Does research‐informed teaching transform academic practice? Revealing a RIT mindset through impact analysis

Abstract

Integration of research into teaching is a major area of interest in the field of higher education. Considerable work has been done on how staff and students view this integration, how it can be achieved in practice and how it might best be researched by scholars. However, relatively little research has considered how research‐informed teaching (RIT) impacts teachers’ own practice, in multi‐disciplinary contexts. We interviewed a purposive sample of 20 research‐active teachers from a range of disciplines, at an English University. Using the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF), we mapped our findings of a thematic analysis, concluding that RIT impacts academic practice in a range of distinct and complex ways. Because of RIT, lecture design, delivery, assessments and student support activities have become more inquiry‐focused; study spaces have turned into collaborative learning contexts and classroom communications have become more comprehensible. For lecturers, RIT has helped create a professional identity and a closer engagement with continuous professional development. Based on our analysis, we argue that what makes these impacts possible is a set of characteristics—termed here the ‘RIT mindset’—that drives academics to voluntarily engage in pragmatic research‐teaching integrations to liberate students into real learning. We offer evidence for RIT impact and make visible how and why RIT impacts academic practice. We provide a caution that RIT happens only by design, and to make that design a reality, developing the RIT mindset may be critical.

A Study of Ghanaian Inclusive Basic School Teachers’ Perspectives and Uses of Research Evidence in Pedagogical Practice

“…According to Joseph-Richard et al (2020), developing teachers’ research-informed teaching mindset is critical to inviting teachers to willingly involve in practically oriented research to bring innovations to their teaching. It is also argued that a teacher’s ability to read and understand research publications (Brew et al, 2016), skills to use IT, such as the Internet and databases, ability to assess the quality of research-based information, and expertise in translating research findings to practice are essential for teachers to adopt research-informed practice (Perkins, 2019).…”

“…Indeed, when inclusive schools demand practitioners to deliver equitable learning opportunities for all students, research becomes a central feature that must be built into pedagogical practice. Therefore, there is a need to develop teachers’ research-informed teaching mindset (habitus) so that they can willingly involve in school-based action research to improve education from within their context rather than practices imposed externally by policymakers and external researchers (Joseph-Richard et al, 2020).…”

The Design and Development of an Institutional Digital Toolkit to Enhance Research Teaching Integration

“…A research-teaching nexus (RTN) involves integrating research and teaching [8]. Many universities are now utilising an RTN approach, having acknowledged the importance and benefits of integrating research and teaching, to actively engage undergraduate and postgraduate students in research skills, including developing closer relationships with academic research staff [1] [9] [10] [11].…”

Structured Literature Reviews for Business Professional Doctorates:

“…The DBA is used as a critical case study for this research, as it represents the most mature and developed professional doctorate in the University. It reviews the module's internal structure addressing the coherent contentsaims/content-learning outcomes connection and learning techniques (Leger & Sirichand, 2015), the value of researchinformed teaching (Joseph-Richard, Almpanis, Wu, & Jamil, 2021), and an exploratory review of students' satisfaction levels (Pickering & Byrne, 2014).…”