Conducting Undergraduate Research in Education

A Guide for Students in Teacher Education Programs

Ruth J. Palmer, Deborah L. Thompson, Ruth J. Palmer, Deborah L. Thompson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000541403
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Research in Education

This book offers a student-focused guide to conducting undergraduate research in education and education-related programs, engaging students in the process of learning through research, and supporting them to navigate their multidimensional academic programs.

Written for undergraduate students in teacher education programs, the book features a range of leading voices in the field who offer a step-by-step guide to all elements of the research process: from conducting a literature review and choosing a research topic, to collecting data and building a research community with peers and mentors. Ultimately, volume editors Ruth J. Palmer and Deborah L. Thompson help model the competencies that students need to succeed, including complex thinking, strategic design, modeling, and persistent iterative practice, while demonstrating how conducting research can help students develop as deep thinkers, courageous researchers, and active participants in their communities of practice.

Offering strategic approaches, support, and guidance, this book demonstrates the wider importance of undergraduate research in informing educational practice and policy, as well as understanding schools beyond the classroom context, encouraging active engagement and continued learning progression.

1Undergraduate Research in Teacher EducationThe Legacy, the Promise, the Responsibility

Ruth J. Palmer

DOI: 10.4324/9781003226475-1

For decades, curriculum change in higher education has been simply additive—a new course, a new program, a new school, a new initiative, and so on. However, in 1998, there was a radical shift away from this approach: a call for curriculum change in higher education situated in a more extensive and transformational change process, institutional change. The Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University published Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities delivered this call for change and itemized the steps necessary for its implementation. Although the Commission may have just had research universities in mind, its recommendations remain guideposts for what should be done for undergraduates in all higher education institutions.

Consequently, the practice of undergraduate research has expanded rapidly across schools and programs, beginning in the sciences, but with a slower progression in professional schools including schools of education. Despite the slow pace of adoption, many undergraduates entering teacher education programs today have research expectations because they had opportunities to conduct research while in high school (Puri, 2017). Furthermore, the Boyer Commission Report stated emphatically that research opportunities are not only for students interested in science but also for students across all disciplines and programs. Twenty years after the 1998 benchmark report, many researchers, including Hensel (2018), reiterated that “research-based learning at the highest level is an ethical and moral imperative for all students in all disciplines across all their years of undergraduate education and beyond” (p. 12).

Purpose

Thus, this introductory chapter aims first to engage undergraduate teacher education students in thoughtful deliberations on the conduct of undergraduate research as proposed in the Boyer (1998) Commission Report on undergraduate education. The chapter focuses on specific recommendations from the Boyer Commission Report, that both address undergraduate education and has direct implications for teacher education programs. It then describes and analyzes selected higher education institutions’ responses to the recommendations and the application of those responses in schools of education. Subsequently, an invitation is extended to students to analyze and adopt currently available practices and assume those responsibilities related to the adoption of this educational legacy/change and the relevant institutional and disciplinary/professional actions/strategic plans on behalf of their undergraduate teacher education programs.

The overarching goal is to ensure that, with basic knowledge of the plan for the transformation of undergraduate education, students in teacher education program can target academic outcomes relative to this legacy of research-based learning and to an envisioning of an integrated personal/professional identity as teacher-instructor, complex thinker, and researcher in education, an interdisciplinary field. Introducing the subsequent chapters reveals secure and dependable steppingstones leading to a well-articulated student researcher skill development process.

Revisiting the Recommendations of Boyer Commission (1998), a Benchmark Document

At the center of the Boyer Commission Report are the following ten recommendations, initially made to higher education research institutions yet applied to all higher education institutions: (1) make research-based learning the standard, (2) construct an inquiry-based freshman year, (3) build on the freshman foundation, (4) remove barriers to interdisciplinary education, (5) link communication skills and course work, (6) use information technology creatively, (7) culminate with a capstone experience, (8) educate graduate students as apprentice teachers, (9) change faculty reward systems, and (10) cultivate a sense of community. For each of these, the report provided specific sub-recommendations, in addition to examples of applications in its targeted institutions. In the report’s conclusion, the Commission reminded institutions that “their students, properly educated for the new millennium, will be required as leaders while that world continues to transform itself.” This work reiterates the position that students must be informed about and actively engaged in this change process.

Thus, this section engages undergraduate teacher education students in this reflective journey. The focus here is on Recommendations 1, 4, and then 3 and 7 combined.

Recommendation I. Make Research-Based Learning the Standard

Undergraduate education in [research] universities, requires renewed emphasis on a point strongly made by John Dewey almost a century ago: learning is based on discovery guided by mentoring rather than on the transmission of information. Inherent in inquiry-based learning is an element of reciprocity: faculty can learn from students as students are learning from faculty.

