Teaching 'EdRes'
During my time at Cambridge I initially got involved in teaching research methods as a small part of my work, alongside supporting graduates entering teaching and supervising research students. Over time, my workload shifted with research methods becoming my major teaching contribution. In particular, I made major inputs into the Educational Research course – usually known to students and staff like as 'EdRes'.
The Educational Research course had a dual purpose. It provided research training for doctoral studies (something that at that time I was first involved 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. Part-time students could also follow a variant of the course leading to an M.Ed., {at that time the M.Phil. degree at Cambridge was only available to full-time students} that at the time when I first got involved was timetabled separately to fit with the pattern that part-time degrees, mostly taken by teachers and others in employment, ran on a Wednesday afternoon.
Later the part-time route was subsumed into the same classes. The decision to combine the two courses gave a group with great diversity, but created a fundamental problem with course design as most of the students attended classes on two afternoons a week during one academic year, but the part-time students only attended on one afternoon, but over two years – so sequencing that was logical in one case may not have made as much sense in the other: 'as we discussed in the last lecture' might actually mean 'as you may remember from last year' for some in the class! Graduate students should have been well placed to cope with the issues this led to, but when sequencing topics and concepts is so important to developing teaching best able to support learning, it was ironic that a route that had been seen as our 'flagship' course presented inherent issues of sequencing of materials for some learners.
The dissertation topic
All the master's students in the Faculty (whether on the Education Research course or other courses) had to produce a research-based thesis (which later became referred to as a dissertation). Those on one of the 'themed' routes (such as Mathematics Education), were expected to undertake a project based within the scope of their theme (the bounds of which could be negotiated with the teaching team concerned).
As the Educational Research route lacked a specific theme, there was the potential to undertake a master's project across a wider range of areas. Clearly the research had to be 'educational', but this was understood in a very catholic way in the Faculty. (A sense of this may be gleaned from my Professorial lecture: What is the point of a faculty of education? The imperative for discipline-specific educational research within university education departments.)
Potential students on the Educational Research course (whether looking to take the course as part of a PhD programme, or in order to obtain the M.Phil. degree) had to propose a project as part of their application. The project proposal at that stage was likely to need some considerable development before putting it into practice, but this not only acted as part of the evidence to evaluate applicants but also helped identify if there was someone in faculty with suitable expertise and research interests to match the project. Especially at doctoral level, a good match between project and supervisor is essential, and a student should not seek admission to an institution (because it is near family, or it is prestigious) if there is not a faculty member interested in working with them on their project. (You can read some advice about applying for a place on a PhD programme here.)
The 'EdRes' course within the Faculty
The Educational Research route therefore had three important functions, beyond meeting some funding body requirements:
- because the class teaching was all focused on educational research it was able to offer a broad preparation for anyone looking to develop skills and understanding as a researcher;
- because its scope was 'educational research', generously understood, it allowed candidates to apply for graduate studies in education at Cambridge beyond the more specific themes reflected in other routes, as long as there was a faculty member prepared to take on supervision of the project;
- and, because its scope was 'educational research', generously understood, it allowed faculty members whose expertise and research interests were not matched to the specific themed routes to take on research students (incredibly, during my time at Cambridge, science education was not one of the themes around which specific masters routes were offered 1).
In effect students on the Educational Research course had support in broadening their knowledge of research form the taught components, highly focused support on their project form their supervisor, and enrichment in terms of the various group activities put on by research groups and centres (where all students are welcome to attend any seminars etc., but often their will be a specific group where their research has strong links with other members.)
A broad-based course
The philosophy of the Educational Research course reflected the funding agency expectations in offering a broad based introduction to the range of educational research that is undertaken, in terms of perspectives, approaches, methodologies, and so forth. Clearly, each student's project was highly specific and adopted a particular research design to fit their purposes, but study on the course should have allowed a student to read around any kind of research they might come across in their studies and have a basic understanding of the type of enquiry, and the basic logic behind it. (Or, to put things in another way, anyone following the Educational research course should have been able to spot research which was not clearly thought-out, even when it was outside their own field and used a very different approach.)
This became more challenging as the research in the faculty became very diverse, and the group very large. There is a very active Children's literature group linked with Homerton College, but also at one point there was an active research group doing neuroscience in education. Attempts were made to offer options on top of common core sessions to balance the needs for breadth and depth, but such balancing acts seldom satisfy everyone (from the student keen to take advantage of their time in Cambridge to learn about everything, and the student wishing to focus in only on their own particular project.)
The breadth however also provided an incredible resource as the groups typically included students from many parts of the world with widely different educational institutions and contexts, with a great range of academic backgrounds (most possible first degree subjects were surely represented at one time or another), different levels of professional experience and aspiration (many students had been, or still were, teachers in some context, but by no means all). It was a great privilege to have taught on this course, and to have had the chance to talk to such a diverse range of students and hear about their research projects.
Notes
1 I say 'incredibly', in part because there were colleagues prepared to get involved in developing and teaching on such a route; partly because in many parts of the world (including those where many of our students came from) science education was recognised as a major theme in education; partly because internationally science education was one of the most well-established areas of educational research with many journals and book series as well as research associations and regular conferences; and finally because Cambridge is world famous for the science that has been undertaken there (and the exceptional number of affiliated Nobel laureates: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/research-at-cambridge/nobel-prize, mostly for the natural science prizes) , which might suggest science education would be seen as fitting well in its profile.
