Learning and Teaching Grants

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where I am attending a workshop on Learning and Teaching Grants from the Office of Learning and Teaching. A significant development is that these grants are now "Category 1", giving them a higher academic status. One tip for getting a grant is to get together with colleagues in other parts of the university to apply for a more comprehensive project  and reduce the duplication of effort in grant preparation. These grants are for applied research which will make a difference to teaching students at university. Many from the physical science would not see the work funded under the OLT as "research" at all, but practice. One interesting point is that Australian Government owns any intellectual property developed under a grant, but then licenses it open access, usually under a Creative Commons license.

The priority areas for 2013 from the application instructions are:

• Assessment and promotion of student learning
• Curriculum design
• Improving tertiary pathways
• Improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s higher education access and outcomes
• Innovative use of technology in learning and teaching
• Internationalisation Research and development
• Strategic approaches to learning and teaching which enhance student access and progression, and respond to student diversity

It would be interesting to see if a change of government results in revised proposals in 2014. As an example, the federal opposition has proposed a "new Colombo scheme and on-line education" which would see much greater involvement of Australia in regional education and require new skills for Australian educators.

What occurs to me is that some on-line technology could be sued to enhance the process of preparing grant proposals. This would use the same on-line technology I is now routinely used to design complex software and organize projects.

My own area of educational research interest is how to teach professional skills online. Since 2009 I have been teaching postgraduate students online for the ANU and the Australian Computer Society (which is a member of the Open University Australia). A significant proportion of students can cope with the technical content, but have difficulty with literacy.

Is Action Research Real Research?

Several of the courses for the Certificate of Higher Education I am studying have touched on "Action Research" without explaining it in detail. As described it would not be regarded as "research" in the Computer Science discipline. In 2000 when relaunching the Australian Computer Journal and setting up a new conference paper series, we decided to add Practice to the title ("Research and Practice in Information Technology") so that professional practice, which did not qualify as research, could be included. Looking at my practice systematically could be a worthwhile educational exercise, I did not see how trying out something in my classroom was "research".

These issues are discussed with clarity and passion in Action Research: Living Theory (A Jack Whitehead and Jean McNiff, 2006). Whitehead and McNiff put the case that Action Research is valid research technique, alongside those of the social and physical sciences. They claim action research as a rigorous and valid approach for a PHD thesis. What I found most useful was the explanation that Action Research was not trying to emulate social or physical science research methods, but do something different and more personal, with the researcher more involved with their subject.
After reading this book I feel I understand Action Research better. I can see its role in educational development and as an approach for scholarly discourse.

However, I am still not convinced this is equal to  conventional scientific research techniques. It is useful for a practitioner sets down an educational technique they tried, to document their progress and as an aid to other. But that is not sufficient to base a theory of education on, or to make recommendations for widespread educational practice, or the investment of large amounts of education funding. Before deciding on a theory, practice or program  I would want to see  research which involved many educators and students and which applied statistical analysis techniques with tests to see the results were not due to chance, or wishful thinking.

References

Whitehead, J., & McNiff, J. (2006). Action research: Living theory: Sage Publications Limited.

Worthington, T. (2000). Re-engineering the ACS Journal:
Notes for the launch of the Journal of Research and Practice in IT, 17 April 2000, Sydney. from http://www.tomw.net.au/2000/jrpitw.html