The attention to the quality of university teaching and professional development of university teachers has been increasing in Europe. Besides the strengthening European directions, among others the three-cycle degree programs, the European Qualification Framework, the learning outcome based education, the strengthened program design, university teaching practices and how they are supported may still differ in national contexts. There is little comparative research on university teachers’ teaching approaches and professional development in different countries, although this kind of research is important in order to understand how macro contextual features and cultural differences may influence university teachers’ work. The purpose of the study was to compare Finnish and Hungarian university teachers’ approaches to and practices of teaching, their practices of professional development and perceptions of departmental cultures.
Traditionally university teaching was often considered as part of researchers’ work rather than an actual teaching profession. This is also reflected in research on teaching: Although there is a lot of research on professional development of primary and secondary school teachers, less attention has been paid to university teachers’ professionalism from a holistic point of view. During the recent couple of decades a rich research line has emerged, focusing on university teachers’ conceptions of learning (e.g. Prosser, Trigwell, and Taylor 1994), their conceptions of teaching in general or good teaching in particular (e.g. Trigwell and Prosser 1996; Kember and Kwan 2000; Parpala and Lindblom-Ylänne 2007; Wegner and Nückles 2015), and their approaches to teaching (e.g. Trigwell and Prosser 2004). Fewer studies have concerned academics’ professional development. Most of these studies mainly focused on the impact of formal, in-house trainings (e.g. Gibbs and Coffey 2004; Cilliers and Herman 2010; Norton et al. 2005; Postareff et al. 2007; Stes and Petegem 2011), whereas more informal forms of university teachers’ professional development have received less attention (see e.g. Warhurst 2006 as an exception).
While the importance of professional cultures for supporting teaching and professional development in schools is discussed thoroughly, this is seldom studied in the context of university education. For deeper understanding the departmental culture, the ideas of school cultures by Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) were adapted to the university level in this study. Based on their field experiences in schools Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) identified the following types of professional cultures: (1) individualism, (2) balkanization, (3) contrived collegiality, (4) professional learning communities, and (5) clusters, networks, federations.
The aim of the study was to examine teaching practices and working cultures of university teachers in Finland and Hungary to see if there are any differences between the two European countries. In more detail, the following research questions were addressed:
1) What kind of approaches to teaching university teachers show in Finland and Hungary; are there differences between the countries?
2) What kind of professional development activities teachers participate in, and are there differences between the countries?
3) How do teachers perceive professional cultures in their department; are there differences between the countries?
An additional purpose of the study was to examine and validate new scales measuring teaching approaches, professional development activities and professional cultures in university departments.
