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UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH NEWS AUSTRALIA Issue 3 • November 2011 UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH NEWS AUSTRALIA Issue 3 • November 2011 perceive an array of uses, in work and social contexts, About URNA for the discipline-specific research skills they have URNA is an occasional newsletter designed to provide developed in their university programs. Moreover, information about developments, upcoming events, current project partner universities (Adelaide, Monash, Latrobe, Canberra, James Cook) along with non- and resources on engaging undergraduates in partner universities are seeing deepening course-level research and inquiry, principally in Australasia. This and degree-program level interest in RSD as a guiding issue includes information about developments and framework, with two universities drawing on the research projects that have been supported by the framework to guide developments university-wide. ALTC and by particular institutions. It is interesting Simultaneously, the extended version of the RSD, the to note the tremendous increase in peer reviewed Researcher Skill Development framework (RSD7)2 is publications and funded projects during 2011. These being showcased at partner universities to engage research-focused academics in the pedagogical issues indicate a growing and lively field of study and around research skill development. The RSD7 has a focus First Year Human Biology Students engaging teaching development. Please circulate widely and on higher degree by research, through to post doctorates in open-ended field research. Photo: John Willison let us know of any other colleagues that you think and onto mid career research, and raises questions for would like to know of recent developments and those who are research-focussed about the capacity library staff, academic language and learning staff, academic development staff, professional staff engaged resources in undergraduate research in Australia. building possibilities of undergraduate studies and masters by coursework . One major advantage of the in recruitment and retention, and, very importantly, Professor Angela Brew, Macquarie University RSD7 is that it places on the same continuum a First tutors and students themselves. When the efforts of all November 2011 Year student engaging in tasks that require the skills university staff who have a part in university education associated with research, and a professor leading an are focussed to work collaboratively with students on the international research team. One of the repercussions of development of research skills, then mutual reinforcement Research Skills for a Higher the RSD7, which describes a continuum concerning the of effort is possible, giving a sense of ‘university’ rather Education extent of autonomy a student has, is that +-a cycling than ‘polyversity’. between the highly directed and modelled level 1 and As we continue to probe year after graduation outcomes, John Willison, The University of Adelaide the open-ended level 5 may take place. This cycling we will be able to determine if the RSD, used across means that First Year university students may be What elements of higher education make it elevated degree programs, does indeed help guide university initially directed to understand discipline appropriate above other formal education? As a project team education to be ‘higher’, not in ethereal or ivory-tower ways to research. However, over the course of First Year, consisting of members from five Australian universities, ways, but in terms of higher order cognitive skills that increasing autonomy may be given so that students we have been exploring since 2007 explicit research employers value and that are utilised and enjoyed by initiate the process, and thereby practise framing skill development as a distinguishing feature to make graduates in the workplace. university studies indeed higher (Chanock, 2004). The questions, determining information and data gathering techniques, evaluating products and processes, project team has used the Research Skill Development References (RSD1) framework (Willison & O’Regan, 2007) as a organizing and managing the research process. The move to second year is conceptually more demanding conceptual model to make such development a feature Chanock, K. (2004). Introducing students to the culture of and typically requires an increase in academic rigour; in of university study in standard content-rich university enquiry in an Arts degree (2004). Sydney: Higher this context students may again require the structure curricula from the first year onwards. Education Research and Development Society of and guidance described by the lower levels of the Australasia. Emerging from the project so far have been substantial RSD7. In this way, cycling, or more correctly, spiralling, positive outcomes for students and academics involved between low degrees of autonomy and high degrees, Willison, J. & O’Regan, K. (2007). Commonly known, in semester- length courses that have been guided by students will become increasingly familiar with, and commonly not known, totally unknown: A framework the RSD to explicitly develop students’ research skills receive feedback on, problematic areas of research, such for students becoming researchers. Higher Education (Willison, Le Lievre & Lee, 2010; Willison, in press). as determining appropriate researchable questions. Research and Development 26, no.4: 393-409. However, the primarily positive data is potentially It is very different from the concept of giving students Further information and notes skewed by the fact that the academics involved are first a framework of knowledge in their undergraduate generation innovators who chose to incorporate the degree, and then asking them to utilize this after it is Willison, J. (in press) When academics integrate research skill RSD in courses because they were convinced it was an constructed. The RSD7 helps teachers to focus on the development in the curriculum. Higher Education appropriate thing to do. What we do not yet know is development of skills contingent on content all the way research and Development. how approaches informed by the RSD may role out into through, so that content knowledge and research skills Willison, J., Le Lievre, K., & Lee, I. (2010). Making Research the complexities of entire degree programs. are inseparable. Skill Development explicit in coursework: Final report. Canberra: www.adelaide.edu.au/clpd/rsd, Australian In one of the final acts of the Australian Learning and Another main advantage of the RSD7 is that it succinctly Learning and Teaching Council. Teaching Council, it recently funded an evaluation conveys on one page, elements absolutely core to the of the use of the RSD at degree program level. Five research enterprise. It is visually a one-look document, Willison, J. & O’Regan, K. (2008). The Researcher Skill undergraduate degree programs, one of each in the and enables sensible conversation whereby people are Development framework. University of Adelaide: Sciences, Health Sciences, Engineering, Business literally on the same page. One-view visual representation www.adelaide.edu.au/clpd/rsd/rsd7 and Social Sciences are providing data to determine is conceptually important, for all the major elements 1. Research Skill Development Framework: year-after-graduation perspectives of students and are represented in their interconnectedness. The RSD www.adelaide.edu.au.clpd/rsd employers about the research skills that students bring enables conversations among academics coordinating 2. Researcher Skill Development Framework: to the workplace. Early indications are that students courses and degree programs, research focussed staff, www.adelaide.edu.au.clpd/rsd/rsd7 Undergraduate Research News Australia is produced in the Learning and Teaching Centre at Macquarie University ‘This is what university should really struggle in the first weeks of the semester long unit these programs are able to make the transition to the to come to terms with a mode of learning and working far less certain world of research (and other uncertain have been like from the start ‘ in which the curriculum is set only in skeleton terms and worlds as well, for that matter). in which the ‘content’ is largely to be generated through While as educators with real interests in undergraduate Reflections on offering an their own efforts. For some students, withdrawing from and graduate research education, these challenges are the unit in the first weeks, this realisation prompted undergraduate research particularly pointed for us, we contend that they need their withdrawal. Several students confessed to being to be taken seriously by all undergraduate educators. experience in the social sciences attracted to the unit precisely because the prescribed The world of research with its uncertainties, risks and Denise Cuthbert (RMIT), Amy Dobson (Monash readings were minimal. On discovering that readings the need for resilience, creativity and inventiveness in University), and Kate Cregan (Monash University) needed to be generated by them related to the specific researchers is likely far more akin to other professional work they were to do in the unit, their response was to Since 2009, the Sociology program at Monash University domains in business, industry and the professions walk. A high degree of self-selection in (and out) of a unit has offered a unit called Contemporary Issues in than any of these is to the highly controlled world of of this kind is to be expected. Sociological Research designed to provide an ‘authentic’ undergraduate coursework programs. We cannot but research
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