Research into higher education

Current activities

The activity in the TAG communities of practice will be informed by research carried out through the TAG and elsewhere, in particular through the three PhD projects that started as of 1 October 2021. The activity in the TAG is a joint process of collaboration between educators and researchers with shared objectives, contributing in different ways to the developments and innovations that are the focus of the communities of practice. The research line within the TAG will be a community interrelated with the thematic communities of practice. This community will contribute to a more evidence-based way of thinking in higher education; it will inspire lecturers to apply insights from educational research to their teaching practice. By bringing together researchers and lecturers conducting research into their teaching practice, we aim for the community to be better informed about what kind of research is being conducted and where opportunities for collaboration in innovation projects can be found. There is much to research, learn and discuss to keep the quality of education at the UG strong and future-proof.

Fields of research

The TAG PhD programmes will focus on the following topics: 

1. Teaching innovations as part of the development and implementation of online teaching, with the aim of developing more online and blended/hybrid teaching methods. We are curious to find out which innovations are ‘working’ at the UG, how they ‘work’, who they ‘work’ for, and in which situations. We want to use this theme to build up our body of fundamental knowledge about certain teaching innovations in higher education, and, via design-based research approaches, find answers that are relevant to the teaching practices at the UG. 
2. Stress and heavy workloads have been recurring problems among students and lecturers in higher education for some years. The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated and exposed this problem. We want to use this theme to focus on setting up and studying interventions that will improve the well-being and resilience of students and lecturers. 
3. Alignment with the job market and longitudinal monitoring of former students. We are curious to find out how our students get on after they graduate. This theme encompasses a systematic, UG-wide approach to monitoring our students using ‘big data’ (like the ones that CBS (Statistics Netherlands) has at its disposal).

Hanke Korpershoek - Chair 

Prof. dr. Hanke Korpershoek is professor (adjunct) of Educational Sciences, in particular educational innovation and school improvement, at the GION Education/Research institute of the University of Groningen. Her research interests involve educational innovation and school improvement, evidence-informed decision making (EIDM), research on school systems, and research on students’ choice behaviour and motivation.

Within the TAG, Hanke's main focus is to promote evidence-informed practice of university teaching and learning in the context of sustainable quality improvement of university education.