Barriers to implementing pedagogical change: The role of teachers' perceptions of risk
Abstract This research uses an analytical framework of risk to better understand why professional learning initiatives intended to bring about change in teaching practice often fail. Risk-taking is an inherent part of the uncertainty involved in educational change and this study of teachers in professional learning reveals that, if the level of risk is perceived to be too high, teachers will not engage in the pedagogical practices promoted. Implications of this research include the importance of developing capacity to identify risks, reducing the level of perceived risk, and providing a supportive environment in which teachers feel empowered to take risks.
The evolution of the university in New Zealand from its beginnings in a new colony in the mid-1800s was strongly influenced by happenings elsewhere in the British Empire. This chapter describes that history, maps the increasing demand for higher education in the 1960s, outlines the neoliberal reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, and then considers the performance-based funding environment of the twenty-first century. Laying out the historic contexts that have helped shape the current university environment in which early career academics are immersed, the chapter also identifies recent trends and policy changes affecting New Zealand universities and academics. It emphasises how different an environment the twenty-first century New Zealand university is from the ones in which many current academic leaders were themselves trained.