leadership for learning in higher education: the student perspective

Article

Leadership for Learning inHigher Education: TheStudent Perspective

Debbie Richards

AbstractWhile leadership has been considered in the higher education (HE) sector, including leadership inlearning and teaching (L&T), there is an absence of studies that consider the viewpoint of perhapsthe key stakeholder—the student. In this article, the student perspective is gained through anonline survey containing questions based on the general leadership literature and the HE literaturefrom the academic viewpoint. The survey seeks to explore how student attitudes compare tothose of academics concerning what defines a leader for learning and what competencies andcapabilities are considered relevant for L&T leaders by those being led to learn.

Keywordsacademic leadership for learning, higher education, student perspective

Introduction

Though the majority of leadership studies consider the context of the business enterprise or

organizations in general, there is a substantial body of work on leadership in education some of

which is specific to learning and teaching (L&T) within the higher education (HE) sector.

Leadership for learning in HE is the focus of this article. A major distinguishing feature between

school-based educational leaders and HE academics is that for the former teaching is core and

central to the whole institution and every activity must further that goal. In the case of the latter,

teaching is only one of the university’s core businesses (Middlehurst, 1993) and only one of the

ways in which scholarship is exercised (Boyer, 1990).

Teaching involves numerous stakeholders. Studies that have considered leaders in L&T have

tended to focus on two main leadership roles: head of department (for example, Knight and

Trowler, 2001) or department chair (for example, Wolverton et al., 2005), particularly for provid-

ing a culture in which good teaching is valued and rewarded; and chief executive such as the vice

chancellor (for example, Bargh et al., 2000) also for setting the vision and environment in which

teaching improvements can occur. A predominance of studies concerning these two particular roles

Corresponding author:

Debbie Richards, Department of Computing, Faculty of Science, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia

Email: [email protected]

Educational ManagementAdministration & Leadership40(1) 84–108ª The Author(s) 2011Reprints and permission:sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/1741143211420617emal.sagepub.com

begs the question of whether leadership for learning can be said to exist outside of these formal

roles and, if so, how can it be identified and nurtured for the benefit of all. Some studies have

sought to understand leadership for learning from the wider academic perspective (for example,

Ramsden, 1998; Scott et al., 2008). Others (for example, Lizzio et al., 2002) have considered how

students’ perceptions of the learning environment impacted their learning. However, I could not

find any studies in which students expressed their attitudes on L&T leadership and how it may

affect their learning. Consideration of the academic viewpoint within the literature is understand-

able as leaders for learning would be expected to be leaders of other teachers. However, it is also

reasonable to consider whether leaders for learning are leaders of learners, that is, the students.

When it comes to leadership for learning the viewpoint of the student has not been considered

(Marshall et al., 2007). This study seeks to address this gap.

The key aim of the study is to define what leadership in learning constitutes from the student

viewpoint. The student perspective is gained via an online survey containing questions based on

the leadership and HE literature. The survey seeks to explore how student attitudes compare to

those of academics concerning what defines a leader for learning and what competencies and

capabilities are relevant for L&T leaders. Given that only 2 of the 54 respondents did not agree

that seeing their teacher as a leader improved their learning and increased their engagement, under-

standing leadership for learning from the student viewpoint is more than an academic exercise; it is

a student-centred teaching strategy.

The Approach—Introducing and Testing the Theory

It is common in studies found in the HE leadership literature to use data gathering techniques such

as interviews, focus groups and surveys. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Individual

interviews are time-consuming and require considerable cost and effort to transcribe and analyse.

Focus groups are even more difficult to coordinate due to time constraints of the participants. Both

interviews and focus groups tend to produce qualitative data and while highly valuable for initial

understanding of the cohort’s issues on which to base survey questions, this was not our goal.

Given that a body of work existed on leadership for learning in HE this study seeks to determine

how well the attitudes and experiences of academics and/or leaders in HE as expressed in the lit-

erature resonated with students, the followers you might say. To reach a larger number of potential

subjects and provide an easily accessible means of participation, we chose to develop an online

survey. Within our survey, we also sought to include an alternative and occasionally used approach

(for example, Anderson et al., 2004; Aziz et al., 2005) asking participants to identify a ‘critical’

event that they considered to be something significant in their experience of L&T leadership to-

date.

Furthermore, as an exploratory study the survey seeks to compare student views of leadership

for learning with what the general leadership literature has to say. For the purposes of this article to

facilitate analysis, minimize randomization and self-selection bias, the data presented in the third

section belongs to a coherent cohort of students, namely 54 Year 3 computing students engaged in

a year-long, group-based project unit. While the unit undertaken by the students is not directly

related to the analysis of the results, a description of the unit obtained via discussion with the con-

venor in charge is provided to enrich the context for the reader.

In the following subsections I first consider the importance of leadership in general and then

within the HE context. A number of viewpoints and positions expressed in the literature are put

forward. It is the goal to determine the extent to which the surveyed students agreed with these

Richards: Leadership for Learning in Higher Education 85

positions. Where a concept maps to a question in the survey it is given in brackets in the format

(sectionn-Qn) indicating the section of the survey and the question number.

Importance of Leadership for Higher Education and Learning

Leadership in organizations is viewed as so intrinsically fundamental that ‘the absence of leader-

ship is often seen as the absence of organization’ (Smircich and Morgan, 1982: 257). The role of

leaders to frame, create reality and find meaning for individuals willing to follow highlights the

dependency society has on the existence of leaders and motivates the emergence of formal lead-

ership roles within organizations to strategically direct focus, guide interpretation and manage

action (Smircich and Morgan, 1982).

Universities must go beyond the facilitation of learning in their students via teaching, learning in

their academics via research and learning in the wider community via outreach and service. They need

to be learning organizations (Argyris and Schoen, 1978) in which what is said and written as policy

(espoused theory) is aligned with what is done and thought in practice (theory-in-action) through a pro-

cess of double-loop learning. A process in which feedback mechanisms involving students, teachers

and administrators are integral and are allowed to challenge the original goals and ways of thinking.

Furthermore, universities must be learning communities working together with appropriate partners,

such as industry, other HE institutions, schools and government. Senge (2000: 23) goes further to

state ‘real learning gets at the heart of what it means to be human’; equating learning (doing what

we could not do before and recreating ourselves) with hunger and the sex drive. How important then

is the need for leaders to ensure that learning is taking place and to guide the learning process.

