Centre for Excellence in Preparing for Academic Practice

Final Report of Network Research Project

Transitions into the academic world: identities and academic / literacy practices

Researchers: Lesley Gourlay (Coventry University)

Executive Summary

This study focused on a small group of staff at a post-92 institution, who had entered the academic world from professional or practice roles, predominantly in Health and Social Care. Using in- depth semi-structured interviews and audio-journals, career histories, motivations and day-to-day experiences were explored, paying particular attention to orientations towards research and scholarship. This revealed initial confusion around the requirements of the new role, and ambivalence towards scholarship and research; seen as simultaneously desirable and 'scary', or even a 'selfish' activity. This revealed a mismatch of values between clinical and academic settings in particular, the former emphasising team work, altruism and patient-centred care, the latter valuing outcomes often derived from the relatively individual and private world of literacy practices. These findings lead to two main conclusions. Firstly, that academic scholarship and research may not be easily observable to the novice as a process, and therefore may not be amenable to the sort of community-based learning often assumed to take place in academic settings. The second was that mismatched professional values may lead to sense of alienation or even distress, and that these complex and hybrid identities must be recognised in the development of academic practice in the increasingly diverse academy.

Research Questions

The research aimed to address the following research questions:

 What are the transition experiences of new lecturers entering the role from practice or professional backgrounds?  How have they experienced the transition in terms of their personal and professional identities?  What are their orientations towards the literacy practices involved in the lecturer & researcher role?

The project refined its focus in response to the profile of the volunteers coming forward to participate at ‘Kirkhampton’, the post-92 university where the first round of data collection has taken place. Due to the nature and focus of the institution, participants all came from previous practice or professional backgrounds, and were experienced professionals from those vocational fields.

of 4 Methods

8 participants volunteered at Kirkhampton University, 6 from a Health and Social Care background. One-to-one, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were held, focused on career histories, motivations for becoming a lecturer, and experiences of the transition in terms of everyday working practices and identities. The interviews also focused on the literacy practices required by the role, and their orientations towards reading and writing focused on research and scholarship. Participants were then asked to complete an audio journal over a week, which focused on their day-today experiences and practices in relation to the interview themes. With those who completed the journal, a follow-up interview was held which explored the content of the journal entries in depth. All data were transcribed and analysed first through close reading, and secondly using emergent themes using NVIVO, at the analysis stage employing a consultant Research Fellow (Dr Duna Sabri, King’s College London). A second research site has recently agreed to participate, so five further participants will be sought there and the same methodology used. This site offers a contrast, as the new participants will come from practice backgrounds in the Creative Arts.

Findings

Detailed thematic analysis is ongoing with the Kirkhampton data, but the key findings may be summarised as follows:

Inauthenticity

Participants also reported a sense of what has been termed ‘inauthenticity' (Archer 2008), or a perceived lack of legitimacy - what might be termed an ‘imposter syndrome’ in relation to being an academic, in particular in relation to scholarly textual practices:

I think it’s the academic part, and the theory, and having not really studied. I’ve done, I’ve done bits here and there, but nothing, you know, any sort of advance what I’d done really as, as a, an undergraduate. To, to come in, I mean at the moment I’m writing assignments for the PgCert, and I’m finding that totally overwhelming. (Joanne)

Several participants made similar remarks which suggested that they did not feel comfortable with the scholarly side of being a lecturer, and had ambivalent feelings towards this aspect of academic practice.

Academic discourses & alienation

Participants were also asked about their orientation towards the academic discourses of their fields, such as terminology associated with research and scholarship. The comments suggested a further sense of ambivalence in relation to these discourses:

I've always been always felt comfortable, because I know what they words mean (laughs) even though I can't always pronounce them em... particularly well... I’ve always, in my more youthful arrogance days, taken great delight in taking a large pin and puncturing some of that er, em, you know some of that academia crap. (Patrick)

These comments suggest that for these new lecturers, participation in academic discourses is seen as an important marker of academic identity and legitimacy, but also a troubled and ambiguous area of academic practice for them.

Confusion and hidden practices

of 4 Perhaps the most striking theme arising from the data was that of confusion regarding how to approach the new role. Interviewees report a sense of being lost and unsure what was expected of them, with the new role seeming opaque, as this quote from Sophie suggests:

I just felt grotty, um, and unstructured... I’ve gone from expert, because I was an expert, right back to novice. I don’t know any of the rules and regulations round here, I don’t know where anything is, I don’t know people, I don’t know how the relationship dynamics work in the department (Sophie).

