Research and teaching: a holy or an unholy alliance?

Teaching and Research in Contemporary Higher Education, 2013

The comparative project "The Changing Academic Profession (CAP)" brought together almost 100 scholars from various countries of the world. They collaborated for many years, even though their conceptual frameworks, methodological approaches and working styles were based on a bewilderingly wide range of disciplinary and paradigmatic biases as well as cultural backgrounds. This is eye-opening and creative in many respects. But it poses a considerable challenge to the editors of a book who seek to present a collection of parallel papers neatly following the same format and overarching framework. The readers of the chapters of this book will discover manifold findings and interpretations. But they will not fi nd a well-structured set of major results. It becomes the task of this fi nal chapter to offer a selection of a few issues that stand out amongst these notions and observations. 21.2 In Favour of a Linkage but Not a Balance The international comparative survey on the academic profession clearly suggests that the credo of the academic profession that is generally viewed to be indicative for the modern university has remained alive for about two centuries: Three quarters

Higher Education, 2005

The relation between teaching and research is a defining feature of a modern university and of academic identity. Many universities claim a close relation between the two as well as a strong critical orientation. Yet the gap between claims and practice in higher education appears to be widening as government and institutional policies increasingly treat research and teaching as separate entities. Studies of the relation reflect these events. Such studies are not only contradictory but point to an increasing gap between research and teaching.

2009

In recent years, numerous studies have discussed, examined and explored the links between research and teaching in Higher Education. These studies have given rise to anumber of concepts, such as the research-teaching nexus and research-informed teaching, but the relationships that these concepts have to one another, and to the wider research-teaching debate, is not well-understood by a significant number of academics. Here, eachof these concepts, and their relationship to one another, is briefly examined. This leads to a redefinition of research-informed teaching that acknowledges input from academic programme research, as well as pedagogic research and the scholarship of learning andteaching. This broader definition also gives rise to the notion of a research content continuum along which teaching may be placed according to its research content. Finally,an overarching context is proposed that provides a framework within which these variousconcepts may be viewed and understood, and which is referred to here as the research-teaching complex. It is hoped that this framework will aid development in this area and stimulate further discussion and debate.

International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews, 2019

The inexorable advance of the knowledge society and knowledge economy-both fueled by higher education, teaching, research and innovation systems that have undergone a proponed change in the past decade-have made teacher's involvement in research activity increasingly important to all countries, whatever be their level development. Teaching and research are inseparable but Teaching makes better research. The best teacher is also the best researcher bearing a few exceptions. Teaching without research is lackluster and content. In the light of the above assertion, this paper addresses the issues on the nexus between teaching and research in higher educational institutions to meet the demands of the stakeholders of HEI's. We have to reorganize or reshape or reinvent our disciplines, departments and institutions in such a way that it would focus more on the teaching research nexus. This may aid students' learning, enhance their pride in their disciplines and departments, improve staff morale and overall effectiveness of the departments and institutions. Research evidence in western counties have undoubtedly proved that these links have to be created. The nexus does not necessarily occur naturally; reengineering the current practices and policies of higher education may create a climate for the establishment of this nexus. In creating the link, or rather links, besides teacher-researchers, the departments and disciplinary groups within them have a key role to play. The excellence of HEIs lies in building good practices in teaching-research linkage and permits others to learn from the experience of teacher-researchers to strengthen the nexus.

The Changing Academic Profession, 2013

This publication seeks to support institutional policy-makers to enable their institutions to link teaching and discipline-based research more effectively. Our focus is on supporting the relationships between student learning and staff discipline-based research in institutional policies and practices: what has variously been called the ‘teaching-research nexus’, ‘research-led’, ‘research-based’, ‘inquiry-based’ or ‘research-informed’ teaching. Our focus is not on ensuring that the institution ensures that pedagogic research is supported and used to shape institutional practice and policy, though we do believe that should be the case. With respect to the work of the Higher Education Academy we seek to support its strategic aim of ‘working with institutions in their strategies for improving the student learning experience’ (Higher Education Academy, 2005a) and to ensure that the advice is based on research evidence. The core of the booklet is section 5 where we present an analytical framework and an international array of case studies to support effective teaching-research links in institutions. We start from the assumption that such links are core characteristics of a university education. Readers who wish to explore the arguments and complexity of these issues further may refer to the growing number of texts in this area (Barnett, 2005; Boyer, 1990; Brew, 2001; Jenkins et al., 2003). We also recognise that the meaning of the terms ‘research’, ‘scholarship’

2012

2000

The authors present an analysis of the relationship between research and teaching in universities. The aim is to determine to what extent this relationship is strong enough to support the idea that teaching and research should be analyzed together from an institutional evaluation point of view. Two main questions are presented: (a) should research be evaluated from an institutional point of view? And, if so, (b) which specific aspects of research activities can be evaluated within each institution? Empirical data have been obtained within the Spanish National Program for the Evaluation of Quality of Universities and there are supplemented by interviews. Evidence is found of strong connections between research and teaching and in particular areas analysis of the two dimensions together will help in designing better improvement strategies for universities.

