Teaching and learning in hard science research environments: views of academics and educational developers

摘要

Obligatory educational training of Swedish university teachers rarely involves senior teaching staff from research-dominated environments, despite the positive effects of junior staff training. Senior science academics were surveyed to gauge their views on the principles of teaching and learning and of teaching rewards. These views were compared with educational developers' views on 'ideal values of academics' and on educational rewards. Based on this study, it is suggested that to reduce inherent teaching-research conflicts, convergence of teaching and research, in terms of teaching design and curriculum content, is necessary. To involve and convince science researchers who teach, educational staff development should probably focus on didactic aspects of their scientific disciplines and rely largely on empirical evidence.