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Evidence and ethics

3.8 What would you like to find out?

A large classroom with adult students seated in rows, gender-separated. 3 educators sit behind a desk, 1 speaking with a mic.
Introducing my research at a teacher-training college in Lucknow, India.

© Leigh-Anne Perryman This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence 

Over the years I’ve researched several areas of education. I’ve repeatedly evaluated my own teaching, for example when investigating the impact of a new pedagogy. I stepped back from my teaching in my PhD research, which evaluated a pedagogical approach I’d designed for use in an Open University access-level arts module. More recently, I’ve been researching the potential impact of ICTs, open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices on the training of student teachers in India, and on women’s empowerment in the developing world.

Each of these research strands has focused on one or more research questions. For example, in a report carried out for the Commonwealth of Learning (Perryman, 2020) that evaluated the impact of a massive open online course on technology-enhanced learning (TEL MOOC), I asked:

  • What is TEL MOOC’s impact on participants’ attitudes and behaviour, especially their subsequent use of technology-enabled learning (TEL), open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP)?
  • How does this impact vary across diverse contexts?
  • What factors have contributed to and/or limited this impact, and how do they differ across diverse contexts?
  • What is TEL MOOC’s impact on stakeholders other than the participants themselves, for example on those participants’ colleagues and peers, on learners taught by those participants, on institution leaders, and on society more generally?

The potted history above of studies that I have carried out includes several different examples of educational research, ranging from investigations by an educator on their own teaching, to investigations of the practices of teachers in a different continent.

Now it’s over to you. A little earlier you were asked to think about what burning questions you’d like to research. Now reflect on your thoughts. 

  • Have you had any new ideas since then? 
  • What approach might you use to investigate your research questions?

Use this discussion area to share your ideas, and possible research questions with your fellow learners.

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