Pedagogic Research Conference 2025

The Centre for Innovation in Higher Education held its national Pedagogic Research Conference, on the theme of 'Developing Pedagogic Research Communities', on ARU's Cambridge campus on Friday 4 July 2025.

Our keynote

Our keynote was Dr Charlie Davis, Associate Professor in Higher Education, University of Nottingham. The title was (Re)imagining Academic Pathways: Navigating Careers, Community, and Belonging in Higher Education.

Watch Charlie's talk on YuJa or below.

Abstract: Idealised notions of being and becoming an academic are often characterized as progress along a mythical pipeline, starting at undergraduate level, transitioning through postgraduate studies and then on to career in research. However, such representations belie the complex career pathways many people travel, and how these impact their sense of fit in academia.

In this presentation, Charlie reflected on his experiences working across job families in different disciplinary contexts to consider what it might mean to be part of a community in HE contexts. He drew on his work using co-production of knowledge approaches to illustrate how working with participants can foster generative opportunities to create spaces of belonging.

Biography: Dr Charlie Davis is an Associate Professor in Higher Education and joined the University of Nottingham in January 2020. He is the current course leader on the Postgraduate Certificate of Higher Education (PGCHE).

Charlie started his HE career as a Learning Technologist at University of Derby in 2009. In 2015, he moved to Nottingham Trent University where he was Senior Digital Practice Advisor, and then an Academic Developer. Prior to working in Higher Education, Charlie spent eight years as a teacher, teacher educator and deputy director of studies in various EFL/ESOL roles in the Republic of Ireland, Barcelona and England.

Charlie's research focuses on inclusion and epistemic access in HE contexts, particularly by under-represented social groups. Charlie uses a range of creative narrative methods in co-production contexts to generate knowledge which can be accessed by audiences within, and beyond HE contexts. His most recent work used storytelling methods to create a series of composite web-based comics representing transitions into and through academia by academics from working-class backgrounds.

Charlie is currently co-authoring a book based on research carried out to understand the affective dimensions of becoming a new teacher in HE contexts. Future work will focus on using educational fiction approaches to understand the complexities of navigating HE cultures as a second-career academic.

Charlie is a co-convenor of the Society for Research in Higher Education (SRHE) Newer Researcher Network and a committee member of the Alliance for Working-Class Academics (AWCA).

If you have any questions, email [email protected]

Programme

9.30-10am Coffee and Arrival.

10-10.30am Welcome and PVC Address: Simon Pratt-Adams and Claire Pike (ARU).

10.30-11:30am Keynote: (Re)imagining Academic Pathways: Navigating Careers, Community, and Belonging in Higher Education, Charlie Davis (University of Nottingham).

11.30-11.45am Break.

11.45am-12.45pm Parallel Session 1:

• Paper 1a Creating 'Module Citizens': A Manifesto, Lucy Barnes (University of East Anglia);
• Paper 1b Decolonizing Pedagogic Partnerships: Reimagining student-as-partners in higher education reform, Sarah Sarfraz (ARU);
• Paper 1c Rethinking Co-creation: A new paradigm, Austin Brown (ARU).
• Paper 2a A Team Based Learning Model of Nursing Education to develop Nursing Practice, Anice Kavathekar (ARU);
• Paper 2b Sustainable Supply Chain Teaching: Measuring experiences of Sustainable Food Apps, Expos and Seminars, Shawkat Salim Rahman (ARU);
• Paper 2c The Final Word: How students reflect on collaborative experimentation in creative education, Chris Mitchell (Royal College of Art).
• Paper 3a Exploring the Impact of Generative AI use by Lecturers and Students in Undergraduate Teaching and Learning for the Development of ‘critical being/s’, in UK Higher Education, Callum Perry (University of East Anglia);
• Paper 3b Upping our Game: Why the advance of AI is a help not a hindrance in the world of learning and teaching, Daniel Berger (ARU);
• Paper 3c Gamification in Lesson Delivery: A tool for enhancing engagement among mature students or a pedagogical challenge? Ayosola Odunlami (ARU).
• Paper 4a Emotional Intelligence as a Catalyst for Entrepreneurial Resilience: Mitigating leadership-driven failure in UK startups, Amir Sharghi (ARU);
• Paper 4b Enhancing Metacognitive Skills in Primary-Age Learners: The role of university-third sector partnership in strengthening educational interventions and pedagogic research, Emily Magrath and Bilal Hazzouri (ARU);
• Paper 4c Enhancing Staff Participation in Pedagogic Research: Paths to Sustainability, Vienne Lin and Paul Lam (Chinese University of Hong Kong).
• Workshop 5 Designing for the Expert Learner, Caroline Keenan and Joskaudė Pakalkaitė (Yoshi) (University of Exeter).
• Workshop 6 The Pedagogy Action Card (PAC) Game: Collaborate to determine factors impacting student learning and develop actions to enhance your teaching practice, Jane Bartholomew (Educational Consultant).
• Workshop 7 Connecting Practitioners: How to cultivate a digital education community with a reading group, Anna Armstrong (University of London Worldwide).

12.45-1.30pm Lunch.

1.30-2.30pm Parallel Session 2:

• Paper 8a Exploring the Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy in the Relationship Between Perfectionism and Academic Procrastination, May Haidar (ARU);
• Paper 8b The Role of Executive Functioning and Motivation in Academic Procrastination among University Students, Kainat Khan (ARU);
• Paper 8c When Scientists do Fiction: How to develop student competencies through writing speculative fiction, Neil Dixon and Phillipa Calver (ARU).
• Paper 9a An Investigation into the Most Appropriate Methods of Improving Lecture Engagement for a First Year Veterinary Nursing cohort, Joanne Ashcroft (Harper Adams University);
• Paper 9b An interprofessional action research project to prepare healthcare professionals to respectfully challenge uncivil workplace behaviours, Jo Outteridge (ARU);
• Paper 9c The effects of Artificial Intelligence on Higher Education Students’ Reading Comprehension, Grammatical Ability, and Vocabulary, Maite Moya Espinosa (Universidad Europea de Madrid.
• Paper 10a Introducing the CARER–TAQDL Framework: A reflective model for responsive higher education pedagogy, Chandika Bhatta (Coventry University);
• Paper 10b Professionalism as Going beyond the Givens: Exploring meta-methodological spaces beyond education research discourse, Phil Kirkman (ARU);
• Paper 10c The Value of Residential Field Courses and Experiential Authentic Assessment in the Teaching of Professional Field Ecology Skills, Jim Littlemore and Toby Carter (ARU).
• Paper 11a Developing Pedagogic Research Community Contributors from initially impassive ‘blame-the-student’ University Teacher Identities, Suki Ekaratne (Informatics Institute of Technology, Colombo, Sri Lanka);
• Paper 11b Scholarship as Connection: Early Findings on the role of scholarly engagement in building EAP practitioner communities in UK HEIs, Gemma Peacock (University of Reading);
• Paper 11c Spheres of influence: a pedagogical tool to explore trainee teachers' professional learning, Deborah Caws (ARU).
• Workshop 12 Pedagogy with Purpose: Centring social class, collaboration and community in higher education, Stacey Mottershaw, Nadine Cavigioli and Rachael O'Connor (University of Leeds).
• Workshop 13 Conversations about Advancing and Supporting Pedagogic Research: A more connected future? Mary Beth Benbenek (University of Cambridge), Cassie Lowe (University of Cambridge), Pui Ki Patricia Kwok (University of Cambridge), Dr Paul Chin (University of Bath) and Dr Karen Kenny (University of Exeter).

2.30-3pm Book Launch – Introducing Interdisciplinary Modules in Higher Education.

3-3.15pm Break.

3:15-4pm Parallel Session 3:

• Paper 14a Designing and Developing Innovative Authentic Assessments in Legal Education, Nichola McNulty (Bath Spa University);
• Paper 14b Doctoral Vivas: Collegial exchange or inquisition? Gina Wisker (University of Bath);
• Paper 14c Salutary Lessons and Punishing Pedagogies, John Gardner (ARU).
• Paper 15a Enhancing Spiking Education: Developing a toolkit for university students, Kirsty Barron and Lata Gautam (ARU);
• Paper 15b How the Wellbeing of Social Work Students can be Promoted during Personal Development Tutor (PDT) Sessions using a Brief Assessment Tool based on Theoretical Principles, Linda Homan and Haimanot Mengsha (ARU);
• Paper 15c Investigating the Effect of ADHD on Academic Procrastination among Undergraduate Students, Aaliya Razzaq (ARU).
• Paper 16a 'Keeping us Warm': Trainee teachers' perspectives on school to university transition activities, Jenny Fogarty and Leanne Gray (ARU);
• Paper 16b (International) Life and Learning Journeys: stories to shape classroom practice, Linda Brown (ARU);
• Paper 16c Student Mentoring in Higher Education: Creating a social learning space within sport coaching and physical education, Harley-Jean Simpson and David Stephens (ARU).
• Paper 17a What are we talking about when we are talking about SoTL and Pedagogical Research? Helen Morley (University of Leeds);
• Paper 17b Generating a Research Community, Marina Franchi (London School of Economics and Political Sciences);
• Paper 17c Engaging Commuter Students through Pedagogic Research, Liz Thomas, Molly Blythe, Louis-Anton Green and Esther Wilson (University of York).
• Workshop 18 Improving Reporting in Educational Intervention Research: A hands-on workshop with the new CLOSER and CIDER checklists, Rebecca Upsher (King's College London).
• Workshop 19 Practical Approaches to Impact Evaluation in Higher Education: Using the ARU MEL Framework and Theory of Change, Bilal Hazzouri and Denise Hawkes (ARU).

4.15-4.30pm Closing plenary, Simon Pratt-Adams (ARU).