Category: Updates

Introducing our educational research methods materials

By Nikki Boyd, Teaching Fellow in Medical Education, Educational Development Unit

By way of supporting the Learning and Teaching Strategy in its commitment to evidence-based innovation, we have developed a series of Educational Research Methods resources to help guide those in College who might be undertaking educational research or evaluation for the first time. Currently accessible from both the Teaching Toolkit and the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship web pages, the resources are intended to provide an introduction to, and overview of, the key issues and considerations involved in educational research and evaluation, as well as to signpost useful further reading and resources that come particularly recommended from members of the EDU team.

Our experience in supporting scientifically-trained researchers in our postgraduate programmes over the years has enabled us to identify the main challenges that can confront those new to educational research or evaluation, and the intention is that these resources can either be used to “walk” novice educational researchers though the key steps in the process, or simply be dipped in or out of as needed. By way of inspiring our colleagues to engage with new methods, we have – where possible – included recent examples of where a method has been used in an educational research or evaluation capacity at Imperial specifically. We are very grateful to those colleagues who have allowed us to reference their work in this way.

Currently these pages encompass guidance to support the early stages in the research and evaluation process, along with details of other resources and networks that might be of interest. Work on them remains ongoing, however, and we hope to have further sections relating to the process of carrying out and disseminating educational research up over the coming weeks – so please do keep checking back.

These materials are intended to benefit the whole community of staff who are likely to be engaged in educational research or evaluation over the coming years, so we would very much welcome any ideas or suggestions you have which you feel would be of value to your colleagues. If educational research and evaluation is an area of particular interest to you, you may also be keen to engage with CHERSNet – the new network for supporting the development and dissemination of educational scholarship at Imperial. Please get in touch if you would like to be added to our distribution list.

An Update on Curriculum Review

Curriculum review is now underway with every department in College having secured funding to help achieve this.

Each department will recruit at least one Strategic Teaching Fellow with many of these posts currently being advertised or interviewed for. Teaching Fellows from across the College will be deeply involved not only in curriculum review but also in pedagogy transformation projects arising out of this process. To support this, we will form a network of all teaching fellows to share experiences and spread good practice across College, coordinated through the EDU.

Pedagogy transformation funding is now available to support the implementation of active learning methods – such as peer-learning and problem-based learning – and the development of complementary digital content. The deadline for the next round of funding is the 2 March and you can find the proposal template here.

Our curriculum review support programme will ramp up in the New Year. The programme will include workshops, drop-in sessions and associated on-line resources. More details will be available soon.

If you have any questions, leave a reply below or email us at ltstrategy@imperial.ac.uk