Recently a significant amount of research has been released showcasing the increasing impact of international students on UK Higher Education. In a recent paper I wrote I talk about an increasing practice known as ‘consumerisation’, which I define as a “social phenomenon that empowers buyers and consumers, keeping a check on companies to ensure that the customers receive quality products and or services at the correct price” (Jabbar et al, 2017)
Continue reading The student customer
An old post but still very relevant. A lot of students I work with still struggle with the difference!
You’re ready, you’re aimed, and now you have to fire off the objectives. But you’re a bit confused. What”s the difference between the two?
An aims-objectives confusion might arise when you are writing thesis proposal and the introductory thesis chapter. It’s always an issue in research bids. The what’s-the-difference question can have you going around in ever smaller unproductive circles if you can’t figure out a way to differentiate between the two things. And the difference is something I’ve recently been asked about, so I’ve decided to post something of an answer.
Dictionaries are only vaguely helpful when thinking about aims and objectives. My desk dictionary says that an aim is to do with giving direction. An aim is “something intended or desired to be obtained by one’s efforts”. On the other hand an objective is to do with achieving an object, it’s about actions, “pertaining to that whose delineation…
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Data Analytics and VisualisationIt’s been at least six months since my last blog post, while it might seem like a long time, it’s always amazing to look back and reflect on what I have accomplished during this time. I don’t really want this blog post to sound like my end of year “speech”, however this past year has been amazing, action packed, fun-filled and downright breath-taking. As the curtain call on the year I wanted to take some time to pen my thoughts and reflect on my achievements over the past year. I don’t really want to dump everything in to this one post, so the plan is to undertake a series of blog posts. In the first instance I want to talk about a subject very close to my heart, “analytics”. The biggest achievement this year was the successful validation of the first BSc Business Data Analytics course at Huddersfield Business School. It was a rigorous process but the course was passed with zero conditions and five commendations!
Continue reading Data Rich, Skills Poor – Analytics in Business
Although they are widely employed by qualitative researchers, documents are rarely used on their own, they are an excellent mechanism for supporting additional data collection mechanisms. In most cases documents are used to provide additional data and to check on the findings deriving from other sources of data. Document analysis are normally used as a method in addition to clear specific data sources, and for many Qualitative researchers can be vital in the data collection process.
Excellent advice for early careers researchers
We all know what bloat is. If something is bloated it is swollen, puffed up, flabby, distended, enlarged. Right now, we probably associate bloat with eating too much over the festive season. But bloat also happens in academic writing.
A lot of academic writing is on the bloated side. You can pick up almost any academic journal and find papers where whole paragraphs are stuffed to the gills with excess phrases and words. Of course, academic writing is not the only kind of writing that suffers from word-inflation. Legal and bureaucratic writing over-indulges in the same wordy overkill as some academic writing.
And when a supervisor or reviewer suggests that academic writing needs to be tightened up, it’s likely that they are actually saying that they’ve noticed a lot of bloat. They’ve met a text that takes up too much space – and much more time than they wanted to…
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As UK Higher Education institutions continue to accept students from ethnically diverse backgrounds, scholars argue that this changes how as educators we should view the student body. A popular view among academics is that there is now a responsibility on academics and institutions to provide learning environments and experiences that are inclusive, validating and affirming. Todays blog post is about discussing these issues within the context of a recent paper that I have written.
Near the end of my PhD during the write up process I made a conscious decision to stop all publishing activity. “Why?” I hear you ask, it was not due to lazyness, nor did I come down with a very acute affliction of “donothingitus”. There was a method to my madness and holding down a full time job and trying to complete my PhD I needed to prioritise. So my priority became my PhD with paper writing placed on the back burner.
Most academics have their own approaches to examining PhDs, some will start from the conclusion and work their way back, while others will spend a huge amount of time reading your aims and then comparing them to your findings. However, what each of these academics has in common is their somewhat religious adherence to the structure and content of the methodology chapter. You must get this right.
Continue reading Five tips for writing your Methodology section
A lot of academics I know are in similar positions to this. Looking at this from the perspective of guilt is pretty unique though!
I’ve been thinking about guilt lately. Academic guilt. And why I seem to feel it – a lot.
The most recent guilt ridden occasion was just last weekend. The week before I’d been away for four days at a conference. I’d left home at 5 am on Tuesday and arrived back at 2 30 am on Saturday. Gah. Just the way the flights worked out. But it did mean that on Saturday I couldn’t do much more than get my laundry done. Shattered doesn’t really describe it. And on Sunday I got up quite early, blogged, did slides for two presentations I had to give on Tuesday and sorted out some urgent research project admin. That took me to a late lunch and then I stopped. Stopped but feeling guilty that I hadn’t done more.
Guilty that I hadn’t
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Greetings, it has been a good long few months since my last blog post and as the academic year looms fast I thought it maybe best to spruce up the old’ blog. Todays blog is all about my adventures (not really an adventure) from the 24th Nordic academy of Management (NFF conference) which this year was held at the Nord University in Norway (Arctic circle). This being my first time in Norway I am glad I bought my fleece with me, while Bodo is breathtakingly beautiful it can also get pretty cold! However I had the NFF 2017 conference to keep me warm with lively discussion on some hot topics with some of the friendliest people I have ever met.
The Academic Triangle 