Changing environmental conditions are forcing many organizations to evolve from a traditional

bureaucratic structure to a more organic network structure (Morgan, 1989) and adaptable organism

(Miller, 1997) to gain the benefits of innovation and efficiency (Stace and Dunphy, 2001). The HE

sector has been undergoing change since the 1960s owing to: massification of education (replacing

previous elitism); information technology advances; significant growth in knowledge leading to

greater diversification; and both internal and external changes in attitudes, values and culture

related to academic work (Clark, 1996). Universities have been characterized as professional

bureaucracies (Bolman and Deal, 1997) following Mintzberg’s (1979) organizational types.

Perhaps a more precise representation would be Morgan’s (1989) ‘Model 3: The bureaucracy with

project teams and task forces’. As many universities are currently finding, to be effective there is a

need for constant re-examination and realignment of strategy (Stace and Dunphy, 2001). Leaders

are needed to envision and enable these transitions.

The shift from viewing teaching as an interruption to research activity to the recognition of

the importance of good teaching to the current focus on student-centred and flexible learning

(Laurillard,1995) (S2-Q27), together with a move from collegial to corporate style cultures and

views of leadership in universities (McNay, 1995, Middlehurst 2004) have had major ramifications

for academics. The corporatization of HE is reflected in the student as consumer (Scott et al., 2008)

attitude in which students see the relationship with their teachers as being contractual rather than

pedagogical (Blackmore and Sachs, 2007) (S2-Q20&21). At the institutional level, teaching per-

formance and student satisfaction have become important agenda items with impacts on the bottom

line. As part of the changes in teaching foci, academics are being required not only to balance

teaching and research (Wasser, 1999) but to conduct research-driven or scholarly teaching

(Trigwell et al., 2000). In the survey I seek to ascertain how students view the research of their

teachers as it influences their perception of teaching leadership (S2-Q3,10,11).

86 Educational Management Administration & Leadership 40(1)

To the wider community, academics may be viewed as leaders at least within their field of

research and leaders of their students (Marshall et al., 2007) (S2-Q1&2). Within the university

environment, teaching leadership tends to be restricted to those in formal roles such as heads of

department, directors of teaching or L&T associate deans. Leadership in L&T has also been

considered in the contexts of contribution to curriculum development (Knight and Trowler,

2001) (S2-Q25), teaching achievements (S2-Q23&24) and positional power (for example, depart-

mental director of teaching, heads of department, associate deans of learning and teaching, provost,

vice chancellor and/or academic senate). Just as ‘the size of the effects that [school] principals

indirectly contribute toward student learning, though statistically significant is also quite small’

(Hallinger, 2005: 229), university students have little direct involvement with L&T leaders in these

HE roles. Thus, rather than look at students experiences with leadership in these roles we will

explore more generally students’ concept of teaching leadership.

The role that ICT plays in teaching leadership is particularly uncertain (S2-Q26). On the one

hand, ICT allows any adventurous academic to lead the way. In support of this view, the

ISTE (http://www.iste.org/) National Educational Technology Standards (NETS�T) and Per-

formance Indicators for Teachers considers leadership to be exhibited by ‘demonstrating a

vision of technology infusion, participating in shared decision making and community build-

ing, and developing the leadership and technology skills of others’. Gourley (2007) sees that

embracing ‘the global technology-fuelled society is a key strategy for surviving the ‘‘seismic

shift in higher education’’’. However, Gould (2006) notes that ICT enables teaching to be

done by ‘knowledge workers’ who tend to be sessional or adjunct staff rather than aca-

demics/professors, where the latter tend to lead the former. This change in the nature of teach-

ing to one of facilitation outsourced to others could result in a return to an academic focus on

research over teaching.

A number of studies have been conducted to understand leadership for learning (Martin et al.

2003; Ramsden, 1998). In the Australian context two noteworthy studies include Marshall et al.

(2001) and an ACER study involving 513 academics active in various teaching related roles from

20 Australian universities by Scott et al. (2008). The approaches used in these studies include sur-

veys, focus groups and critical incidents (Burgum and Bridge, 1997; Tripp, 1993).

The leadership study by Marshall et al. (2001) is particularly interesting because it involved

focus groups with two different cohorts: professors and senior lecturers. The senior lecturer cohort

identified the following teaching-related leadership behaviours.

� Introducing students to the scholarship of academic work.

� Coordinating a large course unit, building community among lecturers and tutors.

Additionally, but not specific to L&T leadership they included:

� taking an active interest in people, giving advice and support to help them achieve their

academic goals (S2-Q18);

� leading by example—being effective in their work;

� being available (S2-Q19);

� being generous with their time and expertise (S2-Q19).

It is interesting that this group could not clearly identify individuals who fitted this model and felt

that the university did not provide a culture to support such leaders partly due to the individualistic

culture and the lack of consideration of the role of leader.


Many studies consider leadership related issues facing the HE sector, HE leaders and academics

such as the aging workforce (Hugo, 2005) compounded by lack of succession planning (Bradley,

2008, Marshall et al., 2007). But what about the student? If leadership is contingent upon willing-

ness of at least some to be led, either through formal power structures or charismatic qualities of the

leader, then the viewpoint of those following the leader should be relevant and inform what it

means to be a leader and how to become such a person.

Leadership Theory

Research to define and understand leadership has been ongoing since the 1920s. Over that time

numerous theories have been proposed. Foster (1986) speaks in terms of generations of leadership

theory models. Generation one involved identification of leadership traits that were found not to be

generalizable; followed by a move to identify leadership behaviours and the use of two factors

(consideration/relationship-orientation or task/goal-orientation), which blurred managerial and

leadership activities and behaviours and ignored cultural and follower differences. Generation two

included Fiedler’s (1967) contingency model and the use of the least-preferred coworker (LPC)

method, which took into account member-leader relationships, task and position power and the

Vroom/Yetton decision tree model that identified five decision-making styles each appropriate for

certain types of decisions. Both approaches produced mixed-results due to shortcomings with self-

reporting approaches and discrepancies between manager and subordinate observations. Foster

identifies a third generation, which includes attribution theory, reinforcement theory, exchange

theory and the multiple influence model of leadership which he also sees as theories more con-

cerned with how organizations use management to get subordinates to carry out tasks rather than

the notions of leadership and learning.

These generations of leadership theory are encompassed in a number of questions in the survey.

The survey seeks to tease out whether students believe that leaders for learning have certain traits

or personality factors (House, 1988) (S2-Q6) and behaviours or styles (Schreisheim and Stogdill,

1975) (S2-Q7), specifically asking students to identify what those traits and behaviours might be.

