Designing educational inquiry: key steps

Key steps

1. Identify a focus: a pedagogic challenge you experienced/an area of practice or a topic you want to explore
2. Explore the focus further: Consult relevant literature, reflect on your practice, collect feedback from students/colleagues
3. Design your educational inquiry: identify the questions you want to explore, examine the best methodology and methods that help address those questions. Understand the nature of the inquiry & the relevant sample. Apply for ethical approval (CSGUL & Other)
4. Start data collection and analyse data
5. Understand the emergent meanings & insights: Understand the key messages of the analysed data
6. Share: the new insights/new knowledge/findings with colleagues: internally (ESIC /Education Ideas Hub/Open Spaces) and externally (conference papers, blogs, journal articles, monographs, book chapters etc)

Share your developing ideas/knowledge with the ESIC network during the early stages of your inquiry process and get peer feedback

- Get in touch with ESIC for support

- Consult the “Defining Research Table” to understand the nature/type of your inquiry

- Read “What is Educational Research? + [Types, Scope & Importance]” to know more about educational inquiry

- Become familiar with the relevant ethical approval sources/processes:

• City St George’s Research Ethics
• NHS Health Research Authority
• If you plan to access confidential patient information consider the common law duty of confidentiality.
• The British Educational Research Association (BERA) Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research
• British Sociological Association Statement of Ethical Practice

Share your ‘work in progress’ at an ESIC network event and receive peer feedback.

Share the emergent new understandings internally (ESIC/Education Ideas Hub/Open Spaces) and or externally (conference papers/journal articles/book chapters/blogs)