Alex Walker: Academic Learning and Development: you, me and my PhD

The end of semester has been extremely busy with our bi-annual learning and teaching conference and wrapping up activities for the year. The PhD has taken a back seat as a result, although I have managed few days over the last couple of weeks on the literature review which feels like progress. The literature review does feel like walking through sand though, heavy and slow, it takes me at least a few hours to get back into a reading mindset where the words hold actual meaning and don’t just float off the page. I then hyperfocus for a few hours and if I have a break can’t get back into it – I hope I am not alone in this! On a positive note, I am learning lots and I know I wouldn’t ‘find’ the time to read at this depth unless I was studying/researching which was one of my motivations to starting the PhD. I am also thinking of how what I am reading will influence the questions that I ask and topics that I will explore, who knew there was so much to consider and explore about professionalism as a concept and what that means to staff who teach and how that then relates to professional standards. I am still excited and motivated but needing to let go of self-doubt and a little of the guilt (a healthy amount turns procrastination into action I think).

I thought that I might share something a little different but touched on in my first blog post about the research I did on my MEd led which to me starting a PhD. I have been thinking about this lately because we run an annual mentoring residential with the next one scheduled for August. I always planned to write up my research and findings into a paper which hasn’t quite happened so I will share a little here.

In 2017 I was asked to coordinate the UHI Mentoring Scheme, bringing together different strands of mentoring and adding additional strands offering one to one mentoring, and sometimes group mentoring covering learning and teaching enhancement, scholarship, research and professional recognition. I had set up and implemented mentoring for Advance HE Fellowships (then HEA) for our experiential route. I knew that I wanted to develop my knowledge, so I did an ILM mentoring and coaching qualification. I was mentoring colleagues and watching the wonderful transformative experiences that both mentees and mentors were experiencing through the scheme. I decided to focus my MEd dissertation on the experiences of mentors and mentees on the UHI Mentoring Scheme engaged in mentoring for achieving Advance HE Fellowships on the experiential route, the dissertation was titled:

A phenomenographic research study of the Professional Recognition strand of the University Mentoring Scheme at the University of the Highlands and Islands (2021/2)

The literature review highlights

The review focused on mentoring in tertiary and higher education institutions, experiences of mentoring and the power dimension, mentoring schemes and support, online and technology-enabled mentoring (important in the context of the UHI Mentoring Scheme which is a geographically distributed mentoring scheme offering mentoring across the Highlands and Islands) and mentoring for professional recognition.

A summary

The role of the mentor is both skills based and psychosocial, being both able to provide professional development support, facilitate goal setting, career guidance and offering encouragement, and listening support (Allen et al. 2004: 128; Tan 2013: 130; Kumar and Johnson 2019: 66). Formal mentoring programmes can offer clear expectations, workshops and guidance that can mitigate from partnerships failing (Hardwick 2005: 25; Nyanjom 2020) although Pleschová and McAlpine observe through a literature review that it can be debated whether formal schemes resulted in more positive outcomes than informal mentoring (2015:117).

Mentoring that operates outside of reporting and appraisal systems, and which focuses on the development of individuals rather than on a specific organisations training aims, “generates freedom for both professional and psychosocial development to occur” (Cureton, Green and Meakin 2010: 86). Within HE the challenges of career progression could influence the perceived benefit of mentoring, which should be situated within a wider framework of professional development provision (Kent, Green and Kochan 2013, Morley 2013 Treef 2013; Castanheira 2016) Furthermore, the power dynamics of both mentor and mentee pairing and within HE should be acknowledged, which empowers the mentee and develops an understanding of what constrains development or learning for the mentee (Darwin 2000, Guccione and Hutchinson 2021, Orland-Barak and Yinon 2005; Brockbank and McGill 2006) . Holding a leadership position can lead to over confidence leading to personal barriers to mentoring competency (Nyanjom 2020, Langdon et al 2016).