S2-Q8 was posed to determine whether the context seems to affect the attribution of leadership, in

line with contingency theory (Fiedler, 1967). Relevant to considerations of leadership is the debate

led by Kotter (1990) of management versus leadership. Management is often seen as planning and

budgeting, organizing and staffing, controlling and problem solving; resulting in order and predict-

able outcomes. Leadership involves establishing direction, aligning people, motivating and inspir-

ing; resulting in change and increased competitiveness (Kotter, 1990). The HE literature generally

concludes that leadership and management are both essential (Middlehurst and Elton, 1992;

Ramsden, 1998; Wolverton et al., 2005). Whether students agree with this is the goal of (S2-Q9).

The distinction between management and leadership is similar to the distinction between trans-

actional versus transformational leadership, respectively. Following Flanagan and Thompson

(1993), transformational leadership skills can be summarized as: creates vision, communicates

meaning, inspires, empowers, takes risks, stirs (that is, breaks the status quo); while transactional

management skills include: agrees objectives, communicates information, motivates, bargains,

promotes security, stabilizes (that is, fair and consistent with existing arrangements). Transactional

leadership tends to be equated with managerial tasks and activities. Transformational leadership

occurs ‘when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise

one another to higher levels of motivation and morality’ (Burns, 1978, in Flanagan and Thompson,

1993). Burns (1978) considers both leadership and management to be essential as leaders need


sensitivity to the situation, defined as an ability to scan the organization, read job and understand

self. In a university context where shared responsibility is the norm transactional leadership can be

seen as fulfilling follower expectations and transformational leadership as reshaping follower

expectations (Middlehurst, 1993). Also related from the educational literature, is the notion of

instructional leaders that arose to distinguish leaders who not only focused on administrative

responsibilities but also on the effective instruction of students. Robinson et al. (2008), however,

have observed that in the recent literature on educational leadership, instructional leadership and

transactional leadership have begun to integrate. Rather than asking if L&T leadership can be

described as one or the other or both via agreement with statements in the survey, these distinctions

have been largely left to emerge via some open-ended questions seeking to capture critical inci-

dents (Burgum and Bridge, 1997; Tripp, 1993) of good leadership, bad leadership and a definition

of leadership in section 3 of the survey.

Another important concept in the leadership literature is the notion of power. According to

House (1988) the use of power will be affected by one’s personality, specifically the need or

motivation for power and control. Middlehurst (1993: 29) notes the connection between power,

influence and authority where power holders are able to give orders and ensure they are enforced.

Influence is weaker than power but can be exercised to persuade and bring about change. Authority

is defined in terms of legitimacy. Social power may be based on traditional, rational-legal or char-

ismatic authority and power itself can exist in the form of legitimate, reward, coercive, expert or

referent power. In the HE environment, all academics are in a position to influence others.

The extent to which they do so will be affected by the individual’s need for power, perspective

of the target and the history with that target. Regarding power, Bennis (2006) notes that in com-

parison to company CEOs, university leaders have little power but face the challenge of leading

‘extraordinarily talented, self-absorbed ‘‘abdicrats’’ who don’t want to lead—and don’t want to

be led’. Only one question considers legitimate power by asking the role that title/rank plays in

the perception of leadership status (S2-Q22). Theories relating to relationships with followers/

members are not directly evaluated except perhaps via questions that seek to understand how stu-

dents perceive the teacher-student relationship (S2-Q20&21). Given the Australian context of the

study in which according to Wearing (1996: ix) gender differences in contemporary Australia are

all pervasive and explicit ‘at all levels of society from individual perceptions [micro-level] to

macrosocial structures [society as a whole]’, the ICT context which is significantly underrepre-

sented by women and characterized as hegemonically masculine (Faulkner, 2001), the HE context

in which women are underrepresented in leadership roles (Martınez Aleman, 2000), and Australia’s

highly multicultural society we were also interested to see if gender, age or language-background

impacted student attitudes (S2-Q12–17).

Method

As an ultimate goal I am interested to know the relationship between perceiving your teacher as an

L&T leader and student learning. In the longer term, I would like to be able to demonstrate how

recognized leaders for learning achieve better student learning outcomes. However, such a grand

aim is beyond the scope of this study. As an initial study into the student perspective, the overarch-

ing research questions being explored are:

(1) What is the perceived impact of being taught by leaders for learning?

(2) What makes a leader for learning from the student viewpoint?


(3) How does the student viewpoint differ from the academic viewpoint?

(4) How do the academic and student viewpoints align?

Question 1 is important because if seeing your teacher as a leader makes little or no difference, then

answering the other questions is of minor interest. Question 2 allows us to consider what students

expect from L&T leaders, with the implication that HE teachers should strive to be such a person.

Questions 3 and 4 allow us to build on existing research in this area from the academic viewpoint

and also potentially suggest further research directions. For example, if we find that students have

the same view of leadership as academics, then we can draw on the existing research on leadership

for learning. If the views are different, then investigations need to be made to revise what is needed

in a leader for learning and how to achieve and measure that.

As part of answering the research questions presented above, a number of questions have been

formulated based on the existing HE and leadership literature. These questions have been grouped

into a number of sections that explore these questions by (1) requiring levels of agreement with

statements about leadership, (2) seeking examples of experiences of good or poor academic lead-

ership for learning and (3) through comparison with previous reported responses from academics

to a number of leadership capabilities and competencies. We next outline the sections of the sur-

vey, followed by a description of the participants involved in this study.

The Survey

The survey and study were approved by Macquarie University Human Ethics Committee and con-

sisted of four sections as follows:

Section 1: gathered biographic details including gender, age, degree type (undergraduate, postgrad-

uate coursework, postgraduate research), educational institution attended, main disciplinary

background, languages other than English spoken at home and length of residence in Australia.

Section 2: contained Likert-scale responses to 27 statements about leadership based on the literature.

Section 3: sought to elicit a critical incident and leadership definitions as follows:

� Try to think of a situation where you thought to yourself ‘this person is truly a leader in

teaching’ and describe it in the box below.

� If you can think of an incident which demonstrates the failure to exhibit teaching leader-

ship please describe that in the box below.

� Please provide a definition of what you think a leader in teaching is.

Section 4: consisted of 54 Likert-scale competency and capability questions from the Scott,

Coates and Anderson (2008) survey instrument to allow comparison with the results of the

513 academics.

