Building a Research Culture: A Formative Evaluation of the Business Research Interns Seminar Series
Supriya Singh
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
RMIT University
Melbourne, Australia
Charlotte Scarf
School of International & Community Studies, Portfolio of Design & Social Context
RMIT University
Melbourne, Australia
Bronwyn Coate
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
RMIT University
Melbourne, Australia
Conference Proceedings Index Names: SINGH, Supriya; SCARF, Charlotte and COATE, Bronwyn
Abstract: This paper evaluates a project that attempts to encourage greater dialogue among post-graduate researchers and staff in an Australian university. It aims to mitigate the loneliness of research, while building a collaborative way of working. The evaluation was done via open-ended interviews and a survey. We found it was the repeated personal contact and the resultant networking across disciplines that was the most valuable project outcome. This was particularly important where so much of the work is done while physically alone but electronically connected.
Keywords: Postgraduate research, Research culture, Face-to-face interaction, Multidisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity
Introduction
In this paper we describe the planning, implementation and evaluation of a research seminar series where staff and research students participated together. The aim of the seminar series was to encourage the development of a research culture in an environment where researchers often worked physically alone, though electronically connected. As the series was designed to appeal to an audience across the different disciplines of the Business Faculty, multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity are major themes. The emphasis in this paper is on the qualitative part of the evaluation that focused on research culture.
Building a Research Culture
A vibrant research culture is crucial to the experiences of students, researchers and the tangible outputs of research activity. Innovation in thinking and the capacity to be open to new ideas is at the center of the idea of a university and innovative teaching (Boyer, 1990). Building a research culture in Australia is not just an academic value, but it contributes to the university’s funding. Universities are rewarded for having a strong research base, measured by the number of publications, Higher Degree by Research student completions and external research income (Brew 2001).
The importance of a research culture has also increased as university teaching and contact is increasingly dependent on information and communication technologies (ICT). ICTs have become important to the development of research communities, particularly when people in a given research field are not co-located. However the existence of electronic communities does not necessarily translate to a satisfactory research environment, as research student surveys show (Barnacle 2002, 2003; Ainly, 2001). A satisfactory research environment depends more on the encouragement and innovation that are part of a researcher’s immediate environment. Hence face-to-face interaction with colleagues, supervisors and other research students becomes essential for a person to feel part of his or her immediate research community.
There are two streams of research that elucidate the importance of face-to-face relationships in an environment that is rich with electronic information. The first derives from the need to match the characteristics of media and activities. When new understandings have to be reached, and new relationships forged, face-to-face communication is essential (Singh, 2001; Lipnack & Stamps, 1997). This is particularly so for research students working across disciplines who “ must learn to see things differently. Seeing differently means learning to question the conceptual lenses through which we view and frame the world…" (Brown, 1997, p. x). According to Elgar (2002), PhD candidates working in distinct scientific disciplines are more likely to enjoy a research community than those working across disciplines.
However, even within the sciences, focusing only on electronic information can lead to “tunnel vision”, which ignores the valuable balance and perspective that context brings (Brown & Duguid 2000). “Attending too closely to information overlooks the social context that helps people understand what information might mean and why it matters" (ibid p. 5). To develop new intellectual constructs, researchers also need to be able to live in the “in-between” spaces of the disciplines, to live with not knowing. It is similar to the migrant experience of living “in-between” cultures (Bhabha, 1994). It means getting “lost in translation” (Hoffman, 1989) and then discovering another kind of groundedness. But in order to be vulnerable to this process, there has to be a sense of trust among co-researchers, so that these issues can be discussed and worked through. As Lipnack and Stamps (1997) say, trust is the social glue that pulls people together in teams and it is more easily fostered through face-to-face interaction than electronic communication.
The second area of research deals with fostering the development of research communities. According to Gurstein (2000), discussion of the impact of ICTs has to date concentrated on the “virtual.” But for most people their “physical” relationships with their “physical” communities remain of more significance (pp. 3-4). Barney (2000) also differentiates online communities from physical communities. He says there can be intense attachment to an online community because of common interests. At the same time such a community can also lead to a sense of rootlessness, for “Roots... create obligations that often conflict with interests, and bind more strictly than contracts. People... who are rooted belong to communities." (p. 213). As Loader, Hague and Eagle (2000 p.85) say, “It is something of a paradox that the very technologies that are being heralded as providing the basis for a resurgence of community life may also be the medium for introducing greater social discord and individual isolation.” Thus there remains a strong need for face-to-face interaction to foster the development of a shared sense of research community. It is important for the transfer of knowledge, for knowledge is more than a matter of databases and the garnering of information (Brown & Duguid, 2000).
Planning the BRI Seminar Series
The Business Research Interns (BRI) Seminar Series began on 9 September 2002. It was modeled on a successful seminar series at an International Research Centre in the same university. Every fortnight, graduate students and staff meet to present and discuss issues relating to their research experience. A student and a staff researcher present for ten minutes each followed by 15 minutes discussion.
The BRI series was initiated and supported by the Faculty of Business’ Research Development Unit. It was one of the strategies used to fulfill the department’s brief to encourage a research culture within the Faculty (RMIT Business Research Report, 2002)
The BRI series addressed the loneliness of graduate students – one of the key points that was repeatedly raised in the exit surveys and the On-going Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (Barnacle 2002, 2003). It was also hoped that the seminar series would help staff and students from different schools of the Faculty get to know each other, aiding their multidisciplinary perspective. Soon after the series began, the Research Students’ Research Seminar series also folded into it. Hence this became the only Faculty-wide forum for research presentation.