A number of papers explored the benefits for mentees included negotiating the HE environment and familiarisation of institutional structures, development of knowledge, pedagogic effectiveness, critical thinking, and increased confidence (Pleschová and McAlpine 2015; Castanheira 2016; Allen et al. 2004; De Janasz and Sullivan 2004). Many of the research studies also identified that through mentoring staff were connected with a wider community of peers which increases job satisfaction and mitigates against feelings of isolation (Thomas, Lunsford and Rodrigues 2015). The increased use of technology in mentoring, and of virtual or online mentoring further connects participants across geographical contexts and in the studies explored even facilitated deeper reflection and connectivity in the mentoring partnerships (Campbell 2016; Owen 2015; Walker 2020; Homitz and Berge 2008).

The benefits or impact of gaining HEA Fellowship on practice and in relation to student satisfaction was also explored through four papers. All papers highlighted that engagement with the process of achieving fellowship developed an awareness of quality enhancement and assurance, as well as evaluation processes and that in reengaged participants with scholarship and pedagogic approaches (van der Sluis, Penny and Huet 2017; van der Sluis 2021; Cathcart et al. 2021). However, some participants in the studies found the enhancement of teaching practice was limited, although others felt it had impacted on practice to some extent, and others stated that it had increased confidence and validated their experience and position with peers (van der Sluis 2021). One study did highlight that National Student Survey results did not show a negative or positive difference in the years that increased Fellowships have been sought across the UK HE sector, although acknowledged that NSS is considered contentious thorough the research that was carried out (van der Sluis 2021).

At the time of my research in 2021 the literature review highlighted a gap in research around the impact or influence that mentoring has on participants successfully achieving HEA Fellowships, which supports the need for more research in this area. One paper that was identified showed that mentoring for Fellowships could support and facilitate mentees’ reflection, pedagogic approaches and knowledge and help them to reconnect with scholarship (Botham 2018:171-72). However, if dissatisfied with the mentoring pairing some participants sought support from colleagues also seeking Fellowship as critical friends. Finally, the Botham 2018 study highlighted that being paired with a mentor in a different subject area could be beneficial in focusing the support on pedagogic approaches and knowledge of the UKPSF. A research study carried out by Beckmann (2017) exploring distributed leadership through a university UKPSF recognition scheme in Australia found that distributed leadership within their scheme was effective in nurturing collaboration and leadership capabilities across staff engaged in learning and teaching.

The research question and methodology

To what extent is participation in the Professional Recognition strand of the University of the Highlands and Islands Mentoring Scheme perceived to support professional recognition of mentees and continued professional development of mentors?

Phenomenography (in very brief)

Phenomenography was originally developed in the 1970’s, at the University of Gothenburg, to understand the student experience of learning, through a study that would come to define surface and deep learning and through subsequent research on various other dimensions of student learning (Entwistle 1997: 127). Phenomenography has become a means of establishing and understanding the qualitatively different ways the same phenomena is experienced. Marton (1981) describes phenomenography as “research which aims at description, analysis, and understanding of experiences; that is, research which is directed towards experiential description” (as cited by Barnard, McCosker and Gerber 1999: 213).

Phenomenographic research has been used extensively for analysing student experiences in HE (Yates, Partridge and Bruce 2012; Reed 2006) and in the last two decades phenomenographic research has increasingly been used to successfully understand various aspects of educators’ experiences (Akerlind 2004; Young 2006; Smyth et al. 2020)

My research

In keeping with established phenomenographic conventions the data collection for my study was conducted through semi-structured individual interviews using open ended questions with mentors (n 8) and mentees (n 9) who have been engaged through the Professional Recognition strand, achieving HEA Fellowship through the UHI institutional scheme ALPINE by submitting experiential applications. Variations of experiences were analysed across the data. Codes were grouped and regrouped until there were variations of experiences of the same phenomenon (engagement in the UHI Mentoring Scheme) which were defined by descriptive categories and then organised hierarchically from less complex to more complex. The final stage saw an Outcome Space created, which captures and gives a holistic overview of the range of ways the phenomena was approached, understood, or experienced.

The outcome space

The Outcome Space in phenomenographic research is the final output of a phenomenographic analysis and captures a holistic understanding of the variations of experiences of the research participants as articulated in the Categories of Description. For my research study one Outcome Space is presented and contains motivation to engage for both mentors and mentees, in addition to dimensions pertaining to perceptions and experiences of mentoring that emerged as common dimensions for both mentors and mentees.

