Amanda Roberts
Contact: a.roberts2@herts.ac.uk
Supervisors
First Supervisor:
Dr. Saranne Weller
Other Supervisors:
Prof. Eeva Leinonen and
Prof. Paul Blackmore
Thesis Title
An investigation of the factors which might influence and actions which might beneficially amend academic staff writing practices in a UK HEI.
Project Description
As a newly appointed academic at The University of Hertfordshire School of Education, I am interested in exploring the challenge for myself and my colleagues in engaging in research and academic writing activity. I wish to develop my understanding of academics’ experience of and response to writing. I am interested in how academics can be supported in producing written outcomes of their research and development activity and how this writing influences their perception of their identity. I wish to problematise the nature of academic writing, to look at how it can be re-framed from an individual activity associated with superior intellectual capacity and professional competitiveness to a collaborative, inclusive activity. Through this research, I aim to provide a framework for the support of scholarship and the management of the new knowledge thus created within a School of Education. I also aim to provide practical, theoretical and conceptual insights for wider use by educators, university leaders and policymakers.
Biography
Amanda Roberts worked for twenty years in a variety of roles in schools across Essex and Norfolk, culminating in a headship in Hertfordshire. She moved on to run a consultancy company, providing support for learning in a variety of contexts including schools in challenging circumstances and within the prison service. Amanda’s current role is Programme Director for the MSc in Practice-based Research in the School of Education at the University of Hertfordshire. She holds an MA in Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations from the University of Hertfordshire.