Bamford, Jan and Moschini, Elena (2022) The relationship of leadership roles to the improvement of the student experience: international perspectives. In: Oxford Education Research Symposium, 12-14 August 2022, Oxford, UK.
This paper explores the ways in which key academic roles operate in higher education, bridging space, a ‘third space’ (Whitchurch, 2008) between the academic and the administrative, that frames the activities of academic staff engaging in projects that improve the student experience. We argue that such roles are the focus for implementing and designing change management projects that can promote innovation in pedagogic practice. Data was gathered through undertaking 21 interviews both in the UK and overseas with interviewees from Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. The data provides insights into the ways in which academic staff acting in academic leadership roles, both here and overseas, engage in such projects. The paper draws from a chapter in the authors’ recently published book, Understanding and Improving the Student Experience in Higher Education: navigating the third space. Through the voices of practitioners in UK and international settings, the importance of understanding the role of third space professionals and the importance of leadership is brought to the fore. The paper considers the ways in which third space professionals act as educational leaders from the perspective of their agency, the fluid spaces that they operate within, their creativity and the metrics discourse.
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives.
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