Eur J Dent Educ 2001; 5: 60–62 Copyright C Munksgaard 2001Printed in Denmark. All rights reserved

ISSN 1396-5883

Student learning and the teaching-research nexus inoral biology

Jules Kieser1 and Peter Herbison2

1Department of Oral Sciences and Orthodontics, School of Dentistry, Otago University, Dunedin,2Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

Although frequently coexistent, we know little about the interac-tions among research, teaching and learning in higher education.This study examines the preferences of second and third yeardental students for questions that require a research-based deepapproach or questions that require a straightforward didactic ap-proach. A questionnaire was designed to evaluate the opinion of114 students who took part in the Oral Biology course. 56 secondyear students (75%) responded while 58 (84%) of third year stu-dents responded. Questions that required an interpretive ap-proach were found to be most appealing by 70.2% of all stu-dents. Questions which required a regurgitative approach were

THREE FREQUENTLY coexisting and universally ac-knowledged activities; teaching, learning and re-

search, have characterised the evolution of highereducation. The research–teaching–learning nexus isthought to have its origin in the Humboldtian doc-trine of the nineteenth century German universitywhich redefined the relationships between studentand teacher (1, 2). Instead of being the receptacle ofknowledge, the student became a co-researcher. Thisprocess of mutual enquiry by teacher and student isseen by some as the central organising concept ofhigher education (3, 4). Moreover, the frequent con-currence of research, teaching and learning at uni-versities has led to the suggestion that this nexus isthe defining characteristic of the higher educationalconstruct (5–7). In contrast to this integrationist viewstands the alternative opinion that research andteaching/learning are essentially independent enti-ties which simply happen to occur in the same place(8, 9).

Most empirical research into the possible existenceof a teaching-research nexus have focused on thesearch for links between research output and effec-tive undergraduate teaching. To our knowledge noone has asked whether students prefer research-in-formed learning/teaching or not. In the present

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favoured by 11.6% of students. No significant differences werefound when the sample was broken down by country of origin,year of study or gender, suggesting that dental students pre-ferred research-based learning rather than superficial didacticlearning.

Key words: teaching; learning; research.

c Munksgaard, 2001Accepted for publication 24 October 2000

study we look at this relationship from a student’sperspective.

Study design

A short questionnaire was designed to evaluate theopinion of second and third year dental students inthe discipline of Oral Biology at the University of Ota-go. The questionnaire comprised ten topics. In eachcase students were asked to rank three possible essayquestions from most appealing to least appealing.Within each topic, questions were designed that re-quired either an interpretive (research-based) ap-proach, or a purely descriptive (didactic) approach, ora mixture of both. The questionnaire, answeredanonymously, was handed out and collected at thesame session.

The introduction of a new dental curriculum, inwhich the entire oral biology course was shifted fromthe third to the second year of study, provided aunique opportunity to survey students at both aca-demic levels simultaneously. Of the second year stu-dents, 56 participated while 58 third year studentstook part. The return rates were 75% and 84% respec-tively. Differences between students from New Zea-land and other countries, between genders and be-

Teaching-research nexus

tween first and second-year students were analysedby means of student t-tests.

Results

Table 1 presents percentages of students who foundthe interpretive, mixed or descriptive essays eithermost appealing, neutral or least appealing. Questionsthat required an interpretive, research-based approachwere found to be most appealing by 70.2% of all stu-dents and least appealing by 11.7% of students. De-scriptive questions which required a regurgitative ap-proach were found to be most appealing by 11.6% ofstudents and least appealing by 57.2% of all students.

Summary statistics for the numbers of students whofound interpretive essays most appealing are given inTable 2. No significant differences were noted whenthe sample was broken down by country of origin,gender or year of study. Table 2 also presents statisticsfor the numbers of students who found descriptiveessay topics the most appealing. Again no statisticallysignificant differences were recorded for country oforigin, gender or year of study. Here it is worth notingthat about one quarter of each class were New Zea-land born, 17–20% were Malaysian, 15–19% werefrom Hong Kong and the rest from diverse locationswhich included Taiwan, China, Korea and Sri Lanka.