The motivation for the questions in section 2 of the survey have been provided in the second sec-

tion of this article. Each question has been introduced within the previous section with the excep-

tion of (S2-Q4&5) which aim to answer the first research question by seeking the level of

agreement with the statements S2-Q4: ‘I learn better if I see my lecturer as a leader in teaching’

and S2-Q5 ‘I am more engaged if I see my lecturer as a leader in teaching’. These questions have

not been asked or answered in the literature previously. The actual 27 questions can be found in


Table 2 next to their number. For the purpose of meaningful presentation and minimization of repe-

tition the section 2 questions appear in order of level of agreement rather than numeric order.

The questions in section 3 are provided above. Note that we used the term Leader in Teaching in

our questions to students because we did not think they would understand the concept of Leader

for Learning but might interpret that to mean who in their class was a leading student. Despite the

current focus on student-centred learning rather than teaching-centred teaching, students do not

necessarily understand this focus and often expect teachers to deliver learning.

Section 4 of the survey can be found in Appendix A. The questions are grouped in the same

order and categories as in the study by Scott et al. (2008) and as used in our survey. For the pur-

poses of reporting we have added shading and a legend (not provided to participants) which indi-

cate the scales within each of the competencies and capabilities defined by Scott et al. (2008).

There are 13 personal capabilities questions covering three scales: decisiveness, self regulation

and commitment. Interpersonal capabilities include 12 questions for the two scales: empathizing,

and influencing. The 13 intellectual capabilities questions are divided into the three scales of

diagnosis, strategy, and flexibility and responsiveness. Finally competencies concerning skills and

knowledge are considered in 16 questions encompassing the three scales: learning and teaching,

university operations, and self-organization skills.

Participants

To reduce the randomness and variability in the population sample and to provide a coherent

dataset for analysis leading to possible modification of the survey and further recruitment, the par-

ticipants in the study reported in this article are a cohort of final year Computing students enrolled

in a final year capstone project unit. Capstone units are aimed to tie together student’s previous

learning and prepare them to enter the workforce (Clear et al. 2001). Students are observed to have

high interest and level of engagement with the unit.

The students were spread across 16 groups comprising 4 and 5 members. Approximately half

of the respondents were involved in an industry project hosted by an external sponsor. The other

half were involved in an internal project in which the unit convenor acted as the client.

The industry students had been with the same team members all year and according to the unit

design, most if not all team members had already had a (roughly equal) turn at the leadership

role. The leadership role was restricted to one individual for the internal project students and

chosen by the team at the start of the semester. The composition of internal teams were com-

pletely changed in semester 2 to optimize the opportunity to utilize the team skills they learnt

in first semester. Both industry and internal teams underwent a two-hour team training session

in week 3 of semester 1, which included consideration of the leadership role. All teams were

required in their project plan to define the role of each team member and explicitly the respon-

sibilities of the leader together with clear identification of how the team would manage commu-

nication, resources, risk and change.

The learning activities are built around a single project which becomes both the learning vehicle

as well as the assessed outcome for the units. The teams take on the role of a software development

team to design and build a computer-based solution for their industry or internal (hypothetical) cli-

ent. The team activity involved gathering user requirements, developing models, choosing and

implementing a solution from among the range of possible solutions that they have identified.

At the end of the activity, the group is expected to deliver the final tested software product and

all project documentation, which are marked. The groups were formed by the lecturer at the


beginning of the semester based on their grade point average (GPA), gender distribution, time

availability, personality type, planned time commitment and grade expectations.

Findings

Only a subset of the data acquired and analysis performed is included in this article. Detailed

comments from participants regarding their definitions of leadership and examples of poor

leadership can be obtained from the author. Results together with discussion are provided in this

section following the order of the survey.

Section 1—Biographical Data

As explained above, we invited a coherent cohort of Computing Department students at Macquarie

University enrolled in a year-long, group-based project that forms the capstone unit for their

respective degrees to participate in our study. The data was collected in week 10 of second

semester 2009. Of the 85 students invited to participate, 54 responses were received. A summary

of the demographics of the students can be found in Table 1. It is noted that while there is a gender

imbalance, that imbalance is consistent with student and industry percentages in Australia (Trauth

et al., 2003). It can be seen that the class is multi-cultural reflecting Australian society as a whole

and showing a predominance of Asian cultures in the ICT field (Trauth et al., 2003).

Section 2—Student Attitudes to Leadership Statements

Table 2 presents a summary ordered by the average score for each question. The question is pro-

vided in full in this table along with the result. Starting at the top, note the importance of seeing

one’s teacher as a leader on student learning and engagement and the importance placed on flexible

delivery. In agreement with the findings of the focus groups reported in Marshall et al. (2001),

being accessible and (less so) caring is important. In keeping with some key theories in the general

leadership literature and the findings of Bensimon et al. (1989) for leadership in HE, being (viewed

as) a leader was contingent on the situation and certain traits and behaviours are characteristic of

leaders. In contrast to the general view of the community regarding academics as expressed by

Marshall et al. (2007), all academics are not seen by their students as leaders. Despite the pressures

on universities to be more like customer-focused businesses and the findings of Blackmore and

Sachs, (2007); students see they are in a pedagogical rather than a contractual relationship. While

the HE literature generally concludes that management and leadership skills are both essential

(Middlehurst and Elton, 1992; Ramsden, 1998; Wolverton et al., 2005), students do not see good

management skills as essential for leaders. Furthermore, while universities are encouraging aca-

demics to obtain teaching qualifications and to pursue both increased research outputs and

Table 1. Summary description of survey participants

Gender 9 females, 45 malesAges 20-31 (average age 23);Background 26 born in Australia, 14 have lived in an English speaking country < 7 yearsMain/only Language

spoken at homeEnglish (23), Chinese (19), Gujarati (2), Korean (2), French, Indonesian, Persian,

Tamil, Urdu, Vietnamese.


Table 2. Descriptive statistics for leadership statements ordered by average level of agreement

Question Number - Statement Sum Ave Variance

Q4. I learn better if I see my lecturer as a leader in teaching 215 3.981 0.660028Q5. I am more engaged if I see my lecturer as a leader in teaching 215 3.981 0.584556Q27. The extent to which my lecturer is flexible in delivery of the course

content affects my attitude to them as a leader in teaching215 3.981 0.395877

Q19. I am more likely to view an academic who is accessible/available as aleader in teaching

206 3.815 0.493361

Q8. It is possible for a lecturer to be a leader in teaching in one unit orsituation but not to be what I would call a leader in a different unit orsituation.

201 3.722 0.77044

Q22. The title and rank of my lecturer (e.g. Dr, Senior Lecturer, Professor)does not affect whether I regard my lecturer as a leader in teaching.

