Academics’ expertise development in teacher tasks: a multiple case study

ABSTRACT

To support academics in their professional development as university teachers throughout their careers, a more comprehensive understanding is needed of their expertise development. In this study we therefore explored the order in which academics develop their expertise in various teacher tasks and the interrelatedness between their expertise development in these tasks. We conducted a multiple case study of 18 academics at a Dutch research-intensive university. We found a general pattern for academics’ expertise development in five teacher tasks over time, connectedness as well as distinctness of these tasks, and mutually beneficial relationships between expertise development in all tasks. These findings confirm the need for more holistic academic development, which combines attention for connections between teacher tasks with attention for specific teacher tasks.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic development
• expertise development
• multiple case study
• teacher tasks
• university teachers

Introduction

To ensure high-quality education, it is crucial to assist academics in enhancing their expertise across all variety of simple to complex tasks inherent in university teaching. To provide optimal support, it is crucial to have knowledge about the underlying structure of academics’ teacher expertise development. This includes understanding the sequence in which academics develop expertise in various teacher tasks and how the development of expertise in these tasks is interconnected. A deeper understanding of how academics perceive their development across these tasks can offer valuable insights for shaping more effective academic development practices. For instance, if expertise development in specific teacher tasks is closely related in academics’ experiences, it may be relevant to address these tasks together in pedagogic training or workplace learning. Conversely, if expertise development in certain teacher tasks differs significantly from others, there may be a need for dedicated activities and programs for these tasks. Prior studies have provided insight into the formats and mechanisms for supporting academics’ expertise development (e.g. Steinert et al., 2016; Vreekamp et al., 2023) as well as insight into academics’ teacher expertise development in specific teacher tasks (e.g. Grunefeld et al., 2015; Stes et al., 2010). In this study, we add to the body of literature by investigating how academics experience their expertise development in the full breadth of teacher tasks, ranging from lecturing to leadership. This broad focus is in line with recent calls for more holistic academic development, which goes beyond a narrow focus on supporting academics’ pedagogical skills (Sutherland, 2018). While some studies do report on connections between academics’ expertise development in different teacher tasks (e.g. Gravett, 2017), to the best of our knowledge, no studies have placed the interconnections of different teacher tasks at the forefront of their research. This enables the generation of insights that can offer guidance in academic development, shaping academic development practices in their approach to and involvement with a range of teacher tasks. The study is guided by the following two research questions: (1) What sequence do academics perceive in the development of their expertise in five pre-identified teacher tasks? and (2) How do academics perceive their expertise development in these tasks to be interrelated?. We investigated these research questions in a multiple case study of 18 academics in teaching-focused senior positions in a Dutch researchintensive university.

Background

Teacher tasks of academics

We adopt the perspective of ‘expertise’ to investigate the development of academics as university teachers. More than other perspectives, such as teacher knowledge and competencies, the expertise perspective places a strong emphasis on tasks. From an expertise perspective, in particular that of expert performance, experts can be distinguished from novices by their ability ‘to exhibit superior performance for representative tasks in a domain’ (Ericsson et al., 2018, p. 4). The focus on tasks is pertinent when examining academics’ development as university teachers, because tasks can be defined and easily recognized due to their close connection to teaching practice (Forzani, 2014; McDonald et al., 2013). The use of the expertise perspective implies a need for an overview of teacher tasks for academics. A recent review, analysing 46 frameworks for teacher expertise in higher education, identified international consensus for five core tasks for university teachers (van Dijk et al., 2020): (1) ‘teaching and supporting learning’, (2) ‘educational design’, (3) ‘assessment and feedback’, (4) ‘educational leadership and management’, and (5) ‘educational scholarship and research’. We have utilised these tasks as the foundation of our study. A complete description of each task and their associated subtasks (e.g. ‘using activating teaching methods’) is provided in the supplemental material (S1).

