Author:

Keywords:

higher education, teaching-research nexus

Abstract:

The integration of research into teaching is generally assumed to have a positive influence on students’ learning. However, the empirical research on research integration into teaching concentrates predominantly on perceptions of the value of the relation between teaching and research, or on correlations between research output and teaching effectiveness and not on possible effects of experiences of students with research-integration on their learning. The present study tries to provide empirical evidence by investigating among students the relation between ‘perceived experience with research integration into teaching’ and ‘perceived quality of the learning environment’. In this survey study, 1072 first and third year university students from four disciplines participated. An analysis of covariance revealed that research integration into teaching has a significant positive effect on the perceived quality. There is also effect of discipline and year of study on the perceived quality. The results contribute to the debate on the importance of the integration of research and teaching, since empirical evidence was found for the effect of research integration on the perceived learning environment quality.