WORK-INTEGRATED LEARNING: VISUALIZING RESEARCH AS PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

In higher education work place practice through work placement or internships can be integrated as part of the education, especially when educating for professions such as teachers, medical professionals or law practitioners. The overall purpose of integrating work placement in the higher education is for students to experience and learn through engaging in practice with those already educated and experienced within the respective work domain. However, on masters level in higher education we seldom allow students the same opportunity related to the researcher profession. Students are commonly invited to do project or thesis work in research projects or relating to research work. Less common is to actually invite students to participate in research professional practice as a work placement. With work placement we here refer to the student being engaged during a period of time, in full working days, together with research professionals in their everyday practice. Learning to become a researcher through work experience has been described in a case study of a Ph.D. student by e.g. Eames (2003). The study showed that work placement can provide significant learning opportunities. The learning through research everyday work was different form being educated about research, and provided a view of what it means to practice in a research profession. We propose that the same opportunity for learning can be provided in masters education.

In this paper we report from an initiative of integrating research work practice in an informatics master program. At Halmstad University we are starting a new international master program in Digital Service Innovation (starting September 2018). The master program educates students to design sustainable digital services through design research. With the aim to inspire students for future careers as researchers we offer the students the opportunity for 8 full weeks of “Research Placement” to visualize research as professional practice. The purpose is to provide hands-on experience of research to develop their awareness, skills and abilities to practice as design researchers. It also provides the opportunity to engage with research professionals and the stakeholders involved in the research. Moreover, the students are provided the opportunity to discuss their own career paths and the social and ethical implications of their work for society. The “Research Placement” can be in an academic institution, a research institute or a research and development department in an organization. The student examination assignment is a self-study and reflection of their “Research Placement” (see e.g. LaBoskey, 2004; Schön, 1983).

References:
[1] Eames, C. (2003). Learning to Work: Becoming a Research Scientist Through Work Experience Placements. Education, 4(2), 7-15.
[2] LaBoskey, V. K (2004). The Methodology of Self-Study and Its Theoretical Underpinnings. In International Handbook of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices, Eds Loughran, J. J., Hamilton, M. L., LaBoskey, V. K. and Russell, T., Springer.
[3] Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. Basic Books.