Low expectations in a hostile environment: the challenges of conducting scholarship in a research-focused university

Marion Coderch

Facultad de Filología, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)

ABSTRACT

In this piece, the author looks back on her ten-year journey as a language teaching scholar in the modern foreign languages department of a UK research-focused university. On the basis of the descriptions of the scholarship of teaching and learning offered in the literature, she compares these depictions with her own experience, adding first-hand observations that complement and illustrate these published accounts. Besides the well-known obstacles faced by teaching staff who wish to conduct scholarship, such as lack of available time and insufficient institutional support, she identifies low expectations on behalf of management and the lack of positive role models as some of the reasons why scholarship drifts along the margins of academic life. To remedy this state of affairs, several actions are required: the establishment of a clear definition of what constitutes scholarship; the development of a set of transparent and unambiguous criteria for the evaluation of scholarship; and the assignment of scholarship evaluation exercises to qualified professionals who would conduct blind peer-reviews, following the evaluation model of other academic dissemination networks. Lastly, the author proposes a course of action to systematically challenge the low expectations placed by universities on language teaching staff and to reclaim the role of scholarship as a key agent in the pursuit of equality, inclusivity and social justice, for staff as well as for students.

KEYWORDS: language teaching scholarship, evaluation of scholarship, assessment of scholarship, low status of scholarship, scholarship vs research.

THE SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING AND THE ROLE OF THE SCHOLAR
The role of the scholar, as it has been traditionally understood, is that of an academic who contributes to the advancement of knowledge in their discipline and publishes their research findings to share them with the academic community (Boyer, 1990). The scholar, then, has been conventionally known as an individual who carries out scholarship, in a sense akin to the task that Boyer designated as the scholarship of discovery (1990, p.17) and that is synonymous with research. Over time, the association of scholarship with research activity and the unquestionable pre-eminence of research over the rest of areas of academic work led to the marginalisation of other activities that are part of the scholarly process, such as those related to teaching (Nicholls, 2005). In this context, the scholarship of teaching, one of the four types of scholarship identified by Boyer in the essay Scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate (1990, p.16), began to gain currency as the term chosen to define an area of activity that would raise the profile of teaching and associated work, enhancing it as a core professional value that would add symbolic and social capital to student-facing tasks (Nicholls, 2005, p.71).

Through this elevation of the scholarship of teaching as an area of work that would grant dignity and prestige to teaching-related activities, the notion has progressively drifted away from the traditional meaning of scholarship as the discovery of new knowledge since the publication of Boyer’s essay in 1990. While the efforts to establish the scholarship of teaching (later known as the scholarship of teaching and learning) as an area of academic work in its own right were, undoubtedly, well meant, the outcome of this separation has ended up doing more harm than good, as the scholarship of teaching has come to be seen, at best, as a ‘subspecies of research’ (Park, 1996, p.49); at worst, as a term to designate of teaching-related activities with little or no intellectual ambition. Tainted by its close relationship with teaching, scholarship is now viewed as a low-status endeavour in academic labour (Boshier, 2009; Culver, 2023; Higher Education Academy, 2016; Macfarlane, 2011; Schroeder, 2007; Smith and Walker, 2021; Tight, 2018; Webb and Tierney, 2020).

This piece offers an account of my experience as an academic trying to develop the scholarship of teaching in the modern foreign languages department of a UK research-focused university. Taking into consideration the context described in the previous paragraphs, I will summarise the problems faced by practitioners who aim to undertake scholarship, as described in the literature, and I will compare them with the challenges I faced, adding first-hand information when possible. Lastly, I will put forward some proposals to raise the profile of scholarship in research-intensive institutions, with a view to making its impact more meaningful and valuable for staff and students.

THE CHALLENGES TO SCHOLARSHIP
Lack of definition, and how it leads to low expectations
One of the challenges to scholarship that permeates the literature around the topic is its lack of definition (Elton, 2005; Tight, 2018). Admittedly, the potential for confusion was already present in the seminal essay by Ernest L. Boyer when he claimed that all faculty members (not only research-active staff) should aim to establish researcher credentials, only to state, a few lines later, that activities like ‘reading the literature’ and keeping up with publications on teaching are enough to do so (1990, p.28). This approach encouraged the notion that ‘doing scholarship’ meant keeping up to date with the latest developments in teaching in the disciplines by reading papers and talking to colleagues, but not necessarily contributing to the advancement of knowledge (Canning and Masika, 2022; Cotton, Miller and Kneale, 2018; Glassick, Huber and Maeroff, 1997). The divergence between this perception of what scholarship is and the original concept, closer to what was traditionally understood as research, led to a proliferation of meanings of the term scholarship (Trigwell, Martin, Benjamin and Prosser, 2000) and, ultimately, to a state of affairs that Alan M. Rubin labelled as ‘the scholarship of confusion’ (2000, p.263).

