Abstract
This paper employs a Square of Opposition as an interpretivist heuristic device in order to interrogate perceptions of academic support. The Square of Opposition is used to move beyond binary explanations of academic development subsumed within learner-/discipline-focussed practices or institutionally /epistemologically constrained systems; an exemplar data set is used to achieve this. The results of this analysis demonstrate that positions that might normally be understood as opposed in fact share common features, at least where some key concepts are concerned. In particular, two “contradictories” are explored: the first of these critiques the differences and similarities between contested meaning-making and knowledge dissemination and the second analyses the disjuncture between skills-focussed instruction and academic literacy as a social practice. This form of analysis offers new insights that directly speak to the ways in which we conceive of, and enact, teaching, personal tutoring and academic advising.
Highlights
At the time of writing this article, a global pandemic is changing the face of education
The university from which the data was collected offers a wide range of face-to-face, workshop-based and online academic support services facilitated by a centralised Learning Services department for approximately 12,000 undergraduate and 4,000 postgraduate students
As the interviews were based on the lived realities of each participant, the intention was to model perceptions of academic support using a Square of Opposition affording the opportunity to analyse experience through a new lens
Summary
Reviewed by: Hugh Mannerings, Consultant, Edinburgh, United Kingdom Eve Rapley, University of Greenwich, United Kingdom. The Square of Opposition is used to move beyond binary explanations of academic development subsumed within learner-/ discipline-focussed practices or institutionally /epistemologically constrained systems; an exemplar data set is used to achieve this. The results of this analysis demonstrate that positions that might normally be understood as opposed share common features, at least where some key concepts are concerned. Two “contradictories” are explored: the first of these critiques the differences and similarities between contested meaning-making and knowledge dissemination and the second analyses the disjuncture between skills-focussed instruction and academic literacy as a social practice.
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