Faculty Guides

CTE has prepared a step-by-step guide to help faculty through their education research process. 

Embarking on your research process starts off with identifying a problem. Oftentimes it could be something out of your own curiosity, or the recognition of a gap in knowledge – this problem eventually defines the goal of your research.

Upon recognising the research problem that you want to focus on, it is important to reflect on it. This allows you to establish its relevance and significance, as well as be clear and precise in articulating the problem, all of which helps later in refining your research question and hypotheses.

We can approach this initial stage with the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) in mind. It involves three main aspects of teaching knowledge:

  1. Curricular knowledge: Knowledge about the goals and purposes of our teaching
  2. Pedagogical/ psychological knowledge: Knowledge about how students learn
  3. Instructional knowledge: Knowledge about instructional design and the instructional process

Reflection is the backbone of assessing learning needs, and we can understand reflection more in depth with Mezirow's three levels of reflection: content, process, and premise (Gibson & Hart, 2008). These reflection levels can be applied to construct various forms of teaching knowledge.


 

 
 
 
 
 

Curricular Knowledge

 
 
 
 
 

Pedagogical Knowledge

 
 
 
 
 

Instructional Knowledge

 
 
 
 
 

Content Reflection

What is happening here?

 
 
 
 
 

What teaching strategy shall I use?

 
 
 
 
 

What do I know about how students learn and develop?

 
 
 
 
 

What are the goals?

 
 
 
 
 

Process Reflection

How did this come to be?

 
 
 
 
 

How effective are those strategies in terms of reaching the goals?

 
 
 
 
 

How have I helped students to reach these goals?

 
 
 
 
 

Are these goals possible and feasible to reach?

 
 
 
 
 

Premise Reflection

Why is it important to me?

 
 
 
 
 

Is this strategy the most appropriate? Are there any alternatives?

 
 
 
 
 

Why is what I have done to help students important? Are there any alternatives for my role?

 
 
 
 
 

Why are these goals important? Are there any alternatives?

 
 
 
 
 
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You are ready to move on to the next research stage when you can provide clear answers to these questions:

  • What is the aim of the research?
  • Why does exploring the topic matter to you and others?
  • What are the specific outcomes or contributions you plan to achieve? Are you planning to explore a phenomenon, evaluate something, solve a practical problem, or develop a theory?
Bibliography
  1. Al-Manar, M. A. (n.d.). Introduction to Educational Research. Slideplayer. https://slideplayer.com/slide/13541723/  
  2. Du, X. (2020, September). Coding Guidelines for Levels and Forms of Reflection Three Types of Knowledge Domains. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Coding-Guidelines-for-Levels-and-Forms-of-Reflection-Three-Types-of-Knowledge-Domains_tbl2_344328807
  3. Gibson, A., & Hart, R. (2008). A handbook of research methods in education. ERIC. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ854916.pdf
  4. University of Waterloo. (n.d.). Developing research questions. University of Waterloo. https://subjectguides.uwaterloo.ca/c.php?g=695639&p=4932154