Freeing the chi of change

The Higher Education Academy and enhancing teaching and learning in higher education

Bibliographic Data

ID4096534
AuthorsPaul Trowler (0000-0001-9039-2084, Lancaster University, corresponding author), Joelle Fanghanel (City, University of London), Terry Wareham (Lancaster University)
Year2005
Volume30
Issue4
Pages427-444
Publication date2005-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueStudies in Higher Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0307-5079 • E-ISSN: 1470-174X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03075070500160111
OpenAlexW2147907229
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited14

This article examines recent UK policy initiatives to enhance teaching and learning in higher education in the UK, and the quality of the student experience there. The Higher Education Academy has recently begun to work in this area and the Higher Education Bill (2004) has passed into law. A reflective review of previous initiatives is therefore very timely. The article shows that, while these different initiatives have been explicitly addressed at different levels of analysis, the meso level—a particularly significant one—has been largely forgotten. Meanwhile these interventions have been based on contrasting underlying theories of change and development. One hegemonic theory relates to the notion of the reflective practitioner, which addresses itself to the micro (individual) level of analysis. It sees reflective practitioners as potential change agents. Another relates to the theory of the learning organization, which addresses the macro level of analysis and sees change as stemming from alterations in organizational routines, values and practices. A third is based on a theory of epistemological determinism and sees the discipline as the salient level of analysis for change. Meanwhile, other higher education policies exist alongside those mentioned above, not overtly connected to the enhancement of teaching and learning but impinging upon it in very significant ways in a bundle of disjointed strategies and tacit theories. Of particular relevance here are policies on funding, on research and on widening participation, all implemented in an increasingly managerialist environment in which work intensification and degradation of resources are occurring. Missing in all this is coherence across the policies, and their underlying theories, at the different analytical levels. Because there is disjointedness in various government and other agencies, higher education policies they have tended to obstruct rather than complement each other. Hence our use of a metaphor from Eastern philosophy—the notion of blocked chi. Also missing is a robust theory of change and associated set of policies at the meso level of analysis—the departmental level. We suggest ways in which the latter omission might be rectified, thus freeing the ‘chi of change’

Higher education · Mathematics education · Medical education · Pedagogy · Political science · Sociology · Higher Education and Employability · Higher Education Learning Practices · Innovative Education and Learning Practices · Medicine · Psychology

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