2009 - Teacher Educator Conference

Outcome of EBEA Research Conference
10 October 2009 - Warwick University
We had presentations in the morning from Prue Huddleston (Warwick University), Peter Davies (Staffordshire University) and Adrian Lyons HMI. Each gave a perspective on research in our area. We gained a view of appropriate research questions and how to organise research, particularly the importance of collaboration. The powerpoint presentations from Prue and Adrian are attached for information.

A theme that came out of the morning sessions were that although a few people were doing research there was actually not a lot of it happening and what was tended to not focus on Business Education in schools and it was published in journals that did not specialise in Business Education. (Economics research is more widely undertaken and has specialist journals).

In the afternoon Neil Denby led a discussion about the impact of Masters level teaching on standards in general. Colleagues shared experiences regarding the organisation of their courses and strategies they were using to try to make it work. It was clear that people are still experimenting with new ways of organising the programmes and having to cope with new demands on student time as well.

We moved on to discuss how to take forward the contribution of the EBEA to developing and disseminating research practice. There was a proposal to develop an ejournal but it was agreed that we are not ready for it. We currently have a (un refereed) repository of high quality research papers from students and lecturers - this is very useful for exemplars and for identifying reading lists and background reading but most are not at publishable standard. The following strategy was agreed. 

  • Continue in 2010 to offer the repository to those who wish to have excellent work identified on the site (www.ebea.org.uk) in 'Developing Expertise'
  • Develop a collection of evidence for research questions - this will provide a basis for further research work - this collection would be kept in a 'bucket' on the EBEA website in the Research section (in 'Developing Expertise')
  • Organise a research conference day at the end of the Annual Conference in 2011 - it would be for the UK and international teacher educator community of Business and Economics Educators - the outcome would be published and distributed to all delegates - the date is not yet fixed but it will probably therefore be at the end of the first week after half term in June 2011
  • Keep the idea of an ejournal on the back burner

The actions for colleagues at the moment therefore are:

  • Consider sending your best students' work for the repository in 2010
  • Send me your ideas for research questions as soon as possible - We will agree these and then I will ask you to send me material for the bucket after that - I will keep you informed about progress on this and probably nag periodically
  • Start or continue some research work (in collaboration with a colleague) and present it at the conference in 2011
  • Put the research conference in your diary for 2011 and make sure you can go and present your paper

Attached is the delegate list - mainly for those were not there so that you know who was present and you can talk to them if you want to clarify any issues.

Finally I would like to thank the speakers for leading some really interesting sessions and everyone for what I think was a very useful day. 

Duncan Cullimore