The following examples illustrate the multiplicity of meanings accorded to the term scholarship, as well as the vagueness in its definitions. Trigwell, Martin, Benjamin and Prosser do not put forward a definition as such, but claim that the aim of scholarship is ‘to make transparent how we have made learning possible’. They add: ‘For this to happen, university teachers must be informed of the theoretical perspectives and literature of teaching and learning in the discipline, and be able to collect and present rigorous evidence of their effectiveness’ (2000, p.156). Admitting that there is no well-defined meaning for the term scholarship, Elton characterises it as ‘a deep and critical understanding of that discipline and an extensive knowledge of the wider field in which the discipline is embedded’ (2005, p.109). Nicholls, who states that scholarship, in academic work, is conventionally associated with research, mentions journal papers, textbooks and undergraduate classes as examples of activities that are part of scholarly work (2005, pp.13-14). For Webb and Tierney, scholarship is ‘the amalgamation of pedagogic research, and understanding of education theory and literature, reflection on one’s practice as a teacher in higher education, and a learning-centred conception of education’ (2020, p.614). Canning and Masika explain how the notion of scholarship has evolved into an ‘increasingly inclusive, though nebulous understanding through which anything from personal reflection, sharing of good practice through to the publication of the findings from major research projects is in scope as “SoTL”’ (2022, p.1091). In a recent study about role descriptors and promotion criteria for education-focused academics in 48 UK universities, the researchers found that only two institutions offered a definition of scholarship (Smith and Walker, 2021, p.117). The University of Bristol defined it as ‘engaging in scholarship of the theory and practice of education to engender innovative and evidence-led approaches to teaching’. Meanwhile, Queen Mary University of London offered a more comprehensive view:

The lines between what constitutes scholarship and the rest of the activities in the spectrum of academic work are blurred, and the inconsistency shown by different approaches does not help to clarify concepts. In truth, as long as academic work meets quality standards that are appropriate for the higher education context (such as those laid out by Glassick, Huber and Maeroff[1]), labels such as scholarship and research are meaningless with regard to content, purpose and positive influence: they are only used to reinforce divisions and hierarchical relations in academic departments. Bruce Macfarlane sheds a much-needed ray of light to the matter of what constitutes scholarship by relativising the question:

My first-hand experiences with the institutional attempts to define scholarship reflect faithfully the vagueness highlighted in the literature. From simple tasks that should be routine in the work of every university teacher (such as keeping up to date with the literature on teaching in the discipline, or adopting technology solutions to support teaching and learning) to activities that could be considered akin to those conducted by research-active colleagues in Education departments (such as publishing peer-reviewed papers about teaching and learning), we were told that everything was scholarship. This hyper inclusive approach is a threat to the scholarly aspects of scholarship, as Canning and Masika have noted (2022, p.2). After ten years of immersion in this seemingly encouraging rhetoric, I could only manage to figure out one thing: scholarship was everything but Research with a capital R –that is, the kind of research that matters because it can be included in the Research Excellence Framework (REF). All the rest was deemed insubstantial: from sharing a small-scale teaching innovation with colleagues in your department to presenting or publishing at peer-reviewed international outputs, it was all worth the same. If it was not to be included in the REF, it had no value.

The invisibility of non REF-able[2] work carried out by education-focused academics has been highlighted by Tierney (2020) and Smith and Walker (2021). Research from academics in teaching-intensive posts is excluded from the REF because it’s not considered good enough to perform well (Macfarlane, 2011). The fact that this judgement is, by default, extended to all the scholarly work from academics in education-focused positions shows that institutional expectations towards their performance are hopelessly low.

Vagueness of criteria for the evaluation of scholarship: in the realm of micropolitics
The absence of objective criteria for the assessment of scholarship activity is a natural consequence of its lack of definition. There is no clear set of characteristics as to what constitutes scholarship, let alone good quality scholarship (Black, 2024; Canning and Masika, 2022; Higher Education Academy, 2016). The problem is aggravated by the fact that, in the absence of clear parameters, scholarship assessment is easily conditioned by office politics and, therefore, subject to the whims and fancies of the individuals who have been tasked with its assessment: ‘Peer reviewers are also sometimes compromised by office politics. In SoTL promotion cases, they let through candidates supplying mediocre curriculum or unoriginal teaching materials as “evidence” of “scholarship”’ (Boshier, 2009, p.11). When assessment criteria are open to interpretation, the ground is laid for the working of micropolitics, defined by Alan Davies as ‘strategies such as power, coercion, cooperation, cooption and influence to obtain resources and achieve goals’ (2009, p.45).

As a result of the vague notion of scholarship that my institution had put into circulation, criteria for assessment were just as undefined: there can be no clear criteria for assessment when the object of assessment is not neatly defined. This difficulty, serious enough in itself, was compounded with the absence of figures who could lead on the development of a scholarship profile for language teachers: as we shall see below, the individuals who could have fulfilled this role operated on the margins of departmental decision-making, and so were not in a position to evaluate the work of others. In this state of affairs, the assessment of scholarship activity was left in the hands of individuals who had no experience of scholarship themselves, an occurrence that is not uncommon in research-intensive universities (Smith and Walker, 2022). The interference of departmental politics, as described in the literature, was omnipresent in this context. Because scholarship assessment occupied a subsidiary role in the face of research assessment, there was no monitoring of the scholarship evaluation process. Going adrift, the evaluation of scholarship played no role in judgements about progression and promotion of teaching staff: these decisions were left entirely to the personal preference of a few individuals who would never be held accountable for their decisions.

