Whitlock, Will C.; (2012) Learning and teaching strategy in higher education : views of the University of Westminster coordinators on the implementation of the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund Initiative. Doctoral thesis , Institute of Education, University of London.

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Abstract

It was Dearing's Inquiry into HE (1997) that first noted that many universities did not have a learning and teaching strategy (LTS). The resultant HEFCE funded initiative for teaching quality enhancement (TQEF) required universities to develop and implement an LTS. This thesis concerns the development and implementation of the LTS at the University of Westminster from 2001 to 2009, the period of funding. More particularly, this thesis exams the perspective of the learning and teaching coordinators (LTCs) from each of the academic Schools of the University. The LTCs were charged with the management of the implementation of the LTS and teaching quality enhancement change in the institution. This inquiry considers the LTCs views of the nature and implementation of the LTS. The thesis explores the practice of strategy formulation and develops a model of efficient permissive policy and strategy implementation. Responses to the LTS in interviews of the LTCs provide rich perspectives on the professional approach to teaching. The developed LTS Change Model identifies three categories of response labelled as Champions, Adopters and Resistors amongst the LTCs that act as proxies for the wider response of staff across the University. The evaluation of these perspectives demonstrate that the enhancements in learning and teaching evident were not due to any detailed action plan based on the LTS but to a cultural shift in learning and teaching. Modifying the gains in this cultural shift, additional to ineffective strategy formulation and the resistance to change in general, was the nature of academic leadership in the Schools. Despite these negative influences, the recognition and value of teaching in higher education and the facilitation of communities of practice have been the primary cultural shift changes that have brought about a more open and effective approach to teaching quality enhancement.

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