Shaw, John Bryan (2003) Closing the loop on educational research : using findings to improve the student experience. Investigations in university teaching and learning, 1 (1). pp. 11-14. ISSN 1740-5106
Too much educational research remains still-borne. That is not to say that it isn't finished, and published or presented. But it is still in a state of suspended animation, as an unfulfilled ambition - for unless its findings are applied to the students' experience and the results monitored, it has not fulfilled its purpose. The problem is that there are lots of incentives to motivate staff to reach the publication/presentation stage but nothing to encourage progress further - plus the knowledge that this second phase is one of the most difficult and frustrating activities in which to engage. Course organisers need to be persuaded, staff need to be motivated, findings need translating into detailed reforms, logistical obstacles need overcoming, statistics extracted from central services. Finally, there is the fear that the whole enterprise may fail and your reputation suffer: far easier to leave the research as an academic exercise with just enough ambiguity to allow face saving re-interpretations.
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