The development of academics’ teacher expertise

To the best of our knowledge, there have been no empirical studies that specifically investigated academics’ expertise development in the full breadth of teacher tasks. However, both the scientific literature as well as influential career frameworks for university teaching provide some general suggestions about the order in which academics may develop their expertise in the five teacher tasks and about the interrelatedness between the development of expertise in these teacher tasks.

Sequence in the development of expertise in teacher tasks

Most studies into teacher expertise development in various teacher tasks over time have been conducted in primary and secondary education (e.g. Fuller, 1969). A recent review of teacher expertise studies and career models in primary and secondary education has shown that teachers in these contexts typically develop their expertise in school leadership and education research after achieving proficiency as teachers (Raduan & Na, 2020). A closer examination of these models of the sources shows that this proficiency encompasses expertise in ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’. In higher education, a similar accumulation is found in influential career frameworks for university teachers, such as the Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education 2023 (PSF; Advance HE, 2023) and the Career Framework for University Teaching (Graham, 2018). Career frameworks such as these often include career stages that involve expertise in ‘educational leadership and management’ and ‘educational scholarship and research’ following stages that focus on expertise in ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’.

Interrelatedness between the development of expertise in various teacher tasks

The literature also offers insights into how expertise development in specific teacher tasks may be interrelated with the development of expertise in other teacher tasks. The literature about constructive alignment describes how aligning intended learning outcomes, teaching activities, and assessment methods can enhance the quality of education (Biggs, 2014). Academics who are familiar with or apply this concept may perceive ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’ as closely related, because achieving constructive alignment involves engagement with all these tasks. Furthermore, established bodies of literature differentiate ‘educational leadership and management’ and ‘educational scholarship and research’ from ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’. The management and organizational literature delineates a conceptual distinction between the logics of professionals and the logic of management. Despite these differences, knowledge of the profession – often as a result of having been a professional – is argued to be essential for being an effective leader and manager in a professional domain (de Bruijn, 2011; Noordegraaf, 2015). In the literature about educational scholarship, both applying and conducting (practiceoriented) education research is considered to be conceptually different from the act of teaching (Kern et al., 2015). Nonetheless, the literature also describes connections between these two activities. One prominent connection highlighted in educational scholarship literature is that improvements in academics’ teaching practices can result from their efforts to apply and conduct (practice-based) education research (Geertsema, 2016; Hutchings et al., 2011).

Materials and methods

Research design

We carried out a multiple case study of academics in senior roles in education at Utrecht University, a research-intensive university in the Netherlands. Academics were taken as a unit of analysis, that is, each academic (n = 18) constituted one case. The research was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Ethics Review Board of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Utrecht University (study approval number #20-132). All authors worked at the same university as the participants. We have included a description of the national and institutional context (S2) as well as a reflection on the positionality of the authors (S3) as supplemental material.

Data collection

Three different types of data were collected for each case: (1) two semi-structured interviews with academics in formal educational leadership positions at Utrecht University (hereafter participants), (2) two semi-structured interviews with colleagues of the participant: one supervisor and one colleague, and (3) documents related to their expertise development. Interviews with participants and their colleagues were conducted by the first author between September 2020 and July 2021. Informed consent was obtained by all participants prior to the interviews. With the exception of one, all interviews were conducted online via Microsoft Teams due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Interview guides were used to ensure all relevant topics were covered while leaving room for follow-up questions and unforeseen topics. All interview guides and other materials for data collection are included as supplemental material (S4). The following sections explain the data collection process as illustrated by Figure 1.

Figure 1. Illustration of the data collection process for each participant.

Selection of academics

We purposefully selected academics in formal leadership positions in university education at departmental or faculty level. We found these positions to be the best available indicator to identify academics that had developed or had started to develop their expertise across a variety of teacher tasks. At Utrecht University the formal leadership positions included educational directors of bachelor or master programs, academics with a teaching-focused full professorship, academics in a career track leading up to such professorship (Crone et al., 2023), and vice deans of education. Participants invited in the study were chosen at random from the list of academics holding those formal educational leadership roles within their respective faculties. One to four academics from each faculty participated in the study. The number of participants per faculty was contingent upon the faculty’s size, which was determined by student enrolment numbers. Ten male and eight female participated in the study (M = 55 years, SD = 10 years). All participants had obtained a PhD and combined teaching and research tasks over the course of their career in varying ratios. European rivers were used as pseudonyms for participants.

