The importance of workplace factors and the professional identity of academic developers

Abstract

Academic developers enter the field of academic development (AD) from various disciplines and at different stages of their careers. They bring with them their academic experiences, home disciplinary culture and presumptions about what AD is. These circumstances inform the initial professional identity for those working in what has been described as a fragmented community. Identity impacts on an individual’s prioritisation or commitment to a particular role, which in turn impacts on work outcomes. These relationships are presently poorly understood, and so we sought to find out what factors were most influential on how AD was practiced. Nineteen developers in New Zealand and Japan were interviewed about their experiences and we found that in both countries, the often-overlooked workplace factors of role, employment, and structure were important determinants that shaped identity regardless of variations on entry to the profession. Roles we observed could be more-or-less academic or service; employment types could be permanent or temporary; and workplace structure related to the AD unit as centrally positioned in the university or embedded in one of the disciplines of higher education. These factors have received very little attention in AD identity work but are clearly important determinants of how AD is constructed and practiced. We suggest that structural fragmentation has been a stable factor over decades and unlikely to change for the foreseeable future. As such, the field is currently far away from professionalisation (with common entry requirements, practices, and standards) or shared epistemologies including where its knowledge comes from.