Motivations to engage

*Mentors*
Intrinsic	Mentoring skills development; professional development; supporting colleagues’ development; own reflection and supporting reflection of others; communities of practice including confidence building, encouraging sharing good practice, institutional awareness, and ongoing collaborations, building a mentoring culture and community cross academic partnership.
Extrinsic	SFHEA evidence; supporting HE recognition.
*Mentees*
Intrinsic	Reflection; professional development; practice enhancement; HE development; role development; confidence; pedagogical development; formal mentoring experience; sounding board; mentor expertise; mentor to listen; communities of practice including institutional awareness; ongoing professional development and collaborations.
Extrinsic	Sector standards and HE recognition; external benchmark; accolade; promotion; job progression to other university.

Walker, A. (2022)

Perceptions and experiences of mentoring

Support provided for mentoring	*Enabling factors*
Clarity of documentation and process	Documentation and criteria (fellowship); mentoring code of practice (mentoring role responsibilities).
Managing pairing and expectations	Pairing mentors and mentees; outlining expectations and timelines.
Mentoring agreement/contract	Mentoring agreement contract and expectations; timelines and structure.
Effectiveness of technology enabled mentoring	*Enabling factors*
Role modelling	Learning technologies; staff digital literacy.
Multi-modality	Document and link sharing; multiple technology options to engage.
Communities of practice	*Enabling factors*
Collaboration and connectivity	Cross academic partnership collaboration and support; mitigation against isolation; identifying strengths and confidence building.
Extrinsic support to engage	*Enabling factors*
Colleagues	Encouragement to engage; peer support and motivation.
Mentor relationship	Listening; reflecting; sounding board and advice; psychological support e.g., confidence building and motivation; institutional structures and awareness raising; rapport building and confidentiality.
Intrinsic challenges pertaining to engagement to mentoring	*Challenges to engage*
Workload and/or time commitment	Additional commitment beyond role in relation to both mentoring and application writing.
Confidence	Role; expertise and knowledge; career stage; professional and personal identity.
Extrinsic challenges pertaining to engagement to mentoring	*Priorities and value*
Academic partner and or university	College priorities FE focused; lack of value of HE recognition; lack of recognition/celebration of mentoring role and/or fellowship; lack of awareness and promotion of the scheme.
Technology enabled collaborations	*Collaboration*
Shared online spaces	Utilising technology for real time working/sharing; synchronous tools e.g. chat space; sharing documents and resources.
Mentoring development	*Future enablers*
Mentoring skills	Giving feedback; rationale and increased understanding the mentoring contract; transitional support mentee to mentor.
Marketing and promotion	*Visibility*
Awareness raising	Positive testimonials; senior level promotion of the scheme and increased marketing; utilising online spaces to market the scheme.
Managing expectations	Promoting expectations in relation to time commitment.
Support to engage	*Value*
Academic Partner	Academic partner/line manager encouragement to engage; timetabling; recognition of achievement; increased acknowledgement of mentoring as recognised as cross-partnership benefit.
University	Increased acknowledgement of HEA Fellowships as HE benchmark – sectorial; Promoting student confidence in quality of provision; providing sector confidence in UHI quality of provision; celebration.

Walker, A. (2022)

DISCUSSION

The Outcome Space outlines a number of enabling factors that support the success and mitigate against the failure of mentoring partnerships. Through doing this, the Outcome Space could be of potential interest to others running or considering setting up mentoring schemes for professional development and recognition.

Less prominent through the literature, and of potential benefit in the move to online and hybrid approaches to professional development and recognition, were the identification of factors around technology enabled approaches and the use of institutional learning and teaching technology in mentoring. Sector education institutions/teams could potentially use the Outcome Space to consider how to design effective approaches to online professional development and mentoring through technology that encourage role-modelling and harnesses multi-modality. This could be of potential benefit to the increased digital skills of staff who might then use these skills in learning and teaching practice with students. Furthermore, consideration of the ways in which technology role-modelling can be incorporated into programmes of study that develop pedagogic approaches to learning and teaching, such as formal teacher education programmes, could be of potential value to programme design.

