Higher Education Lecturers’ Criteria for ‘Good Research’

Author(s):

Didi M.E. Griffioen(presenting / submitting)Bart H.W. Roosenboom Uulkje de Jong

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 02 A, Teaching, Learning and Assessment in Higher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-10

15:15-16:45

Room:

STD-301

Chair:

Margarida Lopes

Contribution

Since the end of the 19^th century, teaching and research have gone hand in hand at Europe’s traditional universities (Ruegg, 2004). Over the last years, also institutes for higher professional education (HEP) have increasingly begun to conduct research all throughout Europe (Lepori & Kyvik, 2010; Vos, Borghof & Staa, 2007), hence transforming from teaching-only institutions into institutions that generate new knowledge through research (Kyvik & Skodvin, 2003). As an effect research criteria of lecturers play a increasing role in teaching education to students as well as collectively shaping research programmes, similar to the traditional universities (Skoie, 2000).

As an effect, both types of institutes increasingly state to be of a different character than the other; the traditional universities emphasize to educate ‘professional scholars’ with competences on fundamental research, while the higher professional educationstates to educate ‘scholarly professionals’ with practice-based research skills (De Weert and Leijnse, 2010; Griffioen, 2011; Van der Rijst & Visser-Wijnveen, 2011). These stated differences also imply to result in a different opinion on what ‘good research’ consists of. Hence, the central question in this study is: what are lecturers’ conceptions of ‘good research’? And what are the differences between the lecturers of traditional universities and lecturers of higher professional education?

Lecturers’ perceptions on the demarking of ‘good research’ from ‘not good research’ are of influence on how students are trained and judged when it comes to research-related tasks. These perceptions are also expected to influence the content and form of educational programs and therefore influence the relation between lecturers and students (Visser-Wijnveen, Van Driel, Van der Rijst, Verloop, & Visser, 2009). At the same time is the connection between conceptions and behaviour complex and inconclusive (Visser-Wijnveen, 2009).

Most previous studies on how academics consider research had a focus on conceptions of research, disregarding judgments on quality (e.g. Brew, 2001, 2003; Levy & Petrulis, 2012; Visser-Wijnveen, et al., 2009). Futhermore, of the studies on conceptions of research, most considered the creation of a list of objective criteria to rank research, disregarding the different perspectives academics apply. Of the studies that does consider academics’ differences in conceptions of ‘good research’, Hemlin (1991) and Kiley & Mullins (2005) both found four themes that researchers take into account when judging research: 1) the set-up of the research, 2) the research problem or topic, 3) the relevance of the study, and 4) the study’s results. Additionally, Kiley and Mullins (2005) found that 5) the way the results are communicated influences the opinions of researchers. Albert, Laberge & McGuire (2012) confirmed that the medium of communication matters, since their results show that researchers – regardless of their discipline - evaluate scientific articles higher, especially when these are published in peer-reviewed journals.

Hence, based on previous research five themes are relevant for academics in traditional universities to demark ‘good’ from ‘not good’ research. The present study will add to this body of knowledge by investigating the conception of ‘good research’ of lecturers in both types of higher education.

Method

Two groups of lecturers of The Netherlands were part of this study: a) Lecturers from HEP (Nh = 25), who previously participated in an elaborative survey study, were asked to participate in focus groups; b) University lecturers (Nu=20), who were gathered using a snowball-method (Westerkamp & Van Veen, 2008) participated in individual interviews. All sessions were set-up in an open-ended way. At the beginning of every session, the participant(s) were asked to come up with one example of good research and one of non-good research. Then the participants were each asked to introduce their example. In the focus groups sessions all examples were discussed among the group of lecturers, in the interviews the interviewer asked clarification, probing and follow-up questions. All sessions were audio recorded and transcribed at verbatim. The resulting transcripts were analysed using ‘content analysis’ in accordance with the analysis method of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006), using Atlas.ti. First, all separate arguments and statements concerning criteria for good and non-good research of the first part of the focus group meetings were labelled in vivo. Then codes covering similar themes were grouped and classified. The classification system found was then applied to all transcripts, and the results described.

Expected Outcomes

The results on the first question show that lecturers apply six themes on ‘good research’, which are comparable to the findings in previous research: 1) the design of research; 2) the characteristics of the final product; 3) the value of the research and its outcome; 4) the topic; 5) the way the research was conducted, and 6) the researcher as a person. The second question in this study addressed the differences between lecturers of traditional universities and professional institutes. And although the criteria used by individual lecturers varied greatly (large intra-group variation), the differences between the HEP and the university sample were only minor (small inter-group variation). The two main differences considered the utility value versus the scientific value, and the practical origin of a research topic versus the funding of research. The present results give a basic insight in what themes are relevant for lecturers in both types of higher education. So far this line of research shows that six themes should be considered in formal frameworks for the judgment of research by lecturers. And furthermore, the both types of institutes are less different than they would sometimes like to be.

References

Albert, M., Laberge, S., & McGuire, W. (2012). Criteria for assessing quality in academic research: the views of biomedical scientists, clinical scientists and social scientists. Higher Education, 64(5), 661-676. Brew, A. (2001). Conceptions of Research: A Phenomenographic Study. Studies in Higher Education, 26, 271-285. Brew, A. (2003). Teaching and Research: New Relationships and their Implications for Inquiry-Based Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Higher education Research & Development, 22(1), 3-18. Kiley, M., & Mullins, G. (2005). Supervisors' Conceptions of Research. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 49(3), 245-262. Kyvik, S., & Skodvin, O.-J. (2003). Research in Non-university Higher Education Sector - Tensions and Dilemmas. Higher Education, 45, 203-222. Lepori, B., & Kyvik, S. (2010). The Research Mission of Universities of Applied Sciences and the Future Configuration of Higher Education Systems in Europe. Higher Education Policy, 23, 295-316. Levy, P., & Petrulis, R. (2012). How do first-year university students experience inquiry and research, and what are the implications for the practice of inquiry-based learning. Studies in Higher Education, 37(1), 85-101. Van der Rijst, R. M., & Visser-Wijnveen, G. J. (2011). Undergraduate Research and Inquiry in the Netherlands. Council for Undergraduate Research Quarterly, 32(2), 32-36. Visser-Wijnveen, G. J., Van Driel, J. H., Van der Rijst, R. M., Visser, A., & Verloop, N. (2012). Relating academics’ ways of integrating research and teaching to their students’ perceptions. Studies in Higher Education, 37(2), 219–234.

Author Information

Didi M.E. Griffioen (presenting / submitting)

Amsterdam - University of Applied Sciences

Amsterdam

Bart H.W. Roosenboom

University of Amsterdam

Uulkje de Jong