Paul Armstrong
University of Leeds, UK

Paper presented at SCUTREA, 31st Annual Conference, 3-5 July 2001, University of East London

WORKING in higher education in the United Kingdom, I am well aware that there are disparities in continuing professional development for our various roles.

For a long time, it is probably fair to say that there was very little formal in-service training. It was assumed that if we had a doctorate in our subject then we could - somehow- naturally teach it. After all, we had been taught ourselves, and we had the opportunity to take on role models, if not establish a mentoring relationship with such models. We may even had the opportunity to teach as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. However, we are now much more aware of our need to improve our teaching and our understanding of how students learn. The Institute of Learning and Teaching (ILT) is indicative of this (1). Similarly, increasingly over the past decade, institutions of higher education have taken staff (human resource) development to a level never previously seen, particularly concentrating on academics' administrative responsibilities, supporting -among other things- quality assurance. A particular focus is now given to induction - the process of becoming a university lecturer, although it assumes that this can be achieved quite quickly, and probably no more than the three-year probationary period that most new lecturers have to go through.

An interesting aspect of learning to teach is that typically (and hopefully) this will extend beyond technicism, and through the deconstruction of teaching and learning, we become aware of not only how to teach, but what it means to become and be a teacher: When teachers engage in those activities which define teaching, they are engaging in something more than a role to be set aside as will: they are constructing themselves as beings. (Pearce and Pickard 1987, 42) There is a growing literature that links the process of learning to be a teacher with the construction of identity (Ball and Goodson 1985, Sikes, Measor and Woods 1985) - a relationship that is explored through life history research (2). If we look at the second major role of faculty in higher education - research -there is an interesting contrast. Unlike the teaching role, there is an assumption that as researchers we have served our apprenticeship through graduate study, undertaken research methods training programmes and gained extensive experience of doing research through our graduate and postgraduate studies. But does that mean we see ourselves as researchers, and at what point in time do we come to accept a state of being a researcher? The polarisation of being and becoming a researcher is over-simplistic, since the process of becoming is also a state of being. The implications for this distinction are, however, important. One current in education in the UK is the argument that teachers in schools should also be researchers.

In the context of evaluating the impact of education research, the Teacher Training Agency seems to believe that the way to improve education research is to locate it with teachers (Reynolds 1998). I am not necessarily against the idea in principle; after all, action/practitioner/evidence based research has a long and fruitful history (Carr and Kemmis 1986, ERIC 1993, Jarvis 1999).Nor am I arguing for the separation of teaching and research, for I agree that the two are 'inexorably linked' (Gutek 1997, 27).Here the question is that of the construction of multiple identities - how will teachers learn to become researchers as well? This is not merely a matter of undertaking a research methods training course, although that may be necessary to ensure that the basic research techniques are accessible to teachers as researchers. There is more to becoming a researcher than the acquisition of technical skills, and these other aspects are rarely covered in methodology textbooks. These are to do with the construction of our identities as no longer mere teachers, but teacher-researchers, or even fully fledged researchers. It is also problematic that there is a point at which we would know that we have become researchers, when we are in a state of being, and can now define our selves as researchers. From a lifelong learning perspective, we are also aware that, like teaching, each time we go into a new research situation, a unique set of experiences will ensue that are never the same as previous experiences of research. These are at variance with the realities represented in textbook characterisations of the role of researcher.

In order to find out what it means to become and be a researcher, we need to examine reflexive and autobiographical accounts of social and education researchers. Most often such stories are presented not as autobiographies of the researcher, but the story of the research. In sociological research, such accounts were popular in the 1970s (Bell and Encel 1978, Bell and Newby 1977, Platt, 1976), primarily emerging from qualitative, interactionist or phenomenological approaches (Coffey 1999). Those doing this research felt a constant pressure given the dominant ideology of positivism and quantitative research. The reflexive accounts were intended to 'tell it how it was', which was seen as significant contextual data for helping research audiences to interpret the research findings. In education research there are some such accounts (Walford 1991, Hammersley 1984), but generally there is a paucity of research on the process of not only doing research, but the career of becoming a researcher.

I will outline brief but significant fragments of my own experiences of becoming a researcher. Whilst a postgraduate student, I was aware that I was constructing my identity as sociologist. This gave primacy to the subject or discipline rather than the research process, particularly as I then separated 'theory' from 'practice'. Moving on to teach sociology in a further education context, the identity struggle was between myself as sociologist and my self as teacher.

