Intentionality and developing researcher competence on a UK master's course: an ecological perspective on research education

Abstract

This paper presents an ecological perspective on the developing researcher competence of participants in the research education component of a professionally oriented master's course. There is a particular focus on the intentionality (as in 'purpose') of the participants' research education activity. The data used to develop the ecological perspective, and which at the same time is interpreted from this ecological perspective, consists of interactive, reflective and more product-like written outputs generated by two master's course participants. The analysis reveals how the participants' developing intentionality was shaped by a hybrid of professional and research-related influences, and how this developing intentionality affected the quality of the participants' research education experience. The analysis, with its particular focus on intentionality, constitutes a further development of the ecological perspective on developing researcher competence proposed by the first author, and is intended also as a contribution to the emerging literature on 'research education'. IntroductionThis paper presents an ecological perspective on the developing researcher competence of participants on a professionally oriented master's course for English language teachers at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. An ecological perspective on research education was first developed by Stelma (2011); the present contribution is particularly concerned with the intentionality (as in 'purpose') of different aspects of the participants' research education experiences.The first part of the paper provides an overview of the key features of the ecological perspective, including an explanation of the focus on intentionality. The ecological thinking is also considered alongside other perspectives on postgraduate research education, thereby anticipating the pedagogical and theoretical contributions of the paper. The next part of the paper outlines the focus on developing researcher competence in our master's course, and describes the naturalistic data available to us in our ongoing exploration of this pedagogy. A third part of the paper presents an ecological analysis of the participants' research education experiences. The purpose of this analysis is two-fold: (a) to develop understanding of the participants' research education experiences, and (b) to explicate the ecological perspective on research education.

Research Training as Occupational Socialization: Doing Research and Becoming Researchers

“…While there are strengths to this approach, construction of individual roles can be neglected (Lee, 2008;Stelma & Fay, 2012). This is problematic because there is more to being a researcher than just 'doing research'.…”

EFL Teachers Response to the Ecological Expectations of the Teaching Context at a Saudi University

“…According to Stelma and Fay (2014) In order to investigate the KAU/ELI teachers' perceptions, expectations and change of practice related to the ecology of the KAU/ELI teaching context it was found that the most applicable way was to ask those teachers questions and to analyze their answers. Indeed, surveys are considered the most frequently employed descriptive method used in educational research (Cohen and Manion, 1985).…”

“…1-2) which have the power to redirect the agents" attitudes and practices. Stelma and Fay (2014) intentionality paradigm related to directing the deliberate activity of individuals towards certain directions in response to the expectations of the context offers a confirmation to Tudor (2003) and an explanation to the change of practice of our interviewees, let alone their conviction of making the right choice by conforming to what the context expects regardless of their recognized beliefs.…”

“…Therefore, another perspective that has to be addressed when analyzing teaching/ learning EFL at KAU/ELI in Saudi Arabia is the background socio-cultural, educational and ecological contexts and the very expectations of all the agents involved in this context and how these expectations evolve lead to a better understand of teaching/learning as affirmed internationally in (Li, 1998;Zeng and Murphy, 2007;Peng and Woodrow, 2010;Yang, 2010;Stelma and Fay, 2014) and in (Fareh, 2010;Rahman and Alhaisoni, 2013) and Shah et al (2013) in the Saudi context.…”

How to Research Multilingually: Possibilities and Complexities

“…Accordingly, researchers need to consider all these possibilities and complexities. Having done so, they can make informed decisions and demonstrate what we term "researcher purposefulness" (or more technically, "researcher intentionality", see Stelma & Fay, 2014;Stelma, Fay & Zhou, 2013) in their RM-ly practice.…”