* Current Research Projects * Postgraduate Research Students * Research Opportunities
Department of Education & Professional Studies
Research Profile 2010
Introduction
The department currently has 20 full-time tutors, 13 PhD students and 16 students enrolled in master's degrees by research and thesis. Eight research PhD students and one research master's student graduated in the past three years. In addition, a significant number of part-time students complete research as part of graduate diploma and taught master's programmes. While much of this research is of a very high standard and can contribute to deeper understanding of practice, concerns have been raised about the low levels of research that reach a local, national and international audience. The department intends to develop strategies to increase research output from these programmes, particularly in terms of publication in peer-reviewed journals.
Full-time students have access to a wide range of training and development workshops offered by the Graduate School and the Shannon Consortium. All new, full-time research students are required to attend the annual induction programme run in November. The Graduate School provides an extensive range of training programmes for researchers. Through the Chair of Education, research seminars are organised at a departmental level for both faculty and research students. Activities include seminars from invited speakers, regular workshops for faculty and research students to share insights/findings from research being undertaken, and information workshops on funding. The postgraduate forum, a forum established by the full-time postgraduate students in the department, meets regularly to share insights and discuss common research issues. Established in 2009, the Research Centre for Education and Professional Practice (RCEPP) has plans for a number of additional activities, such as providing small levels of financial support to enable faculty to conduct research. The RCEPP also aims to host an annual conference and provide occasional public lectures to the campus community and the wider education community in the mid-west region.
In addition to the research students above, 31 students are registered on the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology programme. This programme was the first professional doctorate programme established at UL. In January 2009, the first cohort of 10 students were conferred with PhDs. A research coordinator has been appointed to the programme at senior lecturer level to oversee its research activity.
The Chair of Education, Professor Marie Parker-Jenkins led a group on the development of a Structured PhD in Education Practice. A colleague from MIC was on the design team, and there are plans to provide student mobility as well as further institutional collaboration between the two separate PhD programmes which begin in September 2010. This is in keeping with good practice nationally.
The research and development activity highlighted above demonstrates how the department is meeting the research goals of the Faculty of EHS and of the wider university by:
- Increasing research activity
- Increasing research capacity through the appointment of a Professor of Education and the establishment of the RCEPP
- Increasing the number of postgraduate students and meeting the national agenda of providing new doctoral pathways
- Expanding graduate education and strengthening collaboration through the development of the structured PhD programme, incorporating reciprocal arrangements with MIC
- Emphasising a research ethos through the ongoing delivery of research seminars/workshops, supporting doctoral completion among department colleagues and raising awareness of research activity
Strategic Research Priorities
A number of challenges face the department in developing greater research output and meeting the strategic priorities laid out in the EHS Faculty's Strategic Plan 2008-2013. To meet these challenges, work that needs to be done includes the following:
- Incorporate an allocation of 40% engagement in research into EPS faculty deployment approach.
- Support the varying research trajectories of all faculty.
- Recognise engagement in development work, which often has a significant regional , national and international impact.
- Develop opportunities for the dissemination of PhD and master's students' research in the wider community.
Key Research Areas and Projects
In addition to the individual research work undertaken by EPS members of faculty, a number of prominent research areas have emerged within the department, as described in the following sections.
Action Research
One of the earliest areas of research prominence to emerge from the department was the use of action research in providing a structured framework to enable teachers to explore and improve their own practice. This early emphasis led to the appointment of an adjunct professor with an expertise in action research and to the development of a doctoral programme in action research, which graduated five PhD students from 2003 to 2008. It also resulted in the hosting of the Critical Debates in Action Research conference in the summer of 2003.
Curriculum
As a response to the growing number of research projects examining curriculum-related issues in schools, the Curriculum Development and Policy Research Unit (CDPRU) was established at UL in 2001. The aims of the CDPRU are to critically analyse current national education policies with particular reference to their implications for curriculum policy and practice and to examine Irish curriculum policy-making strategies and their implications for practice. See appendix 7-5 for a list of recent research conducted by the CDPRU.
Pedagogy
The CROSSNET Network is a collaborative research and development network that supports teacher educators to develop more horizontal models of teacher collaboration for pedagogical innovation. The network is set within the context of the continuum of teacher education across Europe and supports mentoring relationships of learning between initial, induction and in-career teachers. While the subjects under consideration are science and mathematics education, the focus is on pedagogical reform and teacher professional learning. CROSSNET supports the development of school-university partnerships with schools (GIMMS) and with key policymakers, including the Department of Education and Science. Both networks are funded by the Comenius 2.1 Teacher Education fund of the European Commission.
Globalisation and Diversity in Education
The impact of cultural diversity in the classroom and on professional settings is a key theme of study for a number of tutors in the department and this work draws on discourses of "race", ethnicity, gender and social class. A key element of this research area is associated with the Ubuntu Network , a collaborative research network which supports teacher educators to integrate development education and education for sustainable development (ESD) perspectives into post-primary ITE in Ireland. This Network ,which is based in the department, began in 2005 with a Limerick-based pilot project called the Teacher Education Development Education Partnership and has since grown to include 12 ITE programmes and institutions nationally. It is funded through the Irish Aid Development Education grants scheme and was awarded funding for a further three years in January 2008. As a result of the work of the Network, ESD has been integrated into many of the teacher education modules within UL and in teacher education programmes nationally. The Ubuntu Network which is linked to the Regional Centre for Expertise-Ireland (RCE), published its first e-book on research projects in 2009. Colleagues are also linked to the Centre for Global Development through Education which is funded by Irish Aid and hosted at Mary Immaculate College.)
Social, Personal and Health Education and Applied Psychology
With the establishment of the Graduate Diploma in Guidance Counselling, the Master's in Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy, the Diploma in Drug and Alcohol Studies, the Graduate Diploma/Master's in Health Education/Promotion and the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, there is now a team of faculty within the department who have expertise in the area of social, personal and health education (SPHE) and applied psychology. This has resulted in a significant increase in research activity in this area at a national and international level.
