Title

A discipline-oriented focus on the links between research and teaching at a research-intensive university: the case of physical geography

Abtract

Numerous research papers have been published on the links between research and university teaching. Most of these studies adopt a general viewpoint inthe sense that they do notfocus on specific disciplines.They reach from attempts to find quantitative correlations between measures of research and teaching ‘quality’(see e.g. Hattie and Marsh 1996) to more descriptive or interpretativestudies which explore conceptions of the links held by university professors (e.g. Elen et al. 2007). The overall outcome of quantitative studies seems to be that there are noconsistentcorrelations between quality in research and quality in teaching, while the qualitative studies tend to provide rich pictures of a complex and also contested experience of such relations. So as to cite Robertson: ‘Complexity is evident, not only in the apparent contradictions between quantitative and qualitative accounts but also within the qualitative arena of academic experience’ (Robertson 2007: 543).

In an attempt to go beyond simply recognising the complexity of the relations between research and teaching in higher education, this paper proposes thatanalysis of the disciplinary knowledge structure can be used to unfoldat least parts of the complexity. The paper analyses the practices of five professors of physical geography at the University of Copenhagen, as described by them in semi-structured interviews. They describe a highly developed integration of teaching and research strongly influencing their students’ activities within the discipline. Our analysis suggests, as explanations for this, the horizontal structure of the disciplinary knowledge and the vertical distribution of roles within the research process. At the same time we noticed, from the interviews, that respondents seem to lack a coherent discourse to describe and justify their teaching practice and its relations to organisation of knowledge for teaching. The study indicates, in conclusion, that using disciplinary knowledge structure is important for understanding the complexity of the relations between research and university teaching.

Synopsis

1. Background, aims and framework

The aim of thisstudy is to analyse the interplay between teaching and research as experienced and described by professors of physical geography at a research-intensive University. In doing so we focus on the role of disciplinary knowledge structure as a crucial condition for the relations between research and teaching in higher education, as is enacted by practitioners. Thereby this paper forms part of a growing body of literature (e.g. Blackmore 2007, Healey 2005, Healey and Jenkins 2003, Neuman and Becher 2002, Robertson 2007, Scott 2005) that acknowledges discipline as a crucial factor when trying to grasp and develop the links between research and teaching.

Healey (2005: 186) talks about the discipline as ‘an important mediator’ to enhance the links in order to benefit student learning. Robertson (2007: 550), in her study of New Zealand academics, found it ‘impossible to avoid the overwhelmingly disciplinary nature of the variation revealed in academics’ narratives’. By focusing on one discipline we hope to unfold some of the complexity of the relations between research and teaching and take the research area towards a perspective of didactical design for further development of university teaching in physical geography and related disciplines.

2. Methods and samples

The paper draws on a research project focusing on both mathematics and physical geography (Madsen and Winsløw, in press). In this project we developand explore a theoretical model of the interplay between university teaching and research within a scientific discipline, in order to be able to design and analyse a study of how professors describe these activities, and how this depends on discipline specifics. For this purpose we modified the so-called 4T-modelfrom the anthropological theory of didactics (cf. Chevallard, 1999; Barbé et al., 2005). In short, the framework allows seeing the respondents’ practice of research and teaching as so-called praxeological organisations. These organisations are structured families of praxeologies, each consisting of a practical block (type of task,corresponding techniques) and a theoretical block (the theoretical discourse and justifications).Taking the discourse of respondents as our data, the three other levels can be described by the questions: What is to be done? (type of task), How is it done? (technique)? And why is it done so? (theory behind). For further details of the framework see (Madsen and Winsløw, in press).

Thispaper reports on the geography part of the study, based on five qualitative interviews with researchers at the Department of Geography and Geology at the University of Copenhagen,conducted in the first half of 2006.The interviews lasted 1-1½ hours and were semi-structured. They centred on three distinct parts: research, teaching and the relations between them, with a focus on the individual respondents’ experience and views,arising from current practices. The questions were organised according to the theoretical framework. We first asked the respondents to select a recent research project and the questions dealt with the ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘why’ of this praxeological organisation (based on research tasks). Along the same lines, we then focused on a recent undergraduate course taught by the respondent (the ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘why’ of a didactical organisation, i.e. organisations of practice related to teaching tasks). These first two parts then supported a discussion of the relations between research and teaching, as references could be made to concrete instances of the respondents’ current activities both by the respondent and by the interviewer.

All interviews were taped and later transcribed in Transana-MU, version 2.12 (Woods and Fassnacht 2007). We coded the transcripts independently according to the theoretical framework, and afterwards compared. The reliability of the coding was high.

3. Results

The respondents give rich descriptions of their research and teaching practice at the level of practical blocks (types of tasks and used technologies). They describe and elaborate on what they do and how they do it. However, in relation to creating links between research and teaching, it turned out that it was much easier for all the interviewed researchers to reflect about techniques than about theory blocks. For example the respondents describe that as a researcher who is teaching, you are able to see what content you need to bring into teaching:

‘You have a temperature curve that shows an impact on another parameter, there is a relation between radiation and temperature, that you have found in your research and that you bring in. In that way we get material in’ (respondent 3).

