Exploring Enablers and Barriers to Educator Engagement in Teaching Innovation

This paper explores the literature related to educator engagement in teaching, learning, assessment and feedback innovation (further referred to here as ‘teaching innovation’) in higher education institutions, describing the main enablers and barriers to innovation. These include consideration of formal and informal learning opportunities for educators, the role of management and leadership, as well as recognition and reward systems, teaching-research conflict, workload and time demands, and policies and procedures. These are examined within the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model as job resources and job demands to facilitate understanding of how these may influence educator engagement in teaching innovation in interaction with each other, as well as the educator’s personal resources. Literature-informed recommendations are also made on how higher education institutions can create an organisational climate conducive to educator engagement in teaching innovation.