Benefits for Students
It is argued in this section that disciplinary research can inform and enhance the teaching and learning environment, benefiting students during their degree studies and afterwards, when they move into the world of employment and (it is hoped) lifelong learning. There are four key categories of benefit:
Benefit 1: Deepen students' understanding of the knowledge bases of disciplines and professions, including their research methods and contemporary research challenges and issues
Benefit 2: Build students' higher-order intellectual capabilities and enhance their skills for employment and lifelong learning
Benefit 3: Develop students' capacity to conduct research and enquiry
Benefit 4: Enhance students' engagement and develop their capacity for independent learning
The meta-analysis of links between teaching and research carried out by Hattie and Marsh (1996) showed that they are not necessarily inextricably linked. The links have to be conceptualised and fashioned. Paul Ramsden (2001) has emphasised the benefits to students and the relevance of the TRN to their learning: ‘the main hope for realising a genuinely student-centred undergraduate education lies in re-engineering the teaching-research nexus’ (quoted in Jenkins and Healey, 2005).
Disciplines can differ in how they frame the TRN, but an important point common to all disciplines is that the active linking of research and teaching in the teaching and learning environment should begin as early in the degree of study as possible. The introduction to research and its processes and tools does not have to be reserved for the later years of undergraduate study. The pedagogical challenge lies in scaffolding the materials, so that students move from simple tasks to more complex activities as they develop in their disciplinary practice.
In the remainder of this section four distinct areas of benefit for students are described and illustrated by relevant examples.
Benefit 1: Deepen students' understanding of the knowledge bases of disciplines and professions, including their research methods and contemporary research challenges and issues.
Degree study involves students in a process of gradual induction into the values, practices and ethics of their chosen discipline. A crucial element of this is an understanding of how new knowledge is developed within the discipline. These processes are about discipline evolution (internal and/or in relation to other disciplines) rather than discipline stasis.
For the undergraduate student, the requirement to view aspects of existing knowledge as limited or transient can be deeply unsettling. Nonetheless it is a journey that has to be made if the student is to become truly proficient in the discipline.
A teaching and learning environment where lecturers are introducing their students throughout the course of the degree in carefully scaffolded ways to up-to-date research findings and current research controversies is one variant of the TRN. This manifestation of the TRN is the one most likely to be successful in helping students to tolerate – even embrace – the challenge of intellectual ambiguity in disciplinary study. Several academic interviewees in this project spoke of the importance of helping their students learn about the transient nature of accepted knowledge in the discipline.
“If you’re not up-to-date on contemporary research...you’re selling your students short.” Arts & Humanities lecturer
“I try and use examples that don’t necessarily support a particular hypothesis. I think ...they come away with the idea there’s a lot more to research, research is difficult, it tends to raise more questions than it answers.” Natural & Physical Sciences lecturer
It will be an added bonus if the current research is the lecturer’s own (or belongs in the School/Department), since this can increase students’ sense of being ‘hands-on/at the cutting-edge’, albeit at one step removed. Academics supported this notion of teaching about their own research interests:
“Only someone who has made scientific discoveries can convey a sense of intellectual ownership to what they teach.” Natural & Physical Sciences lecturer
However, the most important thing is that students get a sense of the currency of the application of their discipline to ‘real world’ problems. The richer the course is in such illustrations, the more likely students are to identify with the discipline and see themselves as practitioners who will be able to transfer their knowledge and understanding from the university to the world of employment and the community as a whole.
Benefit 2: Build students' higher-order intellectual capabilities and enhance their skills for employment and lifelong learning
While discipline-specific knowledge is useful to students as they enter the workplace (depending on the congruence between the discipline studied and the employment chosen), the value of generic skills are consistently emphasised by employers and graduates as important skills. These include the skills of analytical and critical thinking, information retrieval and evaluation, problem solving and communication. As work patterns change and the problems facing the developed economies become more globalised and complex, these skills are increasingly in demand, together with advanced team and project management skills, especially since professionals are now often asked to work on a diverse, dispersed and international basis.
The majority of academics interviewed for the project believed that linking teaching and research developed students’ generic and higher order skills. The improvements seen in these students’ skills were associated with not only better student assessment, but also with preparing the students for employment after graduation.
“I think those students who have that research orientation are the better students, they challenge the teacher’s ideas, they tend to be people who can think critically about problems, ... they think creatively as well ... they tend to be better or more committed to good communication.” Architecture & Building lecturer
“[Students] become ... astute learners ... about how they can apply their learning in different contexts ... how to communicate in effective ways ... to impart knowledge ... active producers of their own citizenship ... they go out into the workforce in a very mature way.” Arts & Humanities lecturer
Appropriate teaching and learning strategies, linked to the values and processes of disciplinary research, offer a rich environment where students can learn about, practise and develop this wide range of skills. The approach is known as Enquiry-Based Learning (EBL) (subsuming Problem-Based Learning, Case-Based Learning, and other variations). In EBL, students engage collaboratively in self-determined processes of investigation, working on tasks devised and facilitated by tutors. The UK Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning has pointed to the efficacy of EBL as a means of developing complex skills in learners: ‘Enquiry-Based Learning inspires students to learn for themselves, bringing a real research-orientated approach to the subject’ (quoted on CEEBL website).