200 3.704 0.891684

Q26. The extent to which my lecturer makes use of technology in teachingaffects my attitude to them as a leader in teaching

199 3.685 0.597135

Q20. I see my lecturer as being in a pedagogical relationship where I am thestudent and they are the teacher

198 3.667 0.528302

Q9. It is possible to be a leader in teaching but a poor manager (disorganised,not handling the administrative side of the course efficiently)

195 3.611 1.41195

Q6. Leaders in teaching have certain common characteristics or traits 192 3.556 0.704403Q7. Leaders in teaching behave in certain ways 188 3.481 0.744934Q18. I am more likely to view an a caring academic as a leader in teaching 186 3.444 0.893082Q11. Knowing that my teacher is active in publishing papers and giving pre-

sentations at conferences gives me greater confidence that they are aleader in teaching

185 3.426 0.8529

Q24. If my teacher has a teaching qualification/degree I am more likely to seethem as a leader in teaching

185 3.426 0.890636

Q25. If my teacher is involved in setting and changing the curriculum orprograms of study I am more likely to see them as a leader in teaching.

180 3.333 0.754717

Q23. If my teacher has a teaching award I am more likely to see them as aleader in teaching

171 3.167 0.858491

Q3. If someone is a leader in research I am more likely to view them asleaders in teaching

170 3.148 1.147449

Q21. I see my lecturer as being in a contractual relationship where I am theclient and they are the service provider

168 3.111 1.119497

Q10. Being a leader in research is more important than being a leader inteaching

166 3.074 0.824598

Q17. I am more likely to view an old academic as a leader in teaching 158 2.926 0.975542Q2. All teaching academics at university are leaders in teaching 157 2.907 1.21768Q1. All academics are leaders 150 2.778 1.081761Q12. I am more likely to view a male academic as a leader 147 2.722 1.110063Q16. I am more likely to view a young academic as a leader in teaching 142 2.63 0.803634Q13. I am more likely to view a female academic as a leader 140 2.593 0.962963Q15. I am more likely to view an academic without an accent a leader 138 2.556 1.119497Q14. I am more likely to view an academic with an accent a leader 134 2.481 1.122292

Agree

Disagree


research-based learning, from the student’s viewpoint being recognized as a leader in research or

even in teaching (via an award) are not major determinants of leadership in L&T.

Table 3 provides more descriptive statistics for high ranking questions. The traits and behaviours

of L&T leaders identified by respondents are shown in Appendix B and includes for example: strong

work ethic, smart, enthusiasm, commanding respect, up on recent technologies, approachable,

organized, classroom management, professional, clear expression and empathy with student.

Perhaps a little more surprising is the expectation for leaders to demonstrate willingness to learn

themselves and to ‘follow through with opinion and accept others’. Ability to communicate was

echoed in a number of responses going so far as to recommend the need for ‘engaging stage

presence’.

Table 4 shows correlations between questions which were above 0.3. It is interesting to note that

while gender (S2-Q12,13), accent (S2-Q14,15) and age (S2-Q16,17) were rejected as determinants

of leadership (Table 2) in Table 4 we see that there is not a perfect correlation between these sets of

questions. Looking at Table 4 one might say that to be perceived as a leader it is slightly more

advantageous to be an older male with no accent.

Section 3—Critical Incident and Leadership Definition

The study attempted to capture a critical incident as an alternative method within the survey to

identify views about leadership and leadership practices. Eliciting a critical incident following

Tripp’s (1993) technique involves providing a consistent frame to the participants as a way to

guide responses. Anderson et al. (2004) created such a frame by asking their participants to reflect

on ‘The what?’ ‘So what?’ and ‘Now what?’ of their incident. Given the additional time and cog-

nitive effort involved, only 31/54 students chose to provide some input in this section. While there

were 11 specific responses (for example, ‘lecturer on leave mid semester as unit convenor’; ‘a sit-

uation where a lecturer had no idea about the non theory part’, ‘losing the class discipline and

reduced to tears—getting personal towards students’, ‘a lecturer who came to fill in and covered

Table 3. Descriptive statistics for selected questions

4 5 18 19 20 22 26 27

Mean 3.981 3.981 3.444 3.815 3.667 3.704 3.685 3.981Standard Error 0.111 0.104 0.129 0.096 0.099 0.129 0.105 0.086Median 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 4Mode 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 4Standard Deviation 0.812 0.765 0.945 0.702 0.727 0.944 0.773 0.629Sample Variance 0.660 0.585 0.893 0.493 0.528 0.892 0.597 0.396Kurtosis 0.201 0.168 0.896 �0.250 �0.250 0.072 0.009 �0.350Skewness �0.623 �0.494 �0.600 �0.064 0.000 �0.479 �0.400 0.013Range 3 3 4 3 3 4 3 2Minimum 2 2 1 2 2 1 2 3Maximum 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5Sum 215 215 186 206 198 200 199 215Count 54 54 54 54 54 54 54 54Largest(1) 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5Smallest(1) 2 2 1 2 2 1 2 3Confidence(95.0%) 0.222 0.209 0.258 0.192 0.198 0.258 0.211 0.172


so much information in a understandable manner’, ‘lecturer was disorganized in providing lecture

notes’, and so forth) most comments lacked detail and were generic descriptions of trait and beha-

vioural characteristics. Note that nine specific negative incidents were described in comparison to

only two specific positive examples. Obviously negative experiences leave a stronger impression.

To identify the key ideas in the free text input, we used a qualitative text-analysis approach sim-

ilar to thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998) which uses recurrence (same thread of meaning), repeti-

tion (of keywords, phrases or sentences) and forcefulness (volume, inflection, emphatic language)

to identify, analyse, describe and report patterns (themes) across qualitative data.

To compare the representativeness of this cohort with a more general population, we conducted

the same textual analysis on another 16 students who had completed the survey by the time of this

analysis from across the university. Given that these students had responded to a general, non-

personalized invitation via their student email account, it is assumed that these students have

greater interest in the issue of leadership for learning. Also their responses in section 3 show some

evidence of awareness of the leadership literature (for example, notion of followership). Further-

more, they provided more detailed text input using 314 (average 19.6) words compared to 237

(average 7.6 words for the 31 respondents or 4.3 words for the full cohort of 54) words to describe

leadership traits and behaviours. These students include 11 females, 5 males; 7 aged in their 20s,

the rest were aged 31–52 (average age 42); 6 postgraduate, 10 undergraduates; enrolled in Man-

agement and Commerce (2), Society and Culture (1), Information Technology (2), Engineering

and Technology (2), Education (4), Natural and Physical Sciences (2), Medicine/Health (1), Other

(2), only 3 spoke another language (Urdu, Cantonese and Japanese), 9 were born in Australia and

only 1 had lived in Australia less than 7 years. Their responses to questions in section 2 on traits

and behaviours are available in Appendix C.