Lack of institutional support: left to our own devices
Institutional support for scholarship can take different shapes: financial assistance to attend conferences and scientific meetings and / or to publish research outcomes, or logistical support by freeing up time that could be dedicated to intellectual enquiry. Input from staff in teaching roles shows that lack of available time is, by far, the biggest obstacle to the conduct of scholarship: even when language practitioners are encouraged to do scholarship, the demands of teaching, assessment and student support put a tremendous strain on their time, to the extent that there is no place for scholarship in their schedules (Cobb, 2024; Coderch, 2023).

Besides these obstacles to scholarship activity, a factor that hindered the scholarly potential of language practitioners in my institution was the lack of examples of what good scholarship looked like in our particular context. A personal and honest account of someone who had managed to develop a language teaching scholarship profile in that precise environment would have been an inspiration to the rest of language practitioners. Sadly, opportunities to engage with individuals who could act as role models were not available. Mentoring programmes did exist, but they seemed to be based on a random allocation of mentors to mentees and, worse yet, they were perceived as an unnecessary burden that nobody took seriously. To use the term coined by Babcock, Peyser, Vesterlund and Weingart, mentoring was seen as a ‘non-promotable task’ (NPT), that is, a task that ‘matters to your organization but will not help you advance your career’ (2022, p.17). As such, mentoring could not be relied upon as a means to supporting the scholarship of language practitioners. The absence of internal role models who could support and guide the professional development and progression of education-focused staff has been blamed for the feelings of isolation and inadequacy often experienced by practitioners in these positions (Simmons, Eady, Scharff and Gregory, 2021; Smith and Walker, 2022).

Years into my teaching role, I found out, by pure coincidence, that there were, indeed, examples of quality language teaching scholarship among our staff, but these were never highlighted or talked about in school meetings. In fact, the colleagues responsible for these rare examples of good scholarship kept a consistently low profile. Whether this discretion was deliberate or not, I did not know. It was hard to understand why the expertise and talent of these individuals was not being put to good use in a leading role. Their input would have been extremely beneficial for the language practitioners who wished to develop their scholarly profile.

THE TAKEAWAY: HOW TO MAKE SCHOLARSHIP COUNT
Still, for many of us, scholarship was the last resort to find fulfilment and satisfaction in a context ruthlessly dominated by the obsessions with research funding, world rankings and student recruitment (Fanghanel, 2013). Over the years, I came to believe that, for all the institutional talk about the benefits of the scholarship of teaching and learning, nobody in management actually believed that teaching staff would find the time, energy and motivation to produce good quality scholarship. When this happened, there was nowhere for scholarship to go: on the occasions when dissemination took place, it was always at a small scale, confined to the lowly ranks of teaching-only staff (and, therefore, deprived of visibility at departmental level). The implementation of scholarship-led changes in teaching and learning seemed like a titanic task in front of the ‘if ain’t broken, don’t fix it’ partisans. For all these reasons, the scholarship activity of language practitioners was often met with a mixture of bewilderment and suspicion: the low expectations of managers had been defied, and there was no action plan for it.

Language practitioners in research-intensive institutions must defend the haven of freedom and space for intellectual enquiry (however bruised and battered it is) that scholarship represents. To do this, there are a few imperative developments. We must fight for a clear framework of scholarship evaluation. We must demand that scholarship activity is subject to a rigorous, transparent and objective assessment process, preferably involving blind peer-review and external assessors, just as with any other academic endeavour that university managers take seriously enough. This new, reliable assessment process would generate valuable information that could be used in promotion and progression panels to reward the efforts of language practitioners. Only through a process of regulation and standardisation of assessment procedures will scholarship be in a position to drop the ‘research for losers’ label that has been carrying for a long time.

As Ding and Bruce eloquently put it, ‘Practitioners are essential to many universities across the globe, but are not part of the essence of a university’ (2017, p.204). At a time when Boyer’s essay is being subject to a rereading that reclaims one of the purposes of its original spirit, that is, the promotion of social justice among students (Chick, 2023), an opportunity opens to expand this call for social justice to staff too. Through the implementation of a robust and transparent system of evaluation and rewards for scholarship, we would reduce the gap in academic privilege between research-active and teaching-focused staff, making recognition and the attainment of symbolic power available to all (Andreassen, 2023). This would be a true step towards a more egalitarian and inclusive academia.

Address for correspondence: mjcoderch@flog.uned.es

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[1] Clear goals, adequate preparation, appropriate methods, significant results, effective presentation, reflective critique (1997, p.25).

[2] The term REF-able is taken from a paper published by Michael McEwan (2022).