There are currently few studies on professional recognition mentoring for HEA Fellowships, particularly in federated, tertiary and geographically distributed institutions. Therefore, the Outcome Space and associated research could help with considerations around the perceptions and value placed on HE recognition in institutions with conflicting priorities, and how this can influence the confidence of staff engaged in HE practices and recognition. Related to this, the way in which HEA Fellowship and mentoring for professional development and recognition is seen to be valued and promoted.

Colleagues seeking to evaluate or undertake research into mentoring for professional recognition might use the Outcome Space to make decisions about what they might seek to research and evaluate to enhance mentoring programmes, including around the support to engage; the value placed on mentoring and recognition; technology enabled approaches; confidence dimensions in relation to professional role and mentoring competencies; and benefits of mentoring and recognition.

Concluding thoughts

I still hope that I might find time to formally write some of the research up but hope this blog might be useful.

This academic year a priority for myself and the team has been to align the mentoring scheme and developmental opportunities with the SEDA-PDF so that we can offer colleagues the opportunity to apply for and be awarded the SEDA Mentoring and Coaching Award. We found out last month the accreditation had been successful with no recommendations and are delighted to be able to offer the award from semester one next year! The knowledge I have gained through study and research meant that I had the confidence to design a learning pathway for mentors on the scheme even before we began the accreditation process. This meant we had an established and evidence-based pathway that we could formally align to SEDA-PDF. Having done my research study and engaged with phenomenography for the first time means that going into the PhD this method feels familiar, although I still have so much to learn and understand.

It is interesting how our own developmental journeys weave and wander through different aspects of our practice and it’s a moment of reflection and joy to think about what has come from tentatively completing one module to a whole MEd and starting the PhD, though the UHI Mentoring Scheme, SEDA accreditation and Advance HE Fellowship mentoring.

References

Akerlind, G. (2018) ‘What Future for Phenomengraphic Research? On Continuity and Development in the Phenomongraphy and Variation Theory Research Tradition’. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 62(2), 949-958. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2017.1324899.

Barnard, A., McCosker, H., Gerber, R. (1999) ‘Phenomenography: A Qualitative Research Approach for Exploring Understanding in Health Care’. Qualitative Health Research 9(2), 212-226. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/104973299129121794.

Botham, K. (2018) ‘The perceived impact on academics’ teaching practice of engaging with a higher education institution’s CPD scheme’. Innovations in Education and Teaching International 55(2), 164-175. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2017.1371056.

Brockbank, A., McGill, I. (2006) Facilitating Reflective Learning through Mentoring & Coaching. Great Britain and United States: Kogan Page Limited

Bryman, A. (2016) Social Research Methods 5th edition. United States of America: Oxford University Press

Campbell, A. (2016) ‘Talking Point – Flexible Targeted Online Staff Development that Works’. Journal of Interactive Media in Education 1(3), 1–10. doi: http://doi.org/10.5334/jime.395.

Entwistle, N. (1997) ‘Introduction: Phenomenography in Higher Education’. Higher Education Research & Development 16(2), 127-134. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/0729436970160202.

Guccione, K., Hutchinson, S. (2021) ‘Coaching and Mentoring for Academic Development’. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited

Homitz, D.J., Berge, Z.L. (2008) ‘Using e-mentoring to sustain distance training and education’. The Learning Organization 15(4), 326-355. doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/09696470810879574.

Owen, H. D. (2015) ‘Making the most of mobility: virtual mentoring and education practitioner professional development’. Research in Learning Technology 23. doi:https://doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v23.25566.

Reed, B. (2006) ‘Phenomenography as a way to research the understanding by students of technical concepts’. Technological Innovation and Sustainability 1-11.

Sluis, van der, H. (2021) ‘Frankly, as far as I can see, it has very little to do with teaching’. Exploring academics’ perceptions of the HEA Fellowships’. Professional Development in Education’, 1- 14. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2021.1876153

Sluis, van der, H., Burden, P., Huet, I. (2017) ‘Retrospection and reflection: The emerging influence of an institutional professional recognition scheme on professional development and academic practice in a UK university’. Innovations in Education and Teaching International 54(2), 126-134. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2016.1273790

Smyth, K., Rennie, F., Davies, G., Tobgay, S., (2020) ‘Transnational collaboration in building educational research capacity in a new university: An applied phenomenographic investigation’. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice 8(2), 39-49.

