Using Educational Research to Inform Practice

A Practical Guide to Practitioner Research in Universities and Colleges

Lorraine Foreman-Peck, Christopher Winch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136942518
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

This book gives practical guidance on how educational research can inform professional practice. Written in a clear and accessible style, it details the way in which evidence based knowledge can be used to develop teaching and learning, bringing together a range of resources for all levels of reader but specifically designed to aid the progressive practitioner researcher.

The authors draw on their experience of empirical work in education to provide thoroughly up-to-date reference material, including illustrative case studies, practical guidelines and exercises, and definitions of educational and research terms. The case studies and critical literature surveys have been chosen to demonstrate the use (and mis-use) of research evidence in thinking about a range of important topics in further and higher education, such as, learning styles, deep and surface learning, dyslexia in higher education, the assessment of group work, teaching critical thinking, problem based learning, and dissertation marking. Drawing on their philosophical backgrounds, the authors also address the much conceptual confusions which have led to scepticism regarding the wisdom or even the possibility of using research evidence to inform teaching.

Other guidance includes:

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• relating practitioner knowledge to educational research

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• ethical and practical issues on research within the institution

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• evaluating the strengths and limitations of research evidence

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• researching ideas through the examination of case studies

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• practitioner research and contributions to the knowledge base

Using Educational Research to Inform Practice provides the necessary understanding for conducting research, thinking about its value and applying research evidence to practice in universities and colleges and therefore will be essential reading for those resource managers who are responsible for providing courses and support in higher education institutions.

In addition, this book is particularly aimed at further and higher lecturers undertaking professional development courses and experienced and senior staff who wish to use research to improve management practices.

Chapter 1
What’s the use of practitioner research?

Introduction

As lecturers in colleges and universities, we take decisions as a matter of course, yet we are not always aware of their basis. It is only when our expectations are confounded, that we might contemplate how we know that our decisions are the right ones or indeed, what kind of knowledge we draw on in order to justify our approaches. Theories guide our practice, even if we are imperfectly aware of them: sometimes they are adequate, sometimes they are inadequate. We teach in a time when the demands on, and expectations of, college and university lecturers are becoming more demanding, and in ways that we may not all find congenial. Change stimulates responses; and intelligent responses, it is the argument of this book, require careful reflection based wherever possible on available evidence and on a form of inquiry which is often called practitioner research.

Many recent changes have introduced measures of accountability, providing the policy ‘drivers’ for a nationally assured and accredited schemes of professional training and development for lecturers in colleges and higher education. The Education Reform Act, in 2004, introduced the National Student Survey (2004–9) in order to allow prospective students to compare recently graduated students’ views of comparable degree courses at different universities. These measures were no doubt prompted by the introduction of student fees and a concomitant concern that students should be assured of the satisfactory quality of the teaching on offer.

The complexity of the challenges facing lecturers, and the tightening of accountability measures, make an engagement with the development of one’s professional role imperative. Not all lecturers will choose to make a career in higher education pedagogy, but all will be expected to reach certain standards of professionalism and to know how to go about using and engaging with pedagogical and professional research evidence, in order to develop their expertise.

The Higher Education Academy has produced a set of standards for the use of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in designing their own programmes of professional training and development. They describe what the professional challenges are, or ought to be, starting with the inexperienced member of staff and ending with the very experienced lecturer. The standard descriptors are set out below with the activities, knowledge and values that together comprise the UK Professional Standards Framework for Teaching and Supporting Learning in Higher Education (HEA 2004). The Framework provides common guidance across universities for the content of courses for all staff engaged in supporting the learning of students in higher education, and represents a succinct summary of what is currently expected of lecturers and others who support student learning, in their professional capacity.

Standards – the descriptors

The first standard describes what teaching assistants, lecturers new to higher education with no prior qualification or experience, and those staff whose professional role includes a small range of teaching and learning support activity, are expected to be able to demonstrate at the end of their course.

Standard One

They are required to demonstrate an:

• understanding of the student learning experience through engagement with at

• least two areas of a possible six areas of activity (see below); appropriate core knowledge and professional values;

• ability to engage in practices related to those areas of activity;

• ability to incorporate research, scholarship and/or professional practice into those activities.

Standard Two

The second standard describes those capacities and abilities required by lecturers with a substantive role in learning and teaching to ‘enhance the student experience’. They are expected to:

• demonstrate an understanding of the student learning experience through engagement with all areas of activity;

• possess core knowledge and professional values;

• possess the ability to engage in practices related to all areas of activity;

• and the ability to incorporate research, scholarship and/or professional practices into those activities.

Standard Three

The third standard is intended for experienced staff who have an established track record in promoting and mentoring colleagues in learning and teaching to enhance the student experience, and asks that the lecturer:

• supports student learning in all areas of activity;

• demonstrates core knowledge and professional values through mentoring and leading individuals and/or teams;

• incorporates research, scholarship and/or professional practice into those activities.

