“Personal epiphanies and seeing the world afresh; Developing a qualitative research methodology to explore higher education teacher pedagogic practices in a UK landbased college”.

Abstract

The pedagogic practices of those teaching higher education (HE) within a further education (FE) college (HE in FE) is arguably both under-researched and under-theorised. Drawing upon a qualitative empirical study, this paper presents a novel methodological approach to studying HE teacher pedagogic practice within a small, largely FE landbased college. In the light of an amplification of interest in the concept of practice within international education and teacher research, this paper articulates the journey taken by the author towards developing a novel methodology to explore HE pedagogic practice within a group of HE in FE teachers at a UK landbased college. This includes the personal challenges of developing the methodological framework, wrestling with and eschewing previous positivist assumptions and developing a reflexive stance. Inspired by notions of practice as espoused by Kemmis and Grootenboer (2008) and Charmaz’s Constructivist Grounded Theory (2006), the paper outlines the qualitative methodological framework designed to generate insights into both how and why particular HE pedagogic practice enactments occur within a specific FE landbased college site