By Martin Stigmar
Background
During the spring of 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit us all around the world, most of us had to adjust our lives in several different ways. As university teachers at Malmö University, located in the southern part of Sweden, we, like most other university staff around the world, had to quickly transform our teaching in higher education learning settings, from on campus to digitalized teaching.
The six of us, Adrian Lundberg, David Rosenlund, Marie Leijon, Annette Johnsson, Natalia Auer, and Martin Stigmar, all at Malmö University, early on decided to capture the opportunity to explore and perform research on this quick transformation. However, we needed research funding, and with the inspiration and support by Tobias Olsson, pro-dean, at Malmö University, we managed to be awarded the grant within Educational Sciences 2021 from the Swedish Research Council for four years, 2022-2026. We received the grant award email one month prior to Annette’s unexpected passing. Somewhat later, Katherine Doerr joined the project.
This blog offers all of you readers an opportunity to follow us and interact with us during our research journey. We hope you´ll enjoy our blog, an invitation to interact with us.
Aim and research questions
We have a mutual interest in teaching and learning in higher education. However, what interests most about it is the future university teacher role and how it may change post-covid. In particular, we are fascinated by how future learning environments will be organized and whether hybrid teaching/blended learning will develop and replace traditional on campus teaching
All these questions were raised, among others, and needed answers, so formally we formulated the following aim and research questions:
The aim is to investigate what the rapid transformation into digitalized higher education means for university teachers’ sense of professional identity and professional practice.
Research questions:
- How is the university educators’ profession impacted by the digitalization in higher education?
- In what way is the situation in Sweden different and similar in an international comparative perspective?
- According to university educators’ subjective point of view, how has the digitalization in higher education impacted their teaching quality?
- How do university educator develop their professional competence in relation to hybrid teaching and learning environments?
- To what extent do diverse university educators enact digital competencies in hybrid teaching and learning environments?
In four different sub-studies we intend to deliver answers to the questions above and for data collection we will need different methods.
Method
In order to answer our questions, we will use an ongoing literature study, more or less during all four years, allowing us to synergize our project with other scholars. In addition, Q methodology will be used to capture a range of different university teacher experiences during different phases of the pandemic. Finally, research cycles and observations will be applied to collect data.
We have only just started our research journey and we are excited to find answers to our questions. Do you want to come with us on our journey?
In our forthcoming blog posts, we will present more about our location, positionalities, cultural factors, sociopolitical commitments and how these may affect our theoretical framing.
Martin Stigmar, project leader