4
of ‘community’ – the ‘basic building blocks of a social learning system’ (p. 229) –
to the higher education community. Members should have sense of a joint enter-
prise, relationships of mutuality and a shared repertoire. Tight ( 2004 ) concluded
that ‘higher education research is not a single community of practice but, rather, a
series of, somewhat overlapping, communities of practice’ (p. 409).
In this context, there have been discussions to identify the nature and features of
higher education research. For instance, higher education is an object-focused area
based on multi-disciplinarity, as researchers in other subspecialities often deal with
topics related to the enterprise of higher education (Altbach et al. 2006 ; Teichler
1996 , 2005 ). Teichler ( 1996 ) described the features of higher education research as
characterised by a blurred distinction between practitioners and researchers in the
midst of the principal tension between scientific reasoning and professional prob-
lem solving. Tight ( 2004 ) further explained that most higher education researchers
do not need to make their theoretical perspectives explicit or become involved in
broader aspects of the theoretical debate. How, then, has such a group built an aca-
demic community in higher education? They have established degree programmes,
research centres and associations; they have held annual conferences and published
research results in specialised journals to share their ideas. The evolution of higher
education research in terms of research centres, academic programmes and publica-
tions across the region has been well listed in the Rumbley et al. ( 2014 ) Higher
Education: A Worldwide Inventory of Research Centers, Academic Programs, and
Journals and Publications. There are also several bibliographical sources in higher
education, including journal articles, books, encyclopaedias and handbooks, gov-
ernment documents, dissertations and theses, legal material, newspapers, confer-
ence proceedings, letters and, in particular, a number of research journals focused
on higher education. The latter group has expanded over the past few decades, with
many now in international circulation (Budd 1990 ; Altbach et al. 2006 ). For exam-
ple, a few special issues were published in recent years to explore the legitimacy of
higher education research as a field of study in terms of diverse research themes and
methodologies in different contexts. They are The development of higher education
research as a field (Published in Higher Education Research and Development,
2012), Alternative methodologies in higher education (Published in Higher
Education Research and Development, 2013), and Researchers and policy makers:
A strategic Alliance (published in Studies in Higher Education, 2014).
Professional journals in most disciplines serve the important function of provid-
ing a mechanism for professional communication. They encourage the communica-
tion of ideas, stimulate discussion – including on controversial topics – and allow
scholars to share their findings (Hutchinson and Lovell 2004 ). With the influence of
journal articles, there have been attempts to analyse higher education research pat-
terns from a sociometric perspective. This method provides an unobtrusive, non-
reactive measure of formal communication practices within a scholarly discipline
(Smith 1981 ). An examination of what is used during the process of communication
in higher education allows readers to discern the current position of higher educa-
tion research. Who, then, studies higher education? Who is predominantly engaged
J. Jung et al.