Innovative Practice in Higher Education

Exploring Psychology Lecturers’ Attitudes Towards Mobile Virtual Reality: Opportunities, Barriers, and Educational Potential

2025-06-11T10:15:28+00:00

Virtual Reality has the capacity to facilitate novel and unique learning experiences for higher education students. Despite this, economic and accessibility challenges continue to limit its widespread adoption. This study explores psychology lecturers' attitudes towards cost-effective Mobile-VR. Sixteen psychology lecturers engaged with Mobile-VR headsets and participated in online focus groups. Using Constant Comparison and Micro-Interlocutor Analysis, five themes were generated: (a) Accessibility of Mobile Virtual Reality, (b) Embodied Learning, (c) Engagement, Reflection, and Classroom Collaboration, (d) Curriculum Integration, and (e) Barriers to the Adoption. Lecturers strongly supported Mobile-VR, recognising its ease of use and potential to enhance learning through immersive, embodied experiences, as well as fostering deeper understanding. However, financial constraints and the lack of high-quality 360° content pose significant barriers. The study highlights the need for institutional support, staff training, and bespoke content to better integrate Mobile-VR into the psychology curricula, enhancing the student experience.

Keywords: Virtual Reality; Higher Education; Psychology; Qualitative Methods; Attitudes

The Hero’s Journey (in HE) Continues: Applying the hero’s journey framework to curriculum planning and course design

2025-06-12T10:31:04+00:00

Building on the ideas contained in Farmer's 'The Hero's Journey in Higher Education: A Twelve Stage Narrative Approach to the Design of Active, Student-Centred University Modules' (2019), this current paper takes the idea of using the twelve stages of the hero’s journey as a course design tool, and extends it by adding a series of diagnostic questions linked to the stages, the purpose of which is to develop Farmer’s (2019) theoretical ideas into a more practically-oriented toolkit for educators. In the same spirit, this current paper also includes thoughts from workshop participants who have begun to make use of the hero’s journey as a course design toolkit, drawing the tentative conclusion that, for some people at least, the idea provides a useful framework for course design.

Keywords: Active Learning; Learning Design; Hero’s Journey; Inclusive Curriculum; Narrative Framework; Teaching and Learning

A phenomenological reflection on approaching attitudes towards race in research

2025-06-11T10:21:32+00:00

Through a phenomenological lens, this reflection explores the interplay between research ethics, researcher positionality, power and researcher identity during a semi-structured interview on International Student diversity in Higher Education. The phenomenological process of bracketing, i.e. the act of suspending biases or attachments, provides scope to evaluate researcher ethics during data collection and subsequently, during data analysis when met with racist language from the perspective of a researcher, specifically a researcher belonging to an ethnic minority group. This reflection advocates critical reflection on researcher identity throughout the research process to enable the researcher to better anticipate and prepare for challenging or confrontational interview responses. Furthermore, this reflection emphasises the significance of open questioning during data collection as a tool for increasing understanding of interviewee perspectives and avoiding confrontation whilst increasing the validity of findings.

Key words: Ethnicity; Linguistic Ethnography; International student diversity; Phenomenology; Power; Reflective practice; Reflexivity; Researcher positionality

Book Review: Grimwood, M and McHanwell, S. (2024) Evidencing Teaching Achievements in Higher Education. Critical Publishing.

2025-06-11T10:44:18+00:00

Book Review: Grimwood, M and McHanwell, S. (2024) Evidencing Teaching Achievements in Higher Education. Critical Publishing.

Christopher Little

Manchester Metropolitan University

Corresponding author: c.little@mmu.ac.uk