Students as Researchers:

Novice to Expert

ESCalate Student Conference 2009

The Lakeside Centre, AstonUniversity, Birmingham

ESCalate gratefully acknowledges the support of the AstonUniversity

Centre for Learning, Innovation and Professional Practice

in mounting this Conference.

Welcome to the first ESCalate Student Conference, bringing together students within the Education community from universities all over the UK and beyond.

As you know ESCalate is an important part of the Higher Education Academy. We work with students and staff in Education departments throughout the UK. Whether you are an undergraduate, Masters or Doctoral student, we hope you will enjoy what today offers. Please share your thoughts and ideas with us as the day progresses, and contribute something later to the student pages of the ESCalate web site.

Tony Brown, Director, ESCalate

Introduction to the day

We know that for some of you, this will be your first experience of an academic conference and we extend an especially warm welcome to you! We hope that you will find it a really useful experience: conferences are one of the main ways that academics exchange ideas and opinions and develop their ideas as a result of that exchange. We learn a lot in the sessions we attend, but we often learn even more through the people we meet over coffee and at lunch; so be brave! Break away from your colleagues and go and talk to people, find out about why they are here and what they are learning. We hope you will enjoy today and find it valuable enough to make it the first of many future conference experiences.

We are especially grateful for the support of the Aston University Centre for Learning, Innovation and Professional Practice (CLIPP). You will hear from their Head of Learning and Teaching Research, Dr Robin Clark, in our first session, and you will meet other members of the Centre during the day.

We hope you will let us know how this day has affected you. We will ask you to complete an online survey about your impressions of, and feelings about, the day, but we will also ask if we may contact you later on, to see how your practice as a researcher may have changed as a result of being here today. Do say yes! It will help us to make this an even better event next time.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, problems or suggestions, do feel free to waylay Anne Anderson or myself at any point during the day. Have a good one!

Susanna Dammann
ESCalate Communications Manager / Anne ML Anderson
ESCalate Events Co-ordinator
Programme

Welcome:

Dr Tony Brown, Director, ESCalate

Dr Robin Clark, Head of Learning and Teaching Research, CLIPP (Centre for Learning Innovation and ProfessionalPracticeAstonUniversityBirmingham)

Keynote Address:

Negotiating tricky corners: becoming a researcher in Education

Professor James C Conroy, Dean in the Faculty of Education, University of Glasgow

This keynote will ask some fundamental questions about the purpose of educational research; who it serves and to what purposes it is put. It will challenge some of the assumptions made in education circles about being a student researcher and invite participants to move beyond many of the current clichés about being a student researcher with its stock processes and procedures.

Parallel Sessions:

Session A:

Getting involved from the word go: students as researchers in the first year undergraduate experience

Professor Kay Sambell, Director of Assessment for Learning Enhancement; Linda Graham, Student Development Officer; Dr Catherine Montgomery, Research Lead, Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (AfL), NorthumbriaUniversity

This session will focus on some of the ways in which students have been encouraged to think of themselves as apprentice or developing researchers in the early stages of their undergraduate studies. It will outline some of the approaches used in a project funded by NorthumbriaUniversity’s research-informed teaching initiative. Examples of a research-based teaching framework – ‘Seeing the Signs’ - will be presented. On introductory modules, large numbers of students became involved in project work which actively engaged them in, for example,

  • Collection and analysis of authentic data relevant to their subject area
  • Working in teams to try out their ideas, debate and encounter different theoretical perspectives and controversy
  • Student conferencing and dissemination of their work-in-progress
  • Publishing their findings in informal settings for a diverse range of audiences
  • Networking and building effective research communities
  • Contributing to their discipline
  • working across disciplinary boundaries to explore educational issues
  • Co-presenting in staff-student partnerships at academic conferences

Session B:

The Research Process: from Inception to Dissemination

Chaired by Dr Alexis Taylor, ESCalate Academic Consultant: School of Education, BrunelUniversity

1) An Introduction to ESCalate Student Grants

Dr Alexis Taylor, ESCalate Academic Consultant: School of Education, BrunelUniversity

This session aims to help you to give yourself the best chance of success when applying for an ESCalate Student Grant. The session will cover aspects such as the funding available, possible themes, the processes of application and evaluation of proposals, as well as the management of projects.

2) Start to Finish: The Research Process for Investigating Student Writing

Joelle Adams, Student Achievement Coordinator, BathSpaUniversity

Joelle will briefly outline the rationale, explain the methodology, and summarise the results of this project investigating the academic writing experiences of 'non-traditional' students at a teaching-led university. In addition, she will describe the experience and benefits of presenting her research at the College Composition and Communication conference in San Francisco, California.