(HEA 2004: 2)

The six areas of activity

In designing courses that meet these standards HEIs are asked to develop learning outcomes that relate to the six areas of activity, core knowledge and professional values which are set out below:

Areas of activity

1 Design and planning of learning activities and/or programmes of study;

2 Teaching and/or supporting student learning;

3 Assessment and giving feedback to learners;

4 Developing effective environments and student support and guidance;

5 Integration of scholarship, research and professional activities with teaching and supporting learning;

6 Evaluation of practice and continuing professional development.

Core knowledge

Knowledge and understanding of:

1 The subject material;

2 Appropriate methods for teaching and learning in the subject area and at the level of the academic programme;

3 How students learn, both generally and in the subject;

4 The use of appropriate learning technologies;

5 Methods for evaluating the effectiveness of teaching;

6 The implications of quality assurance and enhancement for professional practice.

Professional values

1 Respect for individual learners;

2 Commitment to incorporating the process and outcomes of relevant research, scholarship and/or professional practice;

3 Commitment to development of learning communities;

4 Commitment to encouraging participation in higher education, acknowledging diversity and promoting equality of opportunity;

5 Commitment to continuing professional development and evaluation of practice.

(HEA 2004: 3)

The standards have an inclusive structure. The third includes the second, the second includes the first. They are designed so that they follow the natural developmental path of a new tutor where, it is claimed, a concern with teaching methods comes before a concern with student learning, and that concern comes before leading others. In addition all three standards emphasise the incorporation of ‘the process and/or outcomes of relevant research and scholarship’.

What the book aims to do

This book directly addresses the requirement expressed in all three standards for experienced and relatively inexperienced lecturers, and others who support student learning, to incorporate the process and outcomes of relevant research and scholarship into their teaching activities, their core knowledge, and their professional values. We have concentrated on this element of the three standards since it is an area that is least understood or valued. Indeed, many successful educators do not see the need for teaching and learning to be informed by research or scholarship, except in terms of subject knowledge. We take a directly opposed view. We wish to demonstrate how research and scholarship are relevant to teaching activities, core knowledge and professional values. We therefore advance arguments as well as practical guidance.

The book is of use and interest to new and experienced lecturers and other practitioners with an educational role or interest. The book will be of particular interest to those participating in their universities’ Certificate of Higher Education, or Certificate in Academic Practice, more experienced tutors wishing to undertake diploma, masters level study, or professional doctorates and higher education staff developers. Although the book is primarily addressed to practitioners in higher education, it will be of interest to teachers working in the life-long learning sector. Since 2007, teachers in this sector have been required to undertake professional formation. Standards for this sector include a commitment to the improvement of teaching skills through regular evaluation and feedback, and the sharing of good practice with others through reflection, evaluation and the appropriate use of research (Life Long Learning UK 2007).

The book situates the current emphasis on ‘evidence informed’ practice in its historical context (Chapter 2), explores the nature of lecturers’ professionalism and its relationship to research evidence (Chapter 4), and explains what lecturers need to know about educational research, in using and producing research findings (Chapters 3–9). The final chapter discusses four practitioner research case studies which demonstrate a positive contribution to pedagogical knowledge. Chapters 2–9 end with suggested discussion questions or exercises intended to stimulate the readers’ thinking about the topics discussed and how they might be applied to their own thinking and contexts.

Our approach

The authors of the book are philosophers of education who are also empirical researchers. They have also spent a part of their professional lives as school teachers. Many of the problems and debates within further and higher education have been explored at the primary and secondary levels of education. We have therefore, where relevant, drawn on work developed in the context of those educational phases as well as our personal empirical and conceptual research. We have, however, been mindful of the fact that most readers of the book will be from a range of disciplines in higher education, and we have included many examples relevant to further and higher education. Many of the debates and confusions addressed in the book, such as the difference between reflective practice and action research, have been raised by students during the course of our extensive teaching experiences in higher education.

A word about words

Throughout the book the terms ‘teacher’ and ‘educator’ are used in a generic sense to refer to anyone with a teaching role in any phase of education. Thus a primary school teacher and a higher education lecturer may both be referred to, at times, as teachers or educators. The phrase ‘school teacher’ is used to refer specifically to teachers working at primary or secondary level, and ‘lecturer’ or ‘tutor’ is used to refer to teachers working in further and higher education. The term ‘practitioner’ is often used since it encompasses not only teachers and lecturers but others who have a role in supporting learners, such as librarians, academic support staff or managers. ‘Practitioner-researcher’ is used to refer to anyone engaged in education who is researching their own practice, in whatever capacity. Similarly the phase ‘professional role’ is used to encompass not only pedagogical matters but managerial and leadership ones as well.

A glossary of terms is provided to aid comprehension for those lecturers new to practitioner research, where the word is not fully explained in the text.

Research, scholarship and the scholarship of teaching and learning

The UK Professional Standards are an endorsement of the idea that practitioners in higher education ought to engage with professio...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 What’s the use of practitioner research?
• Chapter 2 Professional knowledge
• Chapter 3 What is educational research anyway?
• Chapter 4 ‘Good practice’ and evidence-based teaching
• Chapter 5 Handle with care
• Chapter 6 Practitioner research in action
• Chapter 7 Models of practitioner research
• Chapter 8 Standards in practitioner research
• Chapter 9 Researching responsibly
• Chapter 10 Examples of practitioner research case studies
• Glossary
• Index