Data about expertise development in each teacher task

We first collected data about participants’ expertise development in each of the five university teacher tasks (van Dijk et al., 2020). This data was needed to enable participants to reflect on the order in which they developed their expertise in the five teacher tasks and on interrelatedness between expertise development in the teacher tasks in a second interview. In an interview of 90 minutes, participants were asked to describe about three important moments for their expertise development in each task. Subsequently, two types of additional data were collected: 30 minute semi-structured interviews with one colleague and one supervisor of each participant (n = 36) and documents that provided information about participants’ teacher expertise (k = 164), including curricula vitae, portfolios, and grant applications. We collected this data only to reveal any possible meaningful moments that may have been overlooked by the participants. The first author made a summary for each participant about their expertise development based on all data that were collected, which also included ‘timelines’: a visual representation of the timespan of all moments described by participants.

Data about expertise development in various teacher task

In the second interview, we investigated the sequence in which participants developed their expertise in the five teacher tasks and their perceptions of interrelatedness between the development of expertise in these tasks. One week before this interview, participants received the aforementioned summary. At the outset of this 60-minutes-long interview, participants reflected on the summary, which included brief descriptions of moments described in the initial interview and suggestions for additional moments gathered from interviews with colleagues and provided documents. Participants could decide whether to add, combine, or omit moments, to select a final set of meaningful moments to illustrate their teacher expertise development. Following this, participants were asked to describe their development over time in different tasks, and whether this corresponded to the timeline presented in the summary. Subsequently, participants were inquired about whether they perceived any interrelatedness in their expertise development across the five teacher tasks and, if so, to elucidate the ways in which these interrelations manifested.

Data-analysis

All interviews were video- and audio-recorded and were subsequently transcribed verbatim. The analyses were performed in NVivo (Version 1.5.1) by the first author and comprised three steps. In the first step, all text in the second interview that related to the sequencing and interrelatedness of expertise development in the teacher tasks was coded inductively. These codes included the abbreviated tasks and a word that related to sequencing or interrelatedness, for example: ‘TSL, ED & AF before ELM & ESR’ and ‘ESR contributes to ELM’. The second step involved iterative rounds of reviewing, merging and refining of codes until a final code structure was established. In the third and final step, the first interview was re-examined to gather additional information about participants’ expertise development over time in the five tasks and the interrelatedness between them. All texts pertaining to these topics were coded using the previously established final code structure. Additionally, we established a final set of meaningful moments for each participant and visualized this set of moments in a final timeline. Figure 2 includes an overview of all the final timelines. Higher-resolution images of each timeline are available as supplemental material (S5). The supplemental material also contains additional information to support the quality of our analyses, namely an overview of what codes applied to what participant (S6) and a report of a summative audit of our study (S7).

Figure 2b. (Continued).

Findings

Sequence of expertise development in the five teacher tasks

We visualized the expertise development of each participant using a timeline (see Figure 2). During the interviews, participants affirmed that the timelines provide an overall impression of their expertise development. Additionally, participants contributed two notes for their interpretation: first, that the timelines do not capture all aspects of their development, and second, that they do not fully reflect relative importance of certain moments. In general, we found a pattern where meaningful moments in academics’ expertise development in ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’ and ‘assessment and feedback’ were concentrated primarily at the early stages of the participants’ careers. Conversely, meaningful moments for academics’ expertise development in ‘educational leadership and management’ and ‘educational scholarship and research’ were more prominent during the middle and later stages of their careers at the time of the interviews. Interviews with participants confirmed this pattern, as illustrated by the following quote from Arno’s interview:

You can see quite well that slowly but surely it [my expertise] has actually expanded in terms of those five areas. And it’s right, because the way it is presented [in the timeline], with the first three and the last two, that’s typical for what happened with me.

