Relevance of Research in Educational Practice

400-500 words

After reading the attachment piece below titled Research and Relevance to the Field. What is the most important concept you learned? What is the benefit to using research to inform your professional practice? 

Research and Relevance to the Field

Caroline Ward Oda, PhD

Have you read research reports associated with your field of professional practice as an educator?

Well, you know before I went to Capella I was not in the practice of reading research studies. Probably because I did not have access to data bases, but ever since my doctoral studies I really read a lot of research articles. I am very interested in the instructional design ones, ones on peer feedback and especially the research that Garrison has done on online education. I follow him and a number of other instructors who are doing research that’s pertinent to my work. I develop online courses for an international non-profit and in order to do that I actually have to work through instructors who develop the courses. So I need to persuade them that the structure that is most beneficial to students is based on research and that motivates them to incorporate that in their course planning. So the research that I read is very helpful.

What is one or more discoveries you made reading research which applied to your field of professional practice as an educator?

Okay there is two main discoveries that I’ve made as a result of reading the research and one has to do with the research by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer. They talk about developing a community of inquiry when you do an online course and they mention three essential aspects; social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. And I have found that when I make sure that my instructors incorporate each of those. A social presence is what enables students to feel comfortable online with each other and their teacher. And cognitive presence is that ability that a teacher has to stimulate them to grow from where they are to where the instructor wants them to be. And then teaching presence is the instructor’s ability to plan the course a head of time and then to guide the course online so that he or she can reach the teaching goals. So I use that with every course that I plan and with every instructor I work with and it has been very helpful.

Have you attempted to apply a research based best practice in your field as an educator?

For my comp exam I did a review of synchronous and asynchronous approaches to online courses and it has really helped me with building student retention in the courses that I plan. Initially my courses were all asynchronous, but as a result of the research which shows that it is important to have face to face or go to meeting or even Skype or even chat aspects in an asynchronous course. I have incorporated that and what I found is that student retention has gone up by 50% when they have this opportunity to really talk in real time to each other and with their instructor.

What were the results of applying a research based practice in your field as an educator?

The results have been great. In fact, I am starting a new series of seminars which are 100% go to meeting kinds of courses and I am doing that as an experiment in terms of going to the opposite extreme to actually fully synchronous for one of the courses that I have just mounted and we have over 100 students in that class. And we are on session three and I am getting continual enrollment because the word of mouth must be out there that this is a very satisfying way to do an online course. So it has been good. It has been good to experiment, to read the studies to see what they have to say and to experiment with they have found.

Laurel Stanley, EdD

Have you read research reports associated with your field of professional practice as an educator?

I actually read research reports all the time. I have read many research reports associated with my field of professional practice. As a college educator teaching online, up to date, relevant, high quality research is valuable to me for several reasons. I have found that research provides me with information so I can improve my teaching strategies and techniques to enhance learner success. I can collaborate with my peers more effectively with the knowledge and information that I gain from keeping abreast of current research. I also conduct and publish my own research in peer-reviewed journals that contribute to scholarly research in my field. Reading peer reviewed original recent research is essential to making a contribution in my field of professional practice.

What is one or more discoveries you made reading research which applied to your field of professional practice as an educator?

One discovery is that online college students are engaged more in their courses when they have active learning activities and plenty of positive interpersonal interactions with the instructor and with each other. For example, Marcia Dixson’s 2010 research article, Creating effective student engagement in online courses: What do students find engaging? from the Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, indicated that active learning was engaging and both learner-instructor and learner-learner interactions were engaging.

Have you attempted to apply a research based best practice in your field as an educator?

Yes, I apply research based best practices to my teaching by emphasizing active learning and increasing personal interactions with students and among students. Active learning is applied by using student’s background knowledge and experiences within the structure of course discussions and assignments. This helps create engaged learners who actually accomplish a more in depth and better comprehension and retention of the content of the course. Sharing with the instructor and with other students helps also in creating a good learning experience.

What were the results of applying a research based practice in your field as an educator?

I have had positive results with active learning and increased interpersonal interactions. Active learning helps make the course content relevant to learners in a personal way, thus enhancing the learning taking place. Online teaching should be used to enhance communication, not to track from communications simply because it is internet based. I suppose that social media has helped change our perceptions of the digital universe in the way that thoughtful instructors might use. I plan to conduct more research on the literature to investigate this possibility thoroughly.

Gordon Graham, PhD

Have you read research reports associated with your field of professional practice as an educator?

I very often read education research. And for about two decades now I have been interested in two topics in particular. One is self esteem and the other is self efficacy. Now I like the parallelism between those two topics. Self esteem and self efficacy. They sound similar, but they are very, very different. So self esteem, generally, is defined as how we value ourselves. It is associated with our beliefs about our value in the social word that we are a part of. But self efficacy is different. It is self belief about our abilities. Our skills. Our capacity to reach goals. Sometimes we just use the word competence. Same thing as self efficacy. But there is a lot of difference when it comes to sorting out how to be an effective educator. Now I cannot just rattle off all the research I have read about these two topics because it has been. As I said, it has been an interest of mine for a couple of decades. Best I can do is point out a couple of articles that I read fairly recently. I had to look up their titles so I could be sure I had this right. First one is entitled “Cultural Norm Fulfillment, Interpersonal Belonging or Getting Ahead a Large Scale Cross Cultural Test of Three Perspectives on the Function of Self Esteem. And there were seven authors to that particular research report. Now the reason I remember it is because when they say it was a large scale research project, they were not kidding. It was over a million participants which was astonishing. And a recent article that I read about self efficacy and I actually could remember the title of this one was, it was entitled “I Think I Can, I Think I Can, Self Efficacy and Performance”. It was by a couple of authors Park and Rotor. So that is just a small sample of the kind of stuff I am interested in reading.