At that time, it was possible to sustain this subject-based identity. But new and worrying developments in that sector were beginning in the late 1970s that suggested survival as a teacher in further education required flexibility - be prepared to teach other subjects or skills. At the same time, there was very little space or encouragement to develop a research identity.

Moving into higher education, I was able to sustain my self-image as a sociologist. Required to teach the sociology of adult education was a challenge since at that time there was little in the field of adult education that was specifically sociological. Nevertheless, it was also an opportunity to assist in building the field around the sociology of adult education. Whilst I conceived this as a research process, I was having difficulty in bringing together my multiple identities as teacher of sociology and researcher. I was made even more conscious of this struggle as I was required to teach a course on social and education research methods. I was going further and further away from becoming a researcher and increasingly into becoming a teacher. But more significantly I was beginning to question the discipline basis of my teaching identity. I was no longer a teacher of sociology, but a teacher of adults, and a teacher of teachers of adults. Confused and bewildered about who I was, I took drastic steps to recover the road to becoming a researcher, and undertook a two-year secondment to do research, far away from teaching and assessment. At the end of this period, I constructed myself as an education researcher.

Rather than return to higher education where I knew I would have to learn to become a teacher (of teachers) all over again, I took up a new post that I believed would enable me to achieve my goal of being a researcher. However, this was a management post, and so a new identity struggle began.

Was I a researcher or a manager of a research unit? I endeavoured to directly engage in as much research as time permitted, but I knew within the organisation I was perceived as a manager not a researcher, and it was only outside the organisation through attending conferences such as SCUTREA that I could pass myself off as a researcher.

And I did a good deal of research (but managed a good deal more).

I want to share some fragments of my experience in this paper that I see as being significant in the process of identity construction as a researcher through some short stories.

These are identity issues, as I say, not normally discussed in the research methods textbooks.

This is a tale of naïveté and innocence of a researcher still unaware of the real impact of research and findings outside of academia. It was the first piece of evaluation research I had undertaken, and was the beginning of my long journey to seek a means of engaging in more politically committed research, remaining faithful to my socialist values, and yet continue to develop professionally whilst not putting my academic career at risk. The detail of this story has been narrated at SCUTREA before (Armstrong 1986). I was asked by a voluntary organisation to carry out an evaluation of its procedures and practices. At the time I was a teacher of teachers of adults and was aware of my need to recover the road to becoming a researcher, and this was an important factor in agreeing to do this. But I was also holding on to my sociological identity, and felt that I would be able to sustain an objective approach to the research even though it was being sponsored by the organisation itself. In my academic research career to date I had not had to reflect on how the research findings would be interpreted. In doing qualitative research I had done the interpretation and provided an account of why that particular interpretation.

In my naivete I was not prepared for research that was going to be presented to policymakers and funders who were going to make important decisions based on their own interpretations of my story. However objective I believed myself to be in all aspects of the research process, I did not anticipate that the readers of the research were not going to be as objective in their interpretation of my interpretation.

Ultimately the potential impact of my research seemed to hinge around one phrase - 'relatively expensive'. As part of the research I looked at how the voluntary organisation provided its training for volunteers, and taking a range of factors into account, I concluded that the training they provided, per capita, was 'relatively expensive' compared with other voluntary organisations and other ways of providing the training. I was asked by the management committee of the voluntary organisation if I would mind changing the phrase to read 'relatively cheap' on the grounds that the local policymakers and funding bodies would only skim the report and would focus on words like 'expensive'.

No textbook learning had ever prepared me for that life changing moment.

The buying of research results has been a major concern for me in negotiating my identity as a researcher. In my experience, systematic, careful, objective and professional research actions were increasingly being challenged because they did not lead to the kind of results that the sponsors expected or needed. The use of research for specific purposes is a recognised political issue, and those who control the purse strings feel they have the right to buy particular outcomes. Not only that but consumers are becoming extremely sophisticated in understanding and utilising the power and influence of research procedures and outcomes.

At one extreme the research turns out to be a gesture, part of the construction of a story of how a set of decisions were made. The reality was quite different, in that the research was barely significant at all, except that it had been undertaken. Imagine a form to be completed by a partnership that had to demonstrate that what they wanted £12 millions for had emerged from a systematic research process. The form asked 'Have the needs to be met through this project funding been identified through research?' Of course, if the 'yes' box is ticked you do need to have a research report just in case someone in the government or in Europe wants to check.

