Research, Teaching and Learning: making connections in the education of adultsPapers from the 28th Annual SCUTREAConference
Research, Teaching and Learning: Seeking Connections
Nick Small, Open University, UK
Recall the problem of education. Educational programs, educational methods, educational goals and educational personnel are involved today in a far-reaching crisis. Educational authorities and those responsible for socialisation (family, schools university but also institutions and business) and likewise educational personnel (father, mother, teacher, education instructor) find that they are exposed to harsh criticism and impatient accusations from right and left; for some they are too conservative, for others too progressive; for some too political, for others too unpolitical; for some too authoritarian, for others too anti-authoritarian. Perplexity and disorientation are widespread.
Kung (1974) 598
Foreword
In an age of outcomes, assessment and financial justifications, is research, teaching and learning (RTL) an acceptable trinity in the new faith of managers and accountants? Is such a discussion part of a serious game that will appeal to the holders of the purse-strings? Is the game being played for their benefit anyway?
The answers to the above three questions are probably yes, no, no. Are outcomes or benefit to be perceived in economic, political, social or personal terms? Do such outcomes supply a justification to others by which they judge suitabilities or appropriateness?
Finally, why so many questions? We tread on hallowed ground. Hitherto accepted positions are being re-considered. Self-development is increasingly possible using modern technology, an education that has supervisors, advisors, or counsellors, but not teachers supplying knowledge or criticisms and analyses of written material. It is the teaching role that becomes dispensable, leaving a learner to struggle with limited support in unfamiliar waters. Such practice assumes a learner well-equipped to undertake the learning adventure solo. Motivation is all, with incentives of some kind as enticement.
Introduction
Education has always justified itself for some in its own terms as an obvious good (but less good if it becomes expensive to others - a barometer effect: as cost rises, support declines or perceived improvement is required).
Memories of the Past
That the number of our members be unlimited' declared the London Corresponding Society in 1792.
Thompson (1968,9)
The growth of education provided after 1830 brought further twists....First, you were excluded from learning by the absence of resources or household conditions. Then, once available, the preferred knowledge turned out to be wildly inappropriate. Far from promising liberation, this knowledge threatened subjection ....At worst it added to the long list, yet another kind of tyranny.
Johnson (1993,20)
This tyranny was defined by Cobbett as
there to teach those children, along with reading, all those notions which are calculated to make them content in a state of slavery.
Johnson (1993,21)
From now on it was to be almost impossible for a country lacking both mass education and adequate higher educational institutions to become a modern economy.
Hobsbawm (1962, 42)
'The nation' was the new civic religion of states. It provided a cement which bonded all citizens to their state, and a counterweight to all those who appealed to other loyalties over state loyalty - to religion, to nationality or ethnicity not identified with the state, perhaps above all to class.
Hobsbawm (1987, 149)
Justifications or purposes of education lie behind these, though not a common thread or observation. Probably not a common definition, either, except possibly an agreement that it is functional, the debate being what the function is.
Across the education system, the purpose, civic, social or economic, can be first knowledge-dispensing, but working towards greater initial assessment as the learner grows older in school, to become more engaged but less biddable in post-compulsory institutions.
Indeed, most discussion on learning focuses on the learner, the student, not the teacher and their function.
Knowledge-dispensing on the one side offers knowledge-extending on the other, but increasingly initial assessment is called for. Is discussion and debate between teacher and learner, the area of engagement where these faculties will be brought out?
'Knowledge is Power' proclaims the WEA.
'Live and Learn' says the OU both perceived goods.
But recently times have changed to seek justification against cost, an economic incentive.
'Education is the best economic policy we have', says Tony Blair, (cm 3790 1998 9), with no underlying assumptions spelled out.
The National Committee chaired by Lord Dearing was also heavily influenced by economic considerations.
The purpose of education is life enhancing: it contributes to the whole quality of life. So, to be a successful nation in a competitive world, and to maintain a cohesive society and a rich culture, we must invest in education to develop our greatest resource our people.
(National Committee (1997)7, para 1.1)
Currently, the stimulus for expansion in higher education, with appropriate qualitative improvement across the whole system is economic. That is the thread that seems to run through aspects of RTL complete with attempts at outcomes assessment, added value measures and cost effectiveness. It is an aspect of Government policy. Shades of academia are opening wide to surveyors who measure, to auditors with calculators.
RTL - a genuine trinity?
Education is not put on like vanish. It springs like a plant from the soil, and the fragrance of the earth is upon it. (R H Tawney, quoted by (Fryer (1997)) 56)
With education functioning economically and socially, RTL functions within that, the connection being into teaching and learning, and into research, to judge results - whether by league tables or any other form of 'impartial' measurement - that can be broadly applied. 'On its own merits' or even 'in its own terms' is not an option. The market to trade and sell dilutes into pre-determined categories. Personal philosophy and outlook is similarly drawn into this, and appreciated or otherwise by externally applied criteria. This despite the fact that, of its nature, learning is a personal experience, and potentially unique to each person in its effects.
