In the media

HORDÓSY, R. 2023. The research and teaching nexus in a post-pandemic world: Undoing inequalities and dysfunctions. BERA Blog

The pandemic exposed the vulnerability of a highly marketised English higher education system. With little government support, the fears around lost income resulted in yet more competition between institutions, without articulating ‘[the sector’s] underlying value to society’ (Jones, 2022). In this blog post (based on a paper jointly written with Emeritus Professor Monica McLean), I use the crisis of Covid-19 as a magnifying glass to look at the existing dysfunctions (see Trowler & Wareham, 2014) of the research and teaching link in England, exploring both sectoral discrepancies, and staff and student experiences.

HORDÓSY, R. 2022. How do we enable transformative university transitions? SRHE Blog

To look at what it means to become a university student and a graduate, and to understand these issues in the whole student lifecycle, it is useful to draw on experiences from before the pandemic. Using yearly interviews with 40 home, undergraduate full-time students who started their studies in 2013/2014, my research at an English northern red brick university (NRBU) focused on how students understood, and made sense of, their experiences of student life as they moved into, through, and beyond university.

CLARK, T. & HORDÓSY, R. 2019. Undergraduate experiences of the research/teaching nexus across the whole student lifecycle - Seminar at SRHE

Tom and I talked at an SRHE Academic Practice Network Event, linked to our special issue publication in Teaching in Higher Education on the research and teaching nexus. Here's are the podcasts from the event, that was entitled 'Experts, knowledge and criticality in the age of alternative facts: re-examining the contribution of higher education'

Link to PPT (event link)

CLARK, T. & HORDÓSY, R. 2019. Undergraduate experiences of the research/teaching nexus across the whole student lifecycle. SRHE Blog

Within the landscapes of higher education, the integration of research and teaching is now seen as a crucial part of ‘the student experience’. Terms such as ‘research-led’ ‘research-intensive’, ‘research-oriented’, and ‘research-based’ are frequently used in the marketing strategies of HEIs to demonstrate the prestige, status and expertise of their teaching portfolios. It is tacitly taken for granted that research necessarily enhances the experience of learning. However, given the increases in the cost of university study, the continuing emphasis on ‘graduate outcomes’, and the popular and political denigration of expertise in a post-truth society, how contemporary students are responding to the emphasis on research remains a key point of concern.

BROWN et al., 2018. Reflections on five years of widening participation research and evaluation. WonkHE Blog

We have just published a book that commemorates a half a decade of inquiry. We gather reflections on what WP can be seen to encompass, and the various methods available and utilised by those researching and evaluating in the field. The Widening Participation Research and Evaluation Unit (WPREU) was set up by the University of Sheffield in May 2012 to research and evaluate the impact of its range of widening participation (WP) activities. Over the last five years, the unit has undertaken a breadth of work, examining amongst other topics: persistent issues of access; student experience; success and progression; and financial support and student budgeting. This work, amidst an ever-changing policy landscape, has – we hope – progressed the institution’s understanding of what’s working for whom and why, whilst also feeding into and being informed by debates across the wider sector.

Details about the Sheffield Student 2013 tracking project can be found in the following chapters, some jointly written with WPREU's Greg Brown:

2.8. Research case study: Longitudinal design in understanding the whole student lifecycle
3.2. Student finance and budgeting
3.3. Paid student work
3.5. The changes in student budgets: results from the Sheffield Student 2013 longitudinal tracking project
3.6. Conclusion: Bringing it all together

J. Crockford et al. (eds). 2018. Five Years of WPREU - Critical Reflections on Evaluation, Policy and Practice in Widening Participation and Student Success. Sheffield: WPREU - The University of Sheffield. Available at: https://bit.ly/2JuxzJl

HORDÓSY, R. & BROWN, G. D. 2017. The student finance system needs shaking up – for the sake of poorer students. The Conversation

As part of our research into student experiences of funding university, we followed the second cohort of undergraduates under the tuition fee system that has been in place since 2012. We also continued our annual evaluations of available institutional financial support.

HORDÓSY, R. & CLARK, T. 2017. “Frugality” won’t solve systemic student finance problems. WonkHE Blog

Let’s take the University of Sheffield as an example, and the stories of three stereotypical new entrants starting in 2016: David, Kasim and Jessica. They are all resident students who moved into student halls for their first year – just like a majority of our undergraduates do.

HORDÓSY, R., CLARK, T. & VICKERS, D. 2015. Academic Transitions into Higher Education and Negotiating Change. BERA Blog