Figure 2a. Final timelines for all participants.

Grey beams represent time span of participants’ academic careers. Coloured beams represent meaningful moments for development in different teacher tasks described by participants. White symbols in the coloured beams (i.e. square, triangle, diamond, star) connect moments that involved the same activity or event.

Some participants did indicate that they began developing their expertise in ‘educational leadership and management’ and ‘educational scholarship and research’ either before or simultaneously with their development in the other three tasks. Rhine, Thames, Loire, Oder, and Taag’s early development in ‘educational leadership and management’ was prompted by specific positions they held that involved leadership or management responsibilities, such as innovation of education, educational policy, or student representation. Rhine developed his expertise in ‘educational scholarship and research’ early on because he served as the editor of a practiceoriented journal about education from the beginning of his academic career. Ebro, Oder, and Glomma developed their expertise in ‘educational scholarship and research’ before or at the outset of their academic careers, because education sciences were part of their master’s or Ph.D. programs.

Interrelatedness between expertise development in the five teacher tasks

We discerned a connection wherein ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’ were intimately linked, as participants frequently articulated associations between these three tasks. Considering this close relationship, we identified interrelatedness in expertise development between (a) ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’ (referred to as primary process tasks), (b) ‘educational leadership and management’, and (c) ‘educational scholarship and research’. These findings, along with the general pattern for the sequence in which participants developed their expertise, are visualized in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Visualisation of the findings.

The order of tasks from left to right in the figure, emphasised by the black arrow, represents the expertise development over time described by most participants. The grey circles and arrows in the figure summarise the interrelatedness between teacher tasks that was found. The black arrows and grey circles and arrows do not interact.

Primary process tasks and educational leadership and management

We identified two ways by which participants’ expertise in the three primary process tasks can contribute to expertise in ‘educational leadership and management’. First, participants described that their proficiency in ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’ improved their effectiveness in various aspects of ‘educational leadership and management’. They cited how teaching experiences helped them to understand student and colleague experiences, anticipate opportunities and challenges, formulate solutions for problems, assess the consequences of decisions for educational practice, shape their educational vision, and learn from others in educational leadership and management positions before holding these positions themselves. This, in turn, enhanced their abilities in areas such as managing education, mentoring colleagues, and policy-making. Rhône provided an example when he described how his expertise in primary process tasks enabled him to assess the viability of certain policies.

In education, I see right away where things will go wrong when a faculty director says: ‘we have to organise it like this’. Then I say: that is just not going to work, teachers do not want that, they cannot do it, and so on.

Secondly, participants mentioned that their involvement in teaching practice garnered greater acceptance and support from colleagues for their ideas and decisions as educational leaders and managers. Participants actively utilised their experiences and expertise to rally support among their colleagues. Furthermore, participants found that they gained credibility as educational managers and leaders when their colleagues perceived them as experienced or expert teachers. According to participants, this gave them ‘respect’, ‘authority’, and ‘recognition’ among colleagues, resulting in more acceptance and support. Some participants pointed out that their credibility could be undermined when they did not ‘teach as they preach’ or when they were perceived as performing inadequately as teachers.

While participants experienced expertise in the primary process tasks to contribute to expertise in ‘educational leadership and management’, many also perceived ‘educational leadership and management’ as new or different, in the sense that it involved a variety of other areas that are not part of teaching practice. Examples that participants provided are budgeting or generating support amongst colleagues. Nevertheless, a substantial number of participants considered proficiency in the primary process tasks to be a prerequisite for developing and having expertise in ‘educational leadership and management’, although some concluded that the relationship between the two was more indirect.

Two participants also noted that expertise in ‘educational leadership and management’ benefited expertise in the primary process tasks. They explained that expertise in ‘educational leadership and management’ could create opportunities for themselves and others to further develop their expertise in ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’ and ‘assessment and feedback’. University teacher Rhine explains how this works for him:

By bringing in a lot of students and therefore also money, you have more to say than when you brought in very few students. Again, that has to do with power. So then you can also implement innovations in education sooner. In that respect, that [educational leadership and] management also influences those other [tasks].

