ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY EDITORIAL HEADQUARTERS Washington D C 20036 1155 Sixteen'th St.: N.W. Phone: 202-737-3337 Teletype WA 23 Associate Editor: John K. Crum Assistant Editors: Josephine Pechan, Virginia E. Stewart Editorial ASSktUntS: Eugenie C. Callaghan, Ana So1 de Gutrdrrez Contributing Editor:
Research and TeachingSymbiosis or Antagonism?
R. H . Miiller
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Charlotte C. Sayre
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AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS Director of Publications, Richard L. Kenyon Director Of Business Operations, Joseph H. Kuney Publication Manager, Journals, David E. Guehee Executiue ASSiStant to the Director of Publications, Rodney N. Hader Circulation Dewlopment Manager, Herbert C. Spencer Assistant to the Director of Publications, William €2. Hull REGIONAL EDITORIAL BUREAUS NEW YORK, N. Y. 10017 733 Third Ave. PHILADELPHIA Pa. 19107 Philadelphia National Bank Building Broad & Chestnut Streeta PITTSBURGH, Pa. 15219 530 William Perm Place CHICAGO I11 60603 36 South Wabah Ave. CLEVELAND Ohio 44114 1367 East Sixtd St. SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. 94104 57 Post St. LOS ANGELES, Calif. 90005 422 South Weatern Ave. HOUSTON Texas 77002 514 Main Bidg. 1212 Main St. FRANKFURT/MAIN West Germany 32 Groase Bockenheimehrasae
ARTICULARLY during the last decade when the level of outside support of P r e s e a r c h by university staff has increased substantially, there have been many articles in newspapers and magazines t o assert that research by university professors is detrimental to good teaching. Setting aside a point that is obvious t o graduate faculty members, namely, that the performance of research at the graduate student level is, in fact, primarily a teaching enterprise, it is a valid question to ask whether the effectiveness of teaching a t the elementary level is undermined by preoccupation with research. Those of us in research oriented departments can readily call to mind individual examples both of positive and negative correlation between good teaching and good research, but practically all statements on this subject have been based on opinion or intuitive feeling rather than upon facts. A recent statistical study, as reported by Professor Jack B. Bresler, of Tufts University, in Science [ 160, 164 (1968)] is therefore of unusual interest. Research activity by Tufts University staff members was measured by published articles and by research support from internal and external sources, while teaching effectiveness in elementary courses was determined by student evaluation. The final conclusion is as follows: "The students rated as their best instructors those faculty members who had published articles and who had received, or were receiving, government support for research." The conclusion was the same for faculty in arts and humanities as in natural sciences, social sciences, and engineering. Likewise, it held both for faculty at the junior (instructor and assistant professor) as well as the senior (associate professor and professor) levels. It is not so much the production of new knowledge per se that stimulates good teaching as the attitude of mind generated by research participation, Facts and theories are not entities to be neatly cataloged and stacked either in a library or in a mind, but a t any point in time they represent a stage of evolution in a dynamic system of developing knowledge. Research activity then stimulates the imagination and guards against stagnation so that teaching actually benefits rather than suffers. Another question that is being frequently raised at a time of rapid expansion of educational facilities, particularly a t the junior college and four-year college levels, is whether a Ph.D. degree, which is primarily a research oriented degree, should be an absolute or even desirable requirement for teachers in such institutions. It appears that a strong argument can be made for the thesis that research participation a t the graduate student level makes a strong contribution to teaching effectiveness, even in the junior college, simply because a person who has a t one time had personal experience in research will more adequately be able to pass on the spirit and flavor of science than one who has gained all of his knowledge and experience a t second or third hand.
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For submission of manuscripts, see page 2 A . VOL 40, NO. 7, JUNE 1968
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