Review Essay
‘Scholars and Educators’: Perspectives on Research-Teaching
Relationships in History1
Alan Booth
University of Nottingham
Since the 1970s investigation of the nature of disciplinary cultures has attracted mounting interest in
the social sciences. Researchers have explored the nature of academic disciplines as distinctive
epistemological and social communities, and revealed the importance of disciplinary identity in
shaping the ways in which research and teaching are conceptualised.2 In his researches into these
cultures Becher observed that historians demonstrated a particular propensity to describe themselves
collectively as a ‘community of scholars’. For most academic historians, irrespective of institutional
affiliation, not only is high-quality scholarship a principal goal but research and teaching are regarded
as inseparable; complementary and mutually supportive dimensions of an academic career. Although
the history of the discipline in higher education demonstrates that such an intimate relationship has not
always been so prominent in conceptions of professional identity, since the early decades of the
twentieth century the close connection between the two has been increasingly emphasised as a key
characteristic of a ‘higher’ education in the subject and a yardstick of the quality of a history
education.3
The link has been perhaps most overtly apparent in the responsiveness of the history curriculum to
trends in historical research during the last half century. Thus, for example, the rapid growth of
research into social history in the 1960s and 70s was reflected in the growing diversity of curriculum
content, with the introduction of new themes such as social protest, crime, family, childhood and
leisure. Since then the growth of research in the field of cultural history has further broadened the
undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum in terms of both content and theoretical approaches, with
themes such as identity, consciousness and mentalities entering the mainstream curriculum.
In a discipline often considered, even among its practitioners, as ‘not very self-reflexive’4, the nature
of the relationship between research and teaching has tended to be regarded as axiomatic. As such it
has constituted a mostly implicit yet tenaciously held element in the common assumptions that frame
the discipline. In the last two decades, however, a pervasive culture of audit encompassing both
teaching and research has enveloped British higher education and, for all its ill effects (and there are
many), external pressures to ensure ‘value for money’, ‘transparency’ and ‘accountability’, have
ensured that the issue of the research-teaching nexus has become more visible in public discourse.5
This was particularly evident in the discipline’s response to the national Teaching Quality Assessment
Exercise (TQA) during 1993-4, in which history was among the first cohort of subjects to be assessed.
Almost unanimously history departments stated in their self-evaluations the centrality of the link
between research and teaching in their course provision. Indeed this was praised by peer reviewers as
a key aspect of good practice, particularly in respect to curricula that were up-to-date and aligned with
current trends in research such as gender, ethnicity, cultural history and multi-disciplinary issues. The
best history teaching, the subject overview report suggested, was informed by up-to-date scholarship
and research, and awareness of current debates in the subject was emphasised as a particular feature of
effective learning in the subject.6 Perhaps unsurprisingly, sixteen of the seventeen ‘excellent’ verdicts
delivered on undergraduate programmes were awarded to history departments in pre-1992 ‘researchled’ universities.7
1
Despite considerable dissatisfaction in the discipline with the way in which the exercise had been
conducted, it was notable that three years later in a report to the Quality Assurance Agency on
standards in history degree programmes, the opportunity offered by the TQA exercise and the national
Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) of 1996 to link research and teaching in a direct and forceful
fashion was eagerly seized upon. In this report by a national subject association, based upon
widespread consultation across the sector, it was stated:
In constructing their programmes, departments and subject groups draw heavily on the research
interests of their members. The Working Party believes that on the whole the best teaching is likely to
come from people active in publication, research and scholarship. This is born out by the combined
results in History of the RAE and the TQA.8
Throughout a protracted period of public scrutiny during the 1990s, however, the exact nature of the
link between research and teaching remained only thinly sketched out within the discipline. When
demanded by external stakeholders, statements about the teaching-research connection were largely
articulated in terms of curriculum content and the subject expertise of academic staff. One historian
put this dominant view succinctly in a response to an annual survey of university history published in
the magazine History Today. ‘The range (of courses) here’, he commented, ‘is largely determined by
the research expertise of staff; we believe that it is essential for students to hear it from the experts …
as research underpins teaching so much’.9 Nor has the shorthand of ‘research-led’, ‘researchinformed’ and ‘research-oriented’ teaching helped the clarity of discussion; for all of these terms are
used interchangeably by departments seeking to assert the indivisibility of the link. Griffiths suggests
that a distinction might be made between research-led teaching, where the tutor’s own research
interests fashion curricular content and students learn by transmission from the ‘expert’ tutor;
research-oriented teaching, where students learn about the processes of research, the processes of
knowledge creation are emphasised as much as knowledge acquisition in the curriculum, and the
research experiences of staff are brought to bear in a more diffuse fashion; and research-based
teaching, where students themselves learn as researchers through an enquiry-led curriculum. In