Primary process tasks and educational scholarship and research

We identified several ways in which expertise in ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’ contributed to expertise in ‘educational scholarship and research’. Teaching experience provided participants an understanding of educational processes and terminology, serving as a foundation for reading educational literature and conducting research into education related to these processes and terminology. In some cases, teaching experiences, such as taking on new responsibilities and introducing educational innovation, prompted participants acquire more knowledge about specific topics or become involved in research into education. When reading or conducting education sciences research, participants’ experiences in teaching practice aided them in assessing the practical relevance of this research. University teacher Maas describes this as his primary role in supervising PhD students conducting (discipline-based) educational research:

My most important role in all that education sciences research, still, is that I always think like: what does it actually mean for educational practice? And I notice that this is what I can best help my PhD students with. […] The input and my interest in those research projects is less theoretical, and more: and what does this mean? What does it mean for me as a teacher?

Participants reported that their experiences in teaching practice, while valuable, offered limited assistance in understanding and conducting research in education. Research training and collaboration with educational researchers played a more important role in acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary for engaging with education sciences literature and conducting research into education. In line with this, participants who did not consider ‘educational scholarship and research’ to be a new task were typically education scientists or were trained in related disciplines such as psychology. Participants from other fields, such as history or medicine, noted fundamental differences between their discipline and education sciences, with research-related training and experience in their respective disciplines providing little support for expertise development in ‘educational scholarship and research’.

Expertise in ‘educational scholarship and research’, obtained through reading literature or conducting (practice-oriented) education research, also contributed to expertise in ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’. University teachers explained that reading education sciences literature and being involved in research in education sciences provided insights relevant for their own teaching practice. These insights helped them to look at their teaching practice in a different way. They also provided a foundation for shaping their teaching practice: they helped them to decide what to do and what not to do and were a driver for educational change. As university teacher Duoro puts it:

I think educational scholarship is a broad and therefore somewhat difficult concept, in the sense that there are various ways in which you can give meaning to it. The way I give meaning to it now, but also over the course of my career, is to be research driven. So I am interested in educational literature and based on that I do things or I don’t do things.

Educational leadership and management and educational scholarship and research

Participants described various ways in which their expertise in ‘educational leadership and management’ contributed to their expertise in ‘educational scholarship and research’. Two participants noted that leadership roles led to engagement in networks that also proved relevant for activities related to education research. Additionally, participants found that their engagement in ‘educational leadership and management’, similar to their involvement in teaching practice, contributed to expertise in ‘educational scholarship and research’ by helping them to consider the practical relevance of education sciences research and by encouraging further exploration of topics through literature consultation and research. University teacher Shannon illustrates the latter:

In [educational] leadership and management, you see directions that you think education should head towards. […] So I am on the board of [a strategic theme] and then I think: what is needed for that? Well, what is needed for that, for example, is that we start thinking about graduate attributes. And then you look at research, the education sciences research. What is graduate attribute? How are you going to offer that? […] Is there any research on this already?

Expertise in ‘educational scholarship and research’ also contributed to expertise in ‘educational leadership and management’. Participants reported that reading literature and conducting research informed and influenced their views and actions in ‘educational leadership and management’, much like it did in teaching practice. The difference was that participants also used literature and research to inform and guide their colleagues with education sciences literature provides arguments to persuade colleagues to adopt specific courses of action. This, in turn, made them more effective educational leaders and managers. University teacher Tisza explains:

Educational scholarship and research also contributes a lot to [educational] leadership [and management], I think. Because, if you do things in a scholarly way, you can also justify why you want to do things the way you want to. Which is very important, because for [the program I helped to develop], we used a completely new approach. You need to be able to justify that.

Discussion

Findings and contribution to the literature

In order to optimize academic development practices, this study aimed to deepen our understanding of underlying structures for academics’ teacher expertise development. Within our institutional context, we explored academics’ perceptions about the sequencing of their expertise development in five fundamental university teacher tasks and the interconnectedness of their expertise in these tasks.

