Abstract:
Each discipline has a unique combination of theoretical frameworks that frame the key
intellectual traditions of the field. Unlike other discipline areas, the higher education
community has only just begun to explore the question of which intellectual traditions make
significant contributions to a field and who are the key thinkers in higher education teaching
and learning. Instead the key theoretical positions of higher education are more likely to be
based on thinkers in allied disciplines like psychology, sociology and cultural studies. This
paper begins the process of identifying the key ideas in higher education teaching and
learning by reviewing the concepts of the eight most commonly cited scholars in the journal
Higher Education Research and Development. It analyses the attraction of these ideas to their
authors and presents the key arguments used to support an understanding of higher education
teaching and learning.
