Workshop Leaders: Professor Alan Felstead, Dr Daniel Bishop, Professor Richard Daugherty, Dr Richard Watermeyer
The British Educational Research Association (BERA), in association with the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) hosted a one-day workshop for postgraduate research students and early career researchers in education on the Role of Theory in Educational Research.
This was the third of a series of workshops planned across the UK (see www.bera.ac.uk) and focused in part on two projects funded by TLRP: (1) Learning as Work: Teaching and Learning in the Contemporary Work Organisation; and (2) Assessment of Significant Learning Objectives
The workshop was co-led by Principal Investigators and researchers in each of the project teams and offered participants the opportunity to learn about:
1) the different ways in which theory informed the research design;
2) how theory guided the collection and analysis of data; and
3) ways in which the research could be said to build theory.
Each team spoke about their particular project and the ways in which the theory underpinning the project helped them to make decisions about the methods used. Both the substantive theory which led to their research questions and/or theories about research design methods were discussed. Throughout the workshop emphasis will be placed on providing examples of theories in action.