Academics Responding to Change

Paul Trowler takes a closer look inside one British university to explore how academic staff at the ground level respond to changes in higher education. During the period of this study, there was considerable expansion in student numbers as well as the implementation of several new systems and structures, particularly those associated with the "credit framework": the constellation of features associated with the assignment of credit value to assessed learning, including modularity, franchising and the accreditation of prior learning. The text explores the nature and effects of academics' responses to these changes and develops a framework for explaining these responses. It seeks to offer insight into change in higher education and highlight some of the processes which lead to policy outcomes being rather different from the intention of the policy-makers.