Teaching Research Methods in the Social Sciences: Expert Perspectives on Pedagogy and Practice

International Journal of Inclusive Education

Lewthwaite

2017

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Amidst major new initiatives in research that are beginning to address the pedagogic dimension of building capacity in social science research methods, this paper makes the first move to apply the lens of inclusive pedagogy to research methods pedagogy. The paper explores the ways in which learning social science research methods is hard and may be anxiety-provoking, which has sometimes led to a deficit discourse in which learners are positioned as ill-prepared and fearful. Learners can then be blamed for being hard to teach when an inclusive pedagogical lens would support a more asset-based discourse. Nonetheless, the authors argue that without traditional deficit-based solutions of the remedial class, special needs label or special teacher within the methods learning environment, methods teachers have developed their own responses. These pedagogic responses, elicited from the authors' research using methods of expert interviews, focus groups and video-stimulated dialogue, address challenges associated with the learner, the learning material and the teacher's context. The paper differentiates between practical solution-focused strategies and more holistic approaches. The authors illustrate how methods teachers reach out to diverse learners and they conclude that data and standpoints are used in inclusive teaching to make connections and to support learning. ARTICLE HISTORY

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Working Around Subject Matter Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Working Around Challenges Coming From the Teachermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hard to teach: inclusive pedagogy in social science research methods education

International Journal of Inclusive Education

Lewthwaite

2017

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“…A preliminary phase had developed the methods initially proposed for education by Galliers and Huang (2012) for use with a national panel. In the international iteration for this study we developed this method further, foregrounding dialogue (Lewthwaite and Nind 2016). Following individual interviews with thirteen expert panellists, we conducted an initial thematic analysis of the data and invited the panellists to reflect upon summaries of the key themes and to discuss these between them.…”

Section: Expert Panel Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methods that teach: developing pedagogic research methods, developing pedagogy

International Journal of Research & Method in Education

Lewthwaite

2018

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This paper addresses ways of researching the pedagogy involved in building research methods competencies in the social sciences. The lack of explicit and shared pedagogy in this area make it particularly important that research is conducted to stimulate pedagogic culture, dialogue and development. The authors discuss the range of methods used in one study with the aim of teasing out pedagogical content knowledge, making implicit pedagogic knowledge more explicit and thereby malleable. The research design and methods deliberately foster dialogue with, rather than cast a judgmental gaze upon, teachers and learners of research methods. Rejecting observational methods on this basis, and declining action research because of the level of participant pedagogic knowledge and commitment required, the authors examine a combination of expert panel, video stimulated dialogue and diary methods for building pedagogic knowledge and culture. These 'methods that teach' are argued to offer value for other researchers working in new and emerging teaching fields, where pedagogy is particularly 'hard to know' and pedagogic content knowledge and pedagogic culture are underexplored or underdeveloped. ARTICLE HISTORY

“…To conduct a systematic review on this topic in order to transparently assemble, critically appraise and synthesise the available studies would necessitate there being a body of research in the area to systematically trawl through, which there is not. This is partly because, as colleagues and I have argued elsewhere (Kilburn et al 2014;Lewthwaite and Nind 2016), the pedagogic culture around research methods is under-developed, and partly because EBP is not as dominant in education as it is in medicine and health professions. If we are teaching systematic review to education researchers we do not have the option of identifying best evidence to bring to bear on the specific challenge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Systematic Review

Systematic Reviews in Educational Research

2019

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This chapter is about teaching systematic review; it is not, however, the product of a systematic review. It combines and builds on insights from two sets of research experiences: being taught about how to conduct systematic reviews ahead of doing this myself, and more recently, conducting study of the Pedagogy of Methodological Learning for the National Centre for Research Methods in the UK. The latter engaged teachers and learners in the process of building capability and capacity in the co-construction of understandings of what is important in teaching and learning advanced social science research methods, including systematic review. The chapter advocates teaching systematic review in ways that support critical thinking, utilising deep knowledge of the method and a willingness to be reflexive and open about its messy realities.