Integration of Teaching & Research: Investigating student perception by use of

international benchmarking

Brad Wuetherick University of Alberta

Canada

Nancy TurnerRoyal Holloway

University of LondonUnited Kingdom

Session overview

• University of Alberta (U of A) context• Royal Holloway (RHUL) context• Why we are collaborating?• How we are collaborating?• What have we found out so far?• What next?

University of Alberta

University of Alberta

• Research Makes Sense for Students – www.ualberta.ca/researchandstudents

• Report of the Working Group on Teaching and Research – “Creating a Foundation for an Inquiry-based Life”

• Celebration of Undergraduate Research

• Canadian Summit on the Integration of Teaching and Research (Aug 3 – 5, 2005)

Royal Holloway, University of London

U of A RHUL

# of Academic Staff

1750 400

# of Undergrad Students

29,000 5000

# of Postgrad Students

6000 1600

# of Faculties 17 3

Why are we collaborating?

• Explore the student perception of research and teaching

• Importance of benchmarking against other research universities

• Importance of involving international partners

• Existing institutional partnership

How are we collaborating?

• Funding from– Canadian-UK University Partnership Program– U of A Institutional Partnership Fund – U of A University Teaching Research Fund

• Joint site visits by the research teams

• Student perceptions collected (Cousin, Healey & Jenkins, 2002)

How are we collaborating? (2)

• Statistical analysis being completed (U of A)

• Plans to develop Professional Development package

What have we found out so far?

• Survey of Undergraduates– RHUL - ~2.5% of undergraduate student

population (N=124)– U of A - ~3.2% of undergraduate student

population (N=930)

• Initial descriptive statistics – Quantitative - very interesting comparisons

between of the two institutions– Qualitative - common themes have emerged

clearly

What have we found out so far? (2)• Three areas of impact

(1) institutional environment (2) academic staff inputs (3) student learning outcomes

• Positive and negative indicators have been identified in all three

• Latter two factors fall along a continuum of constructivist to transmissive teaching/learning

Model of Academic Staff Inputs

Model of Student Outcomes

What next?

• Continued analysis of data

– Quantitative

– Qualitative

Conclusion

• Premature to discuss the implications

• Students have an interesting and important perspective on the integration of teaching and research

• This must be considered in moving the integration of teaching and research forward

Questions?