Academic teachers' workplace learning and its role in the formation of their teaching practices

Few studies have examined the character of academic teachers' workplace learning and its role in the formation of their teaching practices. There is also a lack of appropriate theoretical and conceptual frameworks, or 'analytical perspectives', in the literature. This thesis is based on a small-scale, ethnographic-style case-study of the workplace learning of seven lecturers who comprise the Pharmacy Practice subjectgroup (PPG) in a 'new' university in the UK. During a six month period, qualitative data were gathered through observation of working activities and individual interviews, complemented by document review. The concepts and principles of Engestrom's Activity Theory were used to examine the character of the participants' workplace learning; its motives and its functions in relation to their teaching practices. The case study also evaluated this analytical perspective. Learning was a pervasive constituent of the participants' normal collaborative working activities. It had complex historical, social, cultural and individual dimensions; diverse motives, and its functions included the maintenance; adaptation and radical transformation of teaching practices. A comprehensive, coherent, systematic understanding of these characteristics required the adoption of the work-group as the prime unit of analysis, rather than individual members, and an acknowledgment that learning was a communal process involving various forms of participation. Thus the case study provides further evidence that academic teachers' practices are highly complex, 'situated' and often collectively formed in small-scale work groups, especially disciplinary or specialist-subject groups. These insights indicate that the technical-rational and interpretive-constructive analytical perspectives which are widely adopted to understand academic teachers' work and learning cannot provide an adequate account of their workplace learning or its functions. The thesis provides an alternative perspective, together with detailed insights, examples and findings, which can be used to inform measures intended to improve university teaching and support the professional development of academic teachers

Additional file 7: Figure S2. of Environment, but not genetic divergence, influences geographic variation in colour morph frequencies in a lizard

Figures showing weak relationships between pairwise FST and geographic distance (a), and pairwise FST and divergence in colour morph composition (b). (PDF 152 kb

Visual Contrast Data

Chromatic and achromatic contrasts of lizard colour patches against predominant backgrounds, and the internal contrast between constituent throat colour patches. Contrasts are from the perspective of conspecific lizards, likely predators (birds), or both

Sequence_Data_Files

Zip file containing fasta files for six loci used in this study

Colour_Pattern_Data_File

Data from colour pattern analysis of Ctenophorus decresii male throat coloration from Mt Lofty Ranges (LR), Kangaroo Island (KI), and New South Wales (NSW) populations. ProportionGrey, ProportionRed, ProportionYellow, and ProportionBlue are colour variables, while TotalPower is a measure of overall patterning

Migrate_Input_File

Input file for Migrate analyses. Data are microsatellite repeat numbers and populations are the adjacent Olary Ranges (OR) and Mt Lofty Ranges (LR) geographic regions

Microsatellite_Data_File

Complete microsatellite genotypic data set

MSVAR_Input_Files

Zip file containing input files for MSVAR analyses for two populations from the Southern Flinders Ranges (Aroona and Telowie Gorge), and one from each of the Olary Ranges (Bimbowrie), Mt Lofty Ranges (Morialta), and Kangaroo Island (Snake Lagoon) geographic regions

Spectral Reflectance and Irradiance Data

Spectral reflectance of the throat, dorsum, head, bright neck coloration and dark lateral stripe of male tawny dragon lizards, and predominant background colours. Each column is the reflectance of a given colour patch averaged across three measurements. Reflectance data were smoothed by averaging over each 5nm interval within the range 300–700nm (visual spectrum of birds and most diurnal lizards), and the mean irradiance across all sites was normalised to a maximum of one. Note that mean reflectance of backgrounds were used in subsequent analyses

Information Tables

Excel format tables S1-3 providing information on samples, exons and genes. See main ReadMe for details