Recognition and Influence: The Evolution of Higher Education Research and Development

Overview & Synopsis

"Higher Education Research & Development" ("HERD") was established to address a perceived gap in higher education publishing: research of interest to practitioners that was engagingly written. After 30 years of contributing to the field, "HERD" has constructed a unique position for itself among higher education journals. This paper reviews the general patterns and tendencies demonstrated through the citation practices of authors in the first five years of "HERD" and it compares them with the ideas used to support arguments about higher education research in more recent articles published in the journal. By comparing the results of this review with citation practices in similar journals of higher education, the study suggests that "HERD" continues to attract practitioner researchers responding to the changing social and epistemological landscape of higher education. The paper concludes that "HERD" has been instrumental in consolidating the concepts of the field in a way that has accommodated a large number of authors who only occasionally engage in higher education research. This, in turn, has led to the emergence of a distinctive literature about higher education teaching and learning. (Contains 4 tables and 1 note.)