‘Crossing Over' into Research on Teaching and Learning

Academics teaching in higher education institutions who choose interdisciplinary projects for their postgraduate studies that link their own discipline with that of education or with teaching and learning, face opportunities and challenges that are similar to other part-time post-graduate students as well as issues that are specific to them as a group. They face the usual challenges, such as of time management, but they experience specific opportunities and achievements related to academic identity and the research process. The focus for this volume, ‘spaces, journeys and new horizons' aptly conveys the experiences of ‘crossing over', as these academics travel between their own disciplines and the field of education, journeying inwards to focus on their own practice and teaching and learning contexts in order to move ultimately, towards ‘new horizons'. Our understanding about the issues faced by academics moving from their own discipline base to engage with research and innovation in education or learning and teaching areas can be theorised using the literature on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).