Intentionality and developing researcher competence on a UK master's course: an ecological perspective on research education

Abstract

This paper presents an ecological perspective on the developing researcher competence of participants in the research education component of a professionally oriented master's course. There is a particular focus on the intentionality (as in ‘purpose’) of the participants' research education activity. The data used to develop the ecological perspective, and which at the same time is interpreted from this ecological perspective, consists of interactive, reflective and more product-like written outputs generated by two master's course participants. The analysis reveals how the participants' developing intentionality was shaped by a hybrid of professional and research-related influences, and how this developing intentionality affected the quality of the participants' research education experience. The analysis, with its particular focus on intentionality, constitutes a further development of the ecological perspective on developing researcher competence proposed by the first author, and is intended also as a contribution to the emerging literature on ‘research education’.

• ecological psychology
• intentionality
• reflection
• reflexivity
• research education

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the participants of our 2007 DRC cohort; particular thanks to Ralitza and Paul for their very special contribution. We also thank Susan Brown, Julian Edge, Dave Hall, Achilleas Kostoulas, Gary Motteram, Zeynep Onat-Stelma, Diane Slaouti, Julian Williams and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.