RelationshipbetweenTeachingandResearchConflictorHarmony

1、1 relationship between teaching and research: conflict or harmony? with special focus on guilan university (faculty of humanities), iran abbas sadeghi guilan university, iran (asadeghi_) abstract this paper reports a case study conducted by an experienced writer at guilan university (faculty of huma

2、nities) on the relationship between research and teaching. it explored even though, there are some contradictions and conflicts in dynamic higher education, and apparently no deep and real conflict is present between research and teaching theoretically. practically, there is much financial constrain

3、ts in research for iran compared to the western countries. and also, teaching assessment is more difficult than research; it is assumed that research is in higher status than teaching. the paper concluded that closer relationship between research and teaching could provide the basis for a program to

4、 improve the quality of teaching. such a program is underpinned by the view that students understandings should be taken seriously. introduction the main aims of this paper are, to identify a possible understanding and to achieve a better understanding of the relationship between teaching and resear

5、ch in higher education with focus on guilan university (faculty of humanities). the oxford english dictionary defines university as the whole body of teachers and students at a particular pace, the higher branches of learning. the problem of whether teaching and research in higher education institut

6、ions support each other or conflict with one another has become a matter of urgent public importance. elton (1986) emphasized that the university grants has decided to be selective in its research funding to universities. sutherland (1994) pointed out that the role of academic staff is changing. the

7、 idea of what counts as university lacks clear criteria and abrupt swings of government policy had affected the expansion of universities. it seems, one of the most important factor, which universities are challenging with, is the linkage between teaching and research. this factor particularly affec

8、ts student learning especially deep learning, which is the most crucial for all educational systems as a matter of quality. guilan university (faculty of humanities) guilan province is located in the north of iran, near the caspian sea. it has several state and private universities such as guilan un

9、iversity, open universities (azad) in several cities, distance university (payam noor) in several cities and also some scientific, applied comprehensive universities. guilan university which has nearly 7000 students was founded in 1975. there are 6 faculties in the university namely pure science, ag

10、ricultural, technical and engineering, physical education, natural resources in the city of someh sara and humanities. proceedings of the 2nd international conference of teaching and learning (ictl 2009) inti university college, malaysia 2 humanities faculty with nearly 2000 students has 10 departme

11、nts such as law, management (trade and industrial), educational sciences (counseling), social sciences, percale literature, english literature, psychology, islamic education, and arab literature in undergraduates guilan studies department and also social sciences, persian literature, psychology and

12、industrial management in postgraduate (m.a) level. this faculty has almost 80 teaching and research academic staffs who do their research programs through faculty research affairs committee and the guilan studies department. definitions of research and teaching research research, in the content of t

13、he universitys assertion that the quality of teaching rests on sound and relevant research, encompass the different matters. some of them are as follow: discovering, dissemination and interpretation of new knowledge: the application of principles from existing bodies of knowledge to modeling and des

14、ign; the use of existing knowledge in experimental development to produce new or substantially improved material, devices, products or process. also, according to woodhouse (1998) research is an intellectually controlled investigation, which leads to advances in knowledge through discovery and codif

15、ication of new information or the development of further understanding about existing information and practice. teaching there are many definitions for teaching, which sometimes cause problem on the concentration of the process precisely. as newton (1981) mentioned, it has been argued that one of th

16、e primary obstacles to the improvement of teaching has been the failure to define good teaching, its components and identifications. the writer of this paper brings only one definition of teaching, which is implied, to learning directly. utdc (1998) indicated that teaching is a multidimensional acti

17、vity that seeks to promote the quality of learning through a student-centered introduction between the teacher and also student and curriculum. teaching versus research? dynamic higher education according to clark (1983), baurdieu (1988), becher and kogan (1992), higher education institutions maybe

18、described in various ways. we may identify a number of tensions and contributions felt almost daily in the university. these contradictions can be defined in different forms such as teachers versus students, administration versus academic, hard versus soft disciplines, permanent versus temporary pos

19、itions, younger versus older generations, males versus females, and also teaching versus research. 3 vammila (1995) and henkel (2000) pointed out that there are a number of studies, which show that academics feel strongly about the problems caused by the desire/wish to do research and to teach. also

20、, henkel (2000) implied that, these indicates not only that normally, academics would like to conduct research and produce new knowledge but also that teaching is often felt as a duty that hinders research. however, according to bleiklie and et al (2000) the combination of teaching and research belo

