A narrative action research project into lecturing practice in a transnational university in China

Abstract

This study investigates changes in the practice of lecturing, in a transnational university in China, undertaken by educators engaging in professional learning. It takes as its starting point the discrepancy between widespread criticism of lectures and their ubiquity in higher education.
With the overarching question of how the practice of lecturing large groups could change (or not) through the professional learning opportunities facilitated by the researcher, in his capacity as a mid-level leader, the inquiry took the form of an action research project developed through a pilot and two cycles. In the pilot and in the first cycle, the researcher offered short professional learning workshops to lecturers to encourage the integration of active learning in large lectures. In the second cycle, he worked closely with foundation year departmental colleagues to include students in conversations about the role of lectures through student-teacher forums.
The engagement with the literature revealed how lectures have been contested and, far from being a unitary phenomenon, they evolved over the centuries to fit the epistemological needs of different times. The exploration of the literature highlighted issues with the use of experimental methods to test pedagogical interventions to enhance lectures taken as isolated events.
The research employed the theory of practice architectures to articulate the connections between lecturing, mid-level leading, and professional learning. Using qualitative methods, the inquiry collected data related to change in lecturing practice following the workshops and, later, a forum. One-to-one interviews with teachers, group interviews with students, lecture observations and document analysis contributed to return a rich description of how change took place.
Findings from the first cycle showed that lecturers could evolve their practice, following the workshops, in several ways. These included the introduction of new doings over existing approaches, with, in some cases, a back and forth between old and new doings or sayings. For some participants, changes meant a deeper transformation of their practice through new purposeful bundles of sayings, doings and relatings. In doing so, lecturers were constantly constrained but also enabled by arrangements in the institution, such as the presence of large auditoriums or interactive learning technology.
Findings from the second cycle illustrated how opening up intersubjective spaces of interaction between teachers and students involved in a specific course could create changes going beyond lecturing and influencing the directionality of the curriculum development of the whole course. The analysis of a maths lecture revealed the multiple trajectories of change that can intersect with a teacher coming to practice differently.
The findings suggests that active learning in lectures can potentially transform the relationships between teachers and students, by reframing learners as partners in the creation of knowledge during an educational event. Moreover, they highlighted the ecological situatedness of lectures that cannot be disconnected from other practices of the education complex.
The inquiry offered an alternative view of the practice of short professional learning workshops revealing three ways they might influence pedagogical change: 1) reinforcement, 2) challenge of existing dispositions, 3) transformation. These links largely rested on the existing life trajectories of the participants and this view may offer an alternative to experimental evaluations of professional learning grounded in a linear cause-effect model.
The inquiry further revealed how mid-level leading could contribute to fostering pedagogical change through four transversal practices nested in the facilitation of professional learning: first, by substantiating abstract organizational messages about teaching and learning; second, by helping identifying sayings relevant to the site drawing from immense repositories of pedagogical knowledge; third, by creatively leveraging on existing site arrangements to support change plans; fourth, by giving teaching staff a licence to operate, articulating organisational expectations. Mid-level leaders may however face the challenge of shifting practice architectures and must face the fragility of some practices that they may initiate in the middle.
The study contributed to ontological transformations in the participants, the researcher and the site, for example by influencing a culture of inclusion of students’ voice in the professional learning events in the department. The study did not intend to offer a best practice, rather the story of this action research can offer evocative hypotheses for other mid-level leaders facing similar challenges. The study contributed to the literature on lectures by offering a critical view of lecturing as a practice in a transnational site.
The findings must be read with the limitation of being based on the interactions of a group of motivated participants, both among teachers and students. The study did not explore the point of view of more disengaged members of staff and of the student body and this may offer pathways for future research.

Date of Award	15 Apr 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Nottingham
Supervisor	John Trent (Supervisor) & Dan Shi (Supervisor)