PhD projects

Below you find short info about current and completed PhD projects in the HEDWORK group. Click on the links or see the entries for each member for more information.

Current


Changing work-practices and arising opportunities for learning across geographical locations in a technology implementation process

Isabel Alexandra Brandenberger (2020 - 2024) 

In collaboration with the project CORPUS - Changing Competence Requirements in Public Services: consequences of digitalization in general and highly specialized work , my project aims at studying learning opportunities and challenges for learning in a changing workplace where new technology is introduced.

Through observations of the work and meetings between professionals, my study focuses on how organized knowledge- and experience-sharing affects learning-opportunities between geographically distributed professionals. The professionals in question are assigned the responsibility of implementing welfare-technology in the elderly care in Oslo.

Supervisors:  Mervi Hasu and Monika Nerland 


Interprofessional work in developing systems for information flow in the healthcare

Christopher Sadorge  (2020-2024)

The focus of this project is to study the interprofessional collaboration in developing digital information systems for the healthcare sector. Through my first research question, I will investigate how this collaboration is organized and how tensions and negotiating of diverging interests unfold. My second research question is related to what kind of competencies that are needed for participants developing digital systems in an interprofessional collaboration.

The research questions are examined through two cases in a municipality of Norway where technology is being developed. My approach in collecting the empirical data will be ethnographic. The project is linked to the on-going research project  Changing competence requirements in public services: Consequences of digitization in general and highly specialized work (CORPUS)

Supervisors:  Monika Nerland  & Mervi Hasu


National Policies, Institutional Strategies and Practices on Quality in Higher Education - What are the Relations

Elisabeth Josefine Lackner (2019-2023)

The project will study how higher education institutions in Norway relate to national policies, the case being the launch of the white paper Quality Culture in Higher Education (2017). To do so, the national policy formation on quality in this period will be mapped. Furthermore, how higher education institutions, and different levels within the institutions, relate to the policy will be studied.

Supervisor: Bjørn Stensaker


Peer-Group Mentoring in higher education - A collaborative tool for faculty development

Sofie Bastiansen  (2018-2022)

The focus in my research is on peer-group mentoring (PGM) for faculty staff in Norwegian higher education, and it is linked to the project: 'Faculty peer-tutoring in teaching and supervision - Innovation teacher collaboration practices in Norwegian higher education'. As a point of departure, we have collected video data from formal PGM conversations between supervisors of Master students. These recordings constitute the basis for our analysis, which aims to generate in-depth knowledge about the sociocultural and interactive process that takes place during PGM conversations.

Supervisor: Thomas de Lange 

Completed


Teachers’ handling of new knowledge challenges at the interface between known and unknowns

Eli Tronsmo (2014 - 2018)

The thematic focus for the PhD project is teachers handling of knowledge challenges related to changing conditions for teachers’ work and learning. Empirically, the project will examine the knowledge practices of lower secondary school teachers in concrete situations of local curriculum work where knowledge is selected, negotiated and further developed to inform their teaching. More

Supervisor: Monika Nerland


Discourses of responsibility in pre-service teacher education

Caro Kirsebom (2013-2017)

The projects interest is primarily in how understandings of subjects, structures of address / terms of recognition, differences, narratives of development and agency, conflicts and relations are premising the processes of identification as “responsible professional”. Also, how are the different ages of the pupils in the two focus groups (teacher education for grades 1-7, and high school) apparent / made relevant in the citations about responsibility, teaching, agency and pedagogical relations? Further: how are common discourses and practices of reflexivity in teacher education and teaching involved along these lines of interest? A central goal is also developing a creative and useful deconstructive methodological approach to these constitutive practices that are difficult to conceptualize, “get at” and problematize on individual and societal levels. More

Supervisor: Tone Dyrdal Solbrekke


The role of the government in higher education - A comparative study on the administrative reorganization of the Austrian and Norwegian higher education ministries

Philipp Friedrich (2015-2019)

I am interested in organizational change of higher education ministries and agencies in light of comprehensive university reforms. My empirical cases are the Austrian and Norwegian ministries responsible for higher education and their relationship to two subordinate agencies (AQ Austria and OeAD in Austria, NOKUT and SIU in Norway). Both their national higher education systems were reformed 15 to 20 years ago. While most of the attention was given to how the universities interpreted that newly granted autonomy, hardly anyone addressed the question how the ministries would be affected.Two analytical dimensions stand out in this examination, which are organizational autonomy and capacity. I examine how formal and informal autonomy in interaction with organizational capacity have developed in the study period. I also reflect upon balancing these dimensions, e.g. whether an organization has enough capacity to implement its mission or not, and if it is in accordance with its organizational autonomy.

Supervisor: Peter Maassen


Enrolment to the expert culture of law: A study of knowledge practices in higher education

Cecilie Enqvist-Jensen (2013-2017)

The aim of this PhD-project is to gain insight into how law students become a part of and learn to master the legal expert culture and its specific ways handling knowledge. This study will supplement the existing research on professional learning and learning in higher education by including social and institutional dimensions as well as highlighting the way expert cultures form learning. In this project – a case study of the 5-year integrated program of law at the University of Oslo – I am concerned with what kinds of problems are addressed, as well as what knowledge strategies the students are working with in the master program. In my project I zoom in on students´ work with core principles of legal methodology as a way of becoming a part of the expert culture of law. More specifically, I am interested in how the students master and identify with methodological principles at different stages in the program. My empirical work will consist of video based observations of student group activities and instructional processes, document analysis of course material and texts and interviews with students. My project is linked to the on-going research project Horizontal Governance and Learning Dynamics in Higher Education.

Supervisor: Monika Nerland

Feedback practices in Norwegian higher education

Rachelle Esterhazy (2014-2018)

This project focuses on feedback practices in Norwegian higher education as part of the project ‚Quality of Norwegian Higher Education: Pathways, Practices and Performances‘. It aims at producing in-depth knowledge about process quality by observing feedback processes in depth in different teaching activities and various disciplinary settings.

Supervisors: Monika Nerland and Helge Strømsø


Learning Outcomes in Norwegian and English degree programmes

Rachel Sweetman (2013 - 2017)

The project uses a multi-level, comparative approach to explore how learning outcomes are interpreted and operationalized in two national systems (Norway and England) and in contrasting disciplinary areas. Some aspects of the project and some Norwegian data collection will be linked to the Higher Education Learning Outcomes (HELO) project, a collaboration between NIFU, PFI, HiOA and the University of Bergen, funded by the Norwegian Research Council. More

Supervisor: Bjørn Stensaker


Published Jan. 7, 2020 1:37 PM - Last modified Oct. 17, 2023 11:10 AM