Towards effective Andragogies: Implementing Research-based education at undergraduate and

postgraduate levels

Promoting constant formal investigation and institutional research output

Dr C McWade

Abstract

This paper draws on existing theories and accounts of research-based education, as well as the
author’s own experience implementing this form of andragogy in a pilot assessment process, to
ultimately recommend research-based education and staff-student partnerships in learning and
teaching as effective means to: engage with and motivate students; empower staff; bridge the gap
between teaching and research; generate institutional research output in the context of teaching-
intensive workloads; build relationships with industry players; promote cross-disciplinary
assessment; and establish and maintain goal-directed staff-student relationships (partnerships) in
both undergraduate and postgraduate arenas. The paper recommends a dual-andragogical approach
of cognitive apprenticeship and structured improvisation in executing research-based education,
over and above the standard and natural use of active learning and experiential learning as part of
the Student-centred Learning philosophy that characterises research-based education.
In the last few decades, educators have come to understand that the traditional top-down, one-way
mode of education that involves delivery of knowledge from the teacher is outdated and ineffective.
We know that running classes in this way treats students as passive consumers of knowledge, who
are then under pressure to prove their internalization of knowledge in assessments. We also know
that education needs to be more relevant to ‘the real world’ as is the primary mandate of andragogy
as outlined by Malcolm Knowles. Gamification, jigsaw method teaching, student-centred learning,
and the flipped classroom are all methods that have been developed and applied in classrooms
(whether physical or digital) towards supporting learning in more active and meaningful ways.

Now, a new body of research on andragogy, student-staff partnerships and research-based

education has emerged in the last few years, and the principles and philosophies of it are truly
game-changing. While the above-mentioned methods can be effective, they typically maintain the
teacher-student hierarchy and employ traditional methods of assessment where students are
required to prove their competence under pressure and where teachers are under pressure as
gatekeepers of knowledge who always know better than students. Student-staff partnerships and
research-based education represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between teachers and
staff and in the philosophy of what we call assessment.

Quite simply, the method involves establishing partnerships between teachers and students such
that all parties learn together and undertake a common learning journey with a common goal. In
other words, “students are welcomed into the world of research where staff normally reside, rather
than being excluded from it” (Brew 2006). Essentially, the idea is to build “an institutional culture
that values students as participants in knowledge construction, as producers of knowledge, within
the university learning community” and so to develop “students [as] active participants in their own
learning in the classroom and engaged in all aspects of university efforts to enhance education”
(Tong, Standen, and Sotiriou, 2019).

Lessons and assessments are designed to support this common learning journey and its shared
goals, which sees teachers and students collaborating on one mission, whose end goal is the co-
production of something that can be published, sold, publicly displayed/shown or otherwise
mobilized in what we refer to as ‘the real world’, or what people who live there simply refer to as
‘the world’.

Indeed, this ‘real world’ is at the centre of Malcolm Knowles’ concept of andragogy, which frames
research-based education and student-staff-partnerships. The theory of andragogy holds that adults
learn differently from children, and that the term ‘pedagogy’ as having its root in ‘ped’ as in ‘relating
to children’ is an inappropriate term in higher education. The theory goes that we should adopt the
term andragogy in relation to educational design and strategy, and in so doing act in sensitivity to
the nature and goals of adult learners.

Andragogy makes the following assumptions about the design of adult learning:

(1) Adults need to know why they need to learn something [i.e. they need to know how what they
are doing in class is relevant to their goal to thrive in a career and make money]

(2) Adults need to learn experientially [i.e. they need to gain practical skills that will ultimately help
them thrive in a career and make money]

(3) Adults approach learning as problem-solving [i.e. they need to be able to practice being able to
solve work-related problems], and

(4) Adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value [i.e. immediately valuable to thriving in a
career and making money].

