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Pedagogic research in geography higher education

Pedagogic research, a term whose meaning is much debated, is often conceived as concerning the investigation of student learning and how this is affected by teaching and assessment practices. This editorial explores some recent contributions in the Journal of Geography in Higher Education (JGHE) to pedagogic research and wonders if there may exist, or may emerge, a distinctive school of pedagogic research in Geography Higher Education? It reviews recent developments in Pedagogic Research in Geography and suggests some priorities for future research. For some, “Pedagogical research simply means finding out more about how learning takes place so that we, as teachers, can direct our energies into approaches which are more likely to be successful” (Reid, 2003, p. 3). Hence, pedagogic research can be recognized because it concerns the mode of learning more than it concerns the subject matter being learnt. So, if the main purpose of a paper is Geography, by this definition, it is probably not pedagogic research. By contrast, if a paper is primarily an exploration of the processes of learning, then it is pedagogic research even if the vehicle for that learning is Geography. The distinction, a difference in emphasis, is sometimes far from clear cut. For example, in 2014, Haigh published a paper entitled: “Gaia: ‘thinking like a planet’ as transformative learning”, which explores issue of transformative learning, especially its potentially negative impacts on learners who do not “transform” effectively. This is pedagogic research. However, the paper also deals with Gaia Theory and its potential for education in Physical Geography and Earth Systems Science. Arguably, in this case, the content and pedagogy are inter-related – and a holistic, transformative approach to learning is intrinsically bound to the topic of study. This is indicative of much research into Geographical education, not least where this concerns that signature pedagogy of Geography – fieldwork. One of the foundational arguments for JGHE was to establish Geography Higher Education as research field of equivalent quality and relevance to that in all other areas of Geography. It was argued that, since almost all University Geography researchers also teach Geography, using these research skills to enhance the quality of teaching and better the production of new Geographers was a very important activity. Close links between staff research, staff teaching and student learning are typical of Higher Education. These could be reconstructed in ways that are more productive for Geography’s learners by using Geographical research skills in pedagogic contexts (Jenkins, 2003), so exploiting the huge overlap between the research methods employed by geographers and those employed by education professionals for the benefit of the discipline. Subsequently, the linking of disciplinary research and teaching has become a major theme within Geography (as other disciplines) both in the UK and in the USA, where the idea was one of the ten changes in the undergraduate curriculum promoted by the USA’s Boyer Commission of 1998 (Healey, 2005; Jenkins & Healey, 2009). However, research into teaching and learning, practising pedagogic research, has become a minor theme