making an explicit effort to reduce the terminological confusion in this area, these distinctions provide
a useful starting point for the clarification of terms needed in History.10
Public statements about the research-teaching nexus, such as those used to illustrate disciplinary
attitudes so far, rarely, of course, reflect the complexity of private discourse. This is revealed in the
following survey of views in a single history department during the run-up to an external evaluation of
teaching. Asked how they would describe the links between their teaching and research, the following
represent the range of responses among the academic staff.
The key book (on several modules I teach) was researched, edited and largely written by me therefore
the research element directly feeds into my teaching.
Major themes I teach are all areas I’ve researched and published in [gives long list of publications].
The modules I teach have always been intimately connected to my research at the level of both
empirical context and theoretical framework …my teaching is fully informed by the research I carried
out for my monograph.
2
My researches have led to monographs and general surveys … and my second and third year modules
rely on these. My third year Special Subject and MA modules are infused with my engagement with
recent developments in the field and my experience of researching and writing within it.
My research into medieval England feeds into all my teaching … my knowledge of the subject and
also of the current (and up to date) secondary literature enables me to introduce the latest concepts and
theories to first year undergraduates …When I take my Special Subject, I draw on a body of primary
sources and secondary work of which I am not only very familiar but to which I have contributed to
myself through articles and books.
I have written widely on the area covered in my Special Subject and this enables me to give students a
lot of help in deciding what topics to do in their dissertation and guide them in their reading.
My research interests are strongly represented in the modules and themes I teach at second and third
year level. I do not believe I would be able to judge the quality of the books and articles that I
recommend to students unless I was working actively in historical research myself. I would certainly
not feel the same sort of active engagement with the material …However, I would also like to stress
that the relationship between research and teaching is not simply one way; discussion with students
has sometimes opened my eyes to new ways of looking at historical issues and raised new questions,
since their lack of experience allows them to ‘think outside the box’ of conventional scholarship.
I have always taught courses related to my research interests as I find this is a good way of sparking
off interests in students: they enjoy criticising what I have written (and it may well reassure them that
I know what I am talking about!).
In my teaching students do research themselves in year 2 and 3, not only in the dissertation but for
seminars, and all these modules are based on current issues in the research on my period. Having to
communicate your work also makes you really think it through, and research I do on my teaching also
influences the way I look at what they can do in class.
My research active status is an important feeder into my teaching. As well as keeping my students up
to date with the ‘cutting edge’ of my field, research is partly what drives my energy and enthusiasm,
key attributes of successful teaching.
These statements reveal a much richer, and more diverse, picture of the connection between teaching
and research than appears in often formulaic public representations. Clearly there is a strong belief in
the direct relationship between research and curriculum content; that research is reflected in the
curriculum by the subject matter of the modules taught (though even this is seen in more and less
sophisticated ways). But we can also see more complex lines of connection being expressed, albeit
sometimes tacitly, not least between the skills acquired and employed in the research process and
effective teaching and learning, between research and student (and staff) motivation, and between
research and curricular progression. In two responses we can also see an explicit recognition of the
two-way relationship between research and teaching; that teaching can inform research as well as the
other way round, forcing the academic tutor to clarify his or her thinking and stimulating new ideas. In
one response a link is also made between subject-based pedagogic research and classroom practice
3
and to research-led learning through student enquiry. In all history curricula contestation of
knowledge is central, and most conceptions of the curriculum see students progressing towards greater
independence in learning through involvement in enquiry-led projects and research culminating in a
final year dissertation, often associated with the Special Subject which provides the point at which
teaching and research most clearly intersect. This specialisation through research is extremely
common, and in many history departments there is a related commitment to enabling students to
become practising historians (a process which also involves them in learning many transferable skills).
As MacLean and Barker point out in a small-scale study of progression in the subject, in these history
departments ‘academics’ construction of “progression” in student learning that goes beyond the
acquisition of general skills are related to their constructions of what it is to do research in their
discipline.’ 11
Whilst public statements made about the links between teaching and research in History can appear
rather simplistic, more complex connections are being made by practitioners, although these are often
implicit rather than explicitly formulated. There are clearly many different ways in which disciplinary
practitioners conceptualize the links between their research and teaching, and a growing international
literature has begun to explore these differences and the contribution made to academics’ conceptions
by their disciplinary cultures.12 Links made, often implicitly, by historians include:

