What Research Administrators Need to Know about Researcher Development: Towards a New Conceptual Model

Located within the recently emerged field of researcher development, this article represents an attempt to make a key theoretical contribution to its knowledge base through a conceptual analysis. It presents as propositional knowledge an original theoretical model of the componential structure of researcher development, as interpreted and defined stipulatively by the author. Three key components are identified: behavioural development, attitudinal development, and intellectual development. Each of these is further deconstructed to reveal its sub-components, of which eleven in total are identified, including: processual change; perceptual change; analytical change; and comprehensive change. Drawing upon examples of qualitative data found in the literature, as well as her own experience, the author demonstrates the model's potential as an analytical framework for enhancing our understanding of what researcher development is and how it occurs. This knowledge is invaluable to university research administrators. In particular, it is important that research administrators recognise the width of researcher development: much more than changing observable behaviour and increasing productivity and output, it also involves changing viewpoints, mindsets and perceptions, and increasing intellectual capacity.