Walker, A. (2020) Establishing collaborative ways of mentoring: Digitally enabled and transnational approaches within distributed universities. In: Rennie, F. (ed.) Bhutan: Ways of Learning and Teaching. eTIPS. 45-73.

Yates, C., Partridge, H., Bruce, C. (2012) ‘Exploring information experiences through phenomenography’. Library and Information Research 36(112), 96-119.doi: doi: https://doi.org/10.29173/lirg496.

Young, P. (2006) ‘Out of balance: lecturers’ perceptions of differential status and rewards in relation to teaching and research’. Teaching in Higher Education 11(2), 191-202. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510500527727.

I had the opportunity today to present my ideas and research plans with colleagues in the Scottish Advance HE Principal Fellow Network. I joined the network a few years ago after achieving my PFHEA for strategic leadership in academic development and when I was invited onto the network as all new PFs are, I was a little nervous and worried I would feel like an imposter. I started attending and was so glad that I did, it is always incredibly valuable and such a supportive group of colleagues, and I try to attend as many as I can. If you have your PFHEA and work in Scotland I would encourage you to go along, the network rotates different topics with presentations from colleagues in the network and the discussions are always so interesting and fruitful – even when not in your own direct areas of practice.

In the meetings we often spend time reflecting on identity and values, both professionally and personally so I started the presentation by sharing a little more about my journey, not to dissimilar to my first blog: My learning journey: from there to here – Alex Walker: Academic Learning and Development: you, me and my PhD

I spoke about Broc dog, obviously.

Broc dog

Tertiary education

I then moved onto sharing what I am exploring in the PhD and what I have been reading, discovering, and reflecting on around tertiary-ness. I shared some of what I had found and how that aligned to my own understanding, or lack of understanding around tertiary-ness and how it is defined or described. The presentation allowed us to go beyond what we already know, in particular that tertiary is generally accepted as being post compulsory education.

I explained that I ‘cast my net’ beyond the Scottish sector as I begin to draft the literature review and that some papers and opinion pieces had resonated with my own grappling with tertiary-ness and identity and importantly that learning takes places in many spaces outwith colleges and universities.

Image by chanwit whanset from Pixabay

Morris explores tertiary education in response to the possibility of the introduction of tertiary education reforms in England and states that “although the term tertiary education is being used with increasing frequency, the people proposing this way forward rarely define what they mean by the term” (Morris, 2024 p123).

This is also reflected by Hazelkorn (2023) who explores tertiary-ness through the lens of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and states that many countries are reframing policy discussion around tertiary education but poses the question of “what is meant by a tertiary education system?” and ‘what do we want to achieve?’

Limb and Pheonix (2024) explore tertiary-ness in Britain in recent years in response to increasing policy focus on tertiary education, but claims… “What we are still lacking, however, is a clear consensus about what, exactly, tertiary education is…”

As I presented the chat space pinged with colleagues resonating with this quote particularly as in Scotland, we move into a tertiary space in quality and enhancement and in increasing areas of practice.

“Care needs to be taken that we are not simply engaged in ‘tertiary-washing’ – in other words, calling something tertiary which is really about university-level education”. (Hazelkorn, E. and Locke, W. 2023 p124)

I acknowledged that UHI although a tertiary institution has also grappled with tertiary-ness and drew attention to our position at UHI around tertiary education, highlighting a blog that was authored by the UHI Learning and Teaching Conference (2020) keynote speaker What do we mean by ‘tertiary’ and why does it matter

The areas that I explored inline with the keynote blog and the developments in Scotland since it was written were around:
- Quality and enhancement
- Funding
- Professional Standards
To explore quality and funding I drew attention to:

The Coherence and Sustainability: the SFC review of tertiary education and research (published June 2021), the SFC being tasked by Scottish Government Ministers to review tertiary education and research and make recommendations to ensure good quality and sustainable research and education in Scotland. We spoke how this review and the subsequent introduction of Scotland’s Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework (TQEF) which was launched in colleges and universities in July 2024 was for many of us in the Scottish Education sector when we began to see a shift toward tertiary.

