Competence in Research and Development
Learning from teaching
In the following section, I describe what our group has done for our teaching session and what I have learned from preparation and implementation processes.
Topic
What are the skills and ethical principles required in the RDI? How do you develop those skills? What about “predatory” journals and publishers (ethical point-of-view)?
Skills required in RDI
An inquiring mind
1) ask questions and try to recognize issues you would like to explore [in your subject/ discipline]
2) be aware multiple, cross-cultural perspectives for understanding and analyzing issues
3) try to look for solutions to problems or imagine how you could find solutions to problems.
Ability to explore and diagnose a problem
1) What is the problem? Do you have a complete picture?
2) What’s missing [Research Gaps]?
3) Whose problem is it? Who is involved?
4) Why exactly is it a problem? What’s the urgency?
5) Where does the problem occur? What are the specific problem areas?
6) What’s the history of the problem, in other words, the back story?
Learning the tools
1) Analyzing literature
2) Methodological awareness
3) Qualitative / quantitative methods usage
4) Learning to use software for analysis
5) Presentation skills
6) Research seminars / conference presentations
7) Networking for collaboration in research
Formulate your research problem statement
1) Mind mapping is a good technique to analyze a problem.
2) It is intuitive method of exploring and analyzing an issue.
3) Questions to explore.
4) Spend time formulating problem statement
Plan your research carefully
1) Why and for whom will you conduct your research?
2) What do you want to know?
3) Describe the topic, problem statement, type of research, theories, and operationalization.
4) How will you carry out your research and how will you collect data?
5) Describe your research design, methods and techniques.
6) How far will you extend your research?
7) When will you carry out your research?
8) Time required for preparation, field research and processing.
Publishing your research
1) It is important to choose the journal for research publication in accordance with JUFO ranking has level 1/2/3 with 3 being highest ranked journals.
2) Ministry of education provides universities / UAS based on their JUFO ranked publications.
Reporting the funding institutions
Once research project is complete, the funding agency must be informed of its, output, findings and research publications.
Ethical principles required in RDI
Ethical issues can be divided into six categories (Shelley-Egan, 2015, pp.38-40). The first two should be considered in particular fields, and later four should be considered in all research fields.
Protection of human subjects
These are ethical issues in the relationship between researchers and human subjects in research. Ethical issues include, for example, informed consent, confidentiality and anonymity, protection from harms, and the relation between research risks and potential benefits. Ethical issues concerning human subjects are most common in the medical, social and behavioural sciences.
Animal welfare
These are ethical issues in the relationships between researchers and animal subjects. They include consideration for pain and suffering of lab animals, animal rights, and whether sufficient action is taken to reduce the unnecessary use of lab animals. These issues are the most common in the medical and life sciences and to psychology.
Scientific integrity
Scientific integrity prescribes values and practices such as truthfulness, honesty and openness in reporting and communicating, independence in research activities, and accuracy of the research. It involves the avoidance of fraud, data manipulation, and the avoidance of bias, whether intentional or unintentional.
Collegiality
These are ethical issues in the relationship amongst researchers, such as plagiarism, data sharing and timely publishing, peer review, authorship, intellectual property, confidentiality, and openness.
Institutional integrity
Institutional integrity concern the extent to which the institutions of research and innovation are organized and act in an ethical way. This includes relationships between researchers and research units, between research institutions and sponsoring institutions (such as industry), funding agencies, and the government. Ethical issues include for example, conflict of interest, compliance, and institutional controlling of research.
Social responsibility
hese are ethical issues concerning the relationship between research practices and the common good. They concern whether the activity is (potentially) valuable to society. Most centrally, this category includes the question as to whether potential or actual impacts on society of the research activity are morally justified.
Predatory journals
Predatory journals are the journals which aims for financial profit rather than aiming for scientific contributions. In practice, those journals charge for open access articles, without meeting scholarly publishing standards, such as without sufficient peer review processes.
If an author is aware of predatory publishing and decides to publish a paper in a journal even after experiencing insufficient or nonexistent review process, then predatory publishing becomes fraudulent and unethical publishing. In addition, the fact of publishing in a predatory journal stays permanently. It is important that especially inexperienced researchers should be aware of the predatory journals and choose where to publish the work carefully.
RDI collaboration between higher education and industries
Nowadays collaboration between higher education (university and university of applied sciences) and private sectors (industries or companies) are common. One of the reasons is that the costs of research have escalated. In addition industries and companies need to develop products and services based on research to contend with competitors ever-changing world. Thus, industries support the universities financially, while universities conduct research for the industry’s further development. For instance I was involved in writing a research project about using virtual reality in education. It was the collaborative research proposal of a university and the companies.
By participating in RDI collaboration, universities are able to make additional staff appointments which add to their intellectual resource and reputation. The purchase of equipment for industrial research enhances their infrastructure. Universities offer innovation services for SMEs in the region. Universities assess the business possibilities of ideas and inventions and recommend how to commercialise and develop them further. The industries develop and commercialise ideas based on the recommendations.
Preparation for the lesson
Flow of preparation
First all of us familiarised ourselves with the topic individually. Then we divided the tasks. Luckily we had a member who has experience in RDI at a university and deep understanding of this topic, he took most of the responsibility of the content development. I and another member were responsible for planning the activity. On the online meetings, we gathered the information and structured the lesson and edited the lecture slides together. We also managed to do rehearsal for teaching.