Content of modules is informed by academic staff research.

Theoretical perspectives from research influence approaches to teaching a topic.

Students learn about research methods from modeling by academic tutors.

Undergraduate research modules teach students how to do research.

Classroom teaching methods adopt a research-based approach, e.g. student-led seminars.

Students undertake (individual and group) research projects.

Teaching is used directly to test, refine and shape academic staff research findings.

Students assist staff with their research projects.

Students gain experience of applied research through e.g. work-based learning.

Academic staff conduct pedagogic research to enhance their teaching.
Without doubt, however, the nature of the relationship has received less systematic investigation in the
discipline than it deserves. All the issues raised so far require greater investigation and exposure to
community discussion and debate in a manner commensurate with standard research practice in a
scholarly discipline. Let me give an example of just one question. Is there a necessary link between
doing historical research and being an effective teacher of history? Clearly almost all the historians
quoted above suggest an answer in the affirmative, and this is the dominant view in the discipline.
However, Stearns suggests an alternative viewpoint, that ‘many excellent [history] teachers do not
themselves do research. They must, however, keep up with the findings of leading researchers lest
their teaching stagnate.’13 Must historians teaching the subject in higher education be active
researchers? Or is it sufficient to have had postgraduate training in historical research? Might indeed
today’s vast number of postgraduate or part-time teaching assistants with limited research experience
but an enthusiasm for teaching be better teachers than expert researchers whose focus of attention is
not upon the history classroom? And what is so essential about being both a researcher and teacher? Is
it the knowledge acquired, or the expertise, or the motivation? Will the answer we give be different if
our primary purpose is to foster the acquisition of transferable skills or if the goal is to enable students
4
to become practising (or professional) historians? Similarly does the need for a strong connection vary
according to year of study? How does it link to notions of progression? We need to explore such
questions more carefully than we have so far done.
Some historians might maintain that any attempt to divide us into two distinct roles – teacher and
researcher – only serves to do violence to our love of our subject which does not exist in neat boxes.
Most surveys, indeed, suggest that historians profess the satisfactions of both teaching and research
and are distrustful of recent trends in higher education that seem to imply the need for the separation
of these expressions of the passion they have for their subject. Yet this can appear a little ingenuous in
its shifting of the focus of responsibility to outside agencies. For while the personal satisfaction of
both teaching and research is frequently recorded by academic historians, the separation of these two
aspects of professional activity is deeply embedded in our disciplinary structures, not least in our
systems of reward and recognition. In the prizes, fellowships and senior positions we award research
expertise is paramount, whilst teaching ability all too frequently inhabits the margins of disciplinary
esteem.14 In a recent survey of British history departments, for example, fifty-five per cent of
respondents reported that senior appointments were intended to get the best research candidates, and
that ‘in general a focus on research area and quality was a characteristic both of pre- and post- 1992
universities …’ 15 Similarly research was felt to be heavily-weighted in decisions about promotions.16
In such an ill-balanced and hierarchically separated relationship, it might be argued, the links between
research and teaching at the discipline level are as much negative as they are positive, working to
