Dimensions of knowing: a conceptual alternative to an unhelpful polarity between knowledge and skill

Rand, Jane

doi:10.1080/13596748.2015.1030245

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 29 publications

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“…It is, however, a position which I recognise as 'multilayered and fluid' (Herr and Anderson 2014, 37), and with which I am familiar and experienced (Rand 2006(Rand , 2015.…”

Section: Methodological Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Researching undergraduate social science research

Rand

2016

Teaching in Higher Education

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The experience(s) of undergraduate research students in the social sciences is under-represented in the literature in comparison to the natural sciences or science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). The strength of STEM undergraduate research learning environments is understood to be related to an apprenticeship-mode of learning supported by more experienced (post-graduate) peers, often through ongoing research projects. Studies of undergraduate research reveal that this is not typical in the social sciences, and students report facing specific challenges to the development of their identities as researchers that include fear, intellectual confusion and emotional unsettlement. This paper examines how a social science learning environment, designed as a research study itself, fostered beginning researchers communities of practice, realised a distinct mode of apprenticing based on peers' similarly peripheral community membership, and enabled students to reframe emotional unsettlement. It argues that, effectively mediated, talk can powerfully improve undergraduate social science research students' experiences.Keywords: undergraduate research, social science, researcher-identities, communities of practice, student involvement, emotion Introductory DiscussionThis study developed as a response to feedback from a group of third-year full-time undergraduate students in an English university who, on commencing their capstone dissertation module, reported frustration and disappointment with the summative assessment grades from an Introduction to Research Methods module in their second year of study. This paper illuminates how beginning researchers communities of practice can improve social science undergraduate pedagogy. It explores the role of emotion(s), the Post-print copy of article available at:http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10. 1080/13562517.2016.1183621 Published online: 11 May 2016 significance of talk and a unique mode of apprenticing possible in undergraduate social science research. It argues that creating opportunities for 'student involvement' (Astin 1999) can support social science undergraduates to make connections into and from their researcher-identities.The students were studying a social science discipline: Education Studies.Research is an integral part of the programme, with modules drawing on, and examining, research in each of the three years. Similarly, positioning students as researchers is embedded within the programme -growing from tightly structured first year modules in which students gather and consider original data through interviews, Informal feedback about the second year Introduction to Research Methods module had indicated that students were frustrated with, what they perceived as, low grades in proportion to the effort they expended on the module assessment (a written report of a pilot research project). They had associated increased effort because they had worked on the assessment over an extended period of time (atypically for many, starting to write during the early we...

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“…It is, however, a position which I recognise as 'multilayered and fluid' (Herr and Anderson 2014, 37), and with which I am familiar and experienced (Rand 2006(Rand , 2015.…”

Section: Methodological Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%