I spoke briefly about funding, through The Withers Review again commissioned by the Scottish Government in 2022 and published in June 2023 and the SFC response to the report recommendations to move toward a single funding body, bringing functions from the SFC (Scottish Funding Council), SDS (Skills Development Scotland) and, potentially, the SAAS (Student Awards Agency Scotland) together.”

I highlighted a paper that I have found useful in tying all these reports and reviews together and in considering tertiary education in Scotland, written by Derek Robertson (2025), who states:

“…an evolutionary and incremental rather than revolutionary approach towards greater integration of post-compulsory provision within Scotland.” (Robertson 2025:107)

Academic Practice Development

I then moved onto more familiar territory, exploring how through academic development and as a strategic leader, with the Academic Practice Development team and wider collaborators we aim to be tertiary in our development offering at UHI. This includes ensuring that what is being offered is informed by colleagues across our UHI Partnership. Some examples that include:
- UHI Staff Mentoring Scheme Advocates: amazing colleagues in the UHI Partner colleges that champion the mentoring scheme and support us to ensure that the scheme is appropriate and representative of the diversity of our staff body at UHI.
- Learning, Teaching and Student Experience conference organising group, for each conference we do we aim to have representatives across the UHI Partnership and the Higher and Island Student Association (HISA).
- UHI Staff Development Group set up in collaboration with UHI Inverness and UHI Perth and with representatives from across the partnership we meet bi-monthly to explore priorities for organisational and academic development and share opportunities and identify collaborative projects.
- LTA Connect Series: a long running lunchtime webinar series that shares good practice- with internal and external voices and using tertiary frameworks like the Student Learning Experience (SLE) model to celebrate practice at and beyond UHI in Further and Higher Education.
- Expanding professional recognition beyond Advance HE Fellowship and Awards to support colleagues to gain recognitions in learning technologies and hopefully (fingers crossed) in mentoring across FE and HE.
I highlighted how we support colleagues to consider how their professional development aligns with professional standards by mapping much of our offering to both the General Teaching Council for Scotland’s Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges and the Advance HE Professional Standards Framework and the UHI Learning and Teaching Strategy Values which is tertiary strategy with 10 values that all students at UHI should experience at some stage of their learning at UHI.

Professional Standards in a Tertiary Institution

I explored professional standards and the complexities of UHI engagement in both registration with the GTCS and with Advance HE Fellowships. I won’t explore that here because it largely is captured in my second blog: And so it begins…(officially): My PhD topic – Exploring the potential for an integrated set of professional standards for practitioners working in tertiary education contexts and institutions: a phenomenographic investigation – Alex Walker: Academic Learning and Development: you, me and my PhD

What concluded the meeting was wonderful conversations that explored the presentation themes and in particular tertiary-ness. Colleagues were generous with their suggestions and pointers on the research and I value everyone’s contributions.

As always colleagues in the network were warm, supportive and the discussions were rich and thought provoking. I look forward to the next one!

I have share my slides here.

PFHEA presentation slides_tertiary_AW Download

Hazelkorn, E. and Locke, W. (2023) “Researching tertiary education ecosystems,” Policy Reviews in Higher Education, 7(2), pp. 123–126. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/23322969.2023.2235647.

Hazelkorn, E. 2023. “We Need a Dynamic New Model for Post-secondary Education.” University World News, 20thJune. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20230620120848977. Accessed 28 March 2026.

Limb & Phoenix. 2024. “What do we mean by tertiary education?”. Universities UK. https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/latest/insights-and-analysis/what-do-we-mean-tertiary-education. Accessed 15 May 2026

Morris, H. (2024) “What is meant by the term tertiary education? Past developments and recent activity,” Policy Reviews in Higher Education, 8(2), pp. 122–145. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/23322969.2024.2383602.

Robertson, D.J. (2025) “What is college education for? Institutional purpose in tertiary education in Scotland,” Policy Reviews in Higher Education, pp. 1–29. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/23322969.2025.2587954.
Ah the literature review, important, yup. Also mindboggling at the start, the literature-verse seems so vast, where to start, search terms…procrastination. For a creative structure and organisation are a little challenging, I start with a nice table detailing each paper I find, it’s usefulness and search terms, referencing. However, over the last few weeks this became the focus and I wrote…. nothing. I took a book out the library on literature review and haven’t read it – doh. I did think a lot though and that still counts.