(Knowles, 1984)

Andragogy (Malcolm Knowles) - InstructionalDesign.org

The above needs of adult learners can be collapsed into two main concerns, which are also the goals
of andragogy: relevance, and purpose. We all know that there must be direct relevance of education
to success in the workplace, which ultimately translates into income generation. Industry-alignment
is rightfully a major goal of STADIO, and we have systems and processes in place to liaise with
industry, and to consult with them in the drawing up of syllabi, and to include them and their
insights in setting up assessments and lessons. In addition to this, we have the modules of
Experiential Learning and internships as part of BA Honours Programme. We also approach industry
professionals to act as guest speakers for the students. These activities are no doubt integral to
ensuring the industry relevance of educational content, but there is also further way: for the
facilitator to BECOME the guest speaker – to BECOME the kind of industry player that we are
currently seeking and consulting externally, while at the same time performing their role as
educator. The question has been: how can I as an educator be meaningfully active and present in
the industry when I am so busy teaching all the time? Indeed, “The relationship between research
(contribution to knowledge) and teaching (sharing of knowledge) is one that is often defined by a
binary divide” (Schapper and Mayson 2010 cited in Naseem and Fleming, 2018:227)). The worlds of
industry research and then teaching have been at odds with each other for too long, and they need
to now be united.

What we surely must do, is to make sure that all the resources we have at our disposal in our lessons
that are in support of the assessments are not set up to prepare students for being effective
employees after they graduate, but rather, to develop them, and ourselves, as industry players
during their studies, guided by a facilitator who is also directly involved in the industry. It is here
where a strategic implementation of research-based education can work as an effective
intervention.

The literature on staff-student partnership, as encouraged in andragogy, emphasises the following

driving principles:

- The balance of power between educator and student must be dismantled and redistributed
- Reciprocity and mutual trust must be secured
- The roles of each party in the partnership must be clearly defined (since “uncertainty about
roles can be paralysing” (Standen, 2018)
- Students must be treated as producers of knowledge, and as capable of doing this at all
levels
- Mistakes and learning from failure are encouraged as part of a spirit of investigation in
which teachers and students undertake to constantly find things out and develop knowledge
as the process develops
- Relatedly, the teacher does not, and does not have to know everything upfront, or ever. In
fact, embracing the fact that students may at times know more than the teacher is beneficial

Telfer and Oliver (2018) list the following benefits of student-staff partnerships and research-based
education, which are echoed by most educators involved in this field. The advantages mostly relate
to building confidence among students, securing mutual trust in the staff-student relationship,
community-building, and securing student buy-in in an educational process. They state:

- Research-based education and staff-student partnerships offer students greater exposure to

workplace culture and helps improve preparedness
- Research-based education encourages students to engage in ‘double-loop learning’ (Argyris
and Schön 1978), whereby they are able to learn from their errors: not simply to ‘do better
next time’ but to structurally change the approach that created the error. This is a core
feature of academic research but is less often applied to the learning process both at
 university and in the workplace. The rate of change now present in our ever faster-paced
society means that previous norms of knowledge acquisition and application are no longer
valid for long-term skill and resource planning. In short, what we know and learn today will
not be what we need to know for long
- Research-based education makes students participants and has an emphasis on processes
and problems over rote learning. This means it offers greater capacity for team-work and
collaboration. This approach can be utilised to put students in almost real-life research
scenarios, or in some circumstances combine their academic studies with real-life projects.
Cases have been seen where students are encouraged to find a problem in their
communities and set out to solve it using a combination of the university’s resources and
their own enterprise
- For students, working on the cusp of knowledge is exciting and pioneering and it can
increase engagement and motivation. As they explore the limitations of their own
understanding in a real-world and live research setting, students are encouraged to acquire
knowledge suitable to their research needs. The concept of this skill – being able to not just
learn what you need to operate now but being able to learn how to learn to operate – is vital
in a fast-paced and competitive world. Research-based education is about how knowledge is
created – the process behind innovation” (Telfer & Oliver, 2018:245).
- Both research-based education and student–staff partnership increase student motivation,
confidence and attainment among those who take part (Healey and Jenkins, 2009; Cook-
Sather et  al., 2014).
- Research-based education helps to create inclusive knowledge building communities
because students are welcomed into the world of research where staff normally reside,
rather than being excluded from it (Brew 2006). This induction into the research community
also improves professional socialisation (Healey and Jenkins 2009). (Marie, 2018:37).
- Exposure to scholarly activity enhances students’ role through the depth of learning and
understanding of the subject and course content. Students get access to up-to-date
knowledge (preferably from a range of researchers and not simply dominated by the
teacher’s work). This fosters students’ intellectual development, and provides them an
opportunity to get an insight into the research process (e.g. planning, data collection
methods, analysis and ethics (Naseem and Fleming, 2018:228)
- Research-based education in its design provides students with a growing sense of resilience
due to the pioneering, independent and mistake-driven learning process at its core. The
model of ‘listen, learn, repeat and assess’ means that students have only one chance to get
 it right. Pass or fail remains largely detached from the actual process of learning itself. This is
a process that almost entirely vanishes in the workplace, with challenges and expectations a
daily occurrence. Research-based education’s design means that mistakes can be made and
approaches adjusted accordingly. It better mimics the way that challenges really work ‘out
there’ and better prepares students to be ready when they occur.
- Embarking on research-based education projects with students where it is clear to them that
there is no known outcome – that they are working in new territory, on the frontiers of
knowledge  – invites their confidence to grow. The desirable outcome that research-based
education offers in this regard I s having students who do not know the answer but are
excited by that absence of knowledge and understand what to do to, who have mastered
the processes to go through to find an answer. And thus, they are more prepared for daily
life in the workplace setting.
(Telfer & Oliver, 2018: 245)