Table 5 provides a comparative summary of the responses from the two cohorts to section 3,

which seeks to gain a definition and example of leadership. While the Other cohort represents a

wide range of backgrounds, it is interesting to note the strong similarities with the undergraduate

Year 3 information technology cohort in their views regarding leadership for learning. In keeping

with Brungardt (1998) who notes that effective teachers use transactional and transformational

approaches to learning, we see that while both cohorts use terms that would be associated with

transactional leaders such as ‘organized’ far more of the terms are representative of

Table 4. Correlation Coefficients above .3

Q 2 3 4 12 13 14 15 16 17 23 24 26

1 0.662 0.325 0.766 0.3913 0.84 1.0014 0.68 0.68 1.0015 0.77 0.60 0.63 1.0016 0.55 0.53 0.39 0.42 1.0017 0.43 0.34 0.49 0.38 0.52 1.0018 0.35 0.4024 0.63 1.0025 0.49 0.5127 0.45


transformational leaders such as ‘inspiring’, ‘passionate’ and ‘enthusiasm’. We see some evidence

of students demonstrating a number of GenY tendencies as described in Nimon (2006). For exam-

ple, the expectation that L&T leaders will ‘give’ them things, such as course notes (rather than tak-

ing responsibility for making their own notes) or that the lecture(r) will not be boring. However, it

is interesting to note that being knowledgeable was still the most repeated theme.

Section 4—Comparison with Academic Viewpoint

The 148-page report by Scott et al. (2008) did not include numerical data except in the form of sum-

marized tables and graphs (for example, see their Table 19 and Figure 5 reproduced here Figures 1 and

3, respectively). Thus to enable comparison, we have created a similar version of both (Figures 2 and

4). To achieve this we needed to regroup the questions into the scales provided in the report, as shown in

Appendix A. Furthermore, due to lack of data access, we were not able to perform comparative analysis

involving ANOVA, correlation or rank testing. Comparing Figures 1 and 2, we can however see that 3

of the 5 personal capabilities in the top 10 for the academics matched with 3 of 4 personal capabilities in

the top 8 for the students. One cognitive capability (making sense of and learning from experience)

which was the top ranked leadership capability for the students matched with the nineth ranked capa-

bility for the academics. There was no overlap for interpersonal capabilities or skills and knowledge.

Grouping the individual items (that is, questions) into the scales used in Scott et al. (2008), we

see in Figures 3 and 4 that students and academics considered empathizing to be the most critical

leadership skill. Empathy is one component of emotional intelligence, and additionally includes

self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation and social skills (Goleman, 1998). The importance

of emotional intelligence for educational leadership has been supported in many studies (Aziz

et al., 2005, Martin et al., 2003, Montez, 2003) and includes a leader’s personal and interpersonal

capabilities (Scott et al., 2008).

In each category students and academics agreed on the most important leadership scale, namely

self-organization skills, flexibility and responsiveness, empathizing and self regulation. Note that

for the academics all scales, bar one, scored at least 4/5 for ‘important for effective performance’.

Students were (slightly) more reserved in their responses, which is typical of novice behaviour

(Busch et al., 2008). It is interesting to contemplate why decisiveness was seen as less important

Table 5. Term frequencies comparing 3rd Year computing students with Other cohort

Freq. Term/concept IT UG students Other students

1 energetic, interaction, capture, make sense, flexible, juggling,title, happy, confident, adapt, collaborate decide, feedback

clear, concepts, answer, communicate,organised information, example,

2 explanation/explain, participate, best, listen, expert present, engage/engaging motivating,inspiring

3 (boring), care, engage/engaging, issues enthusiasm, experience4 text material, question, passion5 passion, enthusiasm, experience, clear, answer, present knowledge, understand6 organised, example, concepts, 7time subject7 communicate/communication, material, information8 Give9 knowledge, understand, subject, question know12 Good14 know


by the students when Bryman (2007) found that decisiveness was an important aspect of academic

leadership. I conjecture that students, particularly the young cohort surveyed, may be less decisive

because they are generally less committed to study or the workplace as found in other studies

involving Gen Ys (Richards and Busch, 2008). Furthermore, they may not have had the experience

or opportunity that permits them to make or take final and firm decisions. It is surprising that the

learning and teaching scale was also perceived as less important, but perhaps the concept was too

general as to lack clear meaning or so obvious that it was not seen as a distinguishing feature.

Personal capabilities Wanting to achieve the best outcome possible (5) Remaining calm under pressure or when things take an unexpected turn (8) Understanding my personal strengths and limitations (7) Admitting to and learning from errors (6)

Interpersonal capabilities Listening to different points of view before coming to a decision (2) Motivating others to achieve positive outcomes (3) Recognising how seemingly unconnected activities are linked (9) Setting and justifying priorities for my daily work (10)

Cognitive capabilities Making sense of and learning from experience (1) Seeing and then acting on an opportunity for a new direction (11)

Skills & Knowledge Being able to use IT effectively to communicate and perform key work functions (4) Being able to make effective presentations to a range of different groups (12)

Figure 2. Top 12 ranking leadership capabilities for studentsNote: The rank of each item is given in brackets, 1 ¼ highest.

Figure 1. Top 12 ranking leadership capabilities for academicsNote: The rank of each item is given in brackets, 1 ¼ highest.Source: Scott et al. (2008).


Limitations

This study has a number of limitations. As a survey the study is subject to biases such as self selec-

tion and social desirability (Fisher, 1993). As noted, females were grossly underrepresented in this

study. However, the 9 per cent female representation is greater than the class representation of 6

Figure 4. Student mean scores for the 11 leadership capability scales

Figure 3. Academic mean scores for the 11 leadership capability scalesSource: Scott et al. (2008).


per cent. The critical incident in section 3 was not guided using the framing technique and it did

not, in general, yield detailed descriptions of specific leadership incidents. However, time is seen

as the main factor affecting the lack of rich data since section 2 did provide the opportunity for

participants to orient their thinking about leadership and their experiences prior to being asked

to provide a critical incident and leadership definition.

For this study we have concentrated on a single cohort, with some comparison with another

small cohort as described above to avoid the problem of randomness or skew in respondents.