At another extreme, there may be lack of consensus in an organisation about what to do and so a researcher is called in to undertake a project and make recommendations.

For example, putting in place a system of quality assurance, the research will often lead to the identification of a range of options - but should the researcher go one step further and make recommendations? This is frequently demanded by the sponsoring organisation - tell us what you think we should do, on the basis of your research findings. In some cases, those recommendations are taken on board, and as a researcher you can feel satisfied that you have made a difference, hopefully and indirectly improving the quality of the lives of employees and students that work in the organisation. However, more likely in the context of lack of consensus, the research does not resolve the conflict -if anything it can fuel it, and invariably nothing happens, and - importantly - the researcher is 'blamed' for not coming up with the 'right' answer. This vilification of the researcher can be quite destructive for one's own self-image. Of course, we all know from our assertiveness training that we should criticise the act (the research) not the person (the researcher). But this is over-simplistic, for as researchers we identify with the product of our labour, the research findings. Whenever we are invited to 'Don't take this personally ... ' we know that this is going to be followed by ' ..but ...', and we know that we are going to take it personally. Any criticisms of our research are a criticism of our self and our identity as researcher.

Whose side am I on? Researchers have been encouraged to bring their political allegiances and values to the surface.

In this story, I struggled to come to terms with the difficulties of taking sides, when it is not clear who the 'sides' are. 'Us and them' was a much easier model to operate than the recognition of multiple realities, and inherent contradictions.

Although the context for the story may seem mundane - the researching of contingent factors that contribute to the development of successful open and flexible learning systems in FE, the emergent challenges were important in the journey of becoming a researcher. In the previous story I experienced a situation of 'us and them' or 'me the researcher against the world'. However, in this story the context is different. It begins in a similar way. There appears to be a lack of consensus among the management group inviting the research. This turns out to be not due to lack of clarity about the options. Far from it, they all knew the options before the research was commissioned, and it became clear very early on in the process that the research(er) was a pawn in the struggle for power. In a context of organisational change and relocation, power is a central concept. Those with power will want to use research to demonstrate that there is a set of 'good reasons' for making this decision rather than another. Those struggling to grasp power to make such decisions will also need to seek to control the research and the researcher. The management committee consisted of five members, one of a higher status than the other four who were, in terms of organisational hierarchy, equal. I looked to the person with higher status for direction and control, especially as he appeared to be the only one without a vested interest in which model of open and flexible learning should be adopted. However, he barely said a word, and often came late to the meetings and left early. The other four would benefit differentially from the adoption of one model rather than another. They were not all in opposition to each other. There were deals being struck behind the scenes outside the meetings, usually two but sometimes three people allying themselves, against the other one or two. There were interesting political manoeuvrings and machinations going on. Throughout the project period, I would get a telephone call from each at least once a week offering information or advice. It was evident I could not please them all, and inevitably I would end up taking sides. Other factors come into play. I already had informal links into the institution through another role, which had brought me into contact with one of the four. He thought this pre-existing link was going to work to his advantage (although what he did not realise was that my other links had constructed a negative image of this person as a ruthless power seeker who was not going to let anything or anybody stop him getting to the top in the organisation).

There was the person who hosted the meeting, who provided the refreshments and was the one who displayed most consideration for the researcher: 'Oh, I don't envy you, you must have a very difficult job'.

How do such stories end? Badly. Although I knew I could take sides with at least one allegiance, and be defended by two or three of the members of the management committee, my proposals were going to please none, since they involved compromise and collaboration. The report was rejected (mistakenly I believe) on the basis that it was poorly researched and badly written. I had become the common enemy, and the organisation that subcontracted me to do this research were struck off the list of approved contractors.

I was comforted by the fact that the contractors were well aware of what the real issues were. They had read and approved everything I had written, and afterwards had gone back to the organisation to defend the research.

These stories have been reconstructed, of course, to illustrate particular points. Robin Usher (1997) has argued that all research is basically telling stories. But that does not make it fiction. Being informed by a postmodernist perspective is according to Lather (1991), 'getting smart'. Through her notion of research as praxis, it is vital that we recognise that at the heart of becoming a researcher is identity politics, through which we recognise we can construct rather than merely report or reflect realities through research.

