Dr Paul Ashwin

PhD Supervision Interests

I am interested in receiving PhD proposals in most areas related to knowledge, curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment in higher education, particularly those relating to students' and academics' experiences of higher education.

Profile

Before coming to Lancaster, I spent four years researching students' experiences of learning at the Institute for the Advancement of University Learning, University of Oxford and, before that, seven years implementing and researching peer learning at Newham College of Further Education.

Research Interests

My research interests are focused on teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education. My recent book 'Analysing Teaching-Learning Interactions in Higher Education' focuses on ways of conceptualising teaching-learning processes in higher education that support a consideration of both structure and agency. Following on from the work in this book, I am examining the relations between theory and method in research into higher education. I have recently completed an Economic and Social Research Council funded project looking at pedagogic quality and inequality in undergraduate Sociology degrees. This project focused on comparing the quality of teaching, learning and curricula in undergraduate sociology and allied subjects in four universities that have different reputations for the quality of the undergraduate experience that they offer. The study aimed to question the assumptions underlying these reputations through an in-depth exploration of the relations between what students bring to university, their experiences of university education and what they gain it. We investigated what is taught, why and how; and how undergraduate students' and lecturers' experience and evaluate the curriculum and the teaching and learning environment.

I am a member of the Governing Council of the Society for Research in Higher Education. I am a member of the Economic and Social Research Council's Peer Review College.

Current Teaching

I currently convene and teach the 'Researching Learning, Teaching and Assessment' module on the Doctoral Programme in Educational Research.

• HEFCE Enhancement Review Project: Future directions for Learning and Teaching Enhancement in England: institutional roles and interventions

  06/05/2013 → 01/11/2013
  This 7-month project (May to December 2013) funded by the Higher Education Academy uses primary and secondary data to review the strategies used by HEFCE to enhance learning and teaching in universiti ... Read more»

• Pedagogic quality and inequality in university first degrees

  01/11/2008 →
  The Pedagogic Quality and Inequality in University First Degrees Project was a three-year longitudinal investigation of sociology and related social science degree courses in four UK universities, whi ... Read more»

• A bad deal for 'consumers'

  17/11/2011
  Students want to be better people; current policies hinder them, argue Paul Ashwin, Andrea Abbas and Monica McLean ... Read more»

• Book Publication: Analysing Teaching-Learning Interactions in Higher Education

  25/02/2009
  Book Title: Analysing Teaching-Learning Interactions in Higher Education by Paul Ashwin Summary: Whilst current research into teaching and learning offers many insights into the experiences of academi ... Read more»

• Pedagogic quality and inequality in university first degrees

  26/11/2008
  Paul Ashwin, with Monica McLean from the University of Nottingham and Andrea Abbas, from the University of Teesside, has been awarded a large ESRC grant to examine the comparative quality of teaching ... Read more»

• New Evaluative Research in CSET

  20/11/2008
  New Evaluative Research in CSET: the Scottish Funding Council's Teaching and Learning Enhancement Strategy for Higher Education. A team from CSET (Centre for the Study of Education and Training in the ... Read more»

• Higher Education Close-Up 5

  (Organiser)
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»