Although the majority of those interviewed for the project did not label it as such, their practice reflected EBL. Many academics believed that this mode of learning could be enacted at all year levels, and aided in the development of skills pertinent to successful employment.
“It gives them the skill set to be able to practice independently.” Creative Arts lecturer
“I’ve given them the foundations, I’ve given them the research, I’ve given them the practical industry application of it.” Information Technology lecturer
In the first year(s) of the degree, EBL tasks can be simplified and structured to allow basic acquisition of skill sets, but as students become ‘professionalised’ in disciplinary skills and knowledge and in generic skills, tasks can increasingly draw on the ‘real world’ issues with which the discipline itself is engaged, and perhaps even cross discipline boundaries. The growing interest in Real World Learning and the adoption of the US ‘Capstone’ projects provide many examples of effective and authentic ‘bridges’ that can be built between the world of the university and the world of employment, thus increasing students’ employability and predisposing them towards lifelong learning. Angela Brew’s words are appropriate here: ‘In a world characterised by uncertainty and… ‘supercomplexity’ we need, not bodies of predefined knowledge, but rather the skills of finding out. Knowledge has become fluid and contestable. In its many domains of discourse, it has become a product of communication and negotiation. The students of the future are going to need the skills of inquiry—of research—if they are to be able to investigate and to learn and hence be employable in the future’ (Brew 2003: ix-x)
Benefit 3: Develop students' capacity to conduct research and enquiry
Where the previous section discussed generic skill development through the teaching-research nexus, this section emphasises the benefits that can accrue to students when the teaching and learning environment is structured to allow them to engage in ‘real’ research work in their discipline. This may be done in various ways:
- Through EBL and other student project work (as instanced above);
- By inviting students either to contribute to or to ‘shadow’ a genuine research project (the tutor’s or the Department’s);
- By asking students to replicate for themselves some research already carried out;
- By involving students in the research culture of the Department and supporting them, through tutoring and mentoring, to offer their own commentary on current research issues or other ‘hot’ topics.
- By building research methods classes into the student’s degree program.
Students working in these ways acquire a hands-on understanding of and respect for the truth values of their discipline, its processes of hypothesis construction and its evidence criteria, experience the importance of using data and processes with honesty and integrity, and develop habits of perseverance. Academics interviewed in the project also spoke of these initiatives as ways in which to capitalise on material presented in lectures.
“I think that no matter how excited you can get students in lectures ... there’s really no substitute for getting their hands on something and doing it themselves, having both the frustration of doing it and the excitement of discovering things.” Natural & Physical Sciences lecturer
"[Students] get a better understanding of the various perspectives or theoretical approaches in the discipline ... If you can identify what the underlying thinking or ideology is for research you will be able to make a better assessment of the research.” Arts & Humanities lecturer
Students steeped in practical opportunities of these sorts throughout their degree study will enter the professional world with an understanding of research methodologies; they will know how to conduct and evaluate research projects and they will have acquired the habits of evidence-based practice. With these abilities graduates will be more ‘work-ready’ in the first instance and more likely to develop into successful practitioners and lifelong learners in the ‘knowledge society’.
Benefit 4: Enhance students' engagement and develop their capacity for independent learning
Ruth Neumann (1994) has pointed out that student levels of engagement in learning are higher when they know about their teachers’ research and can see its contribution to society, and when they feel that they themselves are at the forefront of theory and opinion. Student motivation, which can be a problem in the tertiary teaching and learning environment, is therefore going to be increased where the curriculum includes authentic, contemporary research issues, and engages students in thinking about them.
The academics interviewed in the project frequently spoke of their efforts to engage their students by using research-based teaching initiatives. Through their own experience, academics had found that students responded positively to learning about their lecturer’s research activities or being involved in small scale research assignments.
“The practical subject we do is really cool, they love it. I teach them how to use the forensic computing tools that are available ... my PhD student and I created all the evidence ... [and] in the prac, they solve the murder.” Information Technology lecturer
“I think being research active and sharing those research findings in class takes the learning experience to a different level.” Arts & Humanities lecturer
Other academics believed that the increase in student engagement attained through research infused teaching had ramifications for their development as individuals and contributed to their employability after graduation.
“Role of the university ... preparing curious students ... who are engaged with the world ... go to university to become a ... more involved, more intellectually and creatively engaged person ... students ... who can ... learn and discover on their own.” Creative Arts lecturer
Appropriate pedagogies for such involvement will inculcate active learning approaches and planned opportunities for autonomous, independent learning where students are working individually or in teams. Tasks and activities need to be carefully scaffolded, and develop in scope and complexity as students move through their degree. Thus, while this might begin with short experiential learning , the scope will broaden as the degree progresses to capstone projects and real world learning activities that are likely to include work outside the institution.
For ideas on how to link teaching and research to enhance student learning outcomes, please refer to the Examples of TRN Practice page.
Academics interested in exploring their students' encounters with teaching and research can download a questionnaire developed by Mick Healey, Fiona Jordan and Chris Short (University of Gloucestershire, UK, 2002): The student experience of teaching, research and consultancy.