TABLE 1. Percentages of New Zealand dental students who rankedessay questions that required either an interpretive, or a descriptive ora mixture of both descriptive and interpretive approach as most appeal-ing, neutral or least appealing

Category Questions

Interpretive Mixed Descriptive

Most appealing 70.2 16.5 11.6Neutral 18.1 57.4 31.2Least appealing 11.7 26.1 57.2

TABLE 2. Summary statistics for the differences in country of origin,gender and year of study for those students who favoured interpretiveessays and descriptive essays

Variable Category n Interpretive Descriptive

x SD t x SD t

Country New Zealand 26 0.6 1.0 ª2.00 7.2 2.1 0.60Other 65 1.4 1.8 6.8 2.72

Gender Male 44 1.2 1.7 0.52 6.8 2.6 ª0.61Female 47 1.0 1.6 7.1 2.5

Year Second 42 1.4 1.9 1.54 6.9 2.6 ª0.28Third 49 0.8 1.3 7.1 2.3

nΩnumber; xΩmean out of 10; SDΩstandard deviation; tΩstudent t-test; *Ωp,0.05.

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Discussion

There is considerable theoretical support for the no-tion that a mutually enriching combination of teach-ing and research is what distinguishes universitiesfrom other educational and research institutions (6).This view has as an ideal formulation in a research-teaching-learning nexus which, it is argued, blendsthe activities of teaching and learning with those ofresearch (7). The connections among these three ele-ments of the nexus have been classified as tangible,intangible and global (6). Tangible links refer to thespeed of expansion of the general knowledge base,which makes it imperative for teachers to be re-searchers. From a student’s point of view it is arguedthat academics involved in research would be at thecutting edge of their discipline and hence would pro-vide better instruction than those who did not partakein research. Tangible links refer to a student’s ap-proach to knowledge. Research-informed teaching en-courages critical thinking and curiosity and broadensone’s outlook on a subject. Finally, the global link re-fers to the way in which departmental research mayprovide a more global milieu for teaching.

The foregoing has been challenged by those whofeel that research is quite independent of teaching/learning and that there are no causal relations be-tween these activities (10). One generalisation result-ing from analyses of the associations between teach-ing and research excellence is that there is typicallyno relation (or a negative relation) between them (9–12).

While theoretical postulates of teaching and re-search raise reasonable expectations of correlationsbetween them, they have in fact been notoriously dif-ficult to define and quantify. This raises two ques-tions. Firstly, given the ill-defined nature of the wordsteaching, learning, research and excellence, is itreasonable to look for mathematical correlations be-tween them? Secondly, does correlation imply causal-ity? If not, what is the point of looking for correlationsbetween research and teaching?

Yet if learning is an element of both teaching andresearch, then it could be argued that there may be aco-relation (but not necessarily a mathematical corre-lation) between them. One way of looking at it is froma student’s perspective. The Oral Biology curriculumat the University of Otago was redeveloped specifi-cally to encourage a deep learning strategy and toavoid traditional regurgitative learning (13). Hence itwas important to find out whether our students pre-ferred essay topics which required a research (deeplearning) approach or a didactic (surface learning) ap-

Kieser & Herbison

proach. The results presented here show that ques-tions which required an interpretive, research-basedapproach were preferred by 70.2% of all students.Only 11.6% of students preferred questions which re-quired a regurgitative approach (Table 1). Moreover,when these data were analysed by country of origin,gender and year of study, no statistically significantdepartures from this trend were identified (Tables 2and 3).

The study only examined whether dental under-graduate students preferred questions that required aresearch-type learning or a didactic type learning. Itis not clear whether all students (i.e. arts, commerce,etc.) would adhere to this trend.

In summary, students of dentistry – irrespective oftheir year of study, country of origin or gender – pre-ferred to answer questions that required a researchapproach rather than a didactic, regurgitative ap-proach. This may provide evidence for the desirabilityof interaction between research and teaching/learn-ing, at least in clinical schools.

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2. Clark BR. Places of inquiry; research and advanced edu-cation in modern universities. Berkeley: University of Cali-fornia Press, 1995.

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8. Feldman KA. Research productivity and scholarly ac-complishment of college teachers as related to their instruc-tional effectiveness: a review and exploration. Res HigherEdu 1978: 26: 227–297.

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13. Kieser JA, Kardos TB, Herbison PGP. Analysis of Oral Bi-ology teaching: content versus assessment. J Dent Edu 1999:63: 346–349.

Address:Professor J. A. KieserDepartment of Oral Sciences and OrthodonticsSchool of DentistryOtago UniversityDunedin, NZ

Fax: 64 3 479 7078Tel: 64 3 479 7083e-mail: jules.kieser/stonebow.otago.ac.nz