Developing Research in Teacher Education

Ian Menter, Jean Murray

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317985884
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Good teacher education, informed by relevant research, is judged by policy makers and practitioners alike to be central to increasing the quality of schooling in many countries of the world. Yet, in the UK, research on teacher education is often acknowledged to be less well developed than other areas of educational research and to be over-determined by education policy. It has also been accused of a lack of rigour and of being atheoretical. A further challenge in developing good research in teacher education is that new teacher educators commonly face the challenge of moving into academic work without relevant research skills and the ready capacity to produce high quality research outputs. For these reasons, then, strengthening research in and on teacher education is high on educational agendas in the UK.

This book examines the exact nature of these challenges in teacher education and the initiatives arising to address them in different settings across the four nations of the UK. The central theme of all the chapters is how to build 'research capacity' so that teacher education can contribute more strongly to the improvement of schooling, as well as becoming a high quality, research-informed enterprise in its own right. The insights will be valuable to teacher educators around the world.

This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Education and Teaching.

INTRODUCTION

Capacity building in teacher education research

Ian Menter^a and Jean Murray^b

^aDepartment of Curriculum Studies, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK; ^bCass School of Education, University of East London, London, UK

In these times of accountability and audit, it should come as no surprise that there has been a great concern – some might say obsession – with ‘capacity building’. This is a term that crops up in a huge variety of settings, for example, in business and commerce, in voluntary organisations and charities, in warfare and defence and, not least, in education and specifically in educational research. This Special Issue of JET is concerned with aspects of capacity and capacity building in teacher education research. It focuses on the peculiar context of the United Kingdom, where we have recently been through the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) (see Gilroy and McNamara in this issue) and are even now in preparation for its successor, the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2013. However, we believe the general issues raised here about research-capacity building in teacher education are of significance in many contexts around the world, not least in continental Europe (see, inter alia, Erixon Arreman 2008; Lunenberg, Ponte and Van de Ven 2007), North America (see, inter alia, Cochran-Smith and Zeichner 2006) and Australia (Reid 2009).

This Special Issue emerged from a session held during the annual conference of the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) in Birmingham, UK, in November 2008. That session brought together teacher education researchers from across the four nations of the UK – England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales – to explore what was happening within each jurisdiction. What emerged very strongly from the presentations and discussion was that there is considerable variation between the four nations, but also, in all cases, there are some very major challenges facing the research communities. Four of the eight papers in this issue emerge directly from the conference (Murray et al.; Leitch; Christie and Menter; Tanner and Davies), but they are complemented by four others, which provide, respectively, an overview of the RAE (Gilroy and McNamara) and three examples of particular approaches to research capacity development (Hulme et al.; Gray et al.; Wall et al.).

At the outset, it is important to acknowledge that the term ‘capacity building’ is not without some difficulty. In her paper, Leitch discusses some of the assumptions that are frequently made in discussions on this topic. Capacity may be taken to relate to some or all of the following: the range of skills available; the research infrastructure (funding, facilities, etc.); the numbers of experienced and/or qualified researchers. Furthermore, there is little point in having substantial capacity, if the quality of that capacity is at a low level. Problems with the terminology and the relationship between capacity and quality were key topics of discussion at the first meeting of the UK Strategic Forum for Research in Education (SFRE) (Pollard 2008). While all of the papers in this issue are concerned with capacity building they each relate to a particular context, either nationally or institutionally and the conceptualisation of capacity building varies accordingly.

Notwithstanding these considerations of terminology, there have been several serious attempts to support the development of research capacity in education within the UK over recent years. The Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) has operated across all four nations since 2001, with a total investment of approximately £40 million. The main part of the programme is now finished although a strand relating to technology-enhanced learning continues. In Scotland, the Applied Educational Research Scheme (AERS) had an investment of £2 million over a five-year period, 2003–2008. More recently in Wales, the Welsh Educational Research Network (WERN) was funded at a much lower level and over a short time-span of one year (with a second year’s extension now coming to a close). The recent establishment of a UK-wide Strategic Forum for Research in Education (SFRE) is seeking to harness some of these developments and to ensure that the researchers, policy-community and education practitioners work together to sustain what has been achieved (Pollard 2008).

All of these national capacity building schemes, which are referred to in more detail in papers in this issue (see Wall et al., Christie and Menter, Tanner and Davies, respectively), result at least in part from concern about the need to improve the quality of educational research, to make it more productive in relation to policy and practice and to ensure that there is a strong and sustainable infrastructure. This is not the place to carry out an evaluation of the extent to which these aims have been achieved, but rather to reflect on the extent to which they have promoted the development specifically of teacher education research.

