A presentation given at the collaborative conference of the Open Courseware consortium and the Support Centre for Open Resources in Education. Cambridge 2012: Innovation and Impact - Openly Collaborating to Enhance Education (16-18 April)

1. Developing open academic practices in
research methods teaching within an HE in FE
context
Dr Ester Ehiyazaryan
ester.ehiyazaryan@don.ac.uk
School of Humanities, Education, Social and Sports Science,
University Centre Doncaster
SCORE Fellow, Open University

2. Aims of the project
•Raising awareness of UCD staff of the value of OER,
through actively involving staff in the evaluation and
embedding of OER in academic practice
•Working towards the embedding of OER in teaching
practice across several disciplines, with a focus on
research methods skills and knowledge.
•Developing an understanding of the elements of the
changing learning blend where OER are introduced.
This includes understanding learners’ needs and
preparedness for OER as well as exploring the use of
online and physical spaces and forms of dialogue to
support the use of OER.

3. HE in FE context
Student profile:
•Widening participation
students;
•Mature learners in full time
employment with families
and children
•A majority are first
generation entrants to HE.
•Need for accessible,
sustainable and open
education provision

4. HE in FE context
Learners’ needs: Barriers:
•A move from extended face time to •Blended learning
flexibility practices are still
•Blended, networked learning unfamiliar to staff
•The open learner premise (McAndrew, •Learners’ digital literacy
2010) skills
Need for sustainable, flexible and How can OER and open
accessible forms of education, such as academic practices help
openness in academic practice strives to with this?
deliver.
Content open for adaptation by tutors
and free to access for learners enhances
students’ opportunities to access a good
quality education experience.

5. Challenges of research methods teaching
Drive from HEFCE and ESRC for better preparation of undergraduate
students with research methods skills:
‘Beyond economics and psychology, social science undergraduate
quantitative methods teaching ranges from the absence of any provision
at all through to specialist options, mostly taught in Year 2. The latter
teaching does not give students enough contact time to develop
confidence in their skills…’
(MacInnes, 2009)
Issues with the research methods knowledge and expertise of staff in HE
in FE contexts :
‘FE staff may not be exposed on a daily basis to institutional debates on
research… Partner HEIs may offer free standing modules or workshops on
research methods, or could be invited to present a workshop to introduce
staff to current discourse on research approaches and methodology’
(HEFCE, 2009, p.29).

6. Challenges of research methods teaching
Challenges for the learner
Key difficulty in RM learning – the The role of OER
knowledge and concepts are not
immediately related to professional or • Contextualising abstract
subject contexts which students have concepts
chosen to study. • Discursive resources and
stimuli which create
RM constitute troublesome knowledge: opportunities for the
learner to think like a
‘when what is to be assessed lies outside researcher.
their prior knowledge and experience’
(Land and Meyer, 2010, p. 62)
‘Liminal’ or ‘stuck’ places experienced
when complex theory or abstract
knowledge are involved.

7. OER evaluation by tutors
Teacher Education
Applied Social Sciences
Criminal Justice
•Questions focused on the pedagogical effectiveness/
responsiveness of the OER (LOAM tool, Windle et al, 2010)
•Questions focused on pedagogical, technical and quality issues
(ORIOLE project)
•Collection of existing OER set up through Cloudworks
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/5548
•OER on Cloudworks were selected to provide a range of
pedagogical and technical attributes allowing tutors to explore
OER with different granularity, context specificity, adaptability,
interactivity.

8. OER evaluation by tutors
OER attribute explored Research questions
Quality How would you qualify the resource
Would you use this OER as part of research methods (RM) teaching
Flexibility Can the OER be adapted to the purposes of your RM module?
What would this adaptation involve?
Interactivity Does the OER encourage/afford for students to collaborate?
Does the OER afford dialogue between learner and their community?
How should this be supported?
Constructive alignment Is there a match between the OER content and specific learning
objectives? Which ones?
Briefly describe the framework for teaching and learning and the use of
the OER within it.
Pedagogic effectiveness Does the OER facilitate learners in internalising knowledge?
Would learners be able to use the OER autonomously (little
introduction or explanation from tutor)?
Does the OER address broader learning needs?
Does the OER provide access to resources which you would not usually
be able to provide?
Tutor’s role Would using OER save you time in creating new content?
Would OER be able to supplement content where you perceive this as
weaker?
Table 1. Research questions