21、ngs to the traditional basic tasks of modern universities and the idea of the unity of teaching and research. one of the reasons, why this should be so, may lie in the fact that they are like archaeological strata lying below the surfaces of present universities. one of the main challenges here is f

22、inding a way to make the relationship between teaching and research a fruitful and reciprocal one. which one has a higher status, teaching or research in higher education? according to ball (1989) the saying “education is easy and research is difficult” does not mean that education is easy to do and

23、 research is practically difficult to do. in his point of view research has been the soft option and education is the challenge. there are so many answers for this question. the most important of them are related to the financial problem and difficulty of teaching assessment. financial problem part

24、of the answer to the above-mentioned questions is related to financial problem. rowland (1996) believed that the recent arrangement for funding teaching and research in some countries such as u.k were generally held to favor rather than to consider teaching measures as being the more significant det

25、erminant of further funding. however, there are some differences of view about how this would work. some emphasize that it would feed into the quality, some others express improving the research rating is the most effective way of improving the quality of teaching, because it would draw in extra fun

26、ds, which could be used to reduce the size and thus improve learning. some others think an improvement in research rating would enhance the departments reputation and make it more attractive to students, thereby enabling the department to select a higher quality student intake, which would improve t

27、he quality of learning. in the light of the emphasis within current higher education agendas that include lifelong learning, employability skills and research capability, linking teaching and research is also attracting the attention of funding councils in the u.k. it seems, teaching benefits from r

28、esearch and scholarly activities. conversely teaching contributes to the development of research to exploit this system. thus the relationship between teaching and research needs to be actively managed. teaching assessment the other part of the answer to the question is about the teaching assessment

29、, which is more difficult than research. in one hand, research can be assessed by the traditional methods of peer review leading to publications, although several have criticized on how it works in practice. teaching, on the other hand is a largely private affair. according to haslsely and trow (197

30、1) one of the chief disadvantages of being primarily a teacher is that ones reputation, well, earned is essentially intangible and wide recognition depends on the word of 4 mouth communication of ones colleges. also, becher and kogan (1980) emphasized that teaching has remained in a realm of private

31、, unspoken and armature. the question is, how desirable would the evaluation process be? in other word, how is the evaluation of teaching to be institutionalized? boyer (1994) has raised the question about how peer evaluation, student evaluation and self-evaluation have the potential of creating thi

32、s kind of change and how useful are the categories of teaching and research? according to becher (1989) a university is a complex organization of academic staff that comes from widely ranging disciplinary cultures or tribes. however, the question is how useful are the concepts of teaching and resear

33、ch for describing academic staff practices? bourdieu (1988) mentioned that such typifications for the roles of academic prevent them from conceptualizing the university field, because they fail to recognize the particular case in all its complexion and survey. in halsey and trows view (1971) this is

34、 a limitation of wide ranging surveys and in elton and partingtons view (1993) it is a general discussions which in other ways have thrown light on the teaching versus research debate. these difficulties were reflected in much that some academic staff believes, the term of teaching means giving lect

35、ures, whereas supervision is seen as an aspect of the academics research. what becomes clear is that although people normally use terms of teaching and research in a relatively unproblematic fashion, once some of them began to think of their academic activity in a more specific detail, the two terms

36、 became much more closer to each other. it seems the distinction between teaching and research may owe more to demand for accountability than to logical differences for instance between academic roles. the links between teaching and research research and teaching are the two principal activities in

37、universities. however, they are often seen as separate. the links between them have been increasingly discussed internationally within higher education. a number of universities notably those that claim to be research led institutions, have given attention to how to ensure that these links are made

38、and incorporated into both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. linking teaching and learning goes beyond involving students in research activities or exposing them to the research of their tutors. its most comprehensive dimension offers many new opportunities for curriculum development. becher a

39、nd kogan (1980) stressed that the relationship between the breath of academic pursuit and its disciplinary basis is not fixed. while it was suggested that pure science departments will more naturally practice narrow approaches to research. as we know, universities are dealing with larger numbers of

40、students, arguably with fewer resources. in this situation, new modes of learning, delivering and assessment will be needed in order to meet the needs of students, staff, institutions and current agendas relating to lifelong and independent learning and personal skills development by students. 5 lin

