Taking on an identity as a methods teacher
My initial role when I joined the Faculty of Education at Cambridge was largely concerned with supporting graduates looking to enter the teaching profession through our Postgraduate initial teacher education programme (P.G.C.E.). However, I was also encouraged to get involved in the higher degrees programmes, initially as a supervisor of student projects, but also to contribute to teaching.
In particular, there was at that time a course called 'Educational Research' which had a dual purpose. It provided research training for doctoral studies (something that at that time was specified to some degree by the national funding bodies, such that students obtaining doctoral studentships from the Social and Economic Research Council had to undertake approved course of research training), so that Ph.D. students were expected to follow the course as part of their doctoral programme. (At that time, the Ed.D. course at Cambridge was not yet available). It also acted as the basis for a a master's qualification – so students could read for the M.Phil. in Education in Educational Research.
I later came to also contribute to the 'research methods strand' that was common to other routes on our Masters' programme, where the teaching was split between research methods, and the focus on a specific theme (such as psychology and education, mathematics education). However, the Educational Research routes was distinct as all the common teaching on the course was about educational research, allowing a programme that went into research principles, concepts and methods in more depth than was otherwise possible on a themed route.
A research methods teacher
I started by making modest inputs into these courses. However, when I took a role in Master's programme management I was advised to build up my higher degree teaching, and in time took on more and more sessions. Over time the focus of my work shifted from teacher education to research methods lecturer. By the time I retired I was teaching more of the Educational Research course than anyone else.
I had been working mainly in the P.G.C.E. programmed when nationally there was a recognition of a formal distinction between graduate teacher programmes that were professional training for graduates, and those that were considered as postgraduate level, where there was a strong focus on engaging with research. The Cambridge P.G.C.E. already had this well 'bedded-in', but it was thinking about making this more explicit in teacher education that led to me preparing the first edition of my text on educational research ('Classroom-based Research and Evidence-based Practice').
Having written an introductory text about educational research I managed to transition to becomes a research methods lecturer without feeling to much of a fraud.
Indeed, to some extent I saw the role as a development of my identify as a science teacher. Science is a body of research and research activity, and usually taught as a body of knowledge (generated by research). I was no longer teaching physics and chemistry but I was teaching about how to do science.
I was very aware of the temptation for a scientists to see research through a particular lens (as I found many science graduates entering teaching did – read . Why do natural scientists tend to make poor social scientists?), but in my own case I found my science background made me very aware of how social research, such as educational research, differed from research in the natural sciences in ways that often indicated different methods were needed.
During my time at Cambridge I taught on a range of topics in research method, including:
