How to Conduct Research in Your Teaching Practice

In a constantly changing world like ours, it is essential to have reliable information to make the best decisions. Education is no exception, as pedagogical innovations and technological advances challenge and inspire us to improve our teaching practice. This topic is particularly relevant to educators and professionals designing and implementing educational programs. But how can we get accurate information to help us improve our classes? Did you know that there are some steps to researching an educational experience? In this article, I share five steps you can use to conduct investigations within your learning experiences.

The Vice-Rectory for Educational Innovation and Academic Regulations (VIENA) at Tecnológico de Monterrey analyzes the impacts of educational innovations within the institution to improve, adjust, and offer quality education consistently. To do this, we research to obtain valuable information to make changes and improvements in course design and delivery, such as pedagogical strategies, didactic techniques, or contextual teaching strategies. This information allows us to know how learning experiences affect the students, their output or academic performance, their learning preferences, and the most convenient educational technologies, to name a few.

Actions to improve learning experiences at Tec de Monterrey

In the VIENA of Tecnológico de Monterrey, we are particularly interested in obtaining data on the scope of the pedagogical models to improve them. For this, the Research and Educational Engineering (IIE) area was created, of which I am a part. We analyze the implementations of existing didactic models in the institution, the impact of pedagogical innovations, and their transcendence for teachers and students. We consider learning experiences in different modalities (remote, hybrid, or face-to-face). It allows us to get an overview of each initiative with its strengths, areas of opportunity, and teacher and student perceptions. The analysis and results of each initiative allow us to apply the appropriate adjustments or changes to improve the student’s learning experience.

In the IIE, we study students’ situations or problems for better learning, such as their skills and knowledge before the start of a course, self-management of their time, organization of tasks and projects, and their management and integration of technology for learning. We have also investigated the impact of pedagogical strategies such as adaptive, personalized, active, and immersive learning.

Relevant research that has improved the learning experience.

At the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Tec de Monterrey, we researched to measure the impact of personalized learning on a chemistry and biology course. A self-assessment exam was designed to measure the student’s knowledge and comprehension before the course. They re-took the test at the end of the course; thus, we had both diagnostic and results. As a result of the research, it was found that the learning model allowed students to increase their knowledge and understanding of the contents, and they were satisfied with the experience (Hernández, Castaño, Cruz y Nigenda, 2021).

Researchers worked on the Academic Regularization of Mathematics course for new students in the Business Administration program at Tec de Monterrey’s Business School. The objective was to evaluate the impact of adaptive learning on students’ learning experience and academic performance when using the Aleks technology platform. In the study, three main points were assessed: 1) aspects of the educational model, 2) the activities that facilitated the students’ learning, and 3) the characteristics of the Aleks platform that helped the students study the subject of mathematics. The research results showed the positive impact of incorporating adaptive learning through the platform due to the content, assessment, and learning pace adapted to each student’s needs and progress. (López y Bedolla, 2020).

In the undergraduate International Business program at Tec de Monterrey’s Business School, Professor Cantú did research to analyze the strategy of immersive learning with virtual reality (VR) in a course. An interdisciplinary group of professionals with pedagogical and technological knowledge designed activities for students to practice negotiation techniques through an avatar using different roles of seller or buyer. The virtual avatar helped students practice their knowledge without feeling judged or observed in their physical person. As a result of the research, it was found that the students were confident in practicing their knowledge of the negotiation techniques through VR, and they valued the possibility of making mistakes in a virtual environment as positive (Cantú, 2022).

Five steps to conducting research in your teaching practice.

You may wonder, “Is it possible to develop research without being an expert?” The answer is yes. To do it, use these five steps based on the model proposed by Mosteiro and Porto (2017) to obtain accurate data from your educational practice.