Implementing the Seminar Series
The seminar series was implemented within two months of the initial proposal.
The seminar started with introductions. This set the informal community tone, but it also served a useful purpose, for the group was always different, except for a small core. Moreover the series attracted people from across the faculty and hence one could not assume that people knew each other. The series was well attended particularly in its early stages. Analysing the attendance figures from 23 September 02 to 17 November 03, we found there was a good spread of staff and students from different schools. Of the 113 people who attended, eight staff and six students attended more than five seminars.
NumberN=113 / Percentage
Attendance
Staff / 60 / 53
Students / 37 / 32
Others / 16 / 15
Spread across Faculty
Business Information Technology / 27 / 24
Research Centres and RDU / 26 / 23
Economics and Finance / 17 / 15
Management / 14 / 12
Marketing / 10 / 9
Others / 19 / 17
Table 1: BRI attendance and spread across the Faculty
Evaluation Methodology
We evaluated the BRI seminar series ten months after it started. We drew on available statistics on the BRI series, noting the spread and frequency of attendance and the subjects covered in the presentations. We conducted open-ended interviews with 10 persons (3 staff, 6 students and 1 staff and student). Eight of these people were regular attendees, whereas two had attended at the most two sessions. Participants included eight men and two women. The interviews focused on the researchers’ interpretation of research culture; the role of the BRI seminar series in their research experience, and recommendations for improvement. The initial analysis of these interviews fed into the questionnaire design.
Questionnaires were sent to the 57 staff and 37 students who had participated in at least one seminar since the series began. We had a response rate of 35% for staff and a 32% response rate from students with all returned surveys being able to be used. The composition of those who participated in the survey revealed there was a spread of participation between different types of researchers in terms of both the level of experience and discipline areas.
Underpinning the analysis is the program logic model which graphically articulates the aims, implementation and formative evaluation of the BRI series (The W. K. Kellogg Foundation, 2003). As we were evaluating the series shortly after it had begun, we did a formative evaluation.
We note upfront one of the limitations of this evaluation. The evaluation team comprised the persons who were instrumental in setting up and running the series. So in the open-ended interviews, we wondered whether the participants were giving us too positive a picture because they knew of our role in the BRI series. We were also conscious of the way academic hierarchy may influence the responses. To counter this, members of the team only interviewed those who were at their level or above it.
Overall, this was a positive evaluation. The staff and students with whom we spoke, felt the important plus points were the diversity of presentations, the emphasis on the sharing of research experiences and the opportunities for networking outside disciplinary boundaries. There were recommendations for improving the series ranging from having a home on the research floor; providing lunch; and inviting industry practitioners and Adjunct Professors. Also far-reaching in their importance were the suggestions that the invitation to the BRI focus more generally on the audience the presenters were hoping to attract; and making more time for discussion. In this paper however, we focus on the question of research culture and how a common understanding of the importance of face-to-face interaction in fostering research culture can inform future efforts.
Factors that Encourage a Research Culture
Students spoke more easily of a research community and research experience, rather than research culture. These were connected concepts for a shared research experience led to a sense of a research community. Staff also spoke of a research culture under these circumstances, but also in the context of deploring the lack of such a culture and trying to develop it.
Research community
The search for a research community was often driven by a sense of loneliness. Only one of the seven students (including one who was a member of staff and a student) to whom we spoke felt they were part of a research community. The three characteristics most sought from this community were support; comfort and nurturing; and understanding that come from a shared experience.
Loneliness of research
Loneliness was a common theme for research students. They attributed it to the pervasive culture of a large, disparate university, which did not actively provide tools for networking across the disciplinary boundaries. For those for whom their graduate work was their first research experience, there was a longing for an environment that was supportive, that would alleviate the loneliness of research, that would allow for networking at different levels.
Edwina, a research student and also a casual academic, feels she is “stuck between two worlds”. She says,
I was told by my supervisors that you’re only actually going to have two people for the next three years who (care).. about what you’re doing and it’s us. …So you just sit away typing in your office and hope to God that you know what you’re talking about.
Graeme, a part time PhD student, says the BRI seminars were a “life line” He had completed the first two years of his PhD by correspondence from overseas. “I was very isolated,” he says. He says the BRI series was the first opportunity to “sit down with other people who were going through any of the same processes I was and talk to them.”
Support, comfort and nurturing
Research students sought the feeling of being supported, and were comforted by placing their experience within a shared framework. It was also the place where they learned how to present in a supportive environment
The students say this sense of support and comfort comes from the diversity of presentations and audiences. The multi and interdisciplinarity of the series means that the focus is on the methodology, rather than critical debates in your field. The most memorable seminars had been those which focused on methodological problems in the research and how they had been addressed.
For Dana, a member of staff, this emphasis on methodology was also the binding factor. She says, “Methodologies was always a way to get you there, no matter what the topic was, because you can reapply methodology to different areas.. …”
The multi and interdisciplinarity also meant that people were focused on the individual researchers and their research process, rather than theories in any one discipline. For researchers in the faculty who were not attached to any one School, the series represented common ground. For two students, Chris and Edwina, this meant that they were comfortable to present at BRI. Edwina says, “…. because there’s really no real expert in the BRI audience, unless they’ve come specifically, they’re not really there to ridicule people or cut them down”.
A shared research experience