41、king between teaching and research is essential because this linkage: recognizes the importance of both and the synergy created by the interrelationship; gives credibility to the university and its academics; promotes and supports learning and teaching as a process of intellectual enquiry and discov

42、ery rather than as memorizing and regurgitating bodies of existing knowledge discovered by others; keeps subjects based on up-to-date research; stimulates students interest in research and developing their own research skills and areas of interest; leads to students own research skills and areas of

43、interest; keeps lecturers and students up-to date with new discoveries and ideas; generates new ideas as lecturers and students spark off each other; clarifies ideas and directions; makes teaching interesting and relevant builds up a community of scholars enhancing the universitys reputation as a ce

44、nter of excellence and providing opportunities for collaboration among lecturers and students on publications. enhancing learning through research according to garnett and holmes (1995) one obvious way in which research is used in teaching is in underpinning curriculum, especially at postgraduate le

45、vel. research can be incorporated into teaching to enhance learning in a number of other ways: patrick and willis (1998) believed, if research findings are disseminated in lectures and tutorials, the intended learning outcomes of the course need to be considered, to ensure that the information is di

46、scussed and is useful to the students. garnett and holmes (1995) stated that research can provide teachers with a framework for the development of up-to-date course material and research related projects. brew and bound (1995b) stressed that latest research into teaching and learning suggests that a

47、ctively engaging with content is a way of gaining in depth understanding of the contents. an effective way of achieving that is by having students carry out research. also, according to garnett and holmes (1995) learning can be enhanced by being involved in discussion about the ideas and thus increa

48、sing the opportunity for inquiry and critique. garnett and holmes (1995) pointed out that having students (specially graduates) engage in research that is relevant to their professional and academic interests in particularly is useful in establishing and maintaining links between theory and practice

49、. this helps to keep both teachers and students in touch with industry, professional practice and world affairs. patrick and willis (1998) believed that linking between research and teaching in one hand and research and learning in the other hand will engage students and teachers into a collaborativ

50、e research. this is useful for inducting students into research methods and for teachers to gain fresh views on research ideas through student questions and discussion. this approach is likely to promote confidence in both student and teacher. 6 the benefits of teaching from research the active invo

51、lvement in the research process directly improves the quality of teaching. the main reasons could be: it casts the academics in the role of learner and therefore help to understand the experience of learning; it promotes a critical engagement with the subject matter; it keeps the academic up to date

52、 with the frontiers of knowledge within the discipline. also, research improves teaching quality through teacher and students because it: deepens teachers knowledge of the subject matter; gives teachers the opportunity to convey to students not only specific new information but an understanding of t

53、he value and intrinsic excitement of scholarly endeavor and an appreciation of the spirit of enquiry underlying it; gives the teacher autonomy and stature in the eyes of students especially in advanced modules involving some specialist. benefits students through teachers being able to pass on their

54、experience of the application of research methodologies; through project work provides the opportunity for a genuine element of involvement by students in leading edge activity. also, as patrick and willis (1998) emphasized exploring ways of having students engage in their own research. for example,

55、 set tasks that require students to investigate an area of application within a discipline and guide them through the appropriate research process from posing the questions, to collecting and analyzing data to drawing useful collections. here, paying more attention to deep learning is the best benef

56、it of teaching from research. the question is, what would be the key features of a programme for academic staff who aims at developing the quality of learning? the answers might be in the following: 1. barnett (1990) implied that we need to develop an idea of critical interdisciplinary. this could e

57、merge if contexts were developed where lecturers could meet to draw upon the insights, with their different offer to questions of teaching and learning. it is not a question of reducing teaching to a mechanical skill devoid of any disciplinary rigor. such contact will also enrich research by challen

58、ging assumptions, which can become entrenched within particular disciplines. according to becher (1989) it can serve to break down useful stereotypes and academic tribalism. 2. such a programme must help academic staffs to see the significance of students perceptions of the subject matter and their

59、learning and keeping the subject matter open to continual critique. this will mean developing strategies for encouraging students to express their ideas as part of the teaching process. according to rowland (1996) it will also have considerable implications for how students are to be assessed. 3. ac

60、ademic staffs must be supported in developing way of teaching which will inevitably feel risky and unpredictable as students become increasingly involved. this will also mean reconsidering such curriculum notions as learning outcomes and objectives in ways, which acknowledge the unpredictable aspect