Structure of the lesson and pedagogical choices
We found a new function in Flinga, a function to make links between objects. We decided to use the function and designed the introductory activity where the students create a mind map about research skills. The topic was “elaborating research skills: An inquiring mind, Ability to explore and diagnose a problem, Formulate your research problem statement, and Plan your research carefully”. The students were asked to write short sentences to elaborate each skills which required in RDI. The purposes of the activity were 1) activating knowledge of what they already know about the topic, 2) visualising and sharing thoughts with other students and 3) understanding the dynamics of the skills related RDI by making connections among them.
After the activity, we planned to have lecture with slides.
Implementation of the lesson
The activity went well, but some students were not able to make connections between objects in Flinga. We did not find out the exact reason but I assume the students did not keep pressing the mouse when they try to make connections or when several people try to use the Flinga board at the same time, it may cause technical issues.
Reflection of my teaching
I was able to pick up some remarks from the mind map activity and mentioned to them during the lecture after the activity. By mentioning students work, the students feel that they are heard and they are more engaged in the lesson. Also it may encourage the students to make connections of what they know (existing information) and what the teacher explains (new information). When the contents get personalised for the students by making connections of existing and new information (transition), they get more interested and develop deeper understanding.
During the lecture, I was a bit rushing this time. I did not have enough time, so I talked fast and skipped less important part. Although I tried to reduce the contents and explain the most important contents properly, I might be talk too fast and the students might not have enough time to develop their understanding.
Our lecture was quite long and there was no occasion for discussion or comments, so I tried to make some interesting and not too theoretical talk related to the topic in the middle of the explanation in order to keep students engaged. For example, I mentioned to the news of an experiment of the alcoholic research using mouses. Next time we could have time for discussion or chance for students to speak not only in the beginning and in the end but also in the middle of the lecture.
Learning from other groups
How can a teacher a) find research communities, b) journals suitable for publication and c) participate in the development of his/her own field? What would be the best options for your group? Also, have you already done RDI, written & published articles, innovated, visited seminars and symposiums (perhaps in the role of a speaker)? Are all journals equally valuable as a publishing platform?
Important notes from the lecture
Explaining RDI
Research
Explorative research: focusing on the discovery of ideas and insights through analysing data inductively.
Descriptive research: based on structured research design so that the hypothesis can be statistically inferred by the collected data.
Causal research: based on structured research design to explain cause and effect relationship among variables.
Development
Continues professional growth of educational staff, and evolution of teaching and learning in educational institutions responding to the change of the society.
Innovation
Process of creating value by applying novel solutions to problems which are meaningful in the society.
Good practices
It was good that the group had time for the students to give comments in the middle of the lesson. It works as formative feedback (see my blog post of assessment) because the teacher can see how the students understand the topic so far. The teacher can know whether the students understand the topic or the students are struggling to understand. The teacher can help the students to understand the topic as well as s/he can adjust the rest of the lesson for the students’ level. Also it is good way to keep the students engaged through interaction with the teacher and other students. Interactions are especially important in virtual settings (see my blog post of implementation 1).
The group also provided the definitions regarding the topic in the beginning. With such definitions, the teacher and the students are able to build common ground of the topic.
A) What are the current RDI –trends in your field and education? Where can one find information about them? Show examples. B) Considering Finnish universities (and universities of applied sciences), how do they benefit from the publications written by their teachers?
Important notes from the lecture
Benefits of RDI in Finnish universities and universities of applied sciences
RDI increases quality of teaching. Through RDI, teachers may develop valuable insights in the subject area. Also, teachers may be equipped with the latest knowledge in the field.
By conducting research, the universities may be furnished with the latest facilities, such as better laboratories, libraries and special equipments needed for the research.
RDI contribute to increase the recognition of the universities globally. It may result in attracting talented people (e.g., staff, researchers, teachers, students).
In addition, RDI is beneficial also because of the financial support (see individual work section).
Good practices
The group asked us to do pre-task. The pre-task was relevant for the topic and good activating exercise of what RDI in our own field. In pre-task, they used Padlet as the pre-task platform. Padlet is a good way to share ideas on the board and comment each other. They used the tool nicely in the activity. In the session, we were asked to present what we wrote in Padlet. It was easy to present the contents as I wrote in Padlet. And I was motivated to present because someone had reacted (marks, comments) on my Padlet board.
Individual work
What is the policy towards RDI in various Finnish educational organisations (such as adult institutes, universities of applied sciences, universities, vocational schools, secondary schools, primary schools), ie. how much time can teachers and staff devote to RDI? Is RDI important or non-existent in your own organisation?
In addition to the reasons mentioned above (see Learning from other groups section), RDI is important for Finnish higher education institutions financially. Finnish academics use performance-based funding system, where universities and universities of applied sciences get funding from the Ministry of Education and Culture based on the quantity and quality of publications (Mathies, Kivistö, & Birnbaum, 2019). The quality of the journals are categorised into three and identified in JUHO. Although the system enhances the quality of publications, evaluation of the publication performance of the research organisations, and researchers’ motivation for publishing their work in the top ranked publication channels.
However, when the research organisations focus only on the research publications, their quality of education for their students may be hindered. Especially, in many Finnish universities and universities of applied sciences set non or very cheap tuition fee (with internal scholarship) for the students. When income from the students has only little impact for the universities, they might prioritise research over education. As Altbach (2008) reminds, higher education institution are meant for “public good”, thus they should not forget to add value to society through educating people, who will then be productive citizens.
References
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(Last update: 23.11.2019)
