The Contributions of Research to Teaching in Higher Education

By Bruce A. Thyer

The demands made upon faculty fortunate enough to hold positions at major research universities are considerable.  With few exceptions, we are expected to make significant contributions in the three-fold areas of instruction, scholarship and service.  Concurrently fulfilling this holy trinity of expectations is often difficult for some faculty, and it is not uncommon to hear or read lamentations about how one aspect of these responsibilities seemingly interferes with another.  These complaints usually center on how conducting research detracts from being an effective teacher, to the detriment of quality instruction, especially at the undergraduate level.  More rarely do we hear active researchers complain that their teaching responsibilities interfere with their research endeavors.  There are some positive benefits to the job of ‘teaching’ that can accrue through having an active program of scholarship and publishing, and I would like to describe a few of these, to help correct the misperception that the latter often harms the former.  The positive benefits of research on teaching are not often visible, but they are none-the-less significant.

When I publish an article in a scholarly journal, I have immediate access to a potential audience of many thousands, consisting of the individual journal subscribers, plus all those others who happen to read the issue my article appears in. For example, the flagship journal in my field is received by more than 120,000 subscribers. Readers of journals are fellow academics, students, and practitioners.  An article I publish in a journal has a potential instructional impact many times greater than a stirring lecture I may give to an individual class, which, once given, is a performance lost to the ages. A potentially larger audience consists of individuals who access a journal electronically (an increasingly available option).  For example, a professional journal I edit, available in both print and electronic versions, had over 140,000 articles in PDF format downloaded electronically last year by its readers, individuals who access the journal via the 4,000+ university libraries that subscribe to the electronic version of the journal.  The hardcopy issues themselves will reside in hygienic air-conditioned comfort, printed on acid-free paper, enjoying virtual immortality in hundreds of libraries around the world for future generations of scholars to make use of.   These contributions represent an appreciable instructional impact of publishing journal articles, by any standard.   

Another instructional benefit of publishing a research paper is through providing formal continuing education opportunities to practitioners.  Some journals in my field offer continuing education units (CEUs, required for continuing licensure) to journal readers who complete a written examination on selected articles that appear in each issue and then submit the test to an approved CEU-provider. The provider grades the examination and issues the CEU certificate to the professional. This is widely done in medical and other healthcare journals, and increasingly in other disciplines, such as psychology and social work.

Sometimes articles published in research or other scholarly journals are picked up by faculty at other institutions for use in course packs of assigned readings. Or faculty may provide the students an Internet link so that they can read or download an individual article themselves.  Even better, a research article may be formally reprinted in professional textbooks to be read by several generations of students. Students preparing term papers know of the importance of reviewing the literature for a given topic. They may run across your research article, thoroughly dissect it, and reference it in their papers. Abstracting and citation services spread the news of your publication far and wide, allowing students and professors aboard access to what you have to say. Other established professionals may use your publications, and build upon it, in conducting their own investigations. One paper of mine published almost 25 years ago has been cited more than 130 times by other scholars.  All of the above forms of sharing information can be viewed as useful aspects of “teaching” and how it can be benefited by conducting and publishing “research.”

I regularly work closely with graduate students, one-on-one, in the design, conduct, write-up and submission of research articles for publication. While this most commonly occurs with doctoral students, I have similarly involved a number of master’s candidates. The reinforcing nature of the experience has, in part, led a number of them to pursue the Ph.D. themselves. The process of individually guiding a student in conducting a literature review, designing a study, gathering data, writing, analyzing, synthesizing, and leading to a product called a “a scholarly paper” suitable for submission to a professional journal, are all aspects of the practice of “teaching.” Indeed, such intimate collaboration may be said to reflect the epitome of instruction. Moreover, some of my students with such an established track record of several publications to their credit have, upon graduation, been able to land instructional positions at teaching-oriented colleges. Having had such a track record, in addition to credible teaching skills, gave them a leg up in being recruited for academic positions at teaching colleges.

Another benefit of the process of conducting research is that I inevitably learn as much as I happen to discover. Thus to engage in scholarly inquiry is to engage in a form of auto-pedagogy, exemplifying the lifelong process off self-instruction expected from educated individuals in general, and of members of the professoriate in particular. Through such constant learning of new theory, techniques, methods, conceptualizations and philosophical viewpoints, my own classroom and other instructional activities are greatly enriched.

My university is categorized as a “Doctoral-Extensive” (formerly known as a Research I) institution. For the most part, its tenure-track faculty are charged not only with disseminating existing knowledge but also being on the forefront of discovering new knowledge. A major vehicle to discover new knowledge is through systematic scholarly inquiry. The dissemination of new knowledge through publications in professional journals and books is part and parcel of the job of our faculty.  At my institution, we seek not only competent instructors, but competent instructors who are also capable of adding to human knowledge, not just distributing it around. Those who seek only to teach are rightly viewed as less valuable to the university community than those who teach well and do research. Moreover, we also seek to recruit as faculty individuals who will contribute to the service dimensions of university life and professional discourse. 

Tenure-track faculty at major research universities such as mine can and should be expected to perform all three roles well, with due adjustments for faculty in the creative arts.  The faculty member whose teaching suffers because of research involvement is as undesirable as the competent teacher who contributes nothing to the growth of new knowledge. A judicious balance of teaching expertise, scholarship and service contributions is sought among tenure-track faculty. This is as it should be, given the nature of our institution and the roles we fulfill.  Those not comfortable in performing these three concurrent responsibilities may find more professional satisfaction in other types of academic institutions, perhaps in colleges more focused on teaching.

Bruce A. Thyer (Florida State University) is Professor and former Dean of the College of Social Work at Florida State University.  He previously held an appointment as a Distinguished Research Professor of Social Work at the University of Georgia. He has published more than 230 journal articles, 60 book chapters and 30 books in social work, psychology and psychiatry. Email him at bthyer@fsu.edu.