Loughborough University
Browse
Croft_Senior Management Perspectives Submission - FINAL SUBMITTED.pdf (83.84 kB)

Senior management perspectives of mathematics and statistics support in higher education: moving to an ‘ecological’ approach

Download (83.84 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2016-08-15, 12:23 authored by Helen MacKenzie, Harry Tolley, Tony Croft, Michael Grove, Duncan Lawson
© 2016 Association for Tertiary Education Management and the LH Martin Institute for Tertiary Education Leadership and ManagementThis article explores the perspectives of three senior managers in higher education institutions in England regarding their mathematics and statistics support provision. It does so by means of a qualitative case study that draws upon the writing of Ronald Barnett about the identity of an ‘ecological’ university, along with metaphors associated with the notion of organisations as living ‘organisms’, suggested by Gareth Morgan. Using these ideas as a heuristic sheds light upon the view that whilst outwardly universities appear to represent a uniform landscape, mathematics and statistics support alternatively, can be seen as different ‘species’ within the higher education system. The study illustrates how three universities occupying contrasting ecological ‘niches’ are responding to the challenges they face by providing and planning different forms of learning support for mathematics and statistics. In conclusion, it is recommended that senior managers reflect upon the possibilities offered by the idea of ‘ecological’ identities in order to explore how they might respond strategically to a rapidly changing environment. This includes adapting various solutions and the further development of innovative ways of supporting students’ transitions throughout the academic lifecycle. In addition, an ecological approach could also aid the formation of the co-creational relationships and networks required for the future success of those developments.

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Mathematics Education Centre

Published in

Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management

Pages

1 - 12

Citation

MACKENZIE, H. ...et al., 2016. Senior management perspectives of mathematics and statistics support in higher education: moving to an ‘ecological’ approach. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 38(5), pp. 550-561.

Publisher

© Taylor & Francis

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2016-06-19

Notes

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management on 19 June 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1360080X.2016.1196932.

ISSN

1360-080X

eISSN

1469-9508

Language

  • en

Usage metrics

    Loughborough Publications

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC