Research assessment as governance technology in the United Kingdom : findings from a survey of RAE 2008 impacts

This paper uses empirical research data and theoretical insights from the literature on governance to problematise some of the arguments presented in the research assessment literature, in particular, the description of the UK RAE/REF as a mechanism for top-down control with strongly negative, blanket-impacts on disciplines, institutions and individual researchers. The concepts of performativity, accountability and governmentality are employed to unpack normative claims about negative impacts and conflicts of values, and empirical claims about the nature of changes in behavior, attitude and interpretation, as reported by the researchers surveyed. The paper argues that inherent, multiple ambivalences of the RAE as a governance technology operate at the transition points between traditional and contemporary forms of governing and account for the mixed picture of its impacts at system, field, institutional, and individual level.Copyright © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2014. This article is not currently available via ORA, but you may be able to access it via the publisher copy link on this record page

Research assessment as governance technology in the United Kingdom : findings from a survey of RAE 2008 impacts

This paper uses empirical research data and theoretical insights from the literature on governance to problematise some of the arguments presented in the research assessment literature, in particular, the description of the UK RAE/REF as a mechanism for top-down control with strongly negative, blanket-impacts on disciplines, institutions and individual researchers. The concepts of performativity, accountability and governmentality are employed to unpack normative claims about negative impacts and conflicts of values, and empirical claims about the nature of changes in behavior, attitude and interpretation, as reported by the researchers surveyed. The paper argues that inherent, multiple ambivalences of the RAE as a governance technology operate at the transition points between traditional and contemporary forms of governing and account for the mixed picture of its impacts at system, field, institutional, and individual level.</p

Performative Accountability and the UK Research Assessment Exercise

This paper uses data from the submissions to, and ratings from, RAE 2001 to reflect on shifts in public understandings of institutional research accountability over the past two decades in the United Kingdom. In particular, it looks at what has been described as a decline of professional and communicative modes of accountability in favour of more technical and managerial ones. This shift was accompanied by a conceptual change, from accountability as responsibility and communicative reason to accountability as hierarchical answerability (with corresponding changes in values, concepts of public good and hierarchies of knowledge). The paper argues that, post-RAE, neither the reinforcement of targets, indicators, standards and techniques of managerial accountability, nor the closure of academia to external scrutiny, are likely to be the way forward. Rather, what is needed is a restoration of discursive, democratic and ethical dimensions of the relationship between research, the public, and policy

Criticisms of Education Research in the 1990s

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The use of technology in higher education teaching by academics during the COVID-19 emergency remote teaching period: a systematic review

This paper presents a systematic review of scholarly efforts that uniquely emerged at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and focused primarily on higher education teachers’ perspectives on technology use and on associated changes in the relationship between teachers and students amidst the transition to emergency remote teaching worldwide. Our narrative synthesis of 32 studies, the majority of which come from lower-and middle-income countries/regions, suggests that numerous factors interact to shape academics’ technology use in emergency remote teaching across higher education contexts. We report strong findings of teachers’ resilience and resourcefulness in their self-exploration of various technologies and teaching strategies in response to the continued severity of the pandemic. Ultimately, this review suggests directions for further research on engaging educational leaders and faculty in reimagining teaching as not only a core academic function of higher education, but also, and importantly, a humanising experience shaped by an ethics of care

Philosophy of education in the UK:the historical and contemporary tradition

Questions of a philosophical nature are central to every significant debate in the field of educational theory, policy, practice and research. Of all disciplines, philosophy is perhaps the one in which analysis, argumentation and critique are given most central, systematic and comprehensive attention. In addition, philosophy is connected with practice and policy through nurturing democratic conversation about education, and supporting practical deliberation at all levels and on all aspects of educational practice. In the UK, although systematically excluded from initial teacher education and much reduced in masters level programmes under the current funding regimes, the discipline has maintained considerable vitality and international reputation. Using data from the RAE and PESGB, supplemented with bibliometric data, we note that the important contributions from philosophy of education to education and education research do not, however, always reflect a thriving infrastructure. We conclude with a brief discussion of a number of key relationships which the philosophy of education community needs to develop further: with teacher education, educational research, 'mainstream' philosophy and educational policy communities. © 2009 Taylor and Francis