Research environments better for teaching and learning

While students may be unhappy with the quality of the teaching in research-rich environments, this is more than compensated for by the overall experience, researchers find Students who find themselves in a research-intensive environment improve their chances of completing their studies and finding full-time employment afterwards, a study has found. But many feel less than satisfied with the quality of the teaching they have received, it says. The study, published at a time when the debate about research-focused and teaching-only institutions is resurfacing, found higher-performing research environments generate high-quality learning and teaching in “economic outcomes but not in perception outcomes”. Professor Garry Barrett of the University of Sydney, who presented the paper Are Excellent Research Environments Better for Teaching and Learning? said students benefited from being in a high-research-intensive environment even if they did not feel engagement was high. The findings of the study, the result of collaboration between Barrett and UTS vice-chancellor Ross Milbourne, were presented at the Australian Conference of Economists in Canberra last week, “There’s a bit of policy discussion around how best to encourage research and how to get better teaching and learning outcomes,” Barrett told Campus Review. “We thought with the recent ERA exercise that this would be a good opportunity to get quality data measuring research performance and then use those measures on learning and teaching performance, whether we can find if there is a relationship or not.” The chief finding was that despite having gained much intellectually and economically, students finished their studies feeling largely dissatisfied. The paper measured outcomes in terms of staff performance and activities, disciplinary group ethos and leadership, teaching and research infrastructure, industry and partnership connections, and student support. Learning and teaching outcomes were also influenced by curriculum and assessment design and learning pedagogy. “In these respects learning and teaching and research are complementary activities where active learning challenges existing knowledge, and research engenders a spirit of enquiry, new knowledge and curricula,” the authors wrote. But the paper also acknowledged the two areas competed for staff time and budgets. Barrett and Milbourne used information from the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) outcomes on research performance and aligned it with learning and teaching performance data from the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund (LTPF) process to consider the effects of the research environment on learning and teaching results. The LTPF results looked at the following indicators: student progress and retention rates; full-time employment of bachelors degree graduates; the proportion going on to further study; perceived satisfaction with generic skills and teaching; and overall satisfaction rates. These results were aligned with ERA assessment data for universities. Milbourne and Barrett also considered the varying demographic elements of different student populations, such as ATAR cut-off scores; full-time, part-time and external students; indigenous students; and gender and disability balances. In doing so, they acknowledged that old, more research-intensive universities attracted students with higher ATAR scores, all of which was informed by other variables including infrastructure and socio-economic status, both of which were factored in. Their results showed studying in an excellent research environment led to an increased likelihood of students completing their studies and finding full-time employment afterward. At the same time this also had a negative effect on their perception of the teaching. “That is, while students may be unhappy with teaching in research intensive environments, it is more than compensated for by the entire learning environment,” the paper found. Why this is so is a matter for speculation, Barrett said. “We’re thinking there could be an important distinction between teaching and learning. It could be that there are large classes and students aren’t so happy with the actual teaching delivery. "It could be that they don’t get as much support directly from a teacher in a unit but they can go to the web and they have the flexibility to download notes and podcasts. "They benefit from that, but the actual teaching in the lectures they may be less happy with, possibly because they might go to them less often.” Meanwhile, the students could well be benefiting without realising it from the “spirit of enquiry” their teachers are working in. “The people in this area are generating new knowledge, updating the curricula and incorporating this knowledge, so students are learning more contemporary, frontier material,” he said. “We were surprised by these findings, by the strength of the effects,” Barrett added. “The way the research environment, when controlled for other factors ... still had these impacts on economic outcomes for students. I was surprised that in a relatively small sample, we were getting these results. The most striking thing was how research affected the economic success of students but that this was totally unrelated to student perception measures."