Opening the space of variation and learning during teaching: the importance of research to discipline-based expertise

Abstract

This article draws on theoretical and research-based analysis to elaborate on the linkage between teaching and research in higher education. By employing the perspective of variation theory and taking a phenomenographic approach to analysis, we describe the qualitatively different ways in which university teachers experience the phenomenon of expertise in their disciplines. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 university teachers from two higher education institutions in the UK. A range of ways of understanding expertise was constituted in the form of three qualitatively different categories of description. These show varying focus on the experience from expertise as the ability to impart facts and transfer knowledge; expertise as experience in a field and knowing how to do something; and expertise as developing holistic understanding and the ability to think in certain ways. Key aspects of variation in focus across the categories emerged through two themes: the role of experts in learning and how experts attend to knowledge. The empirical relations between the ways of experiencing the phenomenon were explored to provide insight into university teachers' beliefs about ways of knowing in their discipline and the implications for the openness of the space of variation and learning created during teaching.