The Role of Pedagogical Research for education-focused careers: what counts?

Throughout my academic career, I have undertaken projects focusing on teaching and learning and scholarship, that, although I may not have considered them as such as the time, I have subsequently used as evidence of my pedagogical research. This has been important as my career has progressed, as it has enabled me to demonstrate impact and reach. But what is pedagogical research? – or PedR as it is commonly referred to? and what counts as such in these contexts? How has it helped me to progress in my own career and what are the takeaways that I have learnt from this, that might be of help others starting out on an education-focussed career? An invitation to speak on Pedagogical Research and its role in education-focused careers at a Teaching and Learning Network (TLN) roundtable at the PSA’s annual conference in Birmingham this spring, thanks to Professor Cathy Elliott, provided an excellent opportunity for me to reflect on these questions.

Pedagogical research, (PedR), is research that explores how we study, teach and learn within Higher Education – with the goal of improving the educational and academic experience and the quality of teaching and learning.  I interpret the concept of pedagogic research broadly – to include not only research that enhances teaching and learning for students within the classroom, for example, but also research aimed at  supporting and enhancing the practice of academic and professional services staff and higher education context more generally. I also consider my pedagogical research as overlapping with and integral to, rather than separate from, my disciplinary knowledge and subject-specific research. In other words,  my pedagogical research often focuses on teaching and learning in my discipline – Politics and International Relations – but I also produce outputs about teaching and learning and scholarship generically, that are not discipline specific.

Pedagogical research is evaluated and assessed through the tangible outputs that result from this research,  forming a body of work that education-focused academics can then draw on to make claims around impact and reach in applications for promotion, HE Fellowship recognition and/or teaching and learning prizes and awards. Pedagogical research thus often plays a pivotal role in enabling successful career progression for academics on the education-focussed career track.  

As I reflected on the body of pedagogical research that I have built up at the PSA TLN roundtable, I realised that my work can be divided into two distinct types or bundles: firstly, there are the types of outputs and measures that you might expect to be found under the heading of research more conventionally.  In this first bundle I include outputs such as peer-reviewed articles – in subject-based journals (such as Politics, Political Studies, and European Political Science as well as generic HE journals (such as Higher Education);  external funding and grant capture for teaching and learning projects; and invitations to give keynotes and presentations on teaching and learning and scholarship. In the second type of work or bundle, I include outputs that are perhaps less likely to be initially considered under the heading of pedagogical research – including reports and other forms of (digital) dissemination, such as blogs and podcasts. Drilling down further into what I mean by reports, I have included things like a co-authored report for Advance HE, published on Advance HE’s knowledge hub, as well as reports for which I have only been involved in an advisory capacity, sitting as a member of an advisory group –  such as the recent report on Politics and International Relations provision in higher education (2025), published by the British Academy. Then there are the public, digital output/reports with national reach that are a hybrid of both the previous examples, such as the QAA’s subject benchmark statements. As a member of advisory group for the Subject Benchmark Statement for Politics and International Relations (2023), I both advised on the content and development of the revisions to the fifth edition of the subject benchmark statement as well as led and co-authored specific sections within it. The point here is that this type of work/output can indeed count under pedagogical research, if you are careful to clearly state the nature of your contribution and acknowledge the work of others, including the host organisation. It is also worth considering how best to evidence the impact of this type of work. For reports or statements that are published online,  it can be helpful to ask the host organisation if they can provide details of the number of downloads.  I have used this type of information, just as one might use the number of citations as a measure of impact for more traditional research outputs.  

So my takeaways in terms of thinking about how your pedagogical research might count or be used as evidence in making a claim for promotion or for HEA recognition are; think carefully about the range of different types of work or outputs you can draw upon and remember that what counts as pedagogical research is often more diverse than outputs associated with subject-based research and REF.  Don’t discount collaborative work.  Whilst it is always important to be clear on your own individual contribution, collaborative work is generally viewed very positively within promotions criteria for education-focussed academics and collaboration is a very good way in which to develop pedagogical research ideas and widen the reach of your outputs. Think too about the ways in which you can develop your reach through digital outputs – again these are often seen positively in promotions criteria. Take care with how you view or distinguish between your pedagogical and your subject-based research. Whilst these can indeed be separate and different things, for education-focussed academics they may in fact largely overlap.  One of the most important moments for me in terms of developing my understanding of scholarship was the realisation of what Boyer (1990) means by the Scholarship of integration – the combining of generic pedagogical knowledge with our own disciplinary knowledge. The point at which I started to integrate and apply generic scholarship knowledge alongside my subject-based research on the teaching of politics and international relations was the point at which my work started to achieve national and international reach and impact. Of course, successful pedagogical research is not necessarily the only element required for success on the education-focussed academic career track. For me, developing and disseminating my approach to academic leadership as well as my experience of bringing about positive change in academic leadership roles has also played an important part in my career progression, but this takes us to another topic, beyond the remit of this current blog…….

References:

Boyer, E.L., 1990. Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Princeton University Press, 3175 Princeton Pike, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648.