divert attention from serious attention to pedagogic matters and discouraging exactly the type of
investigation that might enable us to forge more sophisticated links between research and teaching.
In History we have only begun to explore the complex relationship between research and teaching.
Indeed it might be argued that we have still much to discover about our disciplinary conceptions of the
meaning of research, scholarship and teaching, and how the nature of these is changing.17 Serious
investigation in this whole area is required, not least to enable the discipline to make a more powerful
case for its value to external stakeholders in terms of its contribution to employability and active
citizenship in the twenty-first century. At the level of the individual history teacher there is a particular
need to make clear to students our own conceptions of teaching and research, how they intersect, and
why they matter. In other words, our often tacit knowledge and understanding needs to needs to be
made explicit if our students are to become effective historians and learners. There is now some useful
guidance on how we might do this and construct curricula that promote in a more developed fashion a
link that is deeply felt by many academic historians, and some resources are suggested below. Taking
forward such a scholarly agenda offers enormous benefits. It can make our teaching and our research
more insightful and it can help us to promote the educational value of our discipline. In the longer
term it might also play an important role in the reproduction of a discipline whose sense of identity is
closely bound up with a union of practice that many practitioners see as currently under threat in
higher education.
Further Reading
For discussion of the research-teaching relationship in theory and practice, see:
A. Jenkins, R. Breen & R. Lindsay, Reshaping Teaching in Higher Education (London, Kogan Page,
2003).
A. Jenkins & R. Zetter, Linking Research and Teaching in Departments (York, Learning and Teaching
Support Network Generic Centre, 2002).
M. Healey & A. Jenkins, ‘Strengthening the Teaching-Research Linkage in Undergraduate Courses and
Programmes’, in C. Kreber (ed.), Exploring Research-based Teaching (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2006).
5
M. Healey, ‘Linking Research and Teaching to Benefit Student Learning’, Journal of Geography in Higher
Education, 29 (2005).
There are also many practical resources that in addressing how to enable students to become ‘independent’
learners in history also touch on research-based teaching and learning. The following selection relate
specifically to history.
A. Booth, Teaching History at University: Enhancing Learning and Understanding (London, Routledge,
2003).
G. Timmins, K. Vernon & C. Kinealy, Teaching and Learning History (London, Sage, 2005).
P. Stearns, P. Seixas & S. Wineburg (eds), Knowing, Teaching and Learning History (New York, New
York University Press, 2000).
S. Gillespie (ed.), Teaching Students to Think Historically (Washington DC, American Historical
Association, 1999).
Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for History, Classics & Archaeology:
http://www.hca.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/TDG/reports.
‘History Matters’: http://historymatters.gmu.edu
‘Senior Essay in History at Yale’: http://www.yale.edu/history/senior-essay.
‘Reacting to the Past’: http://www.barnard.edu/reacting
Contact details:
Dr Alan Booth
School of History
University of Nottingham
Nottingham NG7 2RD
alan.booth@nottingham.ac.uk
1
References
This commentary focuses upon the research-teaching nexus in British higher
education, though there are many similarities in the kinds of issues in other countries.
See, for example, P. Stearns, Meaning over Memory: Recasting the Teaching of Culture
and History (Chapel Hill, North Carolina Press, 1993).
2
See, for example, T. Becher and P. Trowler, Academic Tribes and Territories:
Intellectual Enquiry and the Cultures of Disciplines (Buckingham, Open University
Press, 2001); R. Neumann, S. Parry & T. Becher, ‘Teaching and Learning in their