1. Identify a problem. It can be a situation or event you see frequently occurring in your courses or a topic or issue you want to know more about to improve your work. It is important to delimit the problem by checking if other authors have previously investigated the subject to avoid contradictions or gaps in the research.
2. Plan the investigation. Formulate objectives with their respective assumptions and hypotheses to respond to the problem. Decide on the method (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed) according to the nature of the research. Select the population that will serve to provide the desired information. For example, you want to investigate student satisfaction with a digital course. In that case, the objective should be to know what elements impact their experience, taking students enrolled in this modality as a sample.
3. Select or design assessment instruments. You can use a survey, questionnaire, observation guide, interview, focus groups, etc. Consider the most relevant instrument(s) to achieve the research objectives according to the student’s profile.
4. Organize and process the results: Quantitatively (numerically) or qualitatively (with categories) so that you can analyze them, interpret them, and draw conclusions that allow you to respond to your research problem. To process the results, you must download them to a database and clean them (deleting duplicate or incomplete data) before calculating the means, graphing, and triangulating the information.
5. Share your results. Identify where to publicize the results, either in referenced and indexed journals or through general dissemination media, for example, a portal or medium of your work institution. It will facilitate communication with other researchers and help you broaden your knowledge on the subject and other fields of study.

Through the five steps above, we can appreciate the impact of research on the design of educational processes. The results of these investigations provide teachers with practical information to make relevant adjustments in the short, medium, and long terms, making learning experiences more effective for students.

There are three primary purposes of any research:

1. Knowing a topic, event, or situation in depth and understanding each element’s role.
2. Communicating the knowledge obtained to the people involved to know the scope of their participation in the field studied.
3. Making decisions that favor or produce changes in the study object or research subject.

These research purposes align perfectly with the five steps I shared above. Can you think of any other? Please leave your ideas and suggestions in the comments section. 

Reflection

The five steps shared in this article facilitate investigating any topic of your interest and obtaining multiple benefits when delving into a field of study. Not only will your knowledge increase but also your communication with people having the same interest as you in developing various skills to transfer knowledge.

Also, by knowing the research process, you can support students in applying it in their own lives to know or discover their strengths and areas of opportunity. In this way, students will better understand their skills or areas that need to be reinforced, which brings an additional benefit: having more focused and prepared students in class.

Finally, the central point in the research process lies in the commitment and passion of each person, whether or not they are researchers. These feelings motivate people to prepare and resolve those aspects of education that remain to be addressed.

About the author

Cynthia López (cynlopez@tec.mx) has been an Educational Engineer in the Directorate of Educational Innovation and Digital Learning at the Tecnologico de Monterrey Campus since 2019, with growing interest in topics related to pedagogical trends and education research.

References

Cantú, D. (2022). Experiencias inmersivas en el contexto universitario: Reflexiones prácticas. Revista Educativa Hekademos, 32(XV), 35-41. https://www.hekademos.com/index.php/hekademos/article/view/42/51

Hernandez Cardenas, L. S., Castano, L., Cruz Guzman, C., & Nigenda Alvarez, J. P. (2022). Personalized learning model for academic leveling and improvement in higher education. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 38(2), 70–82. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.7084

López, C., & Bedolla Cornejo, L. P. (2020). El aprendizaje adaptativo para la regularización académica de estudiantes de nuevo ingreso: la experiencia en un curso remedial de matemáticas. Edutec. Revista Electrónica De Tecnología Educativa, (74), 206-220. https://doi.org/10.21556/edutec.2020.74.1627

Mosteiro, M. and Porto, A. (2017). La investigación en educación. Editora de la UESC. https://books.scielo.org/id/yjxdq/pdf/mororo-9788574554938-01.pdf

Editing

Edited by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Editor of Edu Bits articles and The Observatory Webinars: “Learning that inspires.” Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education of Tecnologico de Monterrey.

Review Committee

Leonardo Glasserman

Revised: February 15, 2023
Submitted: January 4, 2023
Publication date: February 27, 2023

Translation by

Daniel Wetta

Cynthia Rocío López de los Santos

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