This blog post, which reflects on the key issues raised during a workshop held at the HEA enhancement event ‘The full picture: the journey from listening to partnership in student engagement’, was compiled by Jenni Carr, (jenni.carr@heacademy.ac.uk).
For the students who are the professionals of the future, developing the ability to investigate problems, make judgments on the basis of sound evidence, take decisions on a rational basis, and understand what they are doing and why is vital. Research and inquiry is not just for those who choose to pursue an academic career. It is central to professional life in the twenty-first century. (Brew 2007)
“For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” (Freire, 1968)
Two contrasting quotes about the importance of inquiry within academia, the workplace and for our engagement in the social world. Whilst the aim of this workshop was to explore how involving students in collaborative and/or independent research projects could support both their attainment within programmes and their transition into employment, the underlying principle speaks to a much broader context. This context was conceptualised for us by Mike Neary in his opening keynote.
These two quotes also echo what underpins my interest in the ways in which we learn about and teach research methods. Working on the HEA Social Sciences strategic projects on teaching research methods has given me the opportunity to explore and support innovative approaches to this key aspect of students’ engagement with higher education. Alongside this my role as visiting research fellow in the Faculty of Science at the Open University working on the (In)visible Witnesses project provides different insights, exploring as it does the ways in which we can encourage young people to engage in participatory research and inquiry into gender and STEM – and most importantly, communicate the results of that learning to others.
The workshop
The presentation below provides you with an overview of some of the activities around which the workshop was structured.
The first activity, focusing on the teaching-research nexus (thanks to Natasha and Catriona for the idea), provided a great stimulus for discussing our existing practice. Attendees at the workshop came from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds including law, health and social care, education, engineering, forensic science, drama and dance, graphic design and media studies. Exploring the different approaches from within these disciplines highlighted some differences, but the most useful aspect of these transdisciplinary discussions is the ways in which looking at the issues from a different perspective helps solutions to emerge.
One of the first issues we discussed was how to structure research modules for students so that they help them develop the skills they need but at the same time allow them the independence and the confidence to shape the research so that it reflects their interests and their desires to explore certain topics.
Wicked problems
One delegate outlined the approach they take in shaping their students’ projects around the notion of wicked problems. For an overview of what is mean by ‘wicked problems’ see: https://www.wickedproblems.com/1_wicked_problems.php
In the example given at the workshop engineering students were given scenarios based around wicked problems, for example the delivery of humanitarian aid to an area in a developing country that had just experienced an earthquake. The process of researching the best solution led to them having to explore the knock-on effects of each of the decisions they made. First priority might be to provide shelter, but how do you do that with an under-developed transport system? If you take up transport capacity delivering shelter, does this reduce the capacity to deliver food aid or medical support? What type of shelter/food/medicine do you deliver taking into account any cultural sensitivities? At each decision point there were a number of conflicting factors to be considered, reinforcing the principle that what we research and how we act on that research rarely solves a problem once and for all, and sometimes it can create further problems. Most importantly, perhaps, for students is that they directly engage with the notion that there is no one set way of approaching research that they can just be taught, but rather there are a set of skills that they need to develop.
This was one example (and there were others) that highlighted three key areas that we discussed further – developing ethical researchers, how to assess reflexivity and the role of peer-led learning.
The question of ethics
I was quite surprised by the number of instances where student projects, individually, have to be submitted for approval to a central ethics committee, rather than relying on individual lecturers to review ethical considerations. The discussion of the issues that arose at ethics committees ranged from ‘theatre in education’ projects that had been turned down because the students wanted to perform in primary schools to forensic science students not being allowed to be involved in any research involving bodily fluids (probably the quote of the day was feedback from a committee “you can’t have your students playing around with semen”!). Whilst no-one was down playing the importance of addressing these ethical issues, there was an underlying concern that teaching students how to formulate a project that will get the approval of an ethics committee is not the same thing as supporting our students to become ethical researchers. Readers might also find some of the presentations from our learning and teaching summit ‘Teaching ethics and the ethics of teaching’ useful.
Assessing reflexivity
The issue of developing ethical researchers is intrinsically linked to the notion of reflexivity. Another key focus for our discussion was how and what we ask our students to write as part of their research. What does good reflective writing look like? How do we capture reflexivity? I think this was the discussion that highlighted the greatest differences between disciplines. Colleagues teaching arts and humanities modules articulated well how attempts to separate the creative aspects of research from the process of ‘writing up’ can lead to unnecessary barriers being put in place – barriers that undermine students’ understanding of research as an iterative process. STEM educators who are interested in developing student projects that focus on public engagement with STEM might encounter similar issues. Some of the solutions offered are covered below in the discussion of peer-led learning, but readers might also find the blog post by Anesa Hosein and Namrata Rao, which explores the importance of assessment for learning , useful.
Peer led learning
Several approaches that brought together the issues of reflexivity/reflection and peer-led learning were highlighted in the discussion. Online research journals, with other students being asked to feedback on each other’s journals, was a popular approach. One issue raised, however, was how to encourage students to be genuinely (and also constructively) critical of each other’s work. There was a tendency for students to just post ‘I agree with ….’ – the equivalent of clicking on the Facebook ‘like’ button! One solution suggested was that students be given a series of phrases that they must use at the start of their comments – “the most valuable point in this post is….”; “the one thing I would do differently is…”; “could you please explain…….further?”
Another suggestion was that students could keep individual research journals, in the form of a blog, but then in small groups they had to draw together the key points in the form of a jointly written wiki. The functionality of a wiki – being able to look at the history and see who has written/amended what – was viewed as being particularly useful in terms of assessing group work.
Students producing research posters that were then ‘peer-reviewed’ by other students was also discussed. What this highlighted was the importance of having a clear set of criteria for the review that the students understood – as one delegate put it “You can’t just stand back and watch the carnage!”. This then led on to a discussion of how we approach the assessment of research posters ourselves, and this was another issue that highlighted disciplinary differences and a certain degree of uncertainty in terms of how we assess these artefacts effectively. Readers may find the report ‘Developing peer assessment in post graduate research methods training’, and in particular the linking of developing research posters with concept mapping of understanding, provides some food for thought.
Our recently published report ‘Mapping student led peer learning in the UK‘ also provides useful background material that relates to the broader issues.
Additional resources
The British Conference of Undergraduate Research website provides lots of useful information and resources. The two starting points I would recommend for exploring these are
- Journals http://www.bcur.org/research/undergraduate-journals/
- YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_vBgmWRwmUqhtz6n45ghbw
Discussion
What approaches are you using to support students as researchers? Do you have any useful resources that you could share? What are the key discipline-related issues that you feel need to be explored further? To contribute to the discussion, please use the ‘leave a reply’ facility below.