What is one or more discoveries you made reading research which applied to your field of professional practice as an educator?

ne of the reasons I became interested in self esteem research is because I gradually came to realize it is not nearly as important as it is assumed to be. It is not a particularly helpful construct when it comes to promoting learner success. Now that might seem strange to a lot of people. But I would encourage those that wonder about that statement, you know, and maybe begin reading about self esteem research themselves. Not just articles and editorials about self esteem because they are all pretty positive about its importance. But the actual research does not support the level of importance we have assigned to self esteem. Now as a small example, I remember reading research many years ago that pointed out bullies and thieves tend to have very high telephone esteem. Well that was kind of a wakeup call for me. I mean, we think self esteem is this wonderful thing, but, you know, bullies and thieves. They have high self esteem. Also, there is quite a bit of research evidence that when we as instructors and professors try to enhance the self esteem of our learners, it does not necessarily improve their academic performance. And, in fact, I remember reading one research report that pointed out that simply offering praise out of concern for self esteem does not have any impact whatsoever on the learner. And that the reason probably it does not is because when you are all that concerned about self esteem of your students, you might not link your praise to very real and measurable performance improvement. And so it does not seem to help. But also, like I said, I like the parallelism between self esteem and self efficacy. When I was, well whenever I get a chance to read an article about self efficacy, I keep coming to the same conclusion. That building self efficacy in a student does seem to improve performance. It is a different thing than just praising a student for. Well, in general, right? You are a wonderful person, glad to have you, that sort of thing. Self efficacy as a target during feedback and teaching means that you are linking your praise to very real and measurable improvements in the students’ progress. Now, there is evidence that self efficacy is built by enabling a learner to achieve a series of small but very real victories as they go through the course. You know, small steps. And when they take the next step, if it is an authentic victory on their part, it begins to lead to their self belief in their capacity to succeed. Now that word belief is very important when it comes to building self efficacy. Everything has to be authentic. It has to be measurable. It has to be visibly real to the learner or it does not enhance their self belief. And so I find that to be quite a fascinating difference between these two constructs.

Have you attempted to apply a research based best practice in your field as an educator?

I can give you an example of a difference in my overall approach as a consequence of reading this research. When I have come to understand the difference between and the importance of self esteem and self efficacy. It has revolutionized my teaching style. You know, I now understand it is quite important not to just offer praise to learners. They need to know if they are making very real progress. And so feedback has to be brutally honest. Now that does not mean it has to be, you know, administered in a brutal fashion. You can still be positive in the way you do it. But any progress that is made, you have to point it out and do so in an honest way sewing that there is improvement. The degree of improvement. How much more to be achieved and so on. Honesty, authenticity, very, very important. I don’t think you think nearly as much about honesty and authenticity of feedback if you are concerned about self esteem of students. But if you are concerned about building their self efficacy, then honesty and authenticity are extremely important. Because you have to alter their beliefs about themselves. And whether they recognize it consciously or not, that they have to somehow internally perceive, this is real. I am actually achieving this stuff. I am going to be able to do this. And so that has been an overall revamping of my teaching philosophy and my teaching approach. Having read, as I said, research on self efficacy and self esteem for a couple decades. I’m pretty solidly committed now for making sure all feedback is real and authentic. I try to provide students for learners to have a series of small victories. Very real victories. Very measurable victories. So they come to believe that they can do this.

What were the results of applying a research based practice in your field as an educator?

In order to do that in any sort of a credible way, I would have to launch my own research project. And maybe I will someday, I have not had a chance to do so, do that so far. What I would be trying to do is compare a teaching philosophy based on the importance of self esteem versus [inaudible] based on self efficacy. Those kind of research projects are quite challenging in the field of research. Because any educational environment is a very socially robust environment. There is all kinds of things going on. There is numerous confounding variables that affect the results. But, you know, if I can figure out a way to control for all of that, maybe one day I can actually do that and get some substantial, credible evidence to show that what I am talking about is a really important adjustment to teaching styles. But, I tell you what, I can tell you what I have had happen. I have had feedback from my learners indicating a very high level of satisfaction with the course. And I have had feedback where there has been self disclosures by learners that they feel more confident about their future journey now after finishing the course that I have taught in the manner I have scribed. But I think one of the most important things I have seen as a result, I have had some feedback from students that have told me because they feel more confident now, they also feel more motivated. And, in fact, some of them have even inquired, you know, I am not only going to do this degree. I now believe I can do an even higher degree using that transition from master’s to doctorate. So those things have been very satisfying. I mean, this is, you know, only perceptions, it is not real, hard evidence. And maybe one day, I will be able to produce the hard evidence which support what I have been talking about.