About Our Research

The LASAR (Learning about Science and Religion) research group conducted research to discover how students reason about Big Questions and how Big Questions are managed in schools. The research concluded that schools need to do more to help young people to understand how scholarship and knowledge work not only within their subjects but also across them.

The research discovered that secondary schools typically provide few opportunities for asking Big Questions and for exploring and talking about the distinctive approaches that different diciplines take.

Further, there is a basis to say that the impacts of entrenched compartmentalisation on students’ reasoning are largely hidden – because assessment tends to focus only on students’ progress within each subject.

Meanwhile in primary schools although cross-curricular work is more common, the focus for students is often about learning content knowledge rather than about the structure of the disciplines themselves.

Co-creating research

Canterbury Christ Church University’s research strategy includes creating a university student population who are active researchers in the fields where they aspire to work. It’s an ambition that fits very well with our own vision to develop co-created research projects that are conducted with and by our university tutors, researchers and students.