What Is a Research Informed Social Science Education?

What is a research informed social science education?

This was the question that participants at the LSE Education Symposium 2016 discussed during a panel event and a series of workshops.

The Education Symposium - known formerly as the Teaching Symposium - aims to address some of the questions, aspirations and challenges surrounding education at LSE. This particular question lies behind the vision of LSE’s Education Strategy 2015-2020 – that LSE lead in the provision of research informed social science education – and the session was designed both to unpack the concept and to invest it with some illustrations of how it is being practised here.

Peter Ramsay (Law), the panel chair, said that it is important to teach students about the “habits of the mind” of their disciplines—such as how lawyers think. He added that a research informed education means “an education in intellectual independence, teaching students to stand on their own two feet and have confidence in their own judgement”. The benefits of these skills should be articulated clearly, he said.

Fellow panellists then shared a variety of opinions and experiences. Jessica Templeton (LSE100) said that a research informed education was about giving students the tools to be imaginative and creative, so that they can become truly independent thinkers. An alternative take on the concept was used by Tarak Barkawi (International Relations), who talked about how he invites student participation in problematics arising in his own research – the idea of the state, currently – as a way of engaging them in a research informed education.

Students in the Geography and Environment department are engaged with research in a variety of ways, Susana Mourato said, including through case study illustrations from the teacher’s own research right through to ‘students as research producers’ projects, like the one where students are provided with video cameras to film ongoing urban planning activities in London, which ends in an awards event complete with prizes for cinematography and research.

Claire Gordon (Teaching and Learning Centre) suggested that the ‘higher’ in ‘higher education’ should surely mean the sort of research based education that LSE can offer and gave the example of the research produced by LSE GROUPS students as evidence of what undergraduate students are capable of. And finally Jon Foster (LSESU Education Officer) turned the question on its head and asked us to consider what research informed learning might look like and what sort of environment might need to be created for students to be able to benefit fully from a research informed LSE education.

In the questions and breakout sessions that followed the panel, LSE academics highlighted the discipline related differences in implementing research informed education. In International Development, for example, students work on real life research projects with global development organisations—such as the UN and prestigious international NGOs—and learn to manage important on-the-ground issues. On the other hand, practical research projects may be more challenging to do in a first year undergraduate course in Mathematics, where the emphasis is more on empowering students to learn and understand complex mathematics.

The importance of failure and risk-taking in academia was also discussed. Students are less likely to see the full struggle of research exploration and may be reluctant to take risks if they are only presented with finished products. It’s therefore important to have proper in-class discussions about the challenges of the research process—on top of their desired outcomes—participants said.

The Education Symposium proved to be a successful and rewarding event for participants from all across the School to engage in fruitful discussions on how to further the excellence of LSE education.

The Education Symposium was hosted by LSE Teaching and Learning Centre. It was followed in the evening by the Teaching Awards Celebration hosted by the LSE Students’ Union and LSE Teaching and Learning Centre and featuring presentations, refreshments and music from the LSE Anthropology band The Funktionalists.