Telfer and Oliver (2018) and others outline the benefits of student-staff partnerships for students,
but in our experience, the method has many advantages for educators as well. The approach
drastically changes what we refer to as ‘work’ for the better. The investigative spirit of research lifts
pressure off the educator as they undergo the common learning journey with the students and
embrace that mistakes are part of the process rather than indictments on their capabilities.
Additionally, as the educator is also a partner and contributes to the project alongside students,
their ‘work’ shifts from the prep involved in setting up exercises and PowerPoint slides to
contributing to the project (whether this be in the form of research, writing, designing etc.) and then
are able to use those contributions as teaching resources in class to simultaneously show students
what is expected and be active players in the industry themselves. Thus, educators are empowered
as they contribute to the common learning journey and the ‘work’ becomes more about constant
investigation and building and less about constructing hypothetical, anticipatory lectures or
exercises. The teaching resources, then, are drafts of the final project as the facilitator builds it week
by week. Then, assessments are used for the students to contribute their pieces, on which they are
marked.

So, this all sounds like a great idea with benefits to both staff and students, but actually
implementing it is not so straightforward. Application of the method requires a definite andragogical
strategy and sensitivity to the particular conditions and context in which the learning is to take place:
number of students involved, whether on-campus or online, NQF level, available time (lesson length
and module length) and other resources
Given our experience of piloting student-staff partnerships at tertiary level, we recommend a three-
pronged andragogical strategy of active learning, structured improvisation, and cognitive
apprenticeship:

1. Active learning:

Research-based education and staff-student-partnerships naturally fall under the Student Centred
Learning philosophy of Active learning – i.e., simply that students are actively involved in co-creating
something, and learn by doing (Marie, 2018: 33); (Bonwell and Eison 1991).

2. Structured Improvisation:

Structured improvisation, a creative andragogy that has its roots in the structured dynamism of jazz
music, “requires a perceptiveness and flexibility” (Sawyer) and demands that facilitators: “are
comfortable with ambiguity; think metaphorically and juxtapose seemingly incongruent and novel
ideas in new and interesting ways; and acknowledge and use fluid and flexible identities” (Abramo &
Reynolds, 2015, p. 37). Further, Halliwell (1993:71), outlines structured improvisation as involving
adaptability and perceptiveness – it is “the ability to read a situation; the willingness to take risks;
the ability to monitor and evaluate events”. As such, adaptation and flexibility are important to this
andragogy, but always within a defined framework.fill the gap between the “the curriculum-as-
planned and the curriculum-as-lived” (Beghetto and Kaufman, 2011:94) where the latter is more in
line with Student Centredness, as the curriculum-as-planned can become dictatory. The current
tertiary education environment is rigidly structured, perhaps as a response to the chaos and
uncertainty brought about during the pandemic era as well the digital age, which education is now
firmly a part of. Structure brings certainty and feelings of control, but it can also limit creativity if it is
too unyielding to be able to adapt to new and important insights, particularly if these come from the
students. Student-staff partnerships encourage structure, but not to the detriment of
experimentation, evolution, and the investigative spirit of research. Such a formulation may be
experienced as threatening in a space that seeks to control operations as much as possible as a way
to offset chaos and uncertainty – but, in such a mindframe, we are less likely to take risks, to
experiment, and ultimately progress towards achieving our goals.

