Scholarship and Supercomplexity

In this chapter, links between the constructs of scholarship and supercomplexity in higher education are examined, along with policy implications. Boyer's holistic, joined-up conceptualization of scholarship is recognised as seminal, yet in many cases, application of his work has led to fragmentation of academic work in an already-fractured, supercomplex higher education environment. The scene is set by considering a range of dimensions of the scholarship construct within higher education. Particular emphasis is placed on scholarship as it relates to academic roles and identities. In this section, account is also taken of the challenges encountered by faculty, managers, and policy-makers alike in drawing connections and distinctions between scholarship and research in academic work. Consideration then shifts to implications for higher education policy and policy-makers at the macro – national and international, meso-institutional, and micro-departmental and individual levels.

Undertaking Commissioned Research and Scholarship in Education

The place and challenges of identifying and working with paradigms in the context of commissioned research are addressed in this chapter. The characteristics of commissioned research activities are discussed and considered by drawing on Boyer's view of scholarship as discovery, integration, application, teaching, and engagement. The role of Invitation to Tender (ITT) documents in commissioned research is explored using a conceptual continuum from looser to tighter specification of parameters as an analytical frame. Consequences for the selection of a research paradigm are considered in the context of multiple realities of the researcher and the commissioning body. The chapter concludes with an imperative: Communication to develop understanding of each other's perspectives needs to be better recognized for its value to all parties in meeting their intended purpose in engaging in a commissioned research undertaking.

The Scholarship of the Black Academy

In this chapter, priorities of the Black Academy are compared with Boyer's priorities of the professoriate. Understandings of Indigenous knowledge and the roles of the Black Academy are set in an historical context. From the colonial occupation to the 1980s, the “Dark Ages for Indigenous Knowledge,” engagement in Western knowledge was rare. Today, the Black Academy makes a range of contributions to higher education, providing: an Indigenous perspective; an oppositional approach; integrative Indigenous knowledge; contemporary Indigenous knowledge; and pure Indigenous knowledge. These contributions include elements of the scholarships of integration, of application, and of discovery, but pure Indigenous knowledge also involves conservation of knowledge and the role of community in its maintenance, which might be styled a scholarship of preservation; quite the opposite of Boyer's scholarship of discovery. Reflecting on the research paradigm involved, emerging contributions of the Black Academy represent a supercomplex renaissance.

Education Research and Scholarship in an Intercultural Context

In this chapter, the research framework for a study that focused on the development of a second language vocabulary acquisition model in a tertiary setting is presented. This study is an investigation of lexical inferencing strategies specifically employed by second language (L2) learners, and focuses on whether the explicit teaching of effective vocabulary strategies benefited learners in developing vocabulary. The framework presented here draws on theories of learning from the fields of education, applied linguistics, vocabulary development, and cognitive psychology. Several theoretical standpoints on vocabulary development, and factors such as lexical representation, theoretical constructs in reading comprehension, and vocabulary processing in tertiary L2 learners, and socio-linguistics were considered in the design and inquiry process of the study, which was set in an intercultural context. The nature of scholarship involved in this exercise is referenced and its relationship to research paradigms is discussed.

Denouement

Research is generally regarded as falling within the scholarship of discovery. However, here authors and editors also explore the application of the paradigms to the scholarships more broadly, including the application of the paradigms to the scholarships of integration, application, teaching, and engagement. We have closely linked the concept of scholarship to policy directions in universities and in other bodies and agencies that influence or govern them. We conclude that the range of paradigms and scholarships available to academics provides a rich array of possibilities for the creation of new understandings and new approaches to scholarly work. The challenge we pose, however, is to encourage academics to be bold enough to work in different paradigms and scholarships from those that are “traditionally” associated with specific disciplines. We also discuss forces that militate against academics daring to be different.

Teacher's Ontological and Epistemological Beliefs

This chapter involves a discussion of a case study to explore teachers' beliefs on the nature of reality (ontology) and knowledge (epistemology) within an International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program at the International School of Amsterdam. The study is positioned within the constructivist-interpretive paradigm and allows for the emergence of a holistic and contextualized understanding of teachers' beliefs and practices. The chapter includes reflection on the author's ontology and epistemology and its impact on the research undertaking. The study is an attempt to understand whether teachers' beliefs impact their approaches to teaching within this inquiry-based environment. Comprehensive teacher profiles were generated for three participants, all experienced teachers, who teach Science, English Literature, and Spanish. The findings indicate that the participants' approaches to teaching resonate strongly with their ontological and epistemological beliefs. The chapter also includes consideration of the role that scholarship played in the generation of the teacher profiles.

Nine Elements of the Scholarship of Discovery

In this chapter, the focus is on higher education research or what Boyer has called the scholarship of discovery. The concepts of higher education research and the scholarship of discovery may have similarities or differences – such comparisons are not the subject of this chapter. The chapter outlines nine elements of the scholarship of discovery for consideration as a starting point and offers an example to illustrate one application of these elements drawn from the field of higher education research.

Research Paradigms Underpinning Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Papers

In this second edition of this chapter, the authors re-examine the question of paradigms underpinning contemporary Scholarship of Learning and Teaching (SoTL) research. Focusing on the same journals from the original sample, the authors applied the same methodological tools to the new sample which comprised randomly selected articles published in 2018. The authors identified the paradigm underpinning each article by looking at the stated or implied intent of the article's authors, the drivers of their research (axiology), the nature of the knowledge/understanding developed from their research (epistemology), the literature and methods used, and the outcomes of their work. Using the classification of research paradigms employed in this book, the neo-positivist, inductive mode emerged as the dominant paradigm in both journals, accounting for over half of the papers in both the individual and combined samples. The findings are discussed in terms of their application to future SoTL research.

Scientific Realism and the Scholarship of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

In this chapter, the use of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) in the analysis of the effects of curricula designs on student learning and experience in higher education is explored. The origins, fundamental assumptions, metaphysical and ontological commitments of SEM, are explicated. This is followed by an exemplification of the method by use of a case study. The chapter includes an argument for the adoption of a realist account of latent variables on the basis that the constructs they represent are in principle manipulable, even though experimental manipulation is not typically a feature of research on curricula in higher education. The chapter concludes with the application of these ideas to the scholarship of learning and teaching (SoLT). It is asserted that only by the adoption of a realist perspective on the data collected in the pursuit of SoLT goals can these goals be adequately attained.

The Power of the Paradigm in Scholarship in Higher Education

In this chapter, the six paradigms explored in this book – positivist, neo-positivist, interpretivist, transformative, pragmatic, and supercomplexity – are described and the key elements of each paradigm are discussed. The paradigms are discussed here as they apply not only to research, though this is the usual area of scholarship to which they are applied, but also to the other areas of scholarship as identified by Boyer. Scholarship as discussed is based upon Boyer's definitions of the four scholarships of discovery, application, integration, and teaching, and his subsequent addition of the scholarship of engagement. The key elements of paradigms are ontology, epistemology, axiology, methodology, intent, and outcomes. The paradigm is the focal point here because awareness of the paradigm within which the scholarship is undertaken helps to ensure consistency between elements of the activity and clarifies within the scholar's mind how best to undertake their scholarly activity.