In a period where templates, systems and patterns are applied, not always sensitively but often in a belief that they fit or can be made to fit any situation, Raymond Williams commented.
Masses are other people ...... There are in fact no masses, only ways of seeing people as masses.
McIlroy (1993) 5, who adds
This suggested the distortion of vision and humanity such formulaic seeing entails and the utility, in breaking this sterile, routine thinking, of applying the formula to include oneself.
Learning
Launching into a conspectus of adult learning, Mark Tennant notes:
two persistent problems .... The first is that there are insurmountable methodological difficulties in establishing 'phases' or 'stages' of adult life. The second is that much of the literature is historically and socially rooted and lacks any worthwhile generalizability.
Tennant (1993) 122
Further, in writing of recurrent education,
an under lying value is a humanistic concern for the individual. The idea of self-development, which is based on notions of individuality and growth, is contrasted with the opposing notions of enhancement, alienation and stagnation.
Tennant (1993) 122
David Kolb, writing on the process of experiential learning, finally feels obliged to offer his own definition of learning:
learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. This definition emphasises several critical aspects of the learning process as viewed from the experiential perspective. First is the emphasis on the process of adaptation and learning as opposed to content or outcomes. Second is that knowledge is a transformation process, being continously created and recreated, not an independent entity to be acquired or transmitted. Third, learning transforms experience in both objective and subjective forms. Finally, to understand learning, we must understand the nature of knowledge, and vice versa.
Kolb (1993) 155
An enigmatic final statement. Is it the nature of knowledge, its understanding or how it is presented that is the vital element? Facts are not straight forward, it is their interpretation, perhaps their presentation that infringe their neutrality . A political issue for the teacher, the purveyor of knowledge, who may not recognise their vulnerability in what they see as non-controversial subject matter. Love and enthusiasm for the subject will be conveyed by osmosis, a percolation of personality to a sympathetic audience, an empathetic connection. Strengthened where there is an initial interest in the subject or topic, as is more likely where adults are learning, since they usually have a choice denied to those in the compulsory sector of education.
Teaching and learning, a common pursuit for both teacher and learner in areas or on topics of common concern. The potential creativity of the relationship vulnerable to clashes of personality, disappointment of the learner where the teacher's approach or presentation fails to trigger excitement or enthusiasm in the subject or, perhaps, in some areas, fail to relate to students' life experience. An exchange, one has always supposed, improved by greater knowledge of the subject, thus of recent research, and ultimately of research itself. Research that might impinge on perceived understandings and interpretations of hitherto uncontentious accepted theory or knowledge.
Learning is certainly a key word for the present government. In the current cascade of prescriptive and assertively stated material from DfEE and others, the word is used repeatedly, but not defined. We have lifelong learning, a learning society, a culture of learning, a University for Industry forthcoming which is 'engaging people in learning for life,' the word is used far and wide in many contexts for official policy purposes : to develop learning opportunities, increase the availability and flexibility of learning, and removing financial barriers to learning.
Learning has become part of a Government policy framework which embraces training and vocational provision, higher education, and an attitude or outlook generated by economic change, and pressure to come to terms with it.
The Government is committed to the establishment of a learning society in which all people have opportunities to succeed. Increasing access to learning and providing opportunities for success and progression are fundamental to the Government's strategy. These are the keys to social cohesion and economic success.
(The Learning Age (1998a) 7)
The connections here are across society and within institutions. Learning is a commendable good, a given to which the individual is prompted to aspire within a predicted society of frequent job-changing, retraining, and with a network of ladders to climb for economic success.
Research
Where or what is the role of research in this? Working from the individual to the national or strategic, from the purpose of research - an expansion of knowledge for that individual and as a contribution from that individual to society, and on to the role of research in that society as a policy issue. Driven to functionalism yet again.
Dearing, concerning research, was very straight forward, in his assumptions over research and its role in higher education where:
we have identified four distinct purposes:
- to add to the sum of human knowledge and understanding;
- to reform and enhance teaching;
- to generate useful knowledge and inventions in support of wealth creation and an improved quality of life;
- to create an environment in which researchers can be encouraged, and given a high level of training.
National Committee Summary Report (1997) 21, para 52
The Government response to this and related recommendations (29-35, 52 and 72) was to give general support.
The Government is committed to maintaining a world class science base. It recognises the strains on the dual support system and has provided extra funding to enable universities to make a start on meeting urgent infrastructure and equipment needs for teaching and research in 1998-99. The position for future years is being considered in the context of the Comprehensive Spending Review.
The Learning Age (1998b)) 28.
Dearing (recommendation 34) suggested that:
the next Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) is amended to encourage institutions to make strategic decisions about whether to enter departments for the exercise or whether to seek a lower level of non-competitive funding to support research and scholarship which underpins teaching.