Within our sample of academics, we found a pattern in which expertise development in ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’ was predominantly concentrated at the outset of academics’ careers, in contrast to the development of their expertise in ‘educational leadership and management’ and ‘educational scholarship and research’. This pattern aligns with findings in studies within the primary and secondary education context (Raduan & Na, 2020) and is consistent with influential career frameworks for university teaching (e.g. Advance HE, 2023; Graham, 2018), in the sense that expertise development in ‘educational leadership and management’ and ‘educational scholarship’ is presumed to occur primarily after acquiring expertise in the other three teacher tasks. It’s important to note that these career frameworks, which have served as a source of inspiration for similar frameworks at Utrecht University, may also have shaped opportunities available to academics for their expertise development. They may have governed academics’ access to teaching-focused professional development programmes and informal and formal educational leadership roles within the university. Additionally, we identified academics who concurrently developed their expertise in ‘educational leadership and management’ and/or ‘educational scholarship and research’ alongside their expertise in the other teacher tasks early on in their careers. These accounts expand our understanding of the experiences (e.g. leadership responsibilities) that can trigger early expertise development in ‘educational leadership and management’ and ‘educational scholarship and research’.

In alignment with the literature on constructive alignment (Biggs, 2014), we found that ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’ were experienced as closely interrelated tasks that form the foundation of the teaching and learning process. Conversely, ‘educational leadership and management’ and ‘educational scholarship and research’ were generally viewed as novel or distinct compared to the other three tasks, involving expertise in different areas than the other three tasks. This observation corresponds to existing literature where ‘educational leadership and management’ and ‘educational scholarship and research’ are conceptually differentiated from tasks more closely related to teaching practice (de Bruijn, 2011; Kern et al., 2015; Noordegraaf, 2015). Participants in this study described mutually beneficial relationships between (a) ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’, (b) ‘educational leadership and management’ and (c) ‘educational scholarship and research’, wherein expertise in one (set of) task(s) contributed to expertise in another. It seems that the various teacher tasks were perceived as interconnected, even when some were considered conceptually different. With the insights into both the distinct nature and interconnectedness of academics’ expertise development across various teacher tasks, the study offers a more comprehensive understanding of academics’ growth as university teachers.

The beneficial relatedness between tasks identified in this study provides additional empirical evidence for relationships described in the existing literature and draw attention to relationships that have not yet received as much attention. In this discussion, we emphasize what we consider to be less-explored relationships between teacher tasks. Our research demonstrates that academics’ experiences both as teachers and educational leaders/managers can serve as catalysts for engaging with education science literature and becoming involved in (practice-based) education sciences research. This insight adds to existing notions regarding the interplay between teaching practice and (practice-based) educational research (Geertsema, 2016; Hutchings et al., 2011) as well as to ideas for how to spark academics’ interest in developing their expertise in ‘educational scholarship and research’. Regarding ‘educational leadership and management’, our findings indicate that academics’ reputation as expert teachers, their knowledge of teaching practice and their familiarity with education sciences research prove valuable for garnering support amongst colleagues for their proposed course of action. Thus, our study provides specific insights on how academics’ expertise in their other teacher tasks contributes to this facet of expertise in ‘educational leadership and management’.

Limitations and further research

One limitation of this study is its reliance on academics’ retrospective selfreported accounts of their teacher expertise development. Memory is fallible, and when individuals are asked to reflect on their past experiences, there is always a risk of missing or distorting information. This potential limitation may have also affected our study, despite our efforts to mitigate it by gathering diverse data from various sources. Additionally, while self-reported expertise and expertise development offer valuable insight into academics’ experiences and needs, we acknowledge that this data may only provide a limited indication of actual behaviour. In light of these two limitations, we recommend further research with longitudinal designs and utilising methods other than self-report to corroborate and enhance the insights from this study. Another limitation concerns generalizability of our findings. The study’s design, which involved a small number of participants from a single researchintensive university in the Netherlands, warrants caution when attempting to extrapolate our findings to universities outside this context. Specific information about the national and institutional characteristics of the university context (e.g. national teaching qualifications and institutional policies for education) that may have influenced the findings in this study is provided in the supplemental material (S2). Further research should explore expertise development in other institutional and national contexts to either confirm or challenge the findings of this study and to provide a deeper understanding of how context shapes academics’ expertise development across various teacher tasks.