Students in teacher education programs in accredited colleges and universities are now part of an international movement to educate capable, informed teacher-learners for service in changing K-12 schools, now and for an uncertain future; they are also expected to respond to, participate in, and provide solutions for local, national, and global challenges (pandemics, war, political upheavals, social injustices, etc.) that require an interdisciplinary approach. To achieve those competences, the recommended learning approach is learning through research and for discovery, an approach that surpasses rote learning and toolkits devoid of conceptual groundings, historical anchors, and/or contextual information. The endorsed approach of learning through researchand for discovery remains to today an expectation for all institutions of higher education, including professional schools; prospective teachers as undergraduate students and learners are to be provided the same inquiry-based opportunities as students in research universities, particularly in the early college years. The Boyer Commission Report moves access to high-quality research and inquiry to the center of the undergraduate academic experience and advocating it for all students. This radical shift is unparalleled (Hensel, 2018).

The Boyer Commission emphasizes the reciprocal yet unwritten commitment between colleges/universities and enrolled students in which each assumes obligations and responsibilities and each receives benefits: (a) “By admitting a student, any college or university commits itself to provide maximal opportunities for intellectual and creative development [… and] opportunities to learn through inquiry rather than simple transmission of knowledge; and (b) the student commits to a course of study intended to lead to a degree, agrees to follow such rules of civil behavior as the university prescribes, accepts the challenge of making an appropriate contribution to the community of scholars, and pledges to cultivate her or his mind, abilities, and talents with a view to becoming a productive and responsible citizen” (pp. 12–13). These are part of the legacy of change in education, to which institutions and students are still expected to respond.

Institutional Responses and Enactments in Teacher Education Programs

Since 1998, the response to transform teaching and learning radically through research has grown exponentially across some fields of study and some academic and professional schools (Crawford & Shanahan, 2014; Małachowski, 2019). This has been supported by Kuh’s (2008) submission of research as one of ten high-impact practices that have been incorporated in the design of signature experiences for undergraduate education. Institutions overall have supported learning through research, leaving it for the disciplines to develop and implement practices relevant to the discipline and programs. However, despite the clear evidence that research experiences constitute to a significant portion of the intellectual and practical skills essential for all undergraduate students, its full adoption remains uneven across schools of education (Table 1.1).

But it is important that undergraduate students in teacher education program comprehend the advocacy roles that their institutions, faculty, national associations, and international organizations assume on their behalf. Faculty have moved beyond just supporting faculty-initiated/student-initiated studies and now design course-integrated research experiences through which student teachers gain access to learning through research and for discovery. Institutions have initiated annual events for students to showcase their work, for example, the one-day Celebration of Student Achievement, and the college-wide summer research programs and the launching of student journals.

Table 1.1 Boyer Commission Recommendation I (Boyer Commission, 1998) and Institutional Responses

Nationally, the honor society for Education Kappa Delta Pi (KDP) sponsors research activities within their local chapters and so does Phi Kappa Phi (PKP). In addition, America’s premier educational research association—American Educational Research Association (AERA)—has incorporated special interest groups (SIGs) that focus on teacher research and on undergraduate research. So too has the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) whose topical action groups (TAGs) conduct research in teacher education. More recently, the Association for Teacher Education (ATE) has launched an official student research group. The state chapters of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) open membership to students with the mentors. Other educational organizations continue this advocacy for students in teacher education.

At the national and international levels, advocacy for undergraduate research has been the sole purpose of the Council for Undergraduate Research (CUR) of the United States, the British Council for Undergraduate Research (BCUR), the Australasian Council of Undergraduate Research (ACUR), and other affiliates. These organizations support student research in teacher education programs, and their annual meetings are reminders to student teachers that there are groups and individuals who are working on their behalf to ensure a clear and emphatic response to the call for research-based learning as the standard for the transformation of undergraduate education and, by implication, the transformation of teacher education.

Student Responsibilities and the Benefits of Research-Related Learning

It is important that students in teacher education programs attain membership in these and other professional organizations at some point in their academic careers; local chapters and special programs offer them the opportunity to extend gratitude to those who advocate on their behalf and to collaborate with peers and near-peers in the undergraduate research effort.

Within these organizations and in their programs, students can initiate student-type advocacy actions (Nishino, 2012), for example, (a) identify and enroll in courses that provide course-embedded research experiences; (b) voluntee...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Series Foreword
• 1 Undergraduate Research in Teacher Education: The Legacy, the Promise, the Responsibility
• 2 Beginning the Investigation: The Research Question
• 3 Building a Foundation for Undergraduate Research in Teacher Education: The Literature Review
• 4 The Demands of Reading, Writing, and Thinking Like Researchers
• 5 Technology: The All-Purpose Research Tool for Discovery, Organization, and Collaboration
• 6 Building Essential Components of a Research Project: Determining Topic, Research Design, and Ethical Conduct Need
• 7 Data Analysis: The Heart of the Research Study
• 8 Building a Research Community with Peers, Near-Peers, and Experienced Mentors
• 9 Report Writing for Undergraduate Research in Teacher Education: Findings and Discussion
• 10 Report Writing II: Dissemination and Emerging Innovative Approaches
• 11 Toward Excellence in Undergraduate Research in Teacher Education Programs: Practice, Persistence, and Partnerships
• Index