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What are the challenges when conducting research into your own education? Education development officer Jennifer Casey of the department of Chemistry at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� shares her experiences and she explains what motivates her to do this job. “I want to help teachers implement informed and thoughtful changes into their teaching practice.”

“At the beginning of the 2023–2024 academic year, a lecturer at the department of Chemistry asked me for help. The teacher indicated that only a few students in the second-year chemistry course Inorganic and Solid-State Chemistry were attending the tutorials, and they were not very engaged during the lessons.” Traditionally, tutorials consist of short assignments that students solve independently or in groups, without a fixed structure. To reverse this decline in tutorial attendance, Jennifer Casey introduced a new format. Students worked with structured worksheets and received guidance in small groups. “To compare the new and old formats, three tutorials were followed in this new format, and three remained in the traditional way”, Casey explains.

Although the students were not enthusiastic about the compulsory nature of the tutorials, their results appeared to improve: the pass rate for the mid-term exams was higher than in previous years. “Despite this result, we have decided that students will not be required to attend future courses. In addition, the groups will receive better guidance, and further research will be conducted into the influence of group formation on engagement and performance.”

United States versus the Netherlands

The method Casey applied in this tutorial is in line with the principle of guided inquiry. A method with which she had had good experiences in the United States, where she started her career in higher education and where she also conducted research on education. “I did not expect any differences in the results between the student population in the US and here in the Netherlands. But there definitely were.”

The results showed that the students at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� did have a slight preference for the new tutorial style, mainly because of its clear structure, accessible questions, and better alignment with the course material. But what the students were less enthusiastic about, were the randomly composed groups. They preferred to work with their friends. A downside of collaborating with friends, however, is that it seemed to reduce concentration and cognitive effort, yet random groups sometimes led to better concentration, but also to social discomfort. “And this was what I had not expected, given the positive results of this method in the US.”

In Casey’s experience, students in the US are used to collaborating in different groups much more often. In the Netherlands, students are working more in self-selected groups”. “It was interesting — something that worked really well in the US didn’t automatically work the same way here. Therefore, it is always important we verify if a certain method works in other contexts.”

So, when the Chemistry teacher came to me with his question, SoTL was a logical step to me to research the engagement of students and their motivation.

SoTL: the practice-oriented research

The way Casey approached this research into education is a typical example of SoTL. SoTL stands for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, which means teachers conduct practice-oriented research into their own teaching and their students' learning. Questions teachers may have are: What would I like to improve in my education? Or: What challenges do I encounter during lectures? Do students in my classes have sufficient opportunity to think for themselves, explore, and ask questions?

This type of research into your own teaching is easy to get started with and therefore very accessible. For example, you do not need to be an educationalist. However, it is important that you have a clear research design. That is why the Centre for Academic Teaching and Learning (CAT) has developed a step-by-step plan for setting up SoTL research.

“So, when the Chemistry teacher came to me with his question, SoTL was a logical step to me to research the engagement of students and their motivation. The lecturer and I worked together to develop the guided-inquiry activities. I also shared findings with him, and we used that to come up with a second study. The teacher was satisfied with the results, and it inspired the co-instructor of the course to make changes to their portion of the course as well. What helped, is that the lecturer and I had a very good understanding, since I have a PhD in chemistry and used to teach chemistry myself. I know what issues teachers have to deal with. And when I work with them, I understand them. We speak the same language because we work in the same field.”

Always work together on a research project

When Casey worked as a chemistry teacher in the United States, she became increasingly interested in the way she taught and whether the material she wanted to convey to her students was actually sinking in. But she did not have any formal training in education sciences. Then how do you go about researching your teaching? “I just started, by trial and error. And I always did the research together with a student-assistant, graduate student or other instructor.”

That is what Casey’s advice is: always work with someone on a project. “Especially when it is new to you, you have lots of questions. That’s why it is so helpful to be able to talk to somebody about what you’re thinking and what you’re experiencing, what you want and what you’re noticing.” To Casey, it also made it more fun and engaging to work together on research into education. “And you don’t feel so lost.” According to Casey you do not necessarily have to work with someone who is more experienced than you are. “When I first started researching education, I collaborated with people who were equally confused and that was still helpful,” she says laughing, “It shows that others also struggle with conducting research.”

Casey learned a lot from her first years as an educational researcher. “In the different projects I did, I learned about ways to improve upcoming projects. And in a new project I will involve students more. This is one of the main things I will change. After all, the perspective of students is important.” By doing many projects, Casey also learned more about the research process. “That way you get better and better in researching education.”

For one of the research projects Casey did at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��, she received support from the CAT. Educational consultant Femke Kirschner helped her. “I was less familiar with qualitative research, like doing interviews. Femke was super helpful, just excellent.” Kirschner gave Casey a list of papers to read and showed her the different ways in which researchers process qualitative data. Data that is very different from the data she worked with as a chemist.

In the different projects I did, I learned about ways to improve upcoming projects.

No reproducible data

Doing educational research in the Chemistry department at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� is less common. “I think a lot of physical scientists have a very deep sense of what they believe is valid data. That data is reproducible, which is not the case for this kind of research, especially within SoTL. For example, you talk about very limited contexts. After all, these are small student populations, certainly in the research project with the tutorials. Also, you may do a study one period and then you may do the study the next year, same period, with different students, you get different results. Therefore, I think it is an obstacle for my colleagues in science, because it is such a different way of conducting research.”

Casey would like to proceed with her work at the Chemistry department, but unfortunately, her contract ended at the end of August 2025. The good news is that she has put SoTL on the map within her department. What's more, she has made Pieter Bruijnincx, the director of education for the Department, enthusiastic about SoTL. “He saw it is a great opportunity for us to bring a scholarly perspective into our teaching.” Casey is thus leaving a wonderful legacy at this department.