ESCalate Research methods teaching and learning: Effective on-line support conference held on September 19th 2002 at Birkbeck College, University of London. Summary report

Partners

  1. Dr Gordon Joyes and Dr Rachel Johnson, School of Education, University of Nottingham
  2. Dr Martin Oliver, Department of Education and Professional Development, UCL
  3. Vic Lally, School of Education, University of Sheffield
  4. Professor David Bridges, Professor Rob Walker & Professor John Shostak, Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE) , University of East Anglia

Introduction

This report provides an overview of the outcomes of the ‘ESCalate Research methods teaching and learning: Effective on-line support conference held on September 19th 2002 at Birkbeck College, University of London. 26 HEIs were represented at the conference and delegates were representative of the diversity of roles and practice within this area. The conference was part of a ‘Research methods teaching and learning: Effective online support’ small grants project funded by ESCalate. The project objective was to explore and share effective pedagogic approaches to research training that utilised elements of online support for teaching and learning. Exemplars of a range of practice in supporting research training that utilise elements of on-line support are provided below.In addition potential areas of research into teaching and learning in online practice in relation to research training are discussed.

The conference

A list of delegates is available. Prior to the conference all delegates were invited to present a document that described their current practice in this area. The conference provided an opportunity for some of these delegates to present/explore their contribution more fully and then to discuss issues arising from their practice. Figure 1 below provides an overview of the documents and links to them.

Figure 1: Delegate's contributions (Links to documents/presentations provided by the conference delegates
Delegate Paper/presentation focus
Anthony Basiel, Middlesex University Project examining how research students can be supported on-line
Margaret Cox, King's College London Experience of the use of on-line communication with MPhil/PhD students
Barbara Crossouard, University of Sussex On-line assessment developments
Andrew Hannan, University of Plymouth Outline of on-line research methods materials used for PGDip/MA and MPhil/PhD
Gordon Joyes, University of Nottingham Developing pedagogy in an on-line professional doctorate- use of video narratives and learning sets
Vic Lally, University of Sheffield Signposts for Educational Research: Website and CD materials developments at Sheffield University- use of video narratives and learning sets
Martin Oliver, University College, London Online support in an MA in Learning Technology Research and in courses in Psychology
Eric Parkinson,Canterbury Christ Church University College On-line research training support for a BA in Primary Education and a Primary PGCE
John Pryor, University of Sussex Using email to support research students
Neil Ringan, University of Huddersfield Development of e-tutoring skills via an on-line course
Rob Walker, University of East Anglia Using multimedia for teaching qualitative research methods

The outcomes

The following dimensions in relation to online support for research methods are apparent in the delegates contributions, these are:

  1. Research methods taught separately to the supervision process where only a few supervisors are involved –vs- an integrated approach where all/most supervisors support the development of understanding of methodology and methods;
  2. Online support is a supplement to face-to-face teaching - vs – the course is delivered fully online;
  3. Online supervision - vs- face-to-face supervision;
  4. Behaviourist -vs- Cognitive teaching and learning approaches;
  5. Traditional teaching metaphors, i.e. lecture /individual tutorial/ group tutorial or seminar/tutor support/peer support are recognised vs new definitions of these metaphors or new metaphors are present;
  6. Online teaching exploits the potential of the medium -vs- does not exploit the potential.

The following issues were raised as a result of a discussion of the conference contributions.

Role of supervisor

The role of the supervisor varies greatly, supervisors have differing views as to their role.

  • In terms of course design - supervisors can often be excluded from e-learning developments as they may not deliver the 'taught' elements for the degree - this has staff development implications;
  • Territory of supervisor – roles and expectations need to be clearly established, yet there are tensions here in relation to the ways both the student and their supervisor may prefer to work, for example:
    • Use and misuse of e-mail. Need to establish procedural rules to avoid misuse. – note there are different expectations and experiences here;
    • Student documents, chapters of theses etc. Some supervisors are not comfortable working with digital documents and insist on paper based working others prefer to work digitally, others prefer a mixture. ( The Internet provides for a diversity of approaches –this can create problems in terms of establishing institutional practice and for quality assurance.)

Resources

Several points arise from the conference in relation to resource development.

  • There is a need for on-line resources for both campus based and distance students. Access to materials anytime, anywhere meets the needs of Education students who tend to be 'non traditional';
  • The choice of what to make available on-line is complex, one factor is whether they add value another relates to what is already available aned another relates to ways of making the course unique and not merely a guide round readily available materials;
  • Many resources are available online (some examples are provided here);
  • Paper based materials (including set books) as well as CD ROM are often used to supplement web based courses;
  • Over time students might be using materials from institutions around the world and so effectively are running their own courses, as there are no restrictions on what resources they may use;
  • Home produced resources are likely to take the form of study guides and resources that contextualise the research process for a particular course, e.g. student narratives, case studies, lectures/papers by 'local University' experts etc;
  • Digital video technnologies can provide searchable lectures;
  • Technology is constantly changing and being updated, so it is important to consider using online tutorials for programmes such as SPSS and Nvivo rather than producing in-house ones.