However, as a result the data and analysis has been restricted primarily to one cohort and thus

it is difficult to generalize the findings to the general population of higher education students who

may vary by demographic, discipline and degree type.

Finally, Hunt (1991) notes the shortcomings of pen and paper tests, which also applies to

paper- and online-based surveys, when it comes to measuring or defining leadership due to the

cognitive complexity of leadership and the need for a multilevel model that ‘gets inside’ the leader’s

head or in this case, inside the student’s head.

In spite of these limitations, this article provides a first and early study to determine the student

view of leadership for learning by using a survey that is grounded in the existing HE and leadership

literature and closely aligned to the recent and extensive study by Scott et al. (2008). Their study

and instrument not only draws on the current body of educational and general leadership literature,

it employs a framework that had been validated in a detailed study of 322 effective school leaders

(Scott, 2003) and in studies of successful early career graduates in nine professions (Vescio, 2005).

Conclusion

The aim of this study was to define leadership for learning from the student viewpoint and to see

how it compared to the academic viewpoint. In answer to the first research question, we see that

students believe that seeing their teacher as a leader has a positive impact on their learning.

In answer to the second research question, in section 2 of the survey we have the open-ended

responses regarding the traits and behaviours of leaders and in section 3 of the survey we have soli-

cited examples of good and poor leadership and a definition of leadership. Addressing research

questions 2, 3 and 4, we sought to gain the students’ agreement with the set of capabilities and

competencies used in the Scott et al. (2008) study with 513 Australian academics. Further compar-

ison of the student view with the academic view, research questions 3 and 4, was also performed

via analysis of the students’ responses to statements about leadership expressed in the HE and lead-

ership literature in section 2.

In summary, section 2 of the survey identified some agreement and some disagreement and

revealed the importance of flexible delivery and use of technology as a measure of leadership.

In section 3 of the survey students saw teachers who are passionate, organized, knowledgeable and

accessible as leaders for learning. The section 4 survey results found that self-organization skills

and the interpersonal skill of empathizing were the most important leadership capabilities,

followed by flexibility and self-regulation, in close alignment with the academic view. These attri-

butes are commonly identified by academics as relevant for L&T leaders and for leaders in general

(Debowski and Blake, 2004). However, Debowski and Blake (2004) noted specific capabilities and

competencies for L&T leaders which showed a commitment to pedagogy and student learning

including involvement in curriculum and course design and university structure and policy. In con-

trast to the responses from academics, student responses to section 4 indicated that factors relating

to L&T and university operations are less important for leadership from their perspective.


Clearly, the issue of leadership is important but we must not confuse it with the issue of orga-

nizational effectiveness. Bowers and Seashore (1966: 249) question the validity of ‘a commonly

accepted theorem that leadership (if not a unitary characteristic, then a limited roster of closely

related ones) is always salutary in its effect and that it always enhances effectiveness’. Students

in this study have voiced a similar assumption—‘L&T leadership improves learning and engage-

ment’. While numerous studies (see Prosser and Trigwell, 1997; Ramsden, 2003, for a summary)

have shown that the learning and assessment context influences the learning approach chosen by a

student which in turn impacts on their level of achievement of the learning outcomes, the role that

leadership plays in learning in HE has been little studied. For example, Ramsden et al. (2007) were

more focused on the impact of leadership on teaching, rather than learning, in their study investigating

how university teachers may adapt their teaching approach according to their own experience of aca-

demic leadership. The meta-study by Robinson et al. (2008: 636) could find only 27 educational lead-

ership studies that investigated the link between leadership research and student outcomes and

concluded that to significantly improve student outcomes educational leaders should adopt an instruc-

tional leadership approach by ‘focus[ing] their relationships, their work, and their learning on the core

business of teaching and learning’. In that spirit, the focal point of this study is on the student who is

surely at the heart of that core business. As future work, it would be interesting to design and conduct a

new study which tested if better learning outcomes were achieved if the teacher(s) were seen as leaders

which might also look at the use of and relationship with learning, teaching and leadership styles.

Perhaps looking at the student view is not so different to looking at the academic view if we

believe that ‘everyone is both a teacher and a learner at the same time’. The notion of leaders

as learners and facilitators of other learners is a theme found in the educational literature (Ramsden,

1998; Scott, 2003). Increasingly, programs to assist learning about oneself in relation to others and

training in emotional intelligence can be found in leadership frameworks (Drew, 2006; Montez,

2003). The need to manage change has been a key driver of such initiatives. Bowers and

Seashore(1966: 247) , recognized long ago that ‘If a program of organizational learning and change

is to be successful . . . leaders [need] to become deep-structure learners themselves’ willing to chal-

lenge and change the core foundations of their own behaviour. Isn’t this is what we want from our

students? In line with invitational leadership (Novak, 2005) that is founded on the assumptions of

respect, trust, caring, optimism and intentionality to be inviting with oneself and others, leaders need

to fundamentally understand and value those they wish to lead. Perhaps what this study reveals is that

student-centred learning requires leadership and that to be a leader for learning you don’t need to be a

hero but the type of teacher you would want to have if you were the student.

Appendix A—Section 4

From Complete Online Survey Using Questions from Scott et al.’s (2008) Study. Questions are

colour-coded to indicate the associated capability scale.

Section 4: Leadership Capabilities—Comparing Your Views with Those of Academics

Personal capabilities. How important do you believe each of the following PERSONAL CAPABIL-

ITIES is for effective performance as a leader in teaching.

1. Admitting to and learning from errors

2. Understanding personal strengths

3. Being confident to take calculated risks


4. Remaining calm under pressure or when things take an unexpected turn

5. Deferring judgement and not jumping in too quickly to resolve a problem

6. Having energy, passion and enthusiasm for learning and teaching

7. Persevering when things are not working out as anticipated

8. Wanting to achieve the best outcome possible

9. Pitching in and understanding menial tasks when needed

10. Maintaining a good work/life balance and keeping things in perspective

11. Bouncing back from adversity

12. Tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty

13. Being true to one’s personal values and ethics

Other (please specify)

LEGEND: Decisiveness, Self Regulation, Commitment.

Interpersonal capabilities

How important do you believe each of the following INTERPERSONAL CAPABILITIES is for

effective performance as a leader in teaching.

