Lecturers’ Beliefs regarding Research in Teaching compared in Hard and Soft Disciplines

Abstract

This study aims at gaining insights in the differences and similarities between beliefs of lecturers in hard and soft disciplines. The integration of research in teaching is important to enhance students’ learning opportunities. Lecturers play a key role in research-based teaching as they are the facilitators of it. The lecturers’ behaviour in facilitating this combination is guided by their beliefs. The results of the present study suggest that lecturers in hard disciplines valued the role of knowledge accumulation and generalizability of research methods and used this as a starting point of their teaching pedagogy. In contrast, the findings indicate that lecturers of soft disciplines appear more focussed on letting students find their own path with the help of university education. These insights may help to gain understanding of lecturers’ beliefs. As a result, this study may help to inform decisions about effective teaching approaches in the integration of research in teaching for the sake of lecturers, policy makers and educational advisors. Moreover, these results can inform decisions on how to support lecturers in integrating research in teaching, matching with the disciplinary similarities and varieties or aiming at the interdisciplinary policies of universities.