Abstract:
Universities, over the world, are struggling to define their identity as either, research-intensive,
teaching-intensive or liberal universities due to how research and teaching has been construed and
implemented by faculty over the years. This empirical paper, therefore, sought to examine the
perceived disconnection between research and teaching among university students in Management
across their levels of study. Specifically, it sought to assess how Management students conceptualise
the link between research and teaching, as well as, the impact of the link from students’ standpoint.
Using the descriptive cross-sectional survey design, this study through a questionnaire, collected data
from 367 Management students across different levels of study in the university. These students
comprised undergraduates, non-research masters, research masters and doctoral students
proportionally stratified to ensure a fair representation based on the total number of students for each
category. In order to ensure the construct validity of the self-developed questionnaire, a principal
component analysis (PCA) was conducted. An oblique, specifically, promax rotation was used, where
the eigenvalue-greater-than-one rule was used to determine the suitable factors to retain. In testing for
normality, multiple indicators were used since only one cannot be relied on. The Shapiro-Wilk test
did not provide enough evidence, an inspection of the graphs was necessary. Therefore, the mean and
median were also compared to check for normality. Prominent among how they conceptualise the link
are that they believed research is linked to teaching in the form of lecturers keeping up-to-date and
conducting research in order to remain in touch with contemporary disciplinary knowledge.
Furthermore, students agreed to the fact that the research-teaching nexus is all about researching about
learning and teaching that informs and evaluates curriculum development. Regarding the impact of the
nexus, it is also seen by the students as encouraging, stimulating and motivating students to do
research, coupled with lecturers including their own research into their teaching to give currency to
knowledge. It is therefore, recommended that university management should provide more
opportunities and also create the enabling environment for students to contribute to new discoveries
and creative works by extending student research assistantships in all aspects of their academic life |
Keywords:
Research, teaching, research-teaching nexus, conceptualisation, higher education,
faculty |
