Disciplinary traditions and cultures and how they influence implementation of academic professional development

Abstract

Academic professional development is an institutional tool employed to improve lecturing quality in universities. However, its effectiveness appears to be limited by academic traditions that are discipline based. The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of discipline-based research on academic professional development implementation in universities in Zimbabwe. A qualitative research design was used for this study considering that it provides rich data required to understand the problem of academic professional development. Purpose sampling was used from which 12 participants each were sampled including 2 Deans, 8 Lecturers, 1 Teaching and Learning Centre Director and 1 Vice Chancellor from each of the institutions under study. Open-ended questionnaires, focus group discussions and interviews were used to collect data. Thematic coding of interview transcriptions was employed to analyze data. The study revealed that disciplined based traditions in faculties constrained academic professional development implementation. Academic identities are heavily influenced by disciplinary research rather than scholarship of teaching while development practitioners are described as non-academic. Findings established that disciplinary conditions led to poor implementation of academic professional development programmes. It is recommended that Boyer’s model of scholarship can be used to counter lecturers’ misconceptions about academic professional development. That approach will reflect the expanded role of the academic, based on both research and teaching rather than research of the discipline alone.