Teacher education research is an especially important part of the wider field of education research, we contend, for the following reasons. First, the majority of academic staff in UK university education departments have significant responsibility for the delivery of teacher education programmes. Indeed for many staff it is seen as their primary function, sometimes as quite separate from other activities, including research. This can result in the creation of a ‘dual economy’ within faculties of education (Munn and Baron 2008). Second, there is a strong lobby to maintain – or in some cases to introduce – a research dimension directly into teacher education, so that the work of teaching can be clearly acknowledged as research-informed, research-oriented or research-based. Third, and in spite of the two previous points, in the UK as elsewhere, teacher education research is a relatively new and relatively underdeveloped sub-field of education research (Zeichner 1999; cited in Cochran-Smith and Zeichner 2006, 755). Furthermore, it was suggested by the 2008 RAE Education sub-panel (see Gilroy and McNamara in this issue) that there was little evidence of significant development in this sub-field in the UK between 2001 and 2008.

So, to what extent have the capacity building schemes contributed to the development of teacher education research? The TLRP supported over 100 projects during its first three major phases. A review of the outcomes that related to teacher learning and development in particular was undertaken by Jephcote and Menter for a major TLRP dissemination event held late in 2008. They reviewed just the eight projects that appeared to have a particular connection to this theme (see Menter and McNally forth-coming, for a summary). Although this research provided important and significant insights, the actual impact of this work on policy and practice is difficult to detect at present, although the evaluations that are being undertaken may throw further light on this. The AERS approach in Scotland also included a range of work concerned with teacher development and that is addressed in the paper by Christie and Menter that follows. It is very early to be making judgements about the contribution and impact of WERN in Wales to teacher education research specifically, although the indications from the paper by Tanner and Davies are that some teacher education colleagues have successfully exploited opportunities to develop their research skills.

The one project that very directly aims to improve research capacity within teacher education is that described in the paper by Murray et al. As the authors say, this was designed as a pilot project of one year’s duration to be carried out within one English region. We write as the period of funding is coming to an end and can report that there does appear to have been a significant development for many colleagues across the region. Whether this can be sustained after such a short and intense period of activity is a big question. There can be little doubt that any sustained development will require a major investment of funding and in the current economic climate, it is difficult to be optimistic that this will be forthcoming. Even relatively small-scale investment to maintain initiatives such as the Teacher Education Group (TEG) resource (see the paper by Wall et al.) is difficult to secure. Indeed many of the papers in this issue take a pessimistic view about the future funding of education research in general, in spite of the enthusiasm and efforts that are reported in many of the articles.

Elsewhere, colleagues, including ourselves, have written in brief about the history of teacher education research in the UK and have offered an analysis of the characteristics of this research (Menter et al. forthcoming; see also Wall et al. in this issue). There is a paucity of longitudinal and of quantitative work. On the positive side there is clearly a great deal of developmental research taking place that is helping to inform local practices in teacher education and some imaginative use of qualitative and interpretative methods.

An important distinction is sometimes made between research on teacher education and research in teacher education. As has already been indicated, there is much research carried out by teacher education practitioners into their own working practices and experiences. Indeed such work can often be described as practitioner research, some of it of a very reflexive nature (see Gray et al. in this issue). The recognition that many teacher educators are ‘second career researchers’ who have significant induction and training needs is a relatively recent phenomenon (Boyd, Harris and Murray 2007; Harrison and McKeon 2008; Murray 2008). But research may also be carried out on teacher education, where the researchers are external to the immediate field of practice and the TEG bibliography (Wall et al. in this issue) includes some such work.

This distinction is also reflected in the range of approaches to capacity building that are covered in the articles in this issue. Four papers offer an overview of developments within each nation, but they also show network-based (e.g. AERS) and project-based (e.g. WERN) approaches. Research training of various sorts can also be seen as a key element (for example in AERS) and particular resources, such as the TEG bibliography may play a key part in this (as in the elements of knowledge exchange and mediation within the TERN project). But there are also ways in which forms of developmental research or practitioner research may be incorporated into teacher education programmes (Scottish Teachers for a New Era, as described by Gray et al.) or school development (Schools of Ambition, as discussed by Hulme et al.). Perhaps the single thing that emerges most strongly from all of the work reported here is the emphasis on collaboration and co-operation, in various forms of what has been called a ‘social practices’ model of capacity building (Rees et al. 2007; Munn 2008). Another theme that can be detected at many points in these papers is the significance, complexity and variability of the relationships between research, policy and practice and their respective ‘communities’ which are sometimes intersecting and overlapping.

It is our hope that the work reported here will provide insights that can inform the pursuit of further progress in this relatively new sub-field of education research. Improvements in the capacity and quality of this body of research are, we contend, essential to the healthy future of teacher education in universities, colleges and schools in the UK and the rest of the world.