3) Data collection - a love / hate relationship: experiences as a new researcher

Angela Jaap, PhD Student, University of Glasgow

Angela’s paper arises from her PhD research which looks at the identification of musical gift and talent. The main aims of the research are to understand the conceptualisation of the terms ‘gift’ and ‘talent’, how gift and talent are recognised, and subsequently how such abilities can best be accommodated and developed within the classroom. The study (as a whole) will provide music teachers with greater awareness of what factors influence the development of musical ability in their pupils.

The research is of an empirical nature, with data collected from four sources: schools, Conservatoires, academics and successful musicians. This paper will discuss the methods (online participation, face-to-face interviews, case study and data analysis) and the participant groups utilised in the research and the issues which have arisen from the data collection process before concluding with how these experiences have shaped her development as a researcher.

4) Student as Producer - Publication and Dissemination of Undergraduate Research

Caroline Gibson, Managing Editor, Reinvention: a Journal of Undergraduate Research

Drawing on the experiences of the Editorial team of Reinvention: a Journal of Undergraduate Research this part of the session will look at the challenges and rewards of publishing undergraduate research. Issues such as who a peer is in the context of undergraduate peer review, what standards should be expected of undergraduate journal papers and our experiences of teaching students to write for publication will all form part of the discussion.

Session C

Inquiry Based Learning as a method for researching change: students and

tutors as co researchers

Dr Margaret Page, Senior Lecturer; Dr Hugo Gaggiotti, Senior Lecturer; Daniel Staley and Liza McCann, University of the West of England

In this session students and tutors will co-present material illustrating their experience of inquiry based learning and teaching, and offer opportunities for trying out the method. Our aim is to invite discussion and debate.

Session D:

Blogging as data gathering - how might Web 2.0 technologies interrupt and disturb our notions of research? and… what are we going to do about it?

Julie Hughes, Principal Lecturer in Learning and Teaching; Emma Purnell, Institute for Learning Enhancement, University of Wolverhampton

This session will address the issues raised by the development of Web 2.0 technologies for research methodology and outcomes and consider how they may affect what research is and what it does.

Session E:

Creating Research Opportunities through Enterprise and Innovation

Joe Gazdula, Director of Enterprise and Placements, Amanda Dalzell, Student Entrepreneur, Javed Munshi, Student Entrepreneur, Liverpool Hope University

Liverpool Hope University Education Students have recently been involved in a series of innovative projects which have seen the Universities first sponsored module ‘The Dragons Den,’ first intellectual property rights (M.A.T.S.) and a Virtual Health Centre (NRAC).

This workshop allows you try out these and shows how research can lead to the creation of new ideas and lead back into further research creating a virtuous cycle of enterprise and research. We will cover key aspects of creativity and allow participants to generate and test their own enterprise ideas with our student enterprise consultants.

Open Space Session

Facilitated by Helen Bulpitt, Deputy Director, SWAP (Social Policy and Social Work Subject Centre)

Open Space Technology is a way to enable people to create inspired meetings and events. In Open Space meetings, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance. We never know exactly what will happen when we open the space for people to do their most important work but we do know that whatever happens will be valuable to the people in the space. You can find out more at .

9.45 / Registration and Refreshments / Ground floor reception
10.05 / Welcome / Dr Tony Brown, Director, ESCalate
Dr Robin Clark CLIPP / Suite 1
10.15 / Keynote Address / Negotiating tricky corners: becoming a researcher in Education / Professor James C Conroy, University of Glasgow / Suite 1
11.15 / Refreshments / Ground floor reception
11.30 / Parallel Sessions
A / Getting involved from the word go: students as researchers in the first year undergraduate experience / Professor Kay Sambell, Linda Graham,
Dr Catherine Montgomery, NorthumbriaUniversity / Suite 4A
B / The Research Process: from Inception to Dissemination / Chaired by Dr Alexis Taylor, ESCalate Academic Consultant : School of Education, BrunelUniversity / Suite 4B
C / Inquiry Based Learning as a method for researching change: students and
tutors as co researchers / Dr Margaret Page
Dr Hugo Gaggiotti
Daniel Staley
Liza McCann
University of the West of England / Suite 5C
D / Blogging as data gathering - how might Web 2.0 technologies interrupt and disturb our notions of research? and....what are we going to do about it? / Julie Hughes
Emma Purnell
University of Wolverhampton / Suite 5D
E / Creating Research Opportunities through Enterprise and Innovation / Joe Gazdula
Amanda Dalzell
Javed MunshiLi
LiverpoolHopeUniversity / Suite 1
12.30 / Lunch / Poster Session / Suites 2&3
13.45 / Open Space Session / Facilitated by Helen Bulpitt SWAP (Social Policy and Social Work Subject Centre) / Suites 2&3
15.00 / Break / Ground floor reception
15.05 – 16.00 / Panel and Questions Plenary / Dr Tony Brown, Director, ESCalate / Suite 1

Programme Summary