Linking teaching and research in disciplines and departments Alan Jenkins Mick Healey Roger Zetter April 2007 Contents Executive summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Preface: Plutarch’s fi re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 1. Scope, origins and purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 2. Valuing the teaching-research nexus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 3. The research evidence summarised . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 4. Research on departments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 5. Conceptual ways forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 6. Research on disciplines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33 7. Ways forward through discipline-based course design and the student experience of their discipline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 8. Ways forward through adapting disciplinary case studies . . . . . . . . . . . .49 9. Policy and practice suggestions for departments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 10. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76 Appendix 1: Academy-funded research projects on discipline-based teaching-research relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 Appendix 2: CETLs focused on inquiry and research-based learning . . . . .78 About the authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 The Higher Education Academy – April 2007 1 2 Linking teaching and research in disciplines and departments Executive summary This paper seeks to support the effective links between teaching and discipline- based research in disciplinary communities and in academic departments. It is aimed in particular at discipline-based staff who wish to connect their teaching and research roles; those with leadership roles for teaching and for research in departments and institutions; and educational developers, researchers and support staff within institutions, in disciplinary communities and in academic departments. The central arguments are that: ● the ‘teaching-research nexus’ is central to higher education ● student intellectual development and staff identity can and should be developed by departments focusing on the ‘nexus’ ● effective teaching research links are not automatic and have to be constructed ● there are important disciplinary variations in teaching-research relations that need to be valued ● academic departments are central to developing the links between research in the discipline and student learning ● a central way to develop effective practice is to share case studies of discipline-based practice and department policies. Suggestions are offered as to how disciplinary communities and departments can strengthen the good practice that already exists. The arguments are evidenced and illustrated by research and case studies drawn largely from Australasia, Europe and North America. In turn we hope that it will be of interest to, and be used by, university staff particularly in these regions. Where possible links are given to appropriate websites; all the links were working in March 2007. The quickest way to access the sites is to use the online version of this paper at www.heacademy.ac.uk/rtnexus.htm. This paper is published by the Higher Education Academy in the UK. Dr Nick Hammond, Senior Adviser at the Academy, outlines its role in supporting the teaching-research nexus in the Preface. Details of current research projects on the nexus funded by the Academy are listed in Appendix 1. The authors gratefully acknowledge the comments made on an earlier version of this paper by Professor Roger Brown (Southampton Solent), Dr Nick Hammond (Higher Education Academy) and Professor Kerri-Lee Krause (Griffi th). 2 The Higher Education Academy – April 2007 Linking teaching and research in disciplines and departments 3 Preface: Plutarch’s fi re While Wilhelm von Humboldt is credited with the founding principle of the university as a collaboration between learning and research (see section 7 of this paper), the underlying goal of education as developing the enquiring mind is very much older: “the mind is not a vessel to be fi lled, but a fi re to be kindled” (Plutarch, c46–127 AD). Never has the educational philosophy behind this belief been more important: the changing world to be faced by today’s students will demand unprecedented skills of intellectual fl exibility, analysis and enquiry. Teaching students to be enquiring or research-based in their approach is not just a throwback to quaint notions of enlightenment or liberal education but central to the hard-nosed skills required of the future graduate workforce. This paper has the potential to provide, as it were, a well-directed blast from the bellows feeding Plutarch’s fi re. Issues concerning the links between research, in its widest sense, student learning and graduate outcomes have been rising up the agenda in recent years in higher education, whether in terms of national strategy, institutional policies, disciplinary practices or individual endeavour. For instance, one of the Scottish HE sector’s enhancement themes starting this year focuses on research-teaching links and graduate outcomes, with a programme of activities particularly at institutional and disciplinary levels. An earlier Academy publication focused on institutional strategies for linking research and teaching (Jenkins and Healey, 2005); the current paper turns the spotlight to the links between teaching and discipline-based research in disciplinary and academic communities, and how these links might benefi t students’ experiences and learning outcomes. Why this focus? Perhaps the most obvious reason is that discipline is at the root of differences between areas of knowledge and the scholarly processes by which that knowledge is discovered, organised and applied. Disciplinary differences colour not only both research and teaching, but also their relationship, in quite distinctive ways. Furthermore, departments are where both research and teaching are formulated, carried out and discussed, and are therefore the seedbeds for nurturing research-teaching relationships. There is therefore much to be gained by exploring and addressing these relationships at a disciplinary level within the context of departments, schools and faculties. There is a strong belief within higher education that relationships between research and teaching – whether in terms of content or approach – can be highly benefi cial for the student. However, productive links have to The Higher Education Academy – April 2007 3 4 Linking teaching and research in disciplines and departments be designed rather than left to chance: the evidence shows little direct relationship between an individual’s teaching effectiveness and research productivity, although recent work has shown the importance of mediating factors (see section 3). The focus of the work of the Higher Education Academy is therefore to stimulate and encourage the design of, and research into, effective links at all levels. For example, the Academy organises an annual one-day conference focusing on policy issues; it works with related initiatives, such as the Scottish enhancement theme, the Support for New Academic Staff (SNAS) programme on linking teaching and disciplinary research and the Research-Teaching Forum; it funds small projects in the area; and, not least, the Academy’s Subject Centres foster and support a wide range of discipline-level work. A special section of the Academy’s website provides details on a wide range of international initiatives