Teaching for Transitions: A Review of Teaching for Transitions Related Teaching and Learning Activity and Research - Focused Research Report No. 7: Part 1: A review of scholarly work and educator understanding of Pedagogies of Transition: Implications for impact

The National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning commissioned this study of scholarship that focuses on ‘Teaching for Transitions’, with particular reference to higher education in Ireland. An international element was included to allow some benchmarking with national scholarship. The question ‘how can this scholarship be more impactful on the practice of teachers in the higher education sector?’ was a key question of interest in the project. Part 1 of the study is reported here. It sets out early results and insights and makes recommendations based on investigations carried out between January and June 2015. It raises questions for further investigation. In order to address the project aim and substantive research question, a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach was taken, beginning with a desk study and enriched by focus group discussion. A systematic review of the international literature was carried out to create a bibliography. Analysis and annotation of the bibliography was followed by a systematic broadening of the search criteria and manual searching for Irish-based scholarship on ‘teaching for transitions’. The scholarship of ‘pedagogies of transition’ was taken as a focus to ensure the intentional nature of curriculum design for student development and transitions is made visible. The purpose of holding focus groups was to enrich our understanding of the impact of scholarship on practice in Ireland, and to gain insights into the potential drivers of change.

The systematic review of international scholarship uncovered >3000 papers relating to transitions in, through and out of higher education. Final exclusion criteria requiring peer reviewed journal papers refined the search and resulted in 440 papers, of which only four were Irish-based studies. This was an unexpected result, but led to a number of important conclusions and recommendations. Arising from this study initial recommendations fall under four themes: publication and systems, staff development, curriculum design and pedagogy.
In conclusion, this research, albeit time-restricted, has revealed for us as researchers, and for the wider higher education community in Ireland, that much of what we know within and amongst ourselves to be valuable scholarship is in danger of being a blind spot both to our national community and to the wider international SoTL community. We feel that this overarching finding should galvanise the wider higher education community to make visible the vital work already developed and to ensure that the ‘scholarly communication design’ ensures the widest, most international audience possible. Without this our scholarship will remain in a large part invisible to local, national and international audiences – and as such the Irish community will remain systematically voiceless in the scholarship of teaching and learning debates, dialogues and actions.