Researchteaching linkages: Enhancing graduate attributes

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Research-teaching linkages Enhancing graduate
attributes

• Mary Malcolm

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Drivers of the research-teaching link in BMAF

• Currency and employability
• Developing individual professionals
• Departmental and staff profile
• Institutional priorities

learning a toolbox of methods that are
reproduced without deep understanding (Edmunds
and Richardson 2005, 20)
Business School research too abstract to be
relevant too relevant to be valuable
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Research is defined broadly.

• Investigating issues related directly to
  enhancing business, management and professional
  practice
• Investigating issues raised by the contemporary
  knowledge base

Investigating issues related directly to
enhancing business, management and professional
practice
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Graduate attributes in BMAF
Knowledge of professional practice that is
current and underpinned by evidence

• Research as the basis of practice

• The ability to evaluate and synthesise arguments
  and evidence
• An awareness of the limits to arguments and
  conclusions
• Practical understanding of formal research
  methods
• The ability to analyse and manipulate data of
  many types and sources
• Interpretation of quantitative and qualitative
  data to construct models and hyptheses

Research as knowledge development
The ability to generate, progress and deliver a
research project Project management skills self
management The capacity to address and respond to
a brief Application of creativity and knowledge
to structured and unstructured problems Understand
ing of ethical research practices
Research as enquiry
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Graduate attributes in the curriculum
Attributes as additional elements
Relatively unimportant and integrated into the
curriculum
Relatively unimportant and separately addressed
in the curriculum
Supplementary process
Complementary process
Integral to and integrated in the curriculum
Important and developed in parallel
From Barrie 2007
Attributes as transformative elements
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Enhancing teaching practice

• Decision-making in the real world of business
• Working on business-based projects
• Engaging learners in the work of active
  researchers
• Provisionality complexity from the start
• Pervasive enquiry-based approach
• Encountering a range of research projects
  challenges
• Learners recognising their own developing skills

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The drivers of course design

• Disciplinary approaches - building
• Skills and techniques - accrediting
• Outcome-based design - delivering
• The role of staff specialism - compiling

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Challenges of curriculum design and management

• Coverage
• Matching staff expertise and syllabus
  curriculum cold spots
• Making the link explicit in practice - module
  descriptions
• Coherence
• Learning by enquiry learning mode, not learning
  event
• Research training impact and currency
• Research practice process and outcome

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A learner perspective
Extract two Actually some of them were quite
surprising. And it was very interesting to look
and to try and find the reasons why I would
expect this question to be totally different.
And I expected it to be totally negative and it
was totally positive. And I was really
surprised. And then I had to read the literature
again and look at why and how'. Doing the
research was really challenging because there
are a lot of research materials out there and
finding the ones to use was really difficult
Extract one It was good for the personal
experience for the feeling of achievement. And I
think the dissertation helped me as well. It's
a very up to date topic very recent, interesting
hopefully. So I think it also helped me to get
an MBA place. For later, yes it's also helped
me to organize my own work, my own research to
structure it and starting from scratch and
achieve something.