www.heacademy.ac.uk/rtnexus.htm. This paper represents an important part of the jigsaw. Nick Hammond Senior Adviser The Higher Education Academy 4 The Higher Education Academy – April 2007 Linking teaching and research in disciplines and departments 5 1. Scope, origins and purpose “ I believe that the main hope for realising a genuinely student-centred undergraduate education lies in re-engineering the teaching-research nexus.” Ramsden (2001, 4) “ … we are all researchers now, … teaching and research are becoming even more intimately related. … In a ‘knowledge society’ all students – certainly all graduates – have to be researchers. Not only are they engaged in the production of knowledge; they must also be educated to cope with the risks and uncertainties generated by the advance of science.” Scott (2002, 13) “ A meaningful science education involves transforming the way in which students think by promoting a progression from ‘novice’ to ‘expert’ in both their attitudes and their approaches to the discipline and problem solving in that discipline. Today’s educator should aim not simply to produce more scientists, but rather to get all students to learn to think about science like a scientist. Similarly, the goal of education in general is to get students to think like experts more broadly.” Wieman (2004) “ Research-led teaching refers to initiatives to bring the research and teaching functions of the university closer together. The aim is to enhance students’ learning experiences by progressing the ways in which coursework teaching is informed by disciplinary-based research at all levels.” University of Sydney (2004) cited by Brew (2006, 43) This paper is particularly aimed at four audiences: ● Discipline-based staff, both those who wish to ensure that students are better inducted into the nature of knowledge or research in their discipline and those who wish to make stronger connections between their own research or professional practice and their teaching roles ● Heads of academic units and departments and others with managerial The Higher Education Academy – April 2007 5 6 Linking teaching and research in disciplines and departments and policy responsibilities for research and teaching (e.g. course directors/tutors; convenors of research groups), who share our view that a central feature of higher education is the effective linkage between teaching and research ● Staff in the Academy’s Subject Centres and in educational development units inside higher education institutions who work with departments and individual academics to improve their practice ● Senior staff in policy and managerial roles in institutions and national bodies who are in positions to shape departmental, institutional and national policies to bring teaching and research together. The link we are seeking to enhance is the connection between research in the discipline (e.g. History) or interdisciplinary subjects (e.g. Environmental Studies) and student learning in and through those disciplines. This link is what Neumann (1994, 323) has called the ‘teaching-research nexus’. While much of what we suggest is relevant to the growing number of taught postgraduate courses, our central concern is with the undergraduate level. For the undergraduate curriculum is central to most institutions and departments, and is also where evidence clearly shows that the relationship is most problematic. Our focus here is not on linking teaching with research on teaching and learning in higher education, including research on discipline- based pedagogy (Yorke, 2000). Our concern is rather with the long-standing and central issue of the relationship between staff involvement in research in their discipline and their role as teachers of that discipline, or where appropriate in interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary contexts. This paper represents a signifi cant rewriting of an earlier publication, Linking teaching and research in departments (Jenkins and Zetter, 2002), a publication of the then Learning and Teaching Support Network Generic Centre which supported a national project to bring teaching and research together. This re-written paper draws on the wider international knowledge of teaching- research relations developed since then, particularly on conceptions of teaching-research links in the disciplines. It also draws signifi cantly on the knowledge developed through a project in which we are working with the Academy’s Subject Centres to examine the particular nature of teaching- research relations in disciplinary communities and to gather examples of ‘interesting practices’ in the disciplines which seek to bring teaching and research together. A key part of the publication is the boxed case studies in each section which are drawn from a wide range of disciplines and departments in a range of countries. This publication draws on current practice in the way that departments can be organised to ensure effective links between their teaching and research roles and provides a range of international case studies of departmental 6 The Higher Education Academy – April 2007 Linking teaching and research in disciplines and departments 7 policies that seek to bring teaching and research together. We assume that readers will be particularly interested in case studies from their own disciplinary type and from departments and institutions similar to their own, ranging from teaching- to research-focused. However, we also think that there is much to learn through considering how case studies from contexts different from one’s own can be adapted to one’s discipline or type of department and institution. While this paper is focused on improving practice and policy it is fi rmly based on the growing international research evidence on teaching- research relations, including how departments and disciplines shape those relationships. In Sections 3–6 we review that research, but fi rst we explain why we, and many others, consider the teaching-research nexus should be central to higher education. The Higher Education Academy – April 2007 7 8 Linking teaching and research in disciplines and departments Case studies 1: Natural Sciences Asking questions in Plant Biology at Australian National University A practical exercise designed for a Level 2 course inducts students in the process of inquiry characteristic of the discipline. Students make observations in a botanical garden; each formulates 10 questions (e.g. “Why do eucalypt leaves dangle?”); shares one of these questions with a group of other students; as a group develop hypotheses based on the question (e.g. “Eucalypt trees in arid environments have leaves that dangle at steeper angles than those in wet environments”); think of ways of testing the hypotheses; and write up individually their 10 questions and one hypothesis as a 750 word mini-proposal for a research project. Source www.anu.edu.au/cedam/ilearn/inquiry/posing_questions.pdf At University College London, UK, Science undergraduates build on research of previous students Students on a course on the history of science at UCL are involved in a pilot project aimed at a full integration of teaching and research at the undergraduate level. The chief innovation is the mechanism of inheritance: each year students receive a body of work produced by the previous group of students and make improvements and additions to it; this process can be repeated until publishable materials are produced. This is part of a system of learning that enables students to function as a real and evolving community of researchers. Source Chang (2005) 8 The Higher Education Academy – April 2007