Experiences I have recounted have been important sources of learning about the process of becoming a researcher. None of them can be dealt with by reading methodology textbooks (though some do warn of the dangers, even if they can not tell you what to do). And so the only way to learn to be a researcher is through doing, and importantly being aware of how the doing has been constructed through praxis.

Certainly there are times when the difficulties appear to be so irresolvable and insurmountable that it is tempting to withdraw from the challenges. If the experiences are considered learning opportunities, and there is a forum for sharing such experiences coming out of the workplace, then we can see that learning to become a researcher has to take place through doing research. Doing research on lifelong learning is itself lifelong learning. This recognises that education research may also be educational, and that being a researcher is not a job, not a role, not a status, nor a state of being, but a praxis, and a strategy and process for lifelong learning itself. It suggests that the process of becoming a researcher is also lifelong.

(1) The Institute of Learning and Teaching emerged out of the Dearing Report (1997)on Higher Education, and intends to act as a professional association that recognises 'quality' teachers in higher education, and will include in membership those who have undertaken appropriate and accredited teacher training programmes. At the time of writing experienced lecturers may apply for membership on the basis of demonstrating the capacity to reflect on their experience of teaching situated in the context of the broader role of the academic in higher education -including research and administration. To find out more about the ILT, visit http://www.ilt.ac.uk.

(2) Much of this is based on becoming teachers in schools (Burgess1984, Goodson 1991). There is one notable exception (Barr 1999,Ch. 3) and there are other sources of data on the process of becoming a teacher of adults. For example, Richard Hoggart (1990) outlines and analyses how he came to be an extramural staff tutor in the University of Hull.

Armstrong P (1986) 'Called into account: evaluation, accountability and objectivity' in M. Zukas (ed), Papers from the Sixteenth Annual Conference of the Standing Conference on University Teaching and Research in the Education of Adults. University of Leeds/SCUTREA, 1986; pp134-141

Ball S J and Goodson I F (eds) (1985) Teachers' lives and careers. Lewes: Falmer Press

Barr J (1999) Liberating knowledge: research, feminism and adult education. Leicester: NIACE

Bell, C and Encel S (eds) (1978) Inside the whale: ten personal accounts of social research. Oxford: Pergamon

Bell C and Newby H (eds) (1977) Doing sociological research. London: Allen & Unwin

Burgess R G (ed)The research process in educational settings: ten case studies. Lewes: Falmer Press

Carr W and Kemmis S (1986) Becoming critical: education, knowledge and action research. Lewes: Falmer Press

Coffey A (1999)The ethnographic self: fieldwork and the representation of identity. London: Sage Dearing Report (1997) Higher education in the learning society.

National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (chairman: Sir Ron Dearing) London: Department of Education and Employment

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Goodson I (1991) 'Teachers' lives and educational research' in I Goodson and R Walker (eds) Biography, identity and schooling episodes in educational research. London: Falmer Press

Gutek BA (1997) 'Teaching and research: a puzzling dichotomy' in R.André and P J Frost (eds) Researchers hooked on teaching: noted scholars discuss the synergies of teaching and research. Thousand Oaks: Sage

Hammersley M (1984) 'The researcher exposed: a natural history' in R G Burgess (ed) The research process in educational settings: ten case studies. Lewes: Falmer Press

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Jarvis P (1999) The practitioner-researcher: developing theory from practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Lather P (1991) Getting smart: feminist research and pedagogy with/in the postmodern. London: Routledge

Pearce J and Pickard A (1987) 'Being a teacher: towards an epistemology of practical studies' in J Smyth (ed) Educating teachers: changing the nature of pedagogical knowledge. Lewes: Falmer Press

Platt J (1976) Realities of social research: an empirical study of British sociologists. London: Sussex University Press/ Chatto and Windus

Reynolds D (1998) 'Teacher effectiveness: better teachers, better schools' Speech to Teacher Training Agency, reprinted in Research Intelligence, no. 66, October 1998

Sikes P J, Measor L and Woods P (1985) Teacher careers: crises and continuities. Lewes: Falmer Press

Usher R (1997) 'Telling a story about research and research as story-telling: postmodern approaches to social research' in G McKenzie, J Powell and R Usher (eds) Understanding social research: perspectives on methodology and practice. London: Falmer Press

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This document was added to the Education-line database on 07 February 2003