gms | German Medical Science

Within the large national project ‘ForschenLernen’, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, my research has been conducted in one of the sub projects called “Formats”. The main prospect was to find out how the approach of research-related learning and teaching is implemented at universities and what terms are used in this context. ‘One of the main problems in the discussion about the research-teaching nexus is that the term is used for many different kinds of ’activities’ in the university and that many different words are used for the same activity’ [7]. There are divers systematisations by field experts like Huber [3], Reinmann [5], Tremp & Hildbrand [6], Healey & Jenkins [2] or Brew [1], providing a structure for these terms. This survey (Stang, Huber) aims to create an overall concept and enrich the discussion with concrete formats for the use in courses. In pursuance of developing a systematisation for research-related courses (formats), 17 German universities have been surveyed. Substantial documents were identified by means of document analysis. The subsequent classification and evaluation of the documents was conducted through qualitative content analysis [4] and resulted in a typology of research-related formats. They main formats are: Teachers’ research project as frame for students’ project work, Students’ research projects within the scope of courses and Students’ research projects independent of courses. These are defined by characteristic parameters such as course form or student and teacher activities. As part of the presentation I will offer a brief summary of the format selection created to portray how research-based learning is currently practiced in higher education. In this regard specific university examples will provide a profound insight. A wide variety of features such as multidisciplinarity and third-party collaborations may be developed within these individual formats. Furthermore they can be used by different target groups like teachers, university administrators or curriculum developers and benefit communication, coaching processes, discussions or localization of courses.