Learning about research: exploring the learning and teaching/research relationship amongst educational practitioners studying in higher education

Abstract

The paper examines aspects of the relationship between teaching and research in higher education in social science research methods, with particular reference to the subject area of Education. There are three main themes: reflections on how social science research methods should be (or are) taught; a review of current debates about the relationship between teaching and research, both in higher education and for school teachers; and finally, reporting how a group of educational practitioners (mainly school teachers) studying at Masters level experience learned about research methods. The paper is illustrated by qualitative data from a case study of student experiences of research methods teaching on a Masters degree in Education in a research-intensive UK university. It is suggested that studying the journey embarked upon by taught postgraduate students inexperienced in research is helpful in understanding how learning about research methods takes place, which in turn can assist future research methods teaching.

Many thanks to our student interviewers, interviewees and observers from the 2002–2003 cohort taking EDUCM1000: Methods of Educational Inquiry. Also thanks to Alex Patramanis and Judi Kidger who took seminar sessions for the unit, Katie Scott for her work on the focus groups and Norma Meechem from the MEd Office for her help in contacting students in the summer term. Thanks also to Julie Anderson for assistance in finding relevant articles for the paper and to those attending and engaging in discussions about earlier versions of this paper given at the Society for Research in Higher Education Conference in Glasgow in December 2002, a Graduate School of Education CLIO seminar at Bristol in May 2003 and a Higher Education Research Network session at the European Conference of Educational Researchers in Hamburg in September 2003.

Notes

1. Now part of the UK Higher Education Academy.

2. All names used are pseudonyms.