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the authors who submitted papers for this Special Issue. They have had to work within a very tight timescale to submit and revise their papers in order that such a topical volume has emerged on time. We are also very grateful to our team of reviewers, half of them from the UK and half from over-seas, who also worked at great speed to meet what might, in other circumstances, have been deemed unreasonable deadlines.

References

Boyd, P., K. Harris, and J. Murray. 2007. Becoming a teacher educator: Guidelines for the induction of newly appointed lecturers in Initial Teacher Education. York, UK: ESCalate, HEA.

Cochran-Smith, M., and K. Zeichner, eds. 2006. Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education. Washington, DC: AERA and Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Erixon Arreman, I. 2008. The process of finding a shape: Stabilizing new research structures in Swedish Teacher Education (2000–2007). European Educational Research Journal 7, no. 2: 321–33.

Harrison, J., and F. McKeon. 2008. The early research career development of beginning teacher educators – a case study approach. Paper presented at the European Educational Research Conference, 10–13 September, in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Lunenberg, M., P. Ponte, and P. Van de Ven. 2007. Why shouldn’t teachers and teacher educators conduct research on their own practices? An epistemological exploration. European Educational Research Journal 6, no. 1: 13–24.

McNally, J. and I. Menter. 2009, in press. Editorial. Teaching and Teacher Education 25, no. 7: 141–3.

Menter, I., M. Hulme, M. Jones, J. Murray, A. Campbell, I. Hextall, P. Mahony, R. Procter, and K. Wall. Forthcoming. Teacher education research in the UK: The state of the art. Swiss Revue of Educational Research.

Munn, P. 2008. BERA presidential address: Building research capacity collaboratively: Can we take ownership of our future? British Educational Research Journal 34, no. 4: 413–30.

Munn, P., and S. Baron. 2008. Research and practice. In Scottish Education. 3rd ed., ed. T. Bryce, and W. Humes, 864–72. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.

Murray, J. 2008. Teacher educators’ induction into higher education: Work-based learning in the micro communities of teacher education. European Journal of Teacher Education 31, no. 2: 117–33.

Pollard, A., ed. 2008. Quality and capacity in UK education research. Report of the first meeting of the UK’s Strategic Forum for Research in Education, October 16–17, in Harrogate, UK. http://www.sfre.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/report-final-march-2009.pdf

Rees, G., S. Baron, R. Boyask, and C. Taylor. 2007. Research-capacity building professional learning and the social practices of educational research. British Educational Research Journal 33, no. 5: 761–79.

Reid, J. 2009. Issues in consolidating research in teacher education: An Australian perspective. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Conference, April, in San Diego, CA.

A critical history of research assessment in the United Kingdom and its post-1992 impact on education

Peter Gilroy and Olwen McNamara

^aProfessor Emeritus, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK; ^bSchool of Education, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

This paper presents a critical overview of the way in which higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK have had their research activity subject to review. There have been six such reviews to date, the first two carried out by the Universities Grants Committee and, from 1992, by its replacement, the four UK higher education (HE) funding bodies (HE Funding Council for England, HE Funding Council for Wales, the Scottish HE Funding Council and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland). The paper provides a broad outline of the key elements of the process, focusing on the two more recent research reviews and their impact on the subject of education, with the references providing specific detail for those interested in the minutiae of the reviews.

I hope I shall make it plain: though things one has taken for granted all one’s life, like the flowing of the tide, are hard to explain to those who do not know the meaning of high tide or low… (O’Brian 1997, 105)

Introduction

We open this paper with a brief description of the historical background to the research audits that have become such a key feature of university life in the UK over the last 20 years or so. The first two such audits were, as we shall show, relatively benign affairs and, as with all subjects in the university, research funding for education was barely affected by them. It was only with the third audit in 1992, when the polytechnics were transformed into ‘new’ universities, that the research audit really began to bite. The results of the audit produced noticeable disparities in the allocation of research funding, especially as these impacted on research funding for education. It is at this point that the research audits became a major issue for the research community, including education.

University research funding pre-1992

Prior to 1986 every university in the UK received a research grant as part of their block grant formula from the Universities Grants Committee (UGC) funded in relation to their student numbers, ‘irrespective of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Introduction: Capacity building in teacher education research
• 2. A critical history of research assessment in the United Kingdom and its post-1992 impact on education
• 3. Research capacity building in teacher education: Scottish collaborative approaches
• 4. Harnessing the slipstream: building educational research capacity in Northern Ireland. Size matters
• 5. How engagement with research changes the professional practice of teacher-educators: a case study from the Welsh Education Research Network
• 6. Capacity = expertise × motivation × opportunities: factors in capacity building in teacher education in England
• 7. Building capacity through teacher enquiry: the Scottish Schools of Ambition
• 8. Scallops, schools and scholars: reflections on the emergence of a research-oriented learning project
• 9. The TEG bibliography: having knowledge and using it – next steps?
• Index