Learning to Research - Researching to Learn 2015 (Learning in Higher Education)

Learning to Research – Researching to Learn explores the integration of research into teaching and learning at all levels of higher education. The chapters draw on the long and ongoing debate about the teaching–research nexus in universities. Although the vast majority of academics believe that there is an important and valuable link between teaching and research, the precise nature of this relationship continues to be contested.

The book includes chapters that showcase innovative ways of learning to research; how research is integrated into coursework teaching; how students learn the processes of research, and how universities are preparing students to engage with the world. The chapters also showcase innovative ways of researching to learn, exploring how students learn through doing research, how they conceptualise the knowledge of their fields of study through the processes of doing research, and how students experiment and reflect on the results produced.

These are the key issues addressed by this anthology, as it brings together analyses of the ways in which university teachers are developing research skills in their students, creating enquiry-based approaches to teaching, and engaging in education research themselves. The studies here explore the links between teaching, learning and research in a range of contexts, from pre-enrolment through to academic staff development, in Australia, the UK, the US, Singapore and Denmark. Through a rich array of theoretical and methodological approaches, the collection seeks to further our understanding of how universities can play an effective role in educating graduates suited to the twenty-first century.