9. Student experience
Aspect of teaching and Research questions
learning explored
Challenges of learning How do you feel about studying research methods? Do you enjoy it, are there any parts
research methods that are difficult?
Resource provision for What do you think about the resources available for the research methods modules –
RM teaching and do you have access to enough resources? What kinds of resources do you use?
learning Is there an area of research methods where you feel you need more tuition and
guidance? Is there an area where you feel you could do with more/more versatile
resources?
How do you feel about the online resources available from the LRC – academic journals,
Ebrary books? Are they accessible/ do you use them? Are there any advantages or
drawbacks to using these resources rather than printed textbook material?
OER use strategies How did you use the OER - was it in the session or as self-directed learning at home?
Which do you think was more effective – using the resources as self-directed learning
or within the taught lecture?
OER interactivity How did you feel about the interactive exercises on the online QDA website – did you
learn from these?
Effects of OER use on What are the challenges of using NVivo?
ability to work with Were you able to apply your theoretical knowledge to the practical analysis with
NVivo NVivo?
What helped with this transferring theoretical knowledge to practical tasks such as data
analysis?
Table 2. Student interview questions

10. OER and understanding abstract concepts in RM
Situating knowledge in context – this can be achieved through creating
interdisciplinary links to subject specific knowledge
interdisciplinarity discovery and exploration
Education tutor: Well it is whatever Sociology tutor: Yes I found that I had a
is around that can help us look at his external links … and it gave
understand the case, whatever is me this link to FreeFind, where they can
around which can help us refer to other sources and I thought
understand learning, whatever is that was a really good useful link. Not
around that can help us understand only for research methods. What I have
change and innovation … if you look found … So I typed in ‘feminism’ I found
at it from more interdisciplinary information on feminism… which I think
point of view – you start with a is useful as yet another source, not only
problem, and say who can tell us for research modules – what I found
about that problem. pretty much with all of these that I
looked at is that there are uses in other
modules as well.

11. The tutor’s role in introducing OER – access to knowledge or
access to information?
The tutor’s role in teaching and learning with OER:
•OER provide access to material which tutors would find it
difficult to provide themselves
•Human contact is a necessary element in the knowledge
construction process (Njenga and Fourie, 2010)
•Maintaining the boundaries between providing access to
information and constructing knowledge
Tutors’ stance: OER provide access to information. The tutor’s
role is to facilitate the underlying knowledge construction.

12. The tutor’s role in introducing OER
Tutors’ stance: OER provide access to information. The tutor’s role is to facilitate the
underlying knowledge construction.
Education tutor: These Criminology tutor: Sociology tutor: As that
are fantastic resources. ‘would learners be able particular one says it is
The clever bit surrounds to use [the OER] about improving the use of
how you will actually autonomously’ – questionnaires. Which
use them and integrate undecided because might be a skill that needs
them into your obviously if they sit for to be spread across three
teaching. That also half an hour then they years – if they are choosing
depends on the nature are going to find things questionnaire for their
of the open resource as but I would have to dissertation then they might
well. Some are more guide them as to why I want to revisit to improve
flexible than others, need them to read or on their design of
some you will have to listen to, things like this. questionnaires. So I have
do more background So it would have to placed this as being both for
preparation and some have some guidance. Level 5 and for Level 6 the
after-work. Others are E-moderating/ guiding Dissertation as an update.
kind of almost Linking across levels of
freestanding. study
Prefacing/ embedding

13. Concerns regarding reuse
•OER could be trigger for creative re-thinking of outdated delivery – however
when external pressures are involved tutors may reuse for time saving rather
than engaging in reuse which offers potential for rethinking and innovating
Engaging in reuse
which offers
potential for
rethinking and
innovating
curricula
Prioritising OER
which are quick
and easy to reuse
(time saving)

14. Some technological barriers
Using iTunesU on campus:
‘iTunes cannot be installed as our infrastructure is not currently
enabled to support the technology iTunes requires i.e. Firewall issues
and Compromising network security.’
(Computing and IT Services)
• The tutor’s role of introducing, prefacing, contextualising is
disabled
• No opportunity for embedding the resource in teaching and
learning delivery
• A low level of openness (of the resources and of the IT
infrastructure) creates a form of digital divide for smaller HE
institutions

15. Using OER with sociology students: Grounded theory and
coding with NVivo
•Level 5 Social Sciences students; Social
Science Research module – qualitative
methodologies
•Online QDA – Huddersfield University,
Graham Gibbs.
•A stronger element of structured
independent study beyond the classroom
•A combination of media:
•video lectures
•interactive exercises on coding
•step by step video guides on using
Nvivo
•video case studies for postgraduate
students doing research in different
areas

16. Using OER with sociology students: Grounded theory and
coding with NVivo
OER provided:
•Support with conceptually difficult material (research methods theory)
•Support with the development of skills in applying procedural
knowledge within the coding of text
Temporal sequence, based on Oliver et al. (2002) framework for describing learning designs.

