Building a resilient educational researcher community

Abstract

Supporting the ongoing development of educational researchers can be more challenging than supporting the development of other researchers because they work across the university in different disciplines and centres. This small-scale qualitative study explored the motivation and engagement of educational researchers at a UK university, the support that helped them and their perceived strengths in research skills. Future development hopes and needs were also expressed. The aim was to better understand ourselves (self-identifying educational researchers), individually and collectively, to help us to build an educational research community for future collaborative research projects. Participants demonstrated altruistic motivations as well as those linked to personal fulfilment and professional need. Specific hopes reported included the desire to work with collaborative research groups. The findings can aid educational researchers and their employers to better recognise educational researchers at an institutional level; to understand the needs of this disparate group; to build a sustainable community and to support the design of development opportunities locally, university-wide and externally, through personalised provision and peer support and mentoring. The study also provides a framework for further research.