Today I decided to abandon my table and just allow myself to go down a rabbit hole, just a small one but one that meant I wrote a massive 347 words. Well, okay, not massive but significant in my motivation to allow organisational abandonment in favour of going off-piste and take a little rocket into the world of policy, tertiary beginnings and the shifting landscape of quality in further and higher education toward an integrated model. I even used RefWorks, kinnda. I liked this a lot:

“although the term tertiary education is being used with increasing frequency, the people proposing this way forward rarely define what they mean by the term, nor do they specify the form that tertiary education might take in the nations and regions of the UK.” (Morris 2024: 123)

Morris, H. (2024) “What is meant by the term tertiary education? Past developments and recent activity,” Policy Reviews in Higher Education, 8(2), pp. 122–145. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/23322969.2024.2383602.

I think about tertiary-ness a lot, and what it actually means. Not in relation to model of tertiary education but in relation to those who practice in it. If working in further education, do you consider yourself tertiary? In higher education do you consider yourself tertiary? At UHI how do we define ourselves? not as an institution but as educators? I popped a proposal into our UHI Learning and Teaching Conference happening in the summer. I think for my research to be able to consider professional standards in a tertiary context we need to understand what it means to be tertiary, really. This is the title of my proposed presentation ‘Future proofing for the move towards a T’. It wasn’t until my colleague collated all the (34!) proposals to send around the organising group that I realised I couldn’t think of a catchy title so was going to go back to it and forgot! I quite like it though, who doesn’t love a cup of tea.

The presentation plans to explore participants’ understanding of what it means to be tertiary through the lens of the student journey and expectations, professional standards and participants’ own professional values.

I have a feeling it might raise more questions than answers.

So today feels like a win, a small one. If like me and you need to read every word to process meaning, or your inner monologue takes you off into the world of news, dinner or movie night with the kids before you realise you are reading words but not taking them in. Or if you are just trying to find your way in literature-verse and can’t quite imagine how it’s all going to come together then you are not alone. And it’s gonna be alright huh?
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.
1. 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.
2. 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.

Photo by Mohamed Elshiekh

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

Photo by Rakicevic Nenad

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

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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).
From there

I tried really hard at secondary school. My Head Teacher called me into his office just before my GCSEs. I thought it was going to be a motivational conversation congratulating me on my hard work. Instead it was a talk that outlined how I was an average student with average grades and if I just tried harder and got better results than predicted I would be helping the school. This didn’t motivate and I didn’t try harder, I left deflated and never forgot that feeling. I got the grades I needed in the subjects I was alright at and went to college to do A Levels. Turns out that A Levels are very hard, or they were for me. Luckily perhaps, my parents decided to move us to Scotland after the first year, I completed two qualifications in that year in England. I retook GCSE maths – had a great teacher who knew why we were all there and made it as simple as he possibly could so that we could pass – I got a C. I also took Philosophy, I hated that class because the teacher made us read out load, I was and still am a slow reader. I took the exam and failed, I didn’t mind.

Back to school

In Scotland I was enrolled back into secondary school to do Highers. This was where I ‘cracked the code’. And what I mean is I became really good at memorising script (should have been an actor) and regurgitating it in written exams. Authentic assessment was not a thing. I forgot everything within a week of the exams and learned very little but got good grades. I did love art though and I was good at it without having to try really hard so I made plans to go to Art School.

Degree

Art school wasn’t the experience I was hoping for. The teachers didn’t seem to like what I was producing and I found the pace slow and boring. In second year I quit but after 2-3 months working in retail, I was called into the art school for a discussion (oops forgot to tell them I had quit). It was a good meeting and I agreed to come back for the last month of the year. I did all my work in that month and got the best grade so far – fast pace, short deadline – I was in my element. I still didn’t enjoy it but I was motivated to get an Hons Degree and to spend time with amazing friends that I met there. I produced art work that the teachers didn’t hate (although I didn’t love), won an award and swapped my artistic integrity for a 2:1. I graduated and never painted in the style I did at art school ever again (see images – what I painted at art school and the style that is authentically me). I do still paint occasionally but for me and in a style I enjoy, the image on the right below my most recent.