Disciplinary Contexts: a Conceptual Analysis’, Studies in Higher Education, 27 (2002),
pp.405-17; A. Biglan, ‘The Characteristics of Subject Matter in Different Scientific
Areas’, Journal of Applied Psychology, 57 (1973), pp.195-203; D. Kolb, Experiential
Learning: Experience as a Source of Learning and Development (New York; Prentice
Hall, 1984); M. Huber & S. P. Morreale (eds), Disciplinary Styles in the Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning (Washington D.C., American Association of Higher Education,
2002).
3
On the early history of the discipline as a medium of education in higher
education, see R. Soffer, Discipline and Power: The University , History and the making
of an English Elite (Stanford, CA, 1994); P. Slee, Learning and a Liberal Education: The
Study of Modern History in the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester 18001914 (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1986).
6
See the comments of the editors of the leading historical journal Past and
Present: C. Wickham and L. Roper, ‘Past and Present after Fifty Years’, Past and
Present, 176 (2002), p.5.
5
On this background, see G. Timmins, K. Vernon & C. Kinealy, Teaching and
Learning History (London, Sage, 2005), ch.1.
6
See Subject Overview Report: Quality Assessment of History (Bristol, Higher
Education Funding Council for England, 1994). This linkage between teaching and
research has continued to important in more recent checklists for QAA Subject Reviews
and Developmental Engagements.
7
For the history community’s critical response to this process, see History at the
Universities Defence Group, Report of a Working Party to Review the Teaching Quality
Assessment of History (London, HUDG, 1994).
8
History at the Universities Defence Group, Standards in History: Final Report of
a Working Party of the HUDG to the Quality Assurance Agency (London, HUDG, 1998),
pp.9-10.
9
A. Barker, ‘University History’, History Today, 47 (1997), p.58. This, of course,
is to assume that the ‘expert’ researchers are actually teaching and that modules are not
being taught by the growing army of part-time staff.
10
A means of separating out these terms and making them meaningful is offered by
R. Griffiths, ‘Knowledge Production and the Research-Teaching Nexus: The Case of the
Built Environment Disciplines’, Studies in Higher Education, 29 (2004), pp. 709-26.
11
For some reflections on this see M. MacLean and H. Barker, ‘Students Making
Progress and the “Research-Teaching Nexus”’, Teaching in Higher Education, 9 (2004),
pp. 407-419.
12
See, for example, Griffiths, op. cit. M. Healey, ‘Linking Research and Teaching:
Exploring Disciplinary Spaces and the Role of Inquiry-based Learning’, in R. Barnett
(ed.), Reshaping the University: New Relationships between Research, Scholarship and
Teaching (London, Open University Press, 2006); R. Neumann, S. Parry & T. Becher,
‘Teaching and Learning in their Disciplinary Context’, Studies in Higher Education, 27
(2002); T. Becher & P. Trowler, op. cit.
13
Stearns, op.cit., p.32.
14
For discussion of this see A. Booth, ‘Rethinking the Scholarly: Developing the
Scholarship of Teaching in History’, Arts & Humanities in Higher Education, 3 (2004),
pp.247-60. In the United States see R. Diamond & B. Adam (eds), The Disciplines
Speak: Rewarding the Scholarly, Professional, and Creative Work of Faculty
(Washington DC, American Association for Higher Education); T. Bender et al., The
Education of Historians for the Twenty-First Century (Urbana, University of Illinois
Press, 2004), p.19.
15
See C. Brooks, J. Gregory & D. Nicholls, ‘Teaching and the Academic Career’,
in A. Booth & P. Hyland (eds), The Practice of University History Teaching
(Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2000);
16
Idem, pp.22-3.
17
For more on trends in thinking about teaching and scholarship in history, see
Booth, ‘Rethinking the Scholarly; A. Booth, Teaching History at University: Enhancing
4
7
Learning and Understanding (London, Routledge, 2003); G. Timmins, K. Vernon & C.
Kinealy, Teaching and Learning History (London, Sage, 2005).
8