14. Empathising and working productively with staff and other key players from a wide range of

backgrounds

15. Influencing people’s behaviour and decisions in effective ways

16. Empathising and working productively with students from a wide range of backgrounds

17. Listening to different points of view before coming to a decision

18. Developing and using networks of colleagues to solve key workplace problems

19. Understanding how the different groups that make up my university operate and influence

different situations

20. Working with very senior people within and beyond my university without being intimidated

21. Giving and receiving constructive feedback to/from work colleagues and others

22. Motivating others to achieve positive outcomes

23. Developing and contributing positively to team-based programs

24. Working constructively with people who are ‘resistors’ or are over-enthusiastic

25. Being transparent and honest in dealing with others


LEGEND: Empathising, Influencing.

Intellectual capabilities

How important do you believe each of the following INTELLECTUAL CAPABILITIES is for

effective performance as a leader in teaching.

26. Seeing the best way to respond to a perplexing situation

27. Knowing that there is a never a fixed set of steps for solving workplace problems

28. Identifying from a mass of information the core issues or opportunity in any situation

29. Thinking creatively and laterally

30. Having a clear, justified and achievable direction in their area of responsibility


31. Seeing and then acting on an opportunity for a new direction

32. Using previous experience to figure out what’s going on when a current situation takes an

unexpected turn

33. Diagnosing the underlying causes of a problem and taking appropriate action to address it

34. Tracing out and assessing the likely consequences of alternative courses of action

35. Adjusting a plan of action in response to problems that are identified during its

implementation

36. Recognising how seemingly unconnected activities are linked

37. Setting and justifying priorities for my daily work

38. Making sense of and learning from experience


LEGEND: Diagnosis, Strategy, Flexibility and Responsiveness.

Skills and knowledge

How important do you believe each of the following SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE is for effective

performance as a leader in teaching.

39. Having a high level of up-to-date knowledge in the area they are teaching

40. Having a high level of up-to-date knowledge of what engages university student in produc-

tive learning

41. Understanding how to develop an effective higher education learning program

42. Understanding how to implement successfully a new higher education program

43. Understanding how to design and conduct an evaluation of a higher education program

44. Knowing how to identify and disseminate good learning and management practice across the

unit or university

45. Being on top of current development in learning and teaching

46. Understanding how universities operate

47. Understanding the role of risk management and litigation in their work

48. Understanding of industrial relations issues and processes as they apply to higher education

49. Being able to use IT effectively to communicate and perform key work functions

50. Being able to manage their ongoing professional learning and development

51. An ability to chair meetings effectively

52. Being able to make effective presentations to a range of different groups

53. Being able to organise their work and manage time effectively

54. Having sound administrative and resource management skills


LEGEND: Learning and Teaching, University Operations, Self-Organisation Skills.


Appendix B:Traits and behaviours identified in Section 2 for the project group cohort (each row represents a participant,many have multiple comments and some participants repeated responses for both Traits and Behaviours anddid not distinguish between the two)

Traits—ITUgrad Behaviours—ITUgrad

strong work ethic strong work ethic

Commanding respect up on recent technologies worked in industryanswer all questions follow through with opinionand accept others

Smart

Enthusiasm Dedicated

genius, passion nonselective and consistent teaching result orientedactions

content knowledge approachable organisedclassroom management

Professionally

passion for teaching passion for subject under-standing of unit/area

passion for teaching passion for subject under-standing of unit/area

common interest/understanding of student ableto provide constructive feedback provideresources outside of lectures

able to demonstrate and draw on experience showconcepts across different areas

create interest knowledgeable clear create interest knowledgeable clear

engaging stage presence time managementemphasis clarity

engaging stage presence time management emphasisclarity

confident prepared well organised empathising confident prepared well organised empathising

Empathy Organised

professional ethics, can make his point clear tostudents, can employ strategies to get workdone

smart as in they on top of most of the things

public speaking organised organised good communicator

good communicator approachable enthusiasticpositive attitude willingness to learnthemselves

good communicator approachable enthusiastic pos-itive attitude willingness to learn themselves

charisma confident firm and leads

They work in industry and don’t spend theirwhole time at universities which are out oftouch.

They know what they are talking about from apractical perspective.

Knowledge/understanding, experience Focused, Formal(to a point)

Articulation Engaging, Energetic

organised knowledgeable on various topics, notjust the one subject

organised knowledgeable on various topics, not justthe one subject

responsible reliable organised never listen to others strict humble (acceptopinions)

clarity in speech clear speech, clear expression, understanding ofuser/student

237 words (doesn’t include repeated entries for trait and behaviour)


Appendix C:Traits and behaviours identified in Section 2 for non-project group cohort

Traits—OTHER Behaviours—OTHER

Structured approach organised up to date openminded

Organised strategy for teaching

Confidence Confidence

passion for their chosen field They inspire enthusiasm in others

They are relevant, and are able to present infor-mation in an engaging and enthusiastic manner.

They are relevant, and are able to presentinformation in an engaging and enthusiasticmanner.

Well prepared, knowledgeable, responsive tostudent needs

They do not put students down, they respond toquestions

Passion for the content Ability to communicateideas with others Ability to engage studentsinterest Ability to create desire in students todo more than is required in the course

Good verbal skills Communication

Enthusiasm, experience & practical adviceregarding their subject material & methods oflearning.

Open, approachable, focused, relatively good peo-ple or student relation skills, inspiring, rolemodel, engages students into a deep under-standing of the material, encourages, modifiesand alters material & teaching method accordingto each student’s needs and allocated time.

Self-confidence (not always self-esteem) agree - leaders in teaching that i admire are: -hardworking -engaged learners -empathic -generous -nurturing (not a feminine behaviour)

An ability to engage personally with students. Abroad degree of knowledge. A sense ofhumour. Not condescending. Open to beingquestioned.

Don’t patronise students. Find multiple ways toexplain complex issues.

Positive reinforcement Awareness of how toteach content, not just talk at us about contentOpeness Confidential - does not speak to otherstaff members about our personal issues if weconfide in them for extension on assignments,etc Well-read Is ACTIVE in research/study intheir field of interest Can explain well Engagesstudents through different teaching approachesand methods

Respect, respect, respect (Realises that it’s two-way). Tolerance Understands their studentsneeds/interests/abilities and can convey this

Enthusiasm, communication skills, open to newfindings.

Motivated, decisive, energetic.

Often have a passion in teaching

Unsure. think this may be individualistic Engaged with class up-to-date clear material pre-pared particularly for the class assist others inlearning, assist students and other teachers

314 words (doesn’t include repeated entries for trait and behaviour)


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Biographical Note

Debbie Richards is a professor in the Computing Department at Macquarie University. Her

research background is in knowledge-based systems. Currently she is looking at how intelligent

agents within virtual environments can enhance the learning experience and outcomes.


leadership for learning in higher education: the student perspective

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