Every year, large numbers of university students join CGIAR research centresto gain practical experience and gather data for their Masters and PhD theses. However, many come with little or no idea how to conduct properscientific research. “Their knowledge of the subject matter may be fine,”explains Ric Coe, head of the ResearchMethods Group established by the WorldAgroforestry Centre and the International Livestock ResearchInstitute (ILRI), “but when students arrive they often know little about the fundamentals of research, such as how to formulate a hypothesis, or set up a scientific study.” Many are also poorly versed in the ethics of research and think, for example, that it is acceptable to plagiarize other people’s work.

Part of the fault lies with universities, which frequently fail to provide students with a good grounding on how to conduct scientific research. In theory, the scientists at the CG centres who are responsible for supervising and mentoring the students should help to make up for this, but all too often that doesn’t happen. “Some scientists look on the students as cheap labour,” explains Jan Beniest, head of the World Agroforestry Centre’s Training Unit in Nairobi. “The students might spend a lot of time measuring tree growth and doing other donkey work, but they don’t always get the bigger picture about what good research entails.”

To counter these problems, the Training Unit and the ILRI-World Agroforestry Centre Research Methods Group ran an induction course for postgraduate students in Nairobi in 2006. Attended by 37 students attached to CG centres in the region, the one-week course addressed the gaps in university training and introduced students to the principles, concepts, methods and approaches used to conduct high-quality research for development in agriculture and natural resource management. It proved such a success that some students suggested future coursesshould be attended by supervisors, both from the CG centres and universities.

This sort of intensive learning experience, gathering a large number of people in one place for a length of time, is too expensive to repeat on a regular basis, so Coe and Beniest decided to replicate the course using a ‘blended learning’ approach, involving e-learning and a face-to-face, problem-solving workshop. The long-term aim is to establish purely e-learning courses, but a faceto- face component was included on this occasion to identify the gaps in the course that would need filling.

Prospective students submitted their research proposals, which were evaluated by the Research Methods Group.These were used as a basis for choosing the course participants and as a benchmark for assessing their progress. A oneweek online preparatory course was followed by six weeks of online learning on ‘Research Methods: Thinking Scientifically.’ This was managed by two professional online facilitators and the subjectmatter specialists – one being Coe – responsible for five modules. These were:

• Science and how it works – critical thinking and innovation/li>
• Scientists – who they are and how they work
• Controversies and issues related to research and development
• Your research proposal – a toolbox to develop quality research
• CConnecting knowledge to action – completing the loop

The expectation was that students would spend half a day a week on the online course, but many spent longer. Their progress was monitored by the facilitators, who e-mailed students if they were getting behind and alerted the subjectmatter specialists when particular issues arose that required their immediate attention. After the online course the students gathered for a one-week workshop in Nairobi. This gave them the chance to directly interact with one another and with the subject-matter specialists.

Although people in Africa often cite access problems as a major constraint to e-learning, none were seriously inconvenienced on this course. Some participants felt that the group was too large – there were 36 students, most from Africa – and heterogenous, with the result that online discussions could sometimes be disjointed. Overall, however, the students considered this an excellent learning process and many said it helped them to improve their research proposals and the quality of their research work.

As far as the subject-matter specialists were concerned, they felt that the blended learning event enabled them to get to know the participantsmuch better than they would have done in a single, one-week meeting. This meant that they were better able to prepare their interventions at the problem-solving workshop. In their view, research supervisors, especially those from universities, should be more involved in the blending learning process, and it would also be helpful if the course was offered to university lecturers, so that they could teach it themselves.

The experience gained will enable CG centres to offer a multitude of other blended or purely e-learning events during future years, and thus meet the ever-increasing demand for agricultural and natural resource management learning. “We’d like to see every graduate researcher who comes to join a CG centre undergoing a course like this,” says Coe. “The blended learning experience has shown that they will become more competent researchers, and they will get much more out of the time they spend at a CG research centre.” Conference held in Accra Ghana, 28-30 May 2008. P 6–9.

Further reading/b>
Beniest J, Coe R, Poole J, Ochieng H, Vandenbosch T, Clark C, Bevernage-Janssens A. 2008. Lessons learned from a blended learning event on ‘Research Methods – Thinking Scientifically’. Book of Abstracts, eLearning Africa Conference held in Accra Ghana, 28-30 May 2008. P 6–9.