Masters

Fast forward a few (quite a few) years I found myself at the University of the Highlands and Islands in 2016. I had moved with my family to Ross-shire and did a ‘side-step’ coming from a coordinator role at the University of Aberdeen into a coordinator role within the Learning and Teaching Academy at UHI. At UHI I took opportunities offered to build and develop my role and my experience and skills, progressing from Coordinator to Lead and latterly to a Head role in Academic Practice Development. Early on in this progression it was suggested that a PgCert in Tertiary and Higher Education could be an important learning opportunity that would develop my knowledge and skills. I was reluctant, my learning journey so far hadn’t been smooth and the thought of returning to study after so long was scary. My children were also quite young and had their own needs, I spent a lot of time chasing my wee boy about the village as he fled any uncomfortable situation (if you know you know). I agreed to do the first module, I tried hard (obvs), didn’t get a great grade (pass/fail anyone?) but continued on. My grades on the modules steadily improved and I found that I was applying my learning to my work, and then I did my research dissertation module. I loved doing the research, speaking to people, analysing the data and producing some findings. I felt in my element and got a distinction.

To here: PhD

The dissertation module had sparked an interest in research and a belief that perhaps I could do alright in academia. The time wasn’t quite right for a PhD though. My dissertation research was in relation to the UHI Mentoring Scheme for staff. I was coordinating the scheme and having no previous experience in formal mentoring, the research and associated reading offered me the opportunity to really develop my knowledge on the theory and practice of mentoring in education. However I lacked the practical knowledge and application and felt to be authentic in my role and to lead and support the scheme I needed this. I started an ILM qualification in coaching and mentoring. In shear volume of work and commitment it exceeded the Masters study but after a couple of years I completed it and it was invaluable to my role. Prior to the qualification I was considering a PhD in a related area of research because I loved and still love mentoring but between the MEd and the ILM qualification I felt I had ‘scratched that itch’. I had spoken to colleagues and friends over the years who advised to choose a subject I’m passionate about and that would keep my interest for the duration of the research. At this same time the challenges in FE and HE meant ongoing challenges and changes at UHI, at home we were seeking assessments for neurodiversity for the kids and supporting them through their own learning journeys at school. The time never felt quite right and a PhD topic alluded me.

Then two things happened one professional and one personal (not at the same time). The sector started to consider tertiary-ness and I started to consider professional identity at UHI. This was sparked originally from my MEd dissertation research with an emerging theme around identity in our tertiary context and in relation to professional standards. I presented a session at our bi-annual learning and teaching conference in 2023 that explored identity in the context of the PSF 2023 and the Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges. I followed this with a blog ‘Professional Identity: Standards and Recognitions in the Changing Landscape of Tertiary Education: Re-imagining GTCS and Advance HE Fellowships‘. My PhD topic was born. But that was two years ago and I didn’t progress the idea as ongoing work and life challenges continued.

Then tertiary-ness ramped up in the sector with the Tertiary Quality Enhancement Review (TQER) and Scotland’s Tertiary Enhancement Programme (STEP). It started to feel like now or never for this topic.

Then in March this year my dad died. I don’t know exactly why this was significant in my decision to submit a PhD proposal only that it was and perhaps a post for another time or just for myself.

So I submitted my proposal to UHI which was accepted this week. I start in January and have a supervisory team with colleagues that I greatly respect and look forward to working with and learning from. I feel motivated and excited to get started.

Why?

I am not sure why this is my first blog post on this personal site. Perhaps because I needed to write it down, or perhaps to share that not all learning journeys are smooth and linear. Perhaps to show that career progression isn’t always obvious or planned (I remember asking what pedagogy was when I started at Aberdeen Uni and what PGR stood for). Perhaps to invite you on this journey with me. Perhaps my PhD journey will not be smooth, perhaps I will not reach the end but I will try hard like I have done throughout my learning journey. Feck the naysayers and stick with those who inspire you, find something you love to motivate you in work and in learning, and don’t worry about failing or finishing, just starting. Be kind to others on their journey.