Apprenticeship is an andragogy used in practical, skills-based teaching and learning environments

whereby a ‘demonstrate, apply and aim high’ approach is used. This is a shared experience whereby
the ‘master’ guides the ‘apprentice’ into a new sense of confidence and independence (Larson,
2015:8, David, 2012). In student-staff parnerships and research-based education, the principle of
apprenticeship can be applied to text-based subjects through Cognitive Apprenticeship. Here, 
Role/identity of the educator:

In student centred learning theory (SCL) the facilitator is said to need to shift from being the “sage
on the stage” to being “the guide on the side” (Morrison, 2014). This is an advisable way of thinking,
but it is incomplete. The idea here is to move away from top-down didactic ‘lecturing’, and to
include the student in the learning process: both good moves. However, in cognitive apprenticeship,
the facilitator is still a kind of ‘master’: an industry player, a more active “guide” capable of showing
the students how to complete industry-relevant tasks. “Guide on the side” as a formulation does not
capture that part of the relationship: that the facilitator, as an industry expert, does have things to
show, and can, at times, be ‘sage-like’, and use the stage not to pontificate and perform, but to
demonstrate practical skills relevant to the industry. The term ‘master’ though, is also incomplete
and not fully reflective of the kind of relationship we need, as it comes with a measure of pressure,
which is not useful at all in these contexts. The facilitator needs to be a ‘fallible master’ – one who is
still learning, one who completes the tasks alongside the ‘apprentices’ and is allowed to make
mistakes, and learn from those mistakes – the ‘fallible master’ is on their own journey of learning,
and they are using what they have learnt in their journey so far to help students along their own
journey, as well as take that journey with them: after all, we are dealing with a common journey in
this strategy. But the learning and teaching process is also a common journey that all parties are
undertaking together – it is just that the relationships between each member of the team
undertaking the journey need to be designed with the ultimate goal in mind. In order to reach the
goal, which is to collaboratively conduct investigations into the and generate research output that
advances that field, the facilitator cannot be simply a ‘guide on the side’, nor can they be a ‘sage on
the stage’, nor can they be a ‘master’ of apprentices – rather, the figure of the ‘fallible master’ is the
best terminology to establish the relationship between facilitator and student characteristic of
cognitive apprenticeship and structured improvisation as andragogies in support of research-based
education.

As such, cognitive apprenticeship emphasises the need for the facilitator to do the work that the
students are expected to do, and through that, ‘show them how it is done’ in a real, tangible way,
which also serves to develop the facilitator’s own skills (professional development). Once the
facilitator has done the demonstration (e.g. live writing) the students together with the facilitator
‘mark’ the facilitator’s contribution using the marking rubric for the assessment – this gives students
a better idea of what the criteria mean, and how they are used. During this process, the facilitator
does not need to achieve ‘full marks’ every time, or at any time – the point is not for the facilitator to
show off, but rather two 1. Promote learning through demonstration 2. Develop a common
understanding of the marking criteria in relation to the work. The facilitator may achieve, for
example, 70% for their live writing contribution/demonstration – as long as they are able to show,
discuss, and explain the ‘short-comings’ of what they produce and how it could be improved (and
then indeed demonstrate that improvement) the purpose of this method will be fulfilled.

Live Writing as a feature of cognitive apprenticeship, structured improvisation, and research-based

education

This is a key process of both cognitive apprenticeship and structured improvisation. And it is not
easy. Live Writing can feel like pressure, but it should not be pressurized. Essentially, the facilitator
takes advantage of the screen share function of their online platform to conduct a live writing
demonstration. The mood of this process is exploratory, and there is room for the facilitator to
change their minds, edit, and make mistakes, as is typical of research-based education – in fact,
those are built into the system. The facilitator must be prepared going into the session, have all
necessary resources on hand, and have an idea of what they are going to write, and should have a
structure in place – this should all be informed by the goal and by the direction the article needs to
take at the time of the Live Writing session. The facilitator should have all the resources on hand
(theory, data etc.) and then should show, through a demonstration, how to articulate insights
through academic writing, whether as part of building a theoretical framework in conversation with
secondary sources, or analysing raw, primary data through academic writing. As much as the process
is prepared and planned, the beauty of it is that it is also spontaneous – and allows the facilitator to
write freely and exploratively, knowing that what is produced does not have to be ‘perfect’ – in fact,
it can be very much imperfect in a lot of ways, as long as the facilitator is able to articulate why, in
conversation with the marking criteria – which needs to be ever present during the Live Writing
demonstrations.