National Committee Summary Report (1997) 46
Clearly no problem here in seeing research as a significant part of teaching, presumably enhancing quality of content. Government acquiesced, and, on the background of a current HE funding bodies' consultation on the 'purposes, principles and scope' of the RAE, stated it
would like to see a process for assessing the quality of research which enhances quality and innovation.
The Learning Age (1998b)) 29, para 5.3
And yet ...
Education ministers have made clear their concern that academics' preoccupation with research - particularly the scramble for high research ratings and grants through the Research Assessment Exercise - has led to a neglect of teaching duties.
Lee Elliot Major, The Guardian Higher Education Supplement, April 14, 1998 p.1.
So one initiative can have unforeseen effects .
'The process' which might have offered an educational or official view of a link between research and teaching, came down, provisionally, to being
open to a greater number of influences than peer review, drawing on research expertise from outside UK universities where this is appropriate and can be done in a cost effective way.
The Learning Age(1998b)) 29, para 5.3.
In short, the current cavalcade of the use of the word, 'learning', in whatever context, is seen, by Government, as clear and uncontentious in meaning. Driven by its economic motor, it endorses Dearing's view that
there is scope for much greater use by industry of the research capabilities to be found in higher education.
The Learning Age (1998b)) 30, para 5.5.
The perspective shift in higher education, not an agent of change, but an agency for adapting to economically-induced change, and a society increasingly influenced by new technology. We are led back again to functionalism.
The ambiguity of the discussion emerges as: RTL taken for granted within a substantial element of Government policy, though understood as making three separate contributions from its three parts. On the other side, no definitional base on which to build and carry forward the policy commitment, except by outside or external influences, probably of a management kind which would have the responsibility for carrying through and extending structures and frameworks.
Today's Context
As this is written outcomes of the discussion generated by the arrival of a new Government with the power (if not the money) to deliver, and the debate following the reports and enquiries of Dearing, Kennedy and Fryer, and the studies carried out by them, plus political party policy documents and other publications, mainly Government, but from interested groups, has prompted initiatives, from a 'National Grid for Learning' to a 'University for Industry'. Ambition is strong, with rapid if not urgent progress sought.
Deadlines given run from 1998 to 2002, when most educational institutions and libraries will be connected to the Grid 'enabling perhaps 75% of teachers and 50% of pupils and students to use their own e-mail addresses by then'.
Connecting the Learning Society (1997) 11
The University for Industry has similarly wide aims.
By 2002, we expect that 2.5 million people or businesses a year will be using the UfI's range of information services and over 600,000 a year will be pursuing programmes of learning organised through the UfI. To get the UfI started, the Government is investing £15m in 1998-99.
The Learning Age (1998 c)) 5
Clearly, both are major initiatives, which could transform the context of any education discussion, especially if economically or employment related.
Going forward on a platform of assumptions that see RTL having functional roles, and success judged on those bases, presumably leads to a prosperous post-industrial society. The assumptions, economy- and employment-related, lead through to a heavier emphasis on the vocational provision and sector.
This is not at the expense of recognising an RTL contribution to personal development. David Blunkett in his forewords to recent DfEE responses to Dearing and Kennedy, stresses the economic - 'Learning is the key to prosperity. Investment in human capital will be the foundation of success in the knowledge-based global economy of the twenty-first century'. But also 'we value learning for its own sake' The Learning Age (1998) 7. and recognise a contribution also by suitable measures for 'social cohesion' The Learning Age (1998a)) 1.
Will these prospects of massive increases in participation be fulfilled by a population frequently criticised for its lack of interest in education and training.
The recently available National Adult Learning Survey, 1997, indicates optimism. So far as one comment can cover such a vast researched report,
The NALS estimate of the proportion of the population involved in learning was higher than estimates from two recent surveys on the same subject. It was concluded that this probably arose because NALS succeeded in tapping a broader range of learning experiences than did the previous surveys.
Beinant and Smith(1998) 13
Reflections
Whether there are also international influences at work is uncertain, but lifelong learning is part of a wide movement, in which RTL is to play its part.
There is a need to rethink and broaden the notion of lifelong education ....It should enable people to develop awareness of themselves and their environment and encourage them to play their social role at work and in the community.
Delors (1996) The Treasure Within quoted in Fryer (1997) cover.
Twenty-six years ago, Edgar Faure called for 'a vision of the whole' of education. 'We must think clearly in exploring new paths for the future.' Faure (1972) 175-6
The focus here is an individual within a democracy to which education is a main contribution:
.... democratic education must become a preparation for the real exercise of democracy .... Profound changes are taking place in public life and work but also in the daily lives of more and more men and women ... People are plagued by doubt and scepticism, by the decay in time honoured values, the latent threat of nuclear cataclysm and all it could lead to.... The emotional content and security derived from family and community life are losing their importance and being replaced by impersonal relationships in a factory, an administration or a plantation... A new alienation within consumer society may accordingly be added to the individual's traditional alienation within his work.