As the result of an internal curriculum development award made by the University to the School of Education (2007–2009) to examine the existing nature and potential development of Research Informed Teaching (RIT) within the teacher education courses, the need to recognise and ‘value’ the research of students became apparent. Staff and student surveys indicated that although connections between research and practice were made explicit in course documentation, staff did not reinforce these links in taught sessions and students did not readily connect research activity to their own professional development. Undergraduate student research activity, particularly the dissertation, was perceived by the majority of students as a purely academic activity, with little long-term relevance to their own professional development.
To improve the level of connectivity between the ‘academic’ and ‘professional’ research-based elements of both undergraduate (Primary BEd) and postgraduate (PGCE) primary courses two complementary strategies were adopted. Firstly, in addition to emphasising the use of research papers to inform practice, staff began to explicitly highlight the use of specific research methodology and evidence gathering tools used by teachers to inform their practice and making better decisions in respect of teaching and pupil learning. This had the impact of improving the understanding and rigor of the use of research tools such as observation, interviewing (especially of individual and groups of pupils) and documentary analysis (of both school documents and pupil work). Secondly, students were encouraged and given the opportunity to share their research evidence and findings more formally in university taught-sessions in addition to written submissions to tutors. The value of these opportunities to share the outcomes of their classroom-based research was highlighted in post-course student evaluations. Additional opportunities to share research outcomes were made available through the use of Wiki tools and the placing of ‘good’ undergraduate dissertations and post-graduate research assignments on the University's virtual learning environment (VLE). However, over 55% of post and undergraduate students, through post-course evaluations, identified short presentations as the preferred means of sharing research outcomes with their peers.
The preference of short presentations as the basis for dissemination of research activity to peer groups was identified as an area which the Department of Primary Education might develop further. With use of a RIT dissemination grant, a conference was organised for the summer term of 2010 with a selected group students from the Primary PGCE and the final year of the Primary BEd asked to present their research findings to their peers in small seminar groups of 20–30. Students from the penultimate year of the undergraduate course were also invited to attend. Attendance was very strong from the PGCE and final year BEd students (both of 85%), but the third year student attendance was a disappointing 52%. Post-conference evaluation was very positive. Those who presented were very positive about the experience, with all of the 28 presenters reporting that they would recommend the experience to others and all of them confirmed that they felt that their research was ‘valued’ by their peers. Eighty-eight per cent of final year BEd and PGCE students claimed that the presentations had provided them with at least one ‘very useful’ idea or strategy that they would be likely to include within their own classroom practice.
With the success of the initial conference, it was decided to disseminate the initiative through ASPE (the Association for the Study of Primary Education) and plan for a second conference along similar lines the following year (summer 2011). Interest was shown in the format by a number of other universities who had primary teacher education provision and one other, Liverpool John Moores University, put in place planning to replicate the approach for 2011 with undergraduate and masters level students. ASPE provided a small grant to each university to support costs of organisation, dissemination and key note speaker expenses.
The outcome of the second University of Bedfordshire Primary Research Conference exceeded that of the first. Student and staff attendance was improved, with the attendance of the third year students reaching 97% (102 out of a cohort of 105). Some of may have been due to sharing data with them which presented a clear correlation between attendance at the conference and success in the dissertation (student research) assignment – it was discovered that of the previous third year cohort (52% conference attendance), of those who attended, 94% received a grade of ‘B-’ or above for their dissertation. Of those who did not attend, only 12% achieved the same – a statistic that was reported by 98% of the third year students, in the post 2011 conference evaluation, as being one of the ‘top three’ reasons for attending! It was notable that the focus of the presentations in the first conference did appear to have an impact on the focus of the dissertations chosen by those BEd students who had attended it. The proportion of students addressing issues connected with SEND (special educational needs and disabilities), EAL (English as an additional language), phonics, assessment and behaviour management becoming much more prominent than more ‘traditional’ subject-focused topics. This aspect is worthy of further investigation – is it that students are now beginning to perceive the dissertation as more of a means of progressing their professional development and highlighting an area of expertise that they can then evidence when they apply rather than an area where they might have more of an ‘academic’ expertise?
Of the 35 final-year BEd and PGCE students invited to present their research to the 2011 conference, seven declined the offer; four PGCE students due to pressures of their final school placements which were concurrent with the conference and three BEd students, one due to lack of confidence and two who had already started teaching. On the conference day two presenters were ill so 26 presentations were made. All presentations were given twice to enable those attending to receive at least five different pieces of research.
