Review of Public Administration and Management

Public Administration Educations Inquiry-Based Learning: Opportunities and Challenges

Basco Gide^* Department of Public Administration, University of Burgundy, Dijon, France
^*Correspondence: Basco Gide, Department of Public Administration, University of Burgundy, Dijon, France, Email:

Received: 23-Nov-2022, Manuscript No. RPAM-22-19201; Editor assigned: 28-Nov-2022, Pre QC No. RPAM-22-19201 (PQ); Reviewed: 13-Dec-2022, QC No. RPAM-22-19201; Revised: 21-Dec-2022, Manuscript No. RPAM-22-19201 (R); Published: 29-Dec-2022, DOI: 10.35248/2315-7844.22.10.381

Description

The possible justifications and drawbacks of an inquiry-based pedagogical approach to teaching public administration at the graduate level. It takes into account how Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) might be included into a larger range of pedagogical strategies that are suitable for these pupils. In several nations, including the UK, the higher education sector has supported IBL, especially for undergraduate curriculum. However, studies have shown that IBL-style pedagogies can provide specific difficulties for postgraduate and overseas students. In an effort to determine what function IBL might serve in the context of postgraduate public administration instruction, we examine these difficulties in more detail. IBL, which promotes learning via discovery rather than teaching, is frequently employed in the study of certain topics as well as in professions like medical, business, and law. IBL's potential applications in social science disciplines like public administration are still mostly unexplored. However, there have been some studies on the application of IBL in political curricula, to which we refer in this work and make implications.

The study of public administration has a history of focusing how academics can use techniques to share knