Warning: Your browser doesn't support all of the features in this Web site. Please view our accessibility page for more details.

Quick Search [?]WHAT IS THIS?
Searches this and other areas of the Web site as you type. Results appear on this page.
Also searches the entire Web site (with results on a new page) if you press enter or click on 'Go'.

Research and Projects at CELT

CELT staff are actively engaged in research activities and scholarly work in the fields of teaching & learning, civic engagement and active citizenship, higher education policy, learning technologies and language learning. Funding has been obtained from a wide variety of sources including the European Commission, philanthropic trusts, the Higher Education Authority and others.

Current and recent projects include the following:

Higher Education Policy
Academic Practice
Civic Engagement and Service Learning
Creativity, Curriculum, Course Design and Approaches to Learning
Learning Technologies

Research

CELT staff are actively involved in research activity spanning a number of areas relevant to higher education policy and practice. We work in international collaborations, participate in research networks and serve as reviewers and on the editorial boards of a number of journals. We also supervise, and co-supervise, MA and PhD projects in these area.

Some of our current and recent research interests are as listed. For a more comprehensive listing of research output, visit our publications page and those of individual staff members.

(1) HE Policy

The development of evidence-based approaches to the development of institutional strategy, including work undertaken in collaboration with the Institutional Research and Quality Offices. An example of this was the piloting of an academic staff survey instrument building on previous published work and in consultation with groups in the US, UK and Australia. In part, this has led to the development of the university’s Learning, Teaching & Assessment Strategy and contributed to the identification of appropriate performance indicators and the institutional strategic plan.

Trends in national policy and HE structures, eg. Coate, K. and Mac Labhrainn. I. (2009), “Irish Higher Education and the Knowledge Economy”. In Huisman, J. (Ed) International Perspectives on the Governance of Higher Education. London: Routledge.

Gonzalez-Perez, M.-A., Mac Labhrainn, I. and McIlrath, L. (2007). "The Civic Purpose and avowed mission of Higher Education Institutions – diversity or uniformity?" International Journal on Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations, 7(2): 187-197.

Matthew, R., Radloff, A., MacLaren, I., (2006). "Leading for Learning," In Elvidge, L. (ed), " Exploring good leadership and management practice in higher education: issues of engagement", Cambridge: JRA Publishing.

Internationalisation and globalization. Recent publications, for example, include,

Coate, K. (2009) Exploring the Unknown: Levinas and International Students in English Higher Education. Journal of Education Policy. 24(3): 271-282.

Khoo, S., Healy, C. and Coate, K. (2007) Development Education and the Development of Research at Third Level in Ireland. Policy and Practice.5: 5-19.

(2) Academic Practice

Interests and publications in this area include approaches to continuing professional development such as the use of teaching portfolios and techniques to enhance reflective practice.

Murphy, T., MacLaren, I. and Flynn, S. (2009), “Toward a Summative System for the Assessment of Teaching Quality in Higher Education”, International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 20(2), 226-236

Murphy, T. and MacLaren, I. (2009), “Teaching Portfolios and the Quality Enhancement Project in Higher Education”, Educational Futures, 2(1)

Murphy, T. and MacLaren, I, (2007), “Theory and Practice in the Development of Teaching Portfolios”, in Teaching Portfolio Practice in Ireland: A Handbook, O’Farrell, C. (ed), AISHE Readings (2007-2), 86-97.

Susilowati, K. (2007), “A Study of Reflection in Online Continuing Professional Development Courses in Education,” PhD Thesis.

MacLaren, I. (2005). “New Trends in Academic Staff Development: Reflective Journals, Teaching Portfolios, Accreditation and Professional Development.” In O'Neill, G., Moore, S., McMullin, B., Emerging Issues in the Practice of University Learning and Teaching. AISHE, pp 111-118.

(3) Civic Engagement and Service Learning

NUI Galway’s Community Knowledge Initiative (CKI) is hosted within CELT and supports a wide range of practical initiatives and research projects on topics ranging from the civic purpose of universities, to service learning in the disciplines and student volunteering. Visit the CKI web pages (http://www.nuigalway.ie/cki) for a more detailed listing of publications, projects and presentations.

McIlrath, L. and Mac Labhrainn, I. (eds), “Higher Education and Civic Engagement: International Perspectives,” Ashgate Publishing, Abingdon, UK.

(4) Creativity, Curriculum, Course Design and Approaches to Learning

Our group is particularly interested in how higher education curricula are shaped and developed and what different perspectives may be available through which to re-imagine the learning process.

Coate, K. (2009) Curriculum. In Tight, M., K.H. Mok, J. Huisman and C. Morphew (Eds) The Routledge International Handbook of Higher Education. London: Routledge.

Barnett, R. and Coate, K. (2005) Engaging the Curriculum in Higher Education. Maidenhead: Open University Press and McGraw Hill Education.

Mac Labhrainn, I. (2009) “From Teaching to learning: Challenges for Academic Staff Development”, in Schneider, R., Szczyrba, B., Welbers, U. Wildt, J. (eds) Wandel der Lehr- und Lernkulturen, Bertelsmann Verlag, Bielefeld

Barrett, T., Mac Labhrainn, I., Fallon, H. (2005) " Handbook of Enquiry and Problem-based learning: Irish Case Studies and International Perspectives. Galway", AISHE and CELT, NUI, Galway. Also available online through a Creative Commons license. http://www.nuigalway.ie/celt/pblbook/

(5) Learning Technologies

CELT staff have strong professional interests and experience in the use of a range of technologies for educational purposes and have collaborated extensively in national and international collaborative projects. The Learning Technologies team take a research-oriented approach to their work and are currently involved in a number of long-term evaluation studies of the impact of particular technologies and educational strategies on undergraduate and postgraduate teaching (eg. Strategies for embedding of VLEs/CMS, video and multimedia systems, lecture-capture, personal response systems and other approaches to in-class interactivity). In addition, we have experience in reviewing and refereeing research funding applications at national and European levels (including, for example, EC Framework programmes).

Mac Labhrainn, I., MacDonald Legg, C., Schneckenberg, D., Wildt, J., (eds.)(2006)The Challenge of eCompetence in Academic Staff Development. Galway & Dortmund, ISBN 095516981X. Also available online under Creative Commons license: http://www.ecompetence.info/index.php?id=93

Susilowati, K., Boyle, E., Mac Labhrainn, I. (2004) "An Investigation of Students' Reflective Thinking in Online Discussion Fora", ALT-C (Association for Learning Technology), Exeter, UK, Sept., 2004

Mac Labhrainn, I., Susilowati, K., Boyle, E. (2004) "CPD by eLearning: the challenge of reflective practice and assessment", ALT-C (Association for Learning Technology), Exeter, UK, Sept., 2004

Mac Labhrainn, I., Booth, J., Schneckenberg, D., "Learning Technologies and Academic Staff Development: A European Perspective", ALT-C (Association for Learning Technology), Exeter, UK, Sept., 2004

Projects and activities of CELT are supported by a variety of funding bodies:

Supported by the Irish government's National Development Plan 2002-2006
The Higher Education Authority
Supported by the European Commission

Centre for Excellence in Learning & Teaching
This page was last updated Monday, November 15, 2010