations 61(1): 103 - 130
Fowler, J.L. (2017) Academics at work: mentoring in research,
teaching, and service, IJAD, 22(4): 319-330
Gosling, D. (2009) Educational development in the UK: a complex and
contradictory reality, IJAD, 14(1): 5-18
Green, D.A. & Little, D. (2016) Family portrait: a profile of educational
developers around the world, IJAD, 21 (2): 135-150
Lee, A. and McWilliam, E. (2008) ‘What game are we in? Living with
academic development’, IJAD, 13 (1): 67-77
Macfarlane, B. (2011) The morphing of academic practice: Unbundling
and the rise of the para-academic. HE Quarterly. 65 (1): 59-73.
MacNell, L., Driscoll, A. & Hunt, A.N. (2015) What’s in a Name:
Exposing Gender Bias in Student Ratings of Teaching. Innovative
Higher Education 40: 291

34. References
Neubert, M.J. & Taggar, S. (2004) Pathways to informal leadership: The
moderating role of gender on the relationship of individual differences
and team member network centrality to informal leadership
emergence. The Leadership Quarterly 15: 175 – 194
Parkes, S., Blackwell Young, J., Cleaver, E. & Archibald, K. (2014)
Academic and professional services in partnership literature review
and overview of results: Leading the student experience.
Szekeres, J. 2004. The invisible workers. Journal of Higher Education
Policy and Management, 26: 7–22
Thomas, L. (2012) Building student engagement and belonging in
Higher Education at a time of change. HEA Publication
Whitchurch, C. (2012) Expanding the parameters of academia. Higher
Education. 64: 99–117.