2006:46 R

Education based on science - voices from the field

Education based on science - voices from the field begins with a survey from the point of view of the history of ideas and Wilhelm von Humboldt´s classical educational ideal of the free, autonomous, knowledge-seeking university. This is followed by a review of some of the main features of the post-war Swedish debate. Here it can be seen that both in terms of educational policy and in academia there is strong endorsement of education linked to research. At the same time many are concerned that current developments are making this impossible in practice. The dramatic expansion of higher education, new posts that focus solely on teaching and the establishment of new higher education institutions with restricted research organisations have eroded the links between research and education in the opinion of certain disputants. We must admit, in the words of some, that this ideal can no longer be sustained.

The bulk of this report is devoted to an empirical study of the way in which students, teachers and administrators in higher education in Sweden regard the question of links between educational programmes and research. The study has been conducted through site visits involving interviews with groups of teachers and students in the subject areas of business administration and psychology and in teacher training and nursing programmes. In addition a questionnaire survey was used to pose similar questions in the subject areas of history and chemistry. The study comprised four higher education institutions.

The findings show that among teachers and administrators there is widespread and virtually unalloyed endorsement of the importance of research links. It is the contacts with research that make academic teaching valuable and distinctive. The arguments involve both the communication of current research findings and also the possibility of imparting to students a critical approach, the capacity to solve problems and the other skills that characterise an academic approach. The importance of basing teaching on research applies irrespective of subject area, higher education institution or whether the teachers themselves have research qualifications.

More divided opinions are expressed by the students. Many claim that research is important for society and also appreciate contacts with research and researchers. They say that they have acquired a critical way of thinking and the ability to solve problems. On the other hand most of the students we met - if not all - feel some alienation from the research going on around them. Many know nothing about their own department´s research or whether their teachers have research qualifications or not. Nor do the students have any clear idea about the significance of research for their own programmes, or in other words the links between their teaching and research. Many also feel uncertain about whether any priority should be given to linking their own programmes with research rather than to elements offering more vocational training. It is often said that “practice" is more important than “theory".

Teachers and administrators also have different views on the extent to which it is possible to maintain links with research in undergraduate programmes. One common opinion is that this can work reasonably well in the C and D (third and fourth) semesters, but that it is difficult to arrange research links any earlier. However there are teachers who claim that research-based teaching can well begin in the early stages of programmes. The main problems referred to in this context involve, not unsurprisingly, resources, both financial and human. One example of this can be found in the extensive supervision and examination demands made of teachers in several programmes. Teachers also suggest that other problems encountered in research-based approaches relate to student interest and the knowledge they bring with them when they begin.

Education based on science - voices from the field exposes a general pattern rather than differences that characterise the various programmes. For example, the material does not enable any definite conclusions about the differences that may exist between large and small higher education institutions in the quality of their research links. It is, admittedly, clear that small settings with restricted research organisations may have difficulties in providing staff with research qualifications to teach and supervise students. At the same time there are good grounds for asking to what extent the eminent researchers at the major universities are actually involved in undergraduate teaching. Nor where potential differences between various programmes are concerned does the material permit any firm theses. On the other hand it is possible at a general level to discuss the differences between the concept of subject and the concept of programme. It seems undeniable that it is easier, on the one hand, to offer academic teaching in a single subject with its own disciplinary tradition and canon. At the same time those teaching single subjects only meet their students for short periods, perhaps no more than one semester. Here, on the other hand, teachers in degree programmes have the advantage of meeting their students for longer periods and could therefore focus on more long-term research links. It is possible that this would offer greater scope for progressivity in the academic teaching offered.

During the study, however, a clear pattern has emerged concerning the differences between research links in teacher training programmes and those in nursing. It is obvious that both programmes share, on the one hand, similar conditions: they are vocational degree programmes that involve many subjects and elements. Research links, on the other hand, are invoked both in different ways and to different extents. In programmes in nursing endeavours have been made for over thirty years - and largely successfully - to solve the problem of their research base by introducing the core subject of nursing science - a subject that acts as a cohesive link through the entire programme and which offers the evident link with research in many of its elements. No corresponding strategy has been developed in teacher training during the same period. Here, however, it is interesting to note the emergence in recent years of educational science as a research area that could offer a possibility to establish research links in teacher training programmes.

On the basis of the virtually unanimous conviction of the teachers and administrators of the importance of offering teaching based on research, the report makes a number of proposals to enhance research links and to enable students to benefit from research results and approaches during their programmes in a more concrete manner. Among them can be mentioned:

• Making departmental research and its links with teaching more visible and explicit for students in order to give them more tangible understanding of what an academic approach involves.
• The development of seminars at all levels as a basic academic method.
• Review of the function of supervisors and the quality of supervision.

Some proposals are feasible with the current financial and human resources, but by no means all of them. The report therefore concludes with emphatic assertions of the need to enhance the resources for higher education, not least in order to increase the proportion of teachers with research qualifications who are actively involved in research.