This week was the official start of my PhD, although I enrolled a few weeks back the start date was 2 February and this week I had my first supervisory team meeting so all feeling very real now!
To mark this, I thought I would share a little more on what I will be researching over the next five years (eek) including a little more on how my interest in this space came about which I touched on in my first blog post My learning journey: from there to here.
Developing knowledge of the Professional Standards Framework (PSF) 2011 and 2023
Since starting at UHI ten years ago I have had different roles in the implementation, coordination, development, and latterly leadership of our routes to Advance HE Fellowships. What I most enjoyed as I developed in my role was becoming more involved in designing learning opportunities for colleagues applying for Fellowship and hearing about others’ practice and passion for their learners and their practice. It was also hugely beneficial to my own development, running reflective workshops to help applicants make the connection between their practice and the dimensions of Advance HE’s Professional Standards Framework (PSF 2011/PSF 2023) whilst also developing my own understanding of pedagogies and practices at UHI and across our tertiary context. This was also the start of my engagement in mentoring, and I have mentored 30+ colleagues through our UHI Mentoring Scheme to be recognised with Fellowship. These activities developed my understanding of the dimensions of the PSF and the different ways in which they are demonstrated through the varied roles of colleagues at UHI who apply for Fellowship.
Tangent: Being in a professional services role and gaining my own Fellowships (AFHEA and then SFEHA and finally PFHEA) was a huge personal achievement and professional turning point for me. I really enjoy supporting colleagues in professional services to gain Fellowship and be recognised for the work that they do to support learning, teaching and to enhance the student experience and support. Although this isn’t a focus of my PhD it still is one of the most satisfying aspects of my role and still seems to spark a lot of discussion and debate in the sector about who is eligible to apply for Advance HE Fellowships. If this interests you then you might find my blog Celebrating Advance HE Fellowships in the UHI Library Services a motivational read.
Image by Paul Stachowiak from Pixabay
MEd Research and Tertiary-ness
Recognising that we had built up a strong and supportive community of practice through our Fellowship mentoring scheme, with colleagues volunteering to mentor others after being recognised, in 2020-21 I decided to focus my MEd dissertation research project on the experiences of staff engaged in mentoring on the UHI Fellowship Mentoring Scheme as mentors and mentees. To keep this blog succinct there were two things that were significant in this study that then developed my interest in research and the topic of my PhD.
- The dissertation was a phenomenographic (sadly I still can’t pronounce this) study and gave me the opportunity to develop some knowledge in this approach and analysis that I will also be using in my PhD. Phenomenography has been successfully used in research to find the variations of the experiences and perceptions of educators and learners in school and higher education contexts.
- It gave me an insight into perceptions of confidence of educators working in a tertiary institution. This sparked a curiosity about professional identity in our complex institution where staff might be working in either FE or HE or both.
Image by Free Fun Art from Pixabay
Professional Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges and in the context of UHI
Although the move to make mandatory the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) registration of all lecturers in Scotland’s College was 2017, I hadn’t had much engagement with the GTCS Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges, which colleagues must demonstrate to be GTCS registered. This is because staff are supported within in their own UHI Academic Partner* to gain and maintain their registration with the GTCS. Lecturers must evidence engagement with the Professional Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges through either completion of a Teaching Qualification in Further Education (TQFE) or through a record of experience.
UHI colleagues were seeking Advance HE Fellowship as well as having GTCS registration which sparked discussion about the benchmark in the sector for colleagues working in the Higher Education space holding Advance HE Fellowships. These conversations were collegiate and explorative and considered the need for many UHI colleagues to evidence alignment to both the GTCS Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges and the Advance HE PSF 2011/2023. This sparked further curiosity about the two professional standards and a better understanding of the GTCS Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges.
You can read more about UHI and our unique context in relation to this in more detail in my blog Professional Identity: Standards and recognitions in the changing landscape of tertiary education: re-imagining GTCS and Advance HE Fellowships – LTA@UHI
* UHI is a geographically, tertiary and federated university with 10 Academic Partners situated across the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
Re-imagining standards and recognitions in the changing landscape of tertiary education
This curiosity led to a deep-dive into both the GTCS Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges and the Advance HE Professional Standards 2023 and the decision to explore this further in a presentation at the UHI 2023 Learning and Teaching Conference.
Simultaneously the sector was also shifting and a tertiary landscape was beginning to be explored through the introduction of Scotland’s new Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework (TQEF) being introduced in colleges and universities with a focus on quality assurance and enhancement (Scottish Funding Council). The TQEF has sparked debates across the sector about a move towards a more tertiary structure in post-compulsory education.
In preparation for my conference presentation, I dissected and mapped the two professional standards, looking for differences and similarities. Not surprisingly there were few differences, and they aligned very well from the purpose outlined in the respective standards through to the different named areas or dimensions of the standards. I made the mapping available to staff at UHI to consider how their practice and professional development and algins to both standards, and our UHI Learning and Teaching Strategy Value simultaneously.
This mapping and presentation was essentially the start of defining my PhD topic (not that I realised it then) as I finished the conference presentation by asking participants:
“Would there be value to having one standards framework for learning and teaching in tertiary education in Scotland (and beyond)?”
You can access my slides through this blog.
Then the launch of the Scottish Tertiary Enhancement Programme (STEP) in 2025, which is one of the delivery mechanisms of TQEF has seen colleagues in sector collaborating on four year projects that aim to improve and enhance learning, teaching and student experience.
The mapping resource has also been adopted by some UHI Academic Partners and shared with colleagues in the sector and with the STEP project group ‘Understanding the Staff Development Landscape Required to Support Diverse Learner Journeys in the Tertiary Sector’.
PhD: Exploring the potential for an integrated set of professional standards for practitioners working in tertiary education contexts and institutions: A phenomenographic investigation
This brings us up to date! Phew it’s a lot but felt it important to set the context for the PhD topic.
This research proposal articulates the design for a qualitative methods investigation that seeks to explore and analyse the subjective experiences and perceptions of participants (staff) at UHI. The specific focus will be on those staff members who have attained both or either registration with the GTCS and/or Advance HE Fellowship. The research will analyse the experiences of staff engagement with both or either professional standards including the extent to which engagement in the GTCS Professional Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges and the Advance HE PSF for teaching and supporting learning in higher education (PSF 2011 & 2023) are robust and relevant to a tertiary context, and directly applicable to the development and enhancement of practice in such a context. For the sample that have engaged with both standards, the research will also explore participants perceptions of the extent to which the standards overlap and or complement one another as they engage in both standards as practitioners in a tertiary education context.
The expected outcomes from the research will include identifying any standards pertinent to teaching and learning in tertiary contexts that are absent or underrepresented, and presenting a proposed set of professional standards that are tertiary in their focus and pedagogically relevant to the current and evolving context of tertiary education. It is anticipated that as an outcome of the research, these could be then applied to professional recognition in a sectoral context and applied or adapted for institutional professional recognition schemes.
Advance HE (2023) Professional Standards Framework for teaching and support learning in higher education 2023. Available at: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/advance-he/PSF%202023%20-%20Screen%20Reader%20Compatible%20-%20final_1675089549.pdf (Accessed: 27 June 2024).
General Teaching Council for Scotland, College Development Network (2020) Professional Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges. Available at: 65ddfe4c3ac96772a3ad4915_GT5662~1.PDF (website-files.com) (Accessed: 27 June 2024).
Alex Walker: Academic Learning and Development: you, me and my PhD 
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