This experience of physical and professional isolation, and a lack of team ethos and collaboration arose several times in the data. For some participants, this stood in powerful contrast to their previous experience in the professional setting. This was reported most strongly by new lecturers who had previously worked in the National Health Service, where they had experienced a high degree of collaborative working with others throughout the working day. This seems to have lead to a stronger sense of clarity about what the job consisted of; a largely observable set of activities based around patient care. In contrast, the academic role seemed to be perceived as more individualistic, private and text-based; and therefore less amenable to observation in order to learn how to proceed as a novice.

Mismatch of values / ideologies

The accounts also revealed a mismatch of ideologies in the practice and the academic settings for some participants :

I was more qualified academically than most of the people I worked with, including the seniors, so it wasn’t… there were people who were happy that I was doing it but there were people who, ooh, she’s doing it before, you know, … So I think, um, my academia was… people saw that as threatening and I do believe that, and I’ve heard that since (Grace)

When probed about their orientations towards more scholarly research reading and writing practices, the participants expressed the view that they were ‘clever’ and ‘scary’. Interestingly, a theme emerged with some participants who discussed the notion of scholarly work and research as desirable, but also an ‘indulgence’ or ‘selfish’.

Conclusions and Implications

The accounts of these new lecturers suggests that the process of transition from the practice professional setting to a lecturer role can be troublesome in terms of both required practices and identities.

The sense of alienation and confusion regarding literacy and general requirements associated with the role among the lecturers is marked, as may be seen in their use in the interviews of expressions such as: ‘lost’, ‘exiled’, and ‘in a halfway house’. Their former professional identities as senior practitioners seem to be under threat, as they find themselves in the role of bewildered novice. Unlike the more structured environments of practice settings, the ‘rules’ for progress and success seem unclear and opaque. In terms of academic literacies and discourses, these new lecturers position themselves as outsiders and unsure novices, and seem to view this as a deficit - which is notable, given that literacy practices are arguably a central part of everyday academic practice (Lea & Steirer 2009). These findings could arguably present a challenge to how transitions into higher education are conceptualised, as it suggests that some elements of academic practice are opaque and not easily amenable to observation, or intrinsically private such as writing. Echoing Lea (2005), this raises challenges as to how this area of academic practice might be developed, arguably challenging some of our assumptions about novices learning in 'communities' of practice (Lave & Wenger 1991). Page 3 of 4 The sense of mismatched values - which could be seen in participants' reports of discomfort with academic research, which was perceived to be overly individualistic and in conflict with an ethos / discourses of care in clinical setting - also raises implications. Arguably, the importance of conflicted or hybrid academic identities in transition has tended to elided, with the assumption that the novice academic has 'bought into' the world of academia in a relatively unproblematic way.

This is currently a small data set taken from one institution, and as such caution must be exercised in extrapolating strong generalisations. However, these findings do raise questions about two key assumptions often implicitly made with regard to the development of academic practice: that the practices required are amenable to observation and are in some sense communal; and that new academics have straightforwardly aspirant orientations towards 'the academic world'. However, if we accept that many of the required practices are tacit, and that lecturers' identities may be increasingly complex and hybridised (e.g. Barnett & Di Napoli 2006), then new approaches are required. Arguably, academics such as these bring these issues into particular relief as relative newcomers to scholarly work, with established professional identities in spheres of practice which may be in conflict with the valorised practices of research and scholarship. The challenge for academic development is to provide the means to explore tacit practices, and the 'safe space' to discuss struggles and mismatches around identities - which may in fact not be 'in transition', but rather in a state of long-term hybridity and complexity.

References

Archer, L. (2008). Younger academics’ constructions of ‘authenticity’, ‘success’ and professional identity. Studies in Higher Education 33 (4), 385-403.

Barnett, R. & Di Napoli, R. (Eds.) (2006). Changing identities in higher education. Abingdon: Routledge.

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lea, M. (2005). ‘Communities of practice’ in higher education: useful heuristic or educational model? In Beyond Communities of Practice, ed. D. Barton, and K. Tusting, K. 180-197. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lea, M. & Stierer B. (2009). Lecturers’ everyday writing as professional practice in the university as workplace. Studies in Higher Education 34 (4), 417-428.