Section 6.1 Changing Role of Teaching

Arthur (2009) provides a very insightful discussion on the current change in the landscape of Higher Education. Establishing that academics are professionals (Eraut, 1994; Earley, 2004). Arthur suggests that the proliferation of management ideologies has had a detrimental impact on professionalism by promoting the ‘consumerist’ needs of students, funding agencies, and governments (Douglas and Douglas, 2006) and undermining lecturers’ own ability/tendency for professional development.

There are clear parallels between the traditional ‘professionalism’ and the managerialist ‘performativity’ with the changing emphasis on formative and summative evaluation respectively (see Section 3 for information on the Summative/Formative distinction). Some difference between these two perspectives are listed below (figure based on information from Arthur, 2009).