Following the research seminars, third year students attended a Q&A session where a panel of student presenters responded to questions concerning the research and dissertation writing processes. As a result, one of the presentations, which focused on the research process, was videoed and placed on the university's virtual learning environment (VLE) for future cohorts to refer to and learn from.
Attendance records showed that PGCE attendance improved on the previous conference (92% as opposed to 85%), but BEd year 4 attendance declined to 72% (but this still represented an improvement on their attendance as a year 3 cohort – 52%). Evaluation of the conference proved to be more positive than the previous year. Of the graduating BEd and PGCE students, all stated that the conference presentations had provided them with at least one ‘very useful’ idea or strategy that they would be likely to include within their own classroom practice. All presenters responded that the experience had been ‘very positive’ (5 point scale ‘very positive’ to ‘very negative’) and that their confidence in their own findings had been reinforced by the feedback that they had received in the seminars. On this occasion, the third year students who completed their dissertations the following year, were asked about their responses to the conference. 98% claimed that their understanding of the expectations and requirements of the dissertation had been improved at least ‘significantly’ (on a 5 point scale from ‘very significantly’ to ‘not at all’) and that 88% felt ‘inspired’ by the presentations that they had attended. When asked whether the conference had improved their confidence to successfully complete the dissertation, 48% responded ‘yes’ – with the main justification for this being that ‘I now know what I want to do’. Of the 42% who responded ‘no’, most claimed that this was because the dissertation expectations were more demanding that they anticipated. Overall, 88% of the year three students felt that they were ‘much better’ (5 point scale from ‘much better’ to ‘much worse’) informed of the expectations of the dissertation and the dissertation process. Sixty-four per cent of the third year students claimed that they had accessed the presentations on the VLE prior to the conference and all claimed that they intended to access the materials following the conference. All the year 3 (and 95% on the final year BEd and 86% of the PGCE) students claimed that they would be accessing the dissertations and PGCE research assignments which had been placed on the VLE (for the past four years, high quality BEd dissertations and PGCE research assignments have been placed on the university VLE as a research resource for students and staff to access).
Anecdotal evidence from graduating PG and BEd students suggested that, as a direct result of the conference, even those who attended by did not present, felt more confident to take about the outcomes and potential impact of their research in interviews for teaching posts. One BEd student, following the offer of a teaching post, said that
attending those presentations made me realise that it (the dissertation) wasn’t just another assignment – it had actually changed the way that I thought about pupil self assessment and I was able to talk … really confidently … about what I would do if they gave me the job.
The process of preparing PG and BEd students for their research assignments/dissertations for the 2011/12 academic year has begun with changes to both process and content suggested through the outcomes of the 2011 research conference. The conference presentation format (five slides focusing on [1] Focus/context; [2] Conceptual/research basis; [3] Research approach; [4] Presentation/analysis of data and [5] Key conclusions/recommendations) is now being used for students to draft their ideas and stimulate small group discussions in dissertation and research assignment seminars. Through these discussions students are becoming more aware of the collective ‘power’ of research activity to improve their own professional understanding and there are initial signs that students are sharing their findings in more informal settings.
A further positive result of this emphasis on the research processes and outcomes for professional purposes has been the growing awareness of the value of what students can achieve from partner schools. Over the past two years a growing number have been contacting the Primary Education Department with offers to host student research activity (with a specific research focus) to support school development. One of the next areas for development will be the construction of management information systems to be able to match up student research interests with the opportunities being offered by individual schools.
This issue contains articles based on presentations to the Primary Research Conferences held at The University of Bedfordshire, UK and Liverpool John Moore University, UK, in the summer of 2011. All of them are the result of individual student teacher research activity, prior to their graduation into the teaching profession, supported and supervised by a university tutor. The range of themes reflect the diverse interests of beginning teachers and the issues which they perceive as being crucial to their initial success and developing expertise within the teaching profession – research informed teachers!
The articles presented in this issue, due to nature of their development and authors, are considerably shorter than are normally published within this journal. Additionally, as these are the result of research activity by teachers about to enter the profession, the scale of the evidence base underpinning each article is of a more limited scope than would normally be expected of ‘full-scale’, research-based articles. Even so, the quality of the research construction and the level of thought that has been achieved here, reflects a very healthy and vibrant future for the teaching profession in primary schools in England. The articles have been collected thematically around issues focusing on talk in the classroom, reading, ICT, writing and second languages.
Enquiries concerning the approach taken here to encourage early practitioner research activity, the organisation of student-led research conferences and structuring of writing reports for practitioner research, would be welcomed.