Research-informed teaching for assessing BIM courses during COVID-19 and beyond

Abstract

Purpose

In the COVID-19 era, where blended learning is gaining popularity, research-informed teaching could be one of the alternatives or options to assess students' progress in Higher Education institutions. In the past, educators have assessed students' research skills gained from research-informed teaching through coursework components or assignments. However, whether the assignments can be converted into peer-reviewed output acceptable in a reputable journal or conference has hardly been investigated. This study explores how research-informed teaching has been rolled out in undergraduate/postgraduate BIM related modules/programmes in the School of the Built Environment, Oxford Brookes University and which has culminated in high quality published outputs.

Design/methodology/approach

The method used is purely qualitative in-depth interviews, where students who have published were tracked and invited to share their experiences. In total, nine former students of the 12 invited, participated in the interviews. Inductive content analysis, a suitable qualitative data analysis technique was used in analysing the feedback from the interviews.

Findings

The main finding is that research-informed teaching can be done in a technical and complex BIM discipline and students' coursework components or assignments can further be converted into published outputs.

Research limitations/implications

The main limitation of this study was that the sample was small. That notwithstanding, it has provided valuable insights into the understanding of student's ability to undertake research while studying and experiences of how educators can deliver research-informed teaching to students in Higher Education institutions.

Originality/value

The study adds to the existing body of literature about undergraduate and postgraduate research-informed teaching and goes further to provide strong evidence through published outputs thereby confirming that students at both levels can indeed conduct and publish peer-reviewed research articles while undertaking their studies.

Citation

Abanda, F.H. (2023), "Research-informed teaching for assessing BIM courses during COVID-19 and beyond", Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 568-598. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-08-2021-0306