Can undergraduates do Research ?

Our BA LTR and BA LTT pathways are designed to enable undergraduate students to operate as researchers designing inquiries to improve practice and discover new knowledge. Having facilitated the curriculum since 2003 I am confident to say that many of our undergraduates do discover knowledge that is new to them and when shared in the workplace and beyond it is not unusual for these discoveries to be valued by others. Their discoveries are not presented as unique or finite. For most they were uncovered through rigorous and systematic processes; as they are not claiming a PhD we are not looking for a unique contribution to their field of knowledge.

It is felt by some that undergraduates are not able to do "Research". Several factors are highly visible in this debate:

Undergraduates are unlikely to have the experience and academic acumen to achieve high levels of rigour.

They do not have time to read all of the literature in their field.

Their contributions to knowledge are unlikely to be significant or unique.

Can we be sure that all Masters and Doctoral students or those working at higher levels read all of the literature in their field; the sources published in Mandarin, Urdu, Spanish etc etc? Given the temporal parameters I agree it is likely that they will have read more than some undergraduates but I doubt that many people ever read all that is published.

Ehrenberg and Siday noted an odd quantum vector effect related to a doughnut shaped magnetic field in 1949 although their results went unnoticed until Aharonov and Bohm rediscovered the effect in 59 and it was not witnessed unambiguously until 86. Were Aharonov and Bohm not proper researchers because they were not aware of the earlier work; it was their name that stuck to the effect.

A fossil examined by many experts over many years yields only conformation that it is similar to other fossils of that genus and type until someone notices a structure and proposes, then confirms, it represents proto feathers and these were actually hairy looking dinosaurs - was it only the last person, the one who noticed something new, who was doing research, or is it possible that the systematic and rigorous confirmation of existing knowledge and the finding of nothing new is still a research process?

Scientists have searched for a unified theory of everything for a long time, GUT seems to ignore gravity, Superstring theory aims to include gravity and M Theory is progressing but parity violations in weak interactions in particle physics have continued to thwart hopes for perfection for 50 years - what if we find that the Universe is more like Gleiser's imaginings with asymmetry, imperfection and accident being fundamental characteristics. What if a unified theory is only a pipe dream based on the old idea of perfection in the mind of a deity leading to their being a definable blueprint for nature concept; what if we are only seeing a small part of the picture limited by our ability to perceive and conceptualise the physical world?

Many educators have striven for many years to develop effective practices relating to pedagogy, exploration of theory underpins much of this. Like the world of physics it is a complex field and children offer similar problems to the parity variations - they don't all fit into the right boxes or respond the same way to the same practice. There is no unified theory of education although many "right ways" have been proposed, successful approaches vary from teacher to teacher, from culture to culture and from child to child. The teaching assistants on our pathways read widely, draw on their experience and the experience of others to design systematic and rigorous inquiries that aim to improve practice by designing solutions to solve real world problems. Proposed solutions are honed and refined through cyclical inquiry with each iteration being examined through careful data collection and analysis leading to improved solutions for the next iteration. Solutions are not presented as finite, no unified final solution is in their sights; they are aware that what is best practice today can always be improved on tomorrow; that what works for one person might not work for another. The aim of our curriculum is to develop a lifetime habit of systematic and rigorous reflection and exploration- a habit I would describe as having the characteristics of ongoing practitioner research.

Does operating as a researcher exploring and contributing to knowledge locally count or do you really need to make a unique contribution on the global perspective to be labeled as a researcher? I had better keep reading.