Reflections on why it is done so (the theory block of teaching praxeologies) appear more limited. In particular, we found little systematic reasoning about teaching practice or its relation to theoretical blocks of didactical organisations, and instead much reference to personal experience and traditions.Further, in line with Robertson (2007),we found that the geographers had a strong image of a continuum in regard to their activities in research and teaching, especiallyas regards advanced levels of teaching.

In ouranalysis two types of metaphors turned out to be very persistent within the empirical material: the discipline itself is seen as horizontal and the roles of the participants within the discipline appear more vertical (or hierarchical).

As to the first metaphor the geographers do not actually describe the structure of their study programmeas horizontal, but looking at their descriptions of teaching practice (and at the programme itself) it is justified to consider it to be so.By a horizontal discipline we mean one where different research organisations live side by side, sometimes interacting, but not drawing on each other as strict prerequisites.By contrast,in a vertical discipline,extensive prerequisites are needed to access a modern research organisation because techniques and theories are built up in cumulative ways.The comparative aspect of the whole study – involving also mathematics – was crucial to bring out this particular aspect.

As to the second metaphor, it can be exemplifiedthrough the history of a research project based on the following idea:

‘The idea stems from the fact that I teach at the university at Svalbard …. what triggers me is that the heap seems warm at winter. Measurements show that the heap is warm and that makes me set up the working hypothesis that what has been believed up to now – that the summertime is the most important period for studying the strain on plants by heavy metal – is false; it’s the wintertime’ (respondent 2).

Two colleagues, five master students, and one PhD-student hadbeen involved in the research project. For the ‘respondent 2’, substantial work has been devoted to organise the field work periods, to secure that measurements where taken continuously, and to apply for research permissions and funding, correspond with relevant authorities, and organise the data processing with students and colleagues. This way of organising the research activity can be described as vertical, because the whole activity is led and coordinated by the senior researcher, but allows – even necessitates – the participation of students at various levels of the execution.

These two types of metaphors of the discipline of physical geography can be used to understand how students’ activities relate to research activities.Due to the vertical structure of the research activity the students are at times important co agents in research due to the need for data collection. Further, the horizontal structure of the discipline allows students to actually participate in research practicevery early in the study, involving them in the solution of researchtasks based on scientific techniques.

4. Conclusions and Implications

Interviewer: So they go through some of the same steps as you do when you are researching?

Respondent 5: Yes they do. They must search for knowledge and they also need to go through that stepwise process from an idea – we have an idea and then we need to search if there is data for it and …. – finddata and then need to wonder about the results and …the report of the results is just like a research paper.

Many similarquotes from respondents suggest a highly developed integration of teaching and research, strongly influencing the students’ activities. This may be explained by the discipline’s horizontal character and vertical distribution of roles within the research process. However, we found little explicit awareness among the researchers of the significance and justification of the didactical organisations (corresponding to their theoretical block). This means that the links between research and teaching do exist and influence the students’ activities,but alsothat theymay be vulnerable in times of change. Therefore in line with Robertson (2007) we see a need for an epistemological ‘meta-awareness’ to explicit the structures of disciplinary knowledge among the involved parties and to further explore how these structures shape the links between teaching and research in higher education within different disciplines.

5. Bibliography

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Chevallard, Y. (1999). L’analyse des pratiques enseignantes en théorie anthropologique du didactique. Recherches en Didactique des Mathématiques, 19(2), 221-265.

Elen, J., Lindblom-Ylänne, S. and Clement, M. (2007). Faculty development in research-intensive universities: The role of academics’ conceptions on the relationship between research and teaching. International Journal for Academic Development, 12 (2), 123-139.

Hattie, J. and Marsh, H. W. (1996). The relationship between teaching and research: a meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research,66 (4), 507-544.

Healey, M. (2005). Linking research and teaching to benefit student learning. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 29 (2), 183-201.

Healey, M. and Jenkins, A. (2003). Discipline-based educational development, in R. Macdonald and H. Eggins (eds.) The scholarship of academic development (Buckingham: Open University Press), 47-57.

Madsen, L. and Winsløw, C. (in press). Relations between teaching and research in physical geography and mathematics at research intensive Universities.International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education.

Neuman, R. and Becher, T. (2002). Teaching and learning in their disciplinary contexts: a conceptual analysis. Studies in Higher Education, 27 (4), 405-417.

Robertson, J. (2007). Beyond the ‘research/teaching nexus’: exploring the complexity of academic experience. Studies in Higher Education, 32 (5), 541-556.

Scott, P. (2005). Divergence or convergence? The links between teaching and research in mass higher education, in: R. Barnett (ed.) Reshaping the university: new relationships between research, scholarships and teaching (Maidenhead, Open University Press), 53-66.

Woods, D, and Fassnacht, C. (2007). Transana-MU v2.12. Madison, WI: The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.