17. Using OER with sociology students: Grounded theory and
coding with NVivo
•Key challenge – learners need to Student 4 Female: I watched
acquire theoretical knowledge as some of the videos on QDA. It
well as procedural skills – OER was was useful because you could
seen as supporting self directed pause it if you didn’t catch it
study and make notes; sometimes in
a lecture it is really fast and you
can’t obviously pause it, but
•Advantages - interactivity and
when you are watching a video
learner control – being able to
you can pause it and make
pause, rewind, take notes at their
notes and carry on to your own
own pace. Supportive of self
pace rather than everyone
directed learning.
else’s. So I thought that was
quite useful. When I watched
on QDA I could make my notes
how I wanted to make them.

18. Using OER with sociology students: Grounded theory and
coding with NVivo
The value and dangers of interactivity
Researcher: Did you do some of
•OER - useful as they allow the learner to the interactive coding exercises
practice interactive coding exercises. – where you had to assign the
code word and …
•Danger – students may learn the
Several: Yes.
procedural layer without understanding
the underlying principles of constant
Researcher: How did you feel
comparison, or stages in coding. about those?
Student 1 Female: When we
learning of troublesome knowledge started doing the NVivo I
requires some form of transformation in remember going back to it and
the learner. Unless this transformation thinking ‘oh it’s just as simple
takes place, the learner may be unable to as that then – literally just
acquire knowledge and could instead copying words and giving it a
engage in a form of ‘mimicry’ or title.
ritualistic/surface learning (Meyer and
Land, 2005: 382).

19. Using open data with Sociology students and Early Childhood
Studies students
•Growing Up in Scotland
– large scale child
development survey.
The equivalent of the
EPPE study; similar to
the Millennium Cohort
Study
•Freely accessible data
through the Economic
and Social Data Service
(ESDS)

20. Using open data with Sociology students and Early Childhood
Studies students
Advantages of using real
world data:
•Addresses troublesome
knowledge – the data is
subject specific and
situates learning in
context.
•Statistical analyses return
results which learners can
relate to knowledge
acquired in other modules
(examples: social policy;
child development)

21. Using open data with Sociology students and Early Childhood
Studies students
Learners explored:
•Food and nutrition – formation of healthy eating habits
•Neighbourhood and community – active citizenship; social policy
•Activities with others – distributions of outdoor/ indoor play
•Demographic factors – work, employment and income

22. Further work
•OER can help address the difficulties of research methods
teaching as troublesome knowledge
•Develop OER supporting the exploration of open data (available
through ESDS)
•Explore further the relationship between tutor role and learner
autonomy in OER use.

23. References
Higher Education Funding Council for England (2009) Supporting Higher Education in Further Education
Colleges: Policy, Practice and Prospects. HEFCE.March 2009. http://www.hefce.ac.uk/ .
Land R. and Meyer, J. (2010) Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge (5): Dynamics of Assessment.
In Eds. Meyer, J., Land, R., Baillie, C., Threshold Concepts and Transformational Learning. London: Sense
Publishers.
MacInness, J. (2009) Proposals to Support and Improve the Teaching of Quantitative Research Methods at
Undergraduate Level in the UK. Economic and Social Research Council.
McAndrew, P. (2010) Defining Openness: Updating the Concept of ‘Open’ for a Connected World, Journal of
Interactive Media in Education. JIME http://jime.open.ac.uk/2010/10.
Njenga, J. K., &Fourie, L. C. H. (2010) The Myths about e-Learning in Higher Education. British Journal of
Educational Technology, 41(2): 199-212.
Oliver, R., Harper, B., Hedberg, J., Wills, S., Agostinho, S. (2002) ‘Formalising the Description of Learning
Designs’, Edith Cowan University Australia, *Online+, ECU Publications, HERDSA, Available from:
http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks/3904/, Accessed: 30/11/2011.
Windle, R, Wharrad, H., Leeder, D., Morales, R. (2010) ‘Analysis of the Pedagogical Attributes of Learning
Objects’ *Online+, SONET: Educational Technology Group, The University of Nottingham, Available from:
http://sonet.nottingham.ac.uk/projects/loam/, Accessed: 30/11/2011.