Introduction

Catherine Hutchings is a senior lecturer in the Language Development Group (LDG), part of the Academic Development Programme in CHED. She has been with LDG since 2001. She has taught various undergraduate and postgraduate academic literacy embedded courses, mainly in the Faculties of Humanities, Health & Allied Sciences and Commerce. She is co-ordinator of the Postgraduate ‘Writing Pathways’ project  which comprises a suite of on-line and face-to-face postgraduate offerings from the LDG. Apart from course teaching, she has run workshops on academic writing, thesis and scientific report writing, as well as supervision workshops for staff. Currently she is principal investigator of ‘Transforming Journeys’, a research project which considers forms of support for postgraduate research writing, and ‘Tutors as Knowledge Makers’, a project investigating tutors’ development as knowledge makers.

Her PhD in Psychology was an analysis of narrative reflections towards the development of critical reflective thinking by mature students in a classroom of wider access. The transitions undergone by these students relate to their senses of self, their understandings of (socially constructed) allowances within the higher educational institution, their understandings of what constitutes learning, knowledge and meaning making, and their own roles in these processes, including the agency they take on in the process. In examining how agency is adopted, she considered the development of, and changes in the ‘voice’ of the adult student learner/writer, as reported by them and evident in their own writing, both formal and informal.

She has supervised students in the Faculties of Humanities and of Health Sciences.

Her research interests include the teaching of academic literacy and research writing in higher education, and the understanding of transitions in higher education, such as those of school to university and of undergrad into postgrad. Within these, she is interested in identity development, narrative and reflective practices in the acquisition of academic literacy, online mentoring support in academic literacy, transformative academic literacy pedagogy and writing support, and language education.

Her publications include articles on students’ experiences with academic literacy, academic literacy pedagogy in HE, online mentoring during the acquisition of academic literacy and critical thinking, and the development of voice and agency in writing in HE.

Publications

Her research publications can be found at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Catherine-Hutchings