Implications for practice

The practical significance of our study’s findings extends to academic developers, academics, and policymakers. Within the context of the journal, we offer a more in-depth exploration of the implications for academic developers, alongside a broader overview of the implications for academics and policymakers. By providing detailed information about the context of our research as well as rich descriptions of the participants’ experiences, we hope to enable stakeholders to judge whether and how suggestions provided in this section may apply to their situation.

For academic developers, our findings underscore the importance of embracing a more holistic approach to academic development (Sutherland, 2018), which emphasizes the interconnectedness and interdependence of tasks rather than their isolated development. Our research indicates that academics typically concentrate on cultivating in teaching, design, and assessment during the early stages of their careers, with a shift towards the development of expertise in leadership and scholarship in later stages. To provide relevant support for academics throughout their careers, it is imperative to offer academic development activities and programs that nurture expertise development across the complete spectrum of teacher tasks. Our study also suggests the potential benefits of integrating support for academics’ expertise development in ‘teaching and supporting learning’, ‘educational design’, and ‘assessment and feedback’, given the close interconnections perceived among these tasks. In contrast, ‘educational leadership and management’ and ‘educational scholarship and research’ were identified as encompassing additional areas of expertise compared to the other three tasks. This implies specialized professional development activities may be warranted to facilitate academics’ expertise development in these areas. This may include activities close to everyday practice (e.g. collaborating with educational researchers) as well as formal learning activities (e.g. leadership courses). The experienced relatedness that was found between expertise development in ‘educational leadership and management’ and other teacher tasks underscores the importance of programmes focused on leadership and management in education, as generic leadership courses may be less able to connect to academics’ expertise in other teacher tasks. Lastly, our findings support a whole person approach to academic development (Sutherland, 2018). We have observed that academics’ experiences and expertise in one task can influence their further development in that task as well as in other tasks. Therefore, we recommend considering these individual differences into account in determining what are activities are offered and how they are designed. These practical implications complement to existing insights into effective academic development, including the significance of longitudinal programs (Steinert et al., 2016) and collaborative opportunities amongst university teachers (Vreekamp et al., 2023).

The findings of this study can assist academics in articulating their own teacher expertise development and provide a basis for reflecting on the similarities and differences in their development compared to the participants in this study. Academics can leverage these findings to envision potential pathways for advancing their teacher expertise in the future and to identify both opportunities and challenges in their ongoing development.

For policymakers, our research offers valuable insights into the requirements necessary to empower academics to contribute effectively to specific institutional goals related to university education. For instance, our findings suggest that targeted support initiatives may be crucial in enabling academics to make meaningful contributions to leadership in university education and evidence-informed educational practices.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2024.2329594

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Esther E. van Dijk

Esther E. van Dijk is trainer and consultant at Education Development & Training at Utrecht University, the Netherlands and postdoctoral researcher at University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands. Her PhD and postdoc is a collaboration between University Medical Center Utrecht, the Centre for Academic Teaching, Utrecht University and the Department of Education, Utrecht University.

Jan van Tartwijk

Jan van Tartwijk is a Professor of Education at the Department of Education and the vice-dean for graduate education at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. He also chairs the graduate school for teacher education at Utrecht University.

Marieke F. van der Schaaf

Marieke F. van der Schaaf is a Professor of Research and Development of Health Professions Education and Director of the Utrecht Center for Research and Development of Health Professions Education at the University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Manon Kluijtmans

Manon Kluijtmans is a Professor of Education to Connect Science and Professional Practice at the University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands. She is Vice-Rector Teaching and Learning, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.