Teaching award nominations reveal valued teaching and expectations of availability

Updated Sep 07, 2026

Updated, 7 September 2026: We checked the complete paper and clarified how nominations were collected. The findings concern a selected positive comment set, not the prevalence of views across the student population.

What the study examined

Sophie Banks analysed Best Lecturer nominations at one UK teaching-oriented university across 2016/17–2019/20. Students were asked to explain their nomination with reference to teaching. Their responses were open text, but the invitation was not entirely unprompted.

Banks used thematic network analysis to organise the comments into four broad perspectives: students as consumers, students as learners, lecturers as academics and lecturers as educators. She had previously worked at the institution and organised its teaching awards, a position described in the methods.

The nominations describe clear communication, organisation, subject knowledge, engaging teaching, constructive feedback and support. Some students explain how a lecturer helped them understand material or prepare for future work. Others emphasise value for money, dependability or availability. The distinction concerns how the author interprets the comments; it is not a division of every student into a fixed type.

Praise can also raise workload questions

Some nominations celebrate staff who answer outside normal hours, remain constantly positive or provide extensive personal support. Banks warns that awards may unintentionally reward unhealthy work patterns and emotional labour.

That warning should retain its evidential limits. The study analyses what students wrote; it does not measure lecturers’ working hours, wellbeing or the effect of changing award rules. A nomination describing exceptional availability is a reason to examine expectations, not proof of the lecturer’s circumstances.

Banks also maps the nominations against the 2011 UK Professional Standards Framework and argues that the breadth of coverage supports students’ ability to recognise teaching excellence. This is the researcher’s interpretive mapping. It does not establish that award nominations are an unbiased or complete measure of teaching quality.

Questions for award organisers

Our suggested review is to distinguish the practice being praised from the conditions needed to sustain it. Timely, useful feedback may be worth recognising without making overnight replies an expectation. Ask whether the criteria allow students to describe clarity, inclusion, learning and support without rewarding unlimited access.

Read positive comments alongside other evidence and retain their context. Award nominations are selected expressions of praise from one institution and one award category. They cannot establish how widely a view is shared or what non-nominating students experienced. Banks calls for research in other institutions and more recent nomination cycles.

The separate study of teaching excellence nominations offers another setting to consider. Any local change to judging or staff development should be assessed on its own terms; this paper does not demonstrate that a particular comment-analysis service makes recognition fairer.

Reference

Banks, S. (2025). Lecturers on demand: Student perceptions within Student-Led Teaching Award nominations. Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal, 7(1), 290–310. Journal article and open paper.