2013

Previous studies have drawn attention to the challenges faced by researchers undertaking research into learning and teaching in higher education. These challenges are particularly highlighted at times of national measurement of research excellence. It is against the context of the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF), that this paper presents findings from a recent survey of research into higher education in Scottish Higher Education Institutions. Discussion focuses on the underground and undervalued nature of some of this research. Researchers are often based within disciplines and their research is not always well known within wider higher education research discourse. Many academics face pressure to prioritise publishing within their main discipline over publishing research into higher education. There is also a lack of capacity within some Scottish institutions to return research into higher education within the forthcoming REF exercise. The wider implications of these finding...

European Journal of Education, 2006

" … universities should treat learning as not yet wholly solved problems and hence always in research mode. " (Humboldt, 1810 translated 1970, quoted by Elton, 2005, 110) THE CHANGING INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT OF HIGHER EDUCATION The 'marketization' of universities needs to be seen in the context of major changes in international higher education. The expansion of higher education has led to a questioning of the traditional Humboldtian conception of the university as an institution where teaching and research are interrelated. Related developments include the problem of meeting the costs of this expansion, and in many national systems the concentration of research funding in a limited number of high level research focussed universities. Such developments question the long prevailing view that effective teaching needs to be underpinned by an institutional environment where most staff are involved in research. For example, in 2000 Howard Newby, then President of Universities UK, and soon to be Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), spoke at an early meeting organised by Roger Brown of what became the Research and Teaching Forum. The report of the meeting states: … the effect of massification (is) requiring HE to move away from a position as part of the publicly funded service economy to make an important contribution to the 'productive economy'. … Even the notion of the university is caught up in this change … in particular to the links between teaching and research. As such it will require greater clarity about the benefits the link brings. … In the context of the UK, Newby contended that … the expansion towards a mass system meant that funds are no longer adequate to support the increased population of staff to be involved in both research and teaching (Southampton Institute, 2000, p.7, emphasis added). We explore in this chapter the role played by what became known as the 'Research and Teaching Forum' – which we use as an umbrella term that refers to the series of initiatives Roger Brown initiated and led between 1998 and 2009. Here we focus on the impact of disciplinary research on teaching. We were both centrally involved in the Forum during that decade as Steering Group members and as participants in its events. A related discussion of the Forum is given by D'Andrea in her chapter.

Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Perspectives from UCL, 2018

Universities have a dual role: they are the key locations for research as well as higher education. These are obviously complementary in that students are learning in the environment where the latest discoveries are being made or discussed. However, the two make very different demands on staff attention, particularly since 1986 when the UK government linked funding directly with research outputs through the ‘Research Excellence Framework’ (as it is currently known). This effectively made teaching the lesser sibling of the two, and education suffered as a result. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that a successful researcher will make a successful teacher and vice versa, even though academia is full of people who do manage both. Gourlay and Oliver provide an overview of how this ‘nexus’ of research and teaching has been positioned in recent years, and the various ways that people have attempted to think through the relationship between the two. One result of these discussions and experimentation, as they explain, has been a significant expansion in what we understand ‘education’ (and particularly ‘higher’ education) to be. Versions of ‘research-based education’ have been somewhere in the conversation for centuries, even if it has proven harder to implement than one might have thought.

… and Change in the Academic Profession …, 2008

Teaching and research are the two most important traditional functions of universities. It is widely recognised that teaching contributes to enrichment of research and research contributes to enhanced levels of teaching. Both are closely related, inter-dependent and mutually supportive. ...

Journal of University …, 2010

The teaching-research nexus (TRN) has become an important process in the modern University, providing both identity to university scholarship and a device for the integration of academics' work. Over the last decade many reports have identified the need to both establish institution ...

Research on Humanities and Social Science, 2022

Conceptualising the research-teaching nexus within the context of the scholarship of teaching and learning is really intriguing. This is attributed to the different notions held by several scholars and stakeholders within the higher educational landscape. Though, previous studies have attempted to espouse how several stakeholders have thought about the link between research and teaching, however, these attempts have not materialised. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to espouse how lecturers conceptualise the research-teaching nexus, especially, within the context of the scholarship of teaching and learning and to further establish whether their conceptualisation differ across their ranks. Using the descriptive cross-sectional survey design, and through a questionnaire, 732 lecturers were selected using the stratified proportionate technique to respond to the survey. In order to ensure the construct validity of the self-developed questionnaire, a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted. An oblique, specifically, promax rotation was used, where the eigenvalue-greater-thanone rule was used to determine an appropriate number of factors to retain. In terms of data analysis, after a thorough check, the closed-ended questionnaire items were analysed statistically using descriptive statistics (i.e. frequency counts, percentages, means, and standard deviations) and inferential statistics (MANOVA) was also used to examine the statistical effects and differences between lecturers' rank and their conceptualisation. It emanated from the study that lecturers conceptualise the research-teaching nexus as knowledge currency, as well as, scholarship and curriculum orientations. And that a statistically significant difference existed between the levels of lecturers' rank and their conceptualisation of the link between research and teaching. It was therefore, concluded that several stakeholders and scholars have different connotations and representations of the researchteaching nexus, especially, within the context of the research-teaching nexus. It is therefore, recommended that University authorities should encourage their faculty to embrace and apply research-based teaching in their teaching and learning expedition. Lecturers must also ensure that pedagogical practices must be thoroughly prepared, constantly reviewed, and explicitly linked to the topic they teach by way of promoting scholarship at the highest level.