Pedagogic use

There is wide evidence of the use of Websites and Virtual Learning Environments such as WebCT and Blackboard to organise and deliver materials, however these are used in a varity of different ways to suit varying pedagogic needs, for example;

  • To support supervision, through email, Internet audio links (MSN Messenger) , Netmeetings, webcam links etc. This usually involves individual communications with students who are not able to come for tutorials regularly (if at all).
  • To provide materials/resources across a wide range of courses;
  • To post course information including academic papers (encouraging comments from other research students);
  • To support fully distance delivered courses, providing study guides, materials online, one-to-one and group communication, collaborative working etc.

The following further specific examples of practice were mentioned in the conference and can be found in the conference papers in Figure 1 above:

  • Conducting literature searches on the web including non-english language papers - Alta vista offers a transcription service free for up to two papers per day;
  • Use of on-line databases for literature searches;
  • Group email communication about forthcoming seminars, exhibitions and conferences;
  • Occasional sending of papers as attachments about relevant research methods;
  • Use of on-line questionnaire surveys and Web based questionnaires;
  • Use of WebCT to collect feedback from research subjects;
  • Passing on information about research literature and key authors with Web references;
  • Occasional review of research methods proposed by a student when abroad;
  • Presenting a range of methods to students to discuss suitability (considered to be too time consuming at present);
  • Email response and debate amongst PhD students about different research methods; (considered to be too time consuming at present);
  • Use of AltaVista translation services to translate foreign research papers relevant to the literature review (considered to be too time consuming at present);
  • Use of a collaborative learning environment to develop a tool for critical analysis;
  • Use of online learning sets to work at Masters and at Doctoral level;
  • Use of online peer review;
  • Use of video narratives (currently CD based).
  • Online assessment for research methods training.

Pedagogic design

There was a belief that pedagogy , not technology (the tools) should drive what we are doing and there was clear evidence of this in the examples above. Other issues related to:

  • The need to ensure students were critical in their use of materials particularly web based ones - effective online materials are available to support this.
  • The need to carelly construct the learning environment if a learning set or community is to be established successfully

Technical issues

These relate to remote access of materials over the Internet and some of these can only be solved at a senior level within an HEI:

  • 24/7 troubleshooting support is needed, but is often not available centrally;
  • Library access to digital materials can be problematic;
  • The need to set a minimum technical and software requirement for students, for example IE5 web browser, acrobat reader etc. All these are freely available over the Internet, but students need to realise that they have to download these onto the computer they are using;
  • Software can makes file sizes very small to enable video clips to be used without difficulty, but CD ROM is still the best solution;
  • The most ideal VLE may not be available for use and so additional costs are incurred in buying in access to one.

Access

Widening participation can have advantages and disadvantage, for example a move to digitally based distance education can:

  • Provide a wider International dimension to a course due to the ways it can attract overseas students;
  • Diminish inter-personality, thus creating exclusion for some who do not work well in this way.

Plagarism

This is a continuing concern and the following issues were raised. There is a need to:

  • Make clear to students the need to acknowledge all contributions from others to their work, including discussions with peers and supervisors.
  • Provide guidance on citing;
  • Make the penalties for plagarism and collusion clear;
  • Make it clear to students how easy it is to check for plagarism using search engines as well as the more thorough JISC plagarsim checking service in the UK.

Student engagement

There was a recognition that pedagogic design was critical if students were to engage effectively with online materials. The most problematic situation is where an on-line component has been introduced to a traditional course, though individual students on online courses find the transition to this wayof working difficult. The following were mentioned as important:

  • Students need to be encouraged to be proactive;
  • Clear tasks and targets and timings might need to be set depending on the students;
  • Induction is useful for both students and new staff;
  • Reference to a skills framework might help in terms of raising awareness of the need to develop effective online working;
  • Careful monitoring of activity (easy if a VLE is being used);
  • Individual email encouragement is often necessary.

Staff development: There is a need to:

  • Share what HEIs are doing, but most of the activity is necessarly hidden behind passwords - there is a need for demo sites to be set up;
  • Share the development of research methods materials - it is possible to create Reusable Learning Objects (UCEL are currently doing this in the health care disciplines);
  • Induct 'traditional' supervisors in the use of new learning technologies.

Research

The potential for understanding learning is vast but the following were suggested:

  • Realistically evaluating new technology - does it help people to learn?
  • What is the research student experience?
  • How do research students view the role of new learning technologies in research?
  • What is the added value of new learning technologies to the research process/learning etc.?