Designing language towards establishing goal-aligned relationships

In research-based education, the staff-student relationship is fundamentally altered in a few ways: it

becomes more collaborative, more equal, and less driven by power dynamics. As both staff and
students are co-architects of knowledge, it becomes okay for the facilitator to not know everything,
and even to recognise that students may know more than them at times (Clarke, 2018). While the
pressure of perfection and omnipotence is lifted, the facilitator does necessarily maintain a level of
seniority in this more democratic relationship. Essentially, “If students are included as legitimate co-
producers of knowledge, this interaction can create a space where genuine dialogue can take place,
further enforcing a change in the hierarchical dynamic between staff and students” (Clarke, 2018:89)
and “when students have the experience of producing knowledge themselves, instead of passively
receiving it, they may learn to appreciate that no one knows it all, and in some situations, students
may even know more than staff” (ibid).

The system, as a form of research-based education, uses language that has been designed with the
end goal in mind – to produce an outcome that can live in ‘the real world’ and that adds insight into
and meaningfully contributes to the industry, and positions both facilitators and students as active
doers as opposed to exclusively teachers and students. The language used aims to foster goal-
aligned relationships between all involved:

Traditional terminology Student-staff partnership/andragogical

terminology
Lecturer/facilitator Fallible master
Students co-architects of knowledge
Submissions Contributions
Assessment Cycle Contribution cycle
Working (as in, the weekly work of the Researching
facilitator)
Independent learning hours Practice hours
Lecture/class/lesson Building session
Group Creative coalition

Implementation: Ensuring/encouraging investment from students

As established, adult learners are most engaged with they can appreciate the direct correlation
between what they are doing in class and their career prospects. Any disconnect between those two
things will lead to disengagement, except among students who happen to enjoy the subject matter
and excel at it naturally. The challenge with theory-based, text-based subjects, as noted, is that they
don’t always have a natural, immediate relationship with the career path. Injecting research into the
scenario through research-based education is the first step in addressing this problem, as students
become academic citizens and co-authors of a tangible product that feeds the industry. They also
learn transferrable research skills which, as noted, is a profitable industry in and of itself, with an in-
built demand. At the same time, students may have aspirations of, for example, becoming a fashion
designer, and not a publishing academic or a researcher – so, even if they do get published through
this assessment process, that might not mean much to them. How do we then encourage
investment in the process for such students? The suggestion is that what is needed is the creation of
a project that all students will feel excited about, and willing to contribute to. The facilitator could
determine what this might be in conversation with the students, to ensure maximum levels of
interest. The targeted journal could also be chosen in this way.

It is also advisable in this regard to strategically build a defined culture around the project that
students can key into, and be a part of creating as part of promoting investment and participation.
This involves almost branding the project, in a way that can inform the ‘content’ relating to the
project, including its presence on social media, obviously under the banner of the institution as a
whole. So, the identity and values of the project need to be clearly defined in a CI (corporate
identity) guide so that all communications around the project are aligned with its identity and goals.
Culture-building is a significant challenge in the online space, and, in the case of Stadio, where the
identities of the subsidiaries are negotiated with the identity of the parent company. A strategized CI
document applied to the project can help to offset these challenges.

Implementation: Scalability

The existing body of work on research-based education tends to be celebratory, exploring the
obvious benefits of a common research journey that includes students in staff research and positions
research at the centre of learning and teaching, often without taking into account the practicalities
of implementing the idea. While some authors have noted the challenges inherent in doing things in
this way (such as the challenge of collaborating with external institutions, and the discomfort of
‘ceding’ control to students in the new, more equal relationship, most contributions to this field tend
to frame and recommend research-based education projects as democratic – as a kind of utopian
scenario in which all involved are motivated, interested, and, crucially, represented in the research
output. Most case studies also tend to apply research-based education to the postgraduate context,
where the application is perhaps more natural and possibly easier, given the higher level and
typically lower student numbers. The field has not yet addressed the issue of scalability, and the
challenge of running a research-based education project with, for example, large undergraduate
classes.

In traditional apprenticeship relationships, the ‘master’ works one on one with the apprentice, or
perhaps works with a couple of apprentices, typically not entering into double figures. 100+
apprentices presents a challenge for drawing up a single, co-authored outcome. How can we
navigate this constraint?

The pilot version of this idea took a democratic approach, and aimed to include ALL students (all 115
‘apprentices’) and their contributions in the final output. In one view, this could be seen as a
mistake, and entry into the final article needs to be earned, just as journals reject submissions, for
various reasons. The alternative would be to use only the work of students whose contributions
achieve 75% and higher, thus limiting the number of final co-authors and making it easier for the
facilitator to compile, edit, and integrate the final product with their own contributions. The caveat
here is that in any module there will be students who are naturally interested in the content, those
who are naturally proficient in the skills, and those who are not interested, and not naturally
proficient. The latter group may not be motivated by the prospect of being published, and may be
discouraged by their perceived lack of skill in the field, and demotivated by what they perceive to be
a slim chance of ‘getting in’. Then, even if motivation to excel and contribute is sparked by the
potential for being published (the carrot on the string), this approach could foster a competitive
environment among students, which could be counterproductive to a collaborative project.

Both approaches (the democratic and the merit-based) therefore carry significant pitfalls towards
achieving the goal.

This is an outline of the potential problems (cons) of each approach to research-based education:

Democratic approach cons Meritocratic approach cons

Logistic challenge of integrating large numbers
of contributions (can get overwhelming)
Repetition across mass contributions makes it
hard to represent each contribution in the final
product – overlaps in contributions, especially
in cases of standardized assessment
Challenge of being obligated to use/include
weak(er) contributions – performing ‘academic
gymnastics’ after the fact
Knowing that they are automatically ‘in’ may
not be the best thing for motivation to improve
among students
Creates a competitive culture, not a
collaborative culture
Could demotivate students who are not
naturally ‘good’ at the subject
Inherently exclusionary
Positions facilitator as a gate-keeper, thus
interfering with the more equal relationship
between facilitator and student required for
research-based education
 Does not accurately reflect research/publishing
industry

Having thought through this, and lived through this, the best approach is the meritocratic approach.
It is simply impossible to run a common research journey with 100+ students in which all students
are included in the final output. Additionally, in my experience, the democratic approach is not great
for motivation. While there are potential pitfalls of the meritocratic approach (as outlined in the
table above), there are ways to do it that limit those issues and also maximize the advantages that a
meritocratic approach can have.

Based on the above table, the meritocratic approach has slightly less cons. Further, each of these
cons relates to levels of motivation and demotivation. Thus, if the issue of motivation can be solved,
then the meritocratic approach might be the best. The communication here could be, “if your work
is good enough, it will make it in, and if it is not good enough, then you will have another chance to
make it good enough”. If, hypothetically, all the work from all the groups (creative coalitions) ends
up being ‘good enough’ and makes it in, then we arrive at similar problems as with the democratic
approach (overlaps in content), although without the problem of having to integrate weak work.

An analysis of the above table yields insight into two main problem-themes: volume and standard.
Where volume is high, the task of compiling a co-authored research article becomes difficult. Where
weak work is involved, the task of integrating a co-authored research article becomes difficult.

Typically, and at times for good reason, higher student numbers are seen as a challenge, as
something to manage. But in the context of research-based education, they can also be an
opportunity. Imagine 100+ students circulating the same data collection instrument and collecting
data from their networks en-masse. Think of all the raw data we would be able to collect for our
common journey!

This is a table of the ‘pros’ of each approach:

Democratic approach pros Meritocratic approach pros

Inclusive Exclusivity can spark motivation (prestige)
Relationship between students and facilitator Facilitator is not overwhelmed by the
can be truly equal contributions and obligation to find a place for
each
Fully collaborative culture More accurately reflects industry
Implementation: Group work/Creative Coalitions

The first thing to do is to divide the cohort into groups/creative coalitions. This reduces the number
of contributions and deals, in part, with the issue of volume. However, managing group work,
particularly online, is a massive challenge. As all educators are fully aware, the chance of conflict
within the group is always high. So, we need ways to manage what is essentially an eventuality of
group work – that there will be group members with different levels of investment and motivation in
the process. It is naïve to think that every member of the group will be of the same skill level and the
same level of motivation. The first piece of advice here is to include a peer-review system, in which
students rate and review each other based on the expectations as outlined in the brief. Students will
respond to specific questions about their peers. Another advisable strategy for the facilitator to map
individual contributions within each group is to make Google docs mandatory – all groups must set
up a Google doc, and invite the facilitator to it. This way, the facilitator can see the activity of each
group member, allowing them to create space in the rubric for a mark/grade for each individual, as
opposed to a group mark exclusively. The facilitator can also make their own contributions to that
Google doc as a way to fulfil the required demonstration of cognitive apprenticeship. This should
also motivate each individual to contribute meaningfully to the group. Of course, there would also
be penalties for non-participation on the Google doc.

It is also suggested that, towards each contribution (assessment) cycle, each group project manage
the process, taking into account the expectations involved for the contribution, and the time
available. Students should be issues with a project management document that will stipulate what
each group member is responsible for, deadlines for contributions within the group, as well as
when/where necessary meetings between group members will take place, as well as the agenda of
those meetings. Each group will need to collaborate to complete this document, which the facilitator
will then use to compile the overarching project management document that includes the activities
and work of each group and the facilitator, which obviously need to add up to the realisation of the
final outcome. This will help to define expectations and roles, thus clarifying how the relationships
work, towards successfully achieving the goal of producing publishable research.

Challenges:

standardization vs variety
The issue with volume, though, is really about overlaps brought about by standardization – multiple
groups producing work on the same prescribed theory and the same case studies, leading to
repetition of points. Ideally in a co-authored article you would want the co-authors working on
different sections, not on the same sections competing for space. But, in the formal education space,
students need to be assessed on standardized tasks so that everybody learns and is assessed on the
same skills – or at least, that has been the tradition. For example, you can grade 30 introductions
and conclusions on their merit in accordance with the skills displayed, but you can’t use all of them
in a single industry product that needs only one introduction. Similarly, if the facilitator were to
identify what the research article needed going into the next contribution cycle, and prescribe what
was needed, all the groups would research into that need and then produce overlapping work that
would be difficult to integrate into a combined project – you could, for instance, have the same
points from different groups, all made well, but all essentially repetitions of each other, if the task
was standardized and prescribed, as it needs to be in formal education. Research into research-
based education seems to imply that the process can develop organically as “although the problem
to be solved may be set, inquiry is contingent by its nature and students are likely to take the
research in different directions, according to their interests” (*). But what does a facilitator do to
manage 100+ different interest-based directions? What chaos would there be if the brief and rubric
are as unstructured as the current research on research-based education implies they would/should
be? How do we reconcile the exploratory, investigative nature of research with the formal
educational need to standardize student output for the purposes of assessment?

One suggestion to try and navigate these concerns is to present students with options – the
facilitator would identify what is needed for the research article going forward, and present the
students with subheadings that encapsulate those needs: students can then choose which
subheadings they would be most interested in tackling. This would soften the concern of repeated
content, while also making more space more variation. It would be key here to make sure that the
sub-headings prompt work that can be assessed using the same marking instrument for each
contribution – i.e. that the same skills are promoted and assessed. There is opportunity here though
for a scenario of different content, but same skills – as in, for example, building the body of a
literature review to which different groups will contribute writing on different authors and theories,
but will display the same skills involved in contributing to a literature review: that is, analysis and
synthesis.

On the same concern of the tension between standardization and variety, how do we define what a
contribution needs to look like at each point of submission? Is there a word count for each, and a
penalty for exceeding it? A specific number of paragraphs required? Practically, the process does
need this kind of structure to not devolve into chaos – the issue is, though, as the students conduct
their research into the topic/s, the process of exploratory investigation starts to fight against the
word count, which starts to feel more and more like a restriction and less like an agent of structure
and orientation. Nevertheless, there does need to be some level of control through structure, failing
which absolute chaos is likely to reign. The terms of each contribution, including length and depth,
therefore need to be strictly defined and adhered to by the students.

Scaling by NQF level – dealing with the earlier levels in particular

One might argue that the ‘high level of work’ and thinking involved in dealing with primary research
would be inappropriate for, for example, first year students – typically, we reserve knowledge-
creation for higher NQF levels, and maintain that first and second year students are ‘not there yet’.
Indeed, Research Methodology as a module is typically offered at honours (NQF 8) level only. So, to
suggest that even first year students (NQF 5 at BA) could be co-architects of knowledge and
strategically collect and analyse primary data, or at least begin to, goes against what we know, or
what we have assumed about students at that level. We do not think it is useful to think in these
terms. Yes – students at earlier levels have less of a knowledge base and frame of reference, and
there is some credibility to the idea that this needs to be built before anything else can happen. But,
to involve students in research from the start ensures that their education is relevant to their
ultimate purpose at exit-level, from the start. It is just that what is expected, and how they are
assessed, will be sensitive to their existing level of knowledge (assumed to be nil) and their NQF
level. The assumption that ‘they are not there yet’ is a fallacy, because the ‘there’ can be tailored to
the required level in research-based education, and the role of the facilitator and the nature of their
input versus expectations of the students can be adjusted to accommodate that.

Research Methodology as a subject is also often over-complicated and ‘over-academicized’, perhaps

as part of the prestige we feel we need to assign to it. Students can get lost in the terminology and
technicalities, which, when overdone, can also kill the spirit of research. Really, it is all quite
straightforward: running a module that supports students’ research skills involves asking the
following questions:

1. What do we want to find out? (the relationships between things? Drivers behind a particular
phenomenon? The nature of something in and of itself?) [research question and objectives]
2. What are the best questions to ask people in order to find that out? [data collection
instrument]
3. What kind of people should we be talking to? [sampling]
4. How many people should we be talking to? [sampling]
 5. What did they say in response to the questions? [data analysis]
6. What do their responses tell us about what we are trying to find out? [data analysis]
7. What does the existing literature have to say about this all? [literature review/theoretical
framework] [we could be asking this question earlier in this list, depending on the project]

Implementation: opportunities for programme thoughlines, departmental cross-overs and inter-

disciplinary work

Research-based education can, and should, be strategically implemented to ‘play the long game’:
where in the 1st year of a module, the group as a whole decides what they want to find out about for
the next three years, so that by exit-level they have spent three years gathering and analysing data
towards, by that time, being able to present something that has real industry-relevance and can
inform decision-making (which is one of the primary purposes of research, and why companies are
willing to pay for it). Over the three years, the research question, research objectives, and
methodology should not change – these should be established in year 1. Year 2 and 3 then become
about execution: essentially, spending all time and resources gathering and analysing data (i.e.
fulfilling the research purpose of finding things out). So, in year 2 and 3, every formative and
summative involves assessing their students on their ability to collect and analyse data and report
back on findings. As literature will also continue to come in and be updated, years 2 and 3 can also
involve literature review assessments, as can year 1. This way, students can be part of building
something truly valuable over a three-year period, continuously building towards that exit-level
product over that time. It can therefore be something that students really believe in and stick with.
Concurrently, facilitators are able to map the progress of the students and the project as a whole
from year to year and also adapt and adjust to student insights as they come in across the formative
and summative assessments.

The nature of the Living Article as being a single output with multiple contributors means that it is
easier to find a place for external contributors to come into the process. With one piece of work that
has one defined goal, it becomes easier to bring in different but related subject areas. The facilitator
can consult with facilitators/managers of other subjects, briefing them on the focus and nature of
the Living Article – these parties can then brainstorm ways to collaborate. This becomes especially
accessible if we are talking about two modules that are both following the Living Article format.
 Potentially, if the facilitator of a Living Article knows what is required for it, they can ask not only
their own students and themselves for that content, but also other facilitators and their students.
How this plays out is in a kind of ‘call for papers’ format, where there is clarity on ‘this is what we
need’, and then the potential for anyone, really, to contribute. We can call this a ‘call for
contributions’ that is issued to other staff members, their students, and even industry players. In this
way, the potential for co-authorship and partnership is extended beyond the facilitator and their
students exclusively, and opens the whole project up to the wider institution and the industry it aims
to feed into. One project with multiple contributors means that the contributors don’t need to be
limited to the facilitator and their students – contributions can come from anywhere.

‘Getting in’:

The facilitator must determine which contributions are included and which are excluded from the
Living Article. Contributions, are parts thereof, that are included will be rewarded as per the marking
rubric. More importantly, though, an included contributions makes the contributor a co-author/co-
generator of knowledge – which should mean a lot, and is something that could be maximized in this
system. Included co-authors/co-knowledge generators whose work is selected to be part of the
Living Article should be rewarded with more than marks, and in a way that sparks aspiration among
students. What forms is a kind of select group of co-authors, which could be exclusionary if done
wrong, but aspirational and motivational if done right. If done right, students would want to become
part of this group – they would want to improve their work and have their work at the standard that
inclusion demands.

visual representations:

Research-based
education
project

Contributor Contributor Contributor Contributor Contributor

Contributor
(colleague)
(facilitator) (student) (student) (student) (industry)
 Traditional assessment model visual representation:

Facilitator

Student Student Student Student Student

assessment assessment assessment assessment assessment