The Teaching and Research Relationship: Developing Institutional Policy and Practice

1
The Teaching and Research Relationship
Developing Institutional Policy and Practice

• Cavendish Conference Centre
• 8th November 2005

2
Research on Teaching /Research Relations at
Institutional Level

• Professor Alan Jenkins
• Reinvention Fellow
• The Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate
  Research,
• Oxford Brookes and Warwick University

3
Preamble and Complexity

• There are many variables and meanings in
  teaching /research relations including what
  we mean by research and scholarship. (Brew)
• There is limited research evidence at
  institutional level .
• And often from different institutional and
  national contexts .
• So care re transferability .
• So beware of any firm statements including by me
  
• Do consider the implications of this research for
  your institutional strategies

4
VALUE JUDGEMENTS AS TO WHAT IS HIGHER EDUCATION

• Helping students and the wider society cope
  with supercomplexity (Barnett)
• The strongest policy claim that derives from
  this meta analysis is that universities need to
  set as a mission goal the improvement of the
  nexus between research and teaching .
• ( Hattie and Marsh , 1996)
• The fundamental issue is what we WISH the
  relation to be , and then we need to devise
  policies to enact that wish. (Hattie and Marsh
  2004).

5
The Bad News

• A focus on discovery research/ RAE style
  research can be at the expense of a focus on
  quality teaching and here effective teaching
  /research links ( McNay for HEFCE re 1992 and
  1996 RAE).US Boyer Commission ( 1998).
• That at institutional level ( in the UK )
  teaching and research are generally managed and
  organised separately and little or no evidence
  of institutional policies for creating links
  This also the case of one New Zealand
  University that claimed ( Hattie and Marsh 2004)

6
More Bad News

• One seminal study in the US found that faculty
  reward and promotion systems central to enabling
  or blocking staff creating in effective teaching
  /research links Staff at the research
  intensive found it most difficult to link
  teaching and research as research was solely ?
  correctly? defined as high level discovery
  research (Colbert)
• UK survey suggested that institutional
  interventions to link T and R largely
  /exclusively from the teaching side except
  for a few institutional pedagogic research
  initiatives (Gibbs JM Port Associates )

7
The Good News

• Undergraduate students perceive many benefits
  from ( staff ) research staff credibility ,
  knowledge currency of their degrees But often
  see that research as at arms length from their
  experience Brookes Gloucestershire UEA a
  a research intensive Australian University
  University of Canterbury NZ .
• From the USA some evidence that selected students
  doing undergraduate research demonstrate
  intellectual growth and from the UK feel part
  of the University research community ( Imperial
  Warwick)
• Greater the students involvement in academic
  work , greater knowledge acquisition and
  cognitive development
• (Pascarella and Terinzini)

8
More Good News

• US research intensive universities recent
  interventions in selected institutions have
  brought key positive changes to the student
  experience of (staff) research in particular
  increased opportunities for undergraduate
  research
• Study of three contrasting Australian
  Universities each could realise aspects of the
  links in ways that suited their institutional
  mission (Zubrick)

9
Taking This Forward

• The policy initiatives that are reported in the
  booklet Institutional Strategies to Link
  Teaching and Research are in accordance with
  /directly stem from this research evidence .
• However many of them have not yet been
  researched . Ensure what you do is researched
  /evaluated
• The fundamental issue is what we WISH the
  relation to be , and then we need to devise
  policies to enact that wish. (Hattie and Marsh
  2004).