University teachers’ profession in post-pandemic hybrid higher education teaching and learning environment
Facts
- Contact person:
- Adrian Lundberg
- Financer:
-
- The Swedish Research Council
- Responsible at MaU:
- Martin Stigmar
- Project members at MaU:
- Time frame:
- 01 April 2022 - 01 April 2026
- Faculty/department:
- Research subject:
Project description
In 2020, universities were forced to instantly shift from traditional face-to-face teaching to fully digital solutions. The resulting accelerated digital transformation has put university teachers in at times uncomfortable positions, as even educators without particular competencies in digital tools and methods were involved.
More than a year into the pandemic, university teachers seem to have left their state of emergency and increased their knowledge and competence about digitalized teaching, allowing the hypothesis that post-pandemic higher education settings will be largely hybrid. The proposed project aims to capture these ongoing transformative and dynamic shifts in university teachers’ professional activity and contribute with evidence-informed recommendations for various educational stakeholders.
The project, consisting of four sub-studies, is methodologically highly innovative and inherently mixed, longitudinal and participatory. We intend to investigate university teachers' lived experiences (Q methodology), co-construct new knowledge about hybrid teaching and learning environments (research cycles) and study teachers' post-pandemic teaching practices (observations with stimulated recall interviews).
In addition, the project is informed by an ongoing literature review of newly published research about the subject matter, enabling us to make international comparisons. Theoretically, the studies are framed by activity theory and the theory of expansive learning.
Aim
The aim is to investigate what the rapid transformation into digitalized higher education means for university teachers’ sense of professional identity and professional practice.
Research questions
- How is the university educators’ profession impacted by the digitalization in higher education?
- In what way is the situation in Sweden different and similar from an international comparative perspective?
- According to university educators’ subjective point of view, how has digitalization in higher education impacted their teaching quality?
- How do university educators develop their professional competence in relation to hybrid teaching and learning environments?
- To what extent do diverse university educators enact digital competencies in hybrid teaching and learning environments?