This thesis examines the tensions between the discourse of Higher Education (HE) in Britain and how the university is physically manifest. Using Bill Readings’s concept of “excellence” from The University in Ruins (1996), it critiques the corporate oriented contemporary university in an attempt to challenge its neoliberal rhetoric. The narratives and processes that support the concept of the corporatised university – whether they appear in the form of its relationship with industry, in the performative measures applied to teaching or in the situating of the student as consumer – will be examined by using the University of Leeds campus. Using archived documents, historical information and psychogeographical methodology, a poststructuralist analysis is provided of the Redbrick University campus based on its origins in the Civic University model of HE. As well as including spatial theorists from the field of urban theory and postmodern geography, the main poststructuralist thrust will be from Félix Guattari – the schizoanalysis he carried out in the institution of psychiatry and his work on molecular revolutions. The methodology will include analysis in the form of urban walking and theories about walking practices, which will include the work of the Situationist International (1957-1972). The outcome of the project appears takes the form of a discourse analysis and semiology of university representations. This thesis offers a supplementary social history of the campus and a critique of university urban development. It provides a view of the campus that is other to the typical one, demonstrating that it can be a place where people challenge conventional routes and express their desire to be creative in response to university space. This schizocartography reveals the hidden university campus and suggests that there are minoritorian politics in operation that challenge dominant discourses and how they appear spatially.

The aim of the research is to explore the nature of the student-mentor relationship within practice settings in an accelerated nursing programme and to understand the impact of the student mentor relationship on learning. Graduates are increasingly entering pre-registration nursing programmes. Research related to accelerated programmes is limited within the UK (Halkett and McLafferty, 2006). Mentorship focuses on the importance of a supportive student-mentor relationship and the need for focused time in facilitating learning. Using an instrumental case study design and a qualitative approach a convenience sample of six graduate students undertaking a postgraduate pre-registration accelerated nursing programme and eighteen mentors participated in the study over a calendar year during 2007-2008. Ethical approval was obtained. Data collection strategies involved semi-structured interviews with both students' and their mentors' over four clinical settings. Data analysis adopted an eclectic approach drawing upon Ritchie et al.'s (2003) framework analysis, Wolcott's (2001) analytical process and Stake's (1995) case study approach. Data were first scrutinised to generate key categories. The data were further explored to draw out a set of themes and issues. These themes were then re-examined in the context of the literature review to identify differences or similarities that this study highlighted. Graduate students were motivated, assertive and utilised their initiative. They were self directed in their approaches to learning and were able to quickly analyse and synthesise knowledge and consider how this linked to clinical practice. Graduates valued mentors who were able to challenge and stretch their thinking. Positive student-mentor relationships facilitated learning. The relationship between confidence, challenge and support was central to learning. A workplace which is welcoming and that supports students to engage and participate in care from an early stage of the programme encourages students to learn. The contribution that experienced knowledgeable mentors provided practice enhanced student learning.

The introduction of the competence-based NVQ framework during the late 1980s represented one of the most radical and ambitious attempts hitherto undertaken by any UK government for reforming the British vocational education and training system. While these reforms have generated an abundance of studies relating to competence-based education and training generally, by contrast, there has been only limited research into the views of employers towards adopting this approach. The aim of this thesis, therefore, is to investigate the views of employers in the coloration industry towards the potential displacement of traditional, knowledge-led qualifications by competence-based forms. This is important in view of the central position within the NVQ system that successive governments have placed employers and, de facto, employers’ bearing on its ultimate success or failure. Their views become all the more significant in the light of earlier studies, which reveal the indifference shown many UK employers’, compared with their overseas competitors, towards securing quality education and training for their employees. Combining the findings drawn from a series of interviews conducted with key training personnel with those from a questionnaire survey of employers themselves, the research attempts to gain a national perspective of the latter’s attitudes towards these and related issues. The overall findings can be seen to be a product both of the type of industry structure and the failure of the main protagonists to take account of the epistemological differences between differently acquired forms of knowledge. Most employers feel that the current examination-based system is not wholly relevant to their immediate business needs and that they would prefer to see schemes in place that focus more on their particular occupational activities (though it is evident that there is a diversity in attitude between the two main sectors of the industry (viz. colorant manufactures and colorant users) with more companies in the former sector seemingly being more tolerant of the limitations of what the education and training providers can deliver). While both sectors value a system that provides intrinsic benefits to their respective employees, it is suggested that this stance is not entirely altruistic as these benefits may also be interpreted in organisational terms. Finally, the success with NVQs reported by companies that have implemented them at the lower, operative level tends to overlook the problems created for those sections of the workforce marginalised by their introduction. Moreover, despite their evidently satisfactory implementation at this level, it appears that employers overall are reluctant to adopt the standards-based model to supplant the discipline-led provision that is currently available for their higher-level technical staff.

This study describes the writing processes of Ph. D. candidates in Fine Art Practice and Design. These disciplines are relatively new within universities and have little history of research and writing at doctoral level. Through the experience of the participants, the study illuminates the complexities and difficulties of appropriating an existing genre to fit new purposes. This study takes an academic literacies approach, derived from literacy practices. The approach views writing as a situated practice that is best observed through extended ethnographically-based engagement in sites of literacy-in-action. However, literacy practices exist in a wider context that can be understood as a network that both enables and limits local literacy practices. Among the actors maintaining the network surrounding and enmeshing the local literacy practices are a variety of discourse communities that use a multifaceted genre like the doctoral thesis to further their own purposes. The study reports on two sites of literacy-in-action, one a seminar for doctoral candidates in Fine Art Practice, and the other a seminar for candidates in Design. Each site constituted a case that was studied for over three years, looking at the difficulties that candidates faced in each site. These case studies are placed in a wider context of writing in fine art and design in order to understand the factors that shaped the texts that the candidates wrote. The study shows that, while candidates worked to assemble distinct individual and disciplinary identities in both Fine Art Practice and Design, the candidates in Fine Art Practice particularly struggled to find research methodologies and written textual forms that would adequately represent their understanding of current art practices.

This thesis explores learning for environmental decision making (EDM), from the viewpoints of what and who provide necessary support, and how and why practitioners engage in learning for EDM. Learning systems and communities of practice (CoPs) are the two main concepts used to frame and interpret the research. The empirical focus is on the experiences of practitioners involved in a UKbased Masters level course and a European research project, from a 'learning for EDM' perspective. The study draws on a range of learning and systems theories and is informed by analysis of discourses of environmental and social learning. Conducting two main inquiries – one course-based, the other project-based – proved to be an effective way of researching in the multiorganisational contexts that are characteristic of EDM. Commonalities are identified among different individuals' professional and personal learning for EDM and means of support. Leverage points are recognised where future support might usefully be deployed and design for learning focused. Three models of learning systems are developed to help explore dynamic processes of learning. These are (i) a model of interdependent levels of change (ii) an extension of Vickers' appreciative systems model and (iii) trajectory diagrams. A theoretical framework for systemic analysis of learning for EDM is also proposed, including a generic form. The study reveals the importance of the direct study of learners' perspectives, the incremental nature of social learning over time and that engagement with environmental issues is mediated by transformations that are socially negotiated. Both learning systems and CoPs perspectives highlight the interconnections and relationships of importance to learning for EDM. They also provide a means for considering practices and practitioners as a duality. The thesis concludes that both learning systems and CoPs offer 'know-how' that is required to support learning for EDM in future.

No description available.

Preceptorship has been introduced into pre registration nursing courses to facilitate student learning during periods of clinical practice. Empirical evidence to support the use of preceptorship in the UK context, however, is limited. This study aims to examine the perceptions of student nurses and illuminate their experiences of preceptorship. The purpose is to develop a theoretical understanding of the practice which illustrates the influence of preceptorship on students' learning and informs future planning. A qualitative research approach was adopted to explore and interpret student nurses' experience of preceptorship and learning in the clinical setting. Semi-structured interviews were the predominant mode of acquiring information from twenty five student nurses in one college of nursing. The principles of grounded theory were used to guide data collection and analysis in the first phase of the study. However, questions arising from the data directed the subsequent analysis towards existing theories of learning and cognitive development. A framework of explanation, based on sociocultural theories of learning, was brought to the second phase of the study. The student experience was then interpreted and the process of learning and cognitive development in practice explained within this framework. The study findings emphasise that learning to become a nurse requires access to, and participation in, the diverse practices of nursing. Preceptorship not only provides a means of sponsorship into the complex social environment of 'nursing', but also opportunity for learning through collaboration with experienced practitioners in care delivery. The process of entry, described by the students as 'fitting in', to the new cultural situation of nursing and the impact of sponsorship on learning are identified. The concept of 'guided participation' (Rogoff 1990) is used to interpret and explain the complex processes involved in learning through practice.

Social literacy research in the last two decades has described literacy in complex terms. Literacy is expressed as a social practice, as something that individual people <i>do</i>. Its meaning is accordingly both contextually and socially specific. This thesis in part considers whether such a localised understanding of literacy can be accommodated within national education policy discourses. It does so by attempting to isolate, from education and training discourses, the national role that literacy is said to play in a society. It then considers whether that role can reasonably be said to accommodate a nation's diverse literacy needs. Taking its cue from social literacy research, the thesis holds that the role that literacy is said to play in a nation is grounded within the unique socio-historical, economic and political conditions associated with that particular country. The thesis' consideration of literacy's national role is therefore restricted to post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that the role of literacy in South Africa has evolved over the past two decades in accordance with the social changes that took place in South Africa's transition towards majority rule. The view that literacy's role exists as a socially structured discourse is theoretically supported through a discussion of Pierre Bourdieu's key concepts of field, habitus and capital. These in turn underpin a methodology that uses themes of analysis - in particular 'equity' and 'growth' - to highlight the structuring tensions in terms of an exploration of key education and training reports since 1979, and current South African Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) policy. The thesis identifies several roles of adult literacy within South Africa's integrated education and training system. It concludes, however, that the current system's focus on 'outcomes' and 'skills' privileges a national 'human capital' role of literacy. It further suggests that this prioritisation risks marginalising literacy's role in redress and social transformation.

There has been extensive speculation about the lack of research utilisation in nursing but little attempt to quantify this phenomenon outside of North America. The current demands for evidence-based practice necessitate research utilisation as one element of that process. The study reported in this thesis aimed to investigate the extent to which nurses utilise research and further, to identify factors that promote and those that hinder research utilisation. The study was limited to nurses working in general medical and surgical wards. The study comprised a survey on the extent of research utilisation and potential influencing factors, and follow up interviews to explore the effect of identified influencing factors on research utilisation. Seventy three percent (680/936) of the nurses returned questionnaires to measure the level of utilisation of 14 research-based practices and assess the presence of potential influencing factors. The total mean research utilisation score for all nurses across all 14 nursing practices suggests that on average, nurses had heard of, believed in and were beginning to use the practices. Several factors were significantly associated with research utilisation including completion of higher education, studying research, reading research-based journals, surgical rather than medical nursing, the organisational culture and management style, the promotion of accountable practice, a clear strategy for research at nursing management level, hospital size and nursing skill mix. These were further explored in the interviews. The discussion of the findings focuses on those that illuminate the influence of both the individual and the organisation on research utilisation and also consider the interaction between individual practitioners and the organisation.

The motif of a '<I>closer relationship' </I>between academics and practitioners in doing research and the impetus for <I>'user engagement' </I>in different stages of social science research has become a subject of considerable interest to policy-makers over recent years and has featured in policy statements of government. Following the UK Government's 1993 White Paper, <I>Realising our Potential: A Strategy for Science, Engineering and Technology</I>, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) emphasised meeting the needs of the non-academic users of social science research and introduced a policy which enhanced funding opportunities to academics proposing to engage with an explicit agenda of collaboration. But is this initiative sufficient to realise the benefit of its proposed outcomes? Are policy-makers aware of the possibilities and limitations of <I>research collaboration</I> between academics and practitioners in practice? The aim of this qualitative study is to explore the perceptions of academics and practitioners of the process of research collaboration and to provide a better understanding of this process. Projects for study were identified from those which were on ESRC's list of funded research projects in the management discipline and which appeared to be responding to the ESRC's encouragement of collaboration between academics and non-academic users of their research. Findings from this study are presented through three cases of research collaboration between academics and practitioners, who were interviewed in their workplaces. The findings are combined with the results of supplementary interviews with academics in other management departments in British universities and policy-makers in the ESRC. Bringing the results together demonstrates how <I>research collaboration </I>works out in practice, and what the academics' and practitioners' views of research collaboration are. The findings also reveal some limitations of collaboration on both sides which need to be considered by those promoting or entering into research collaboration. In addition, this study develops a theoretical discussion of research collaboration based on existing literature of collaboration in other contexts (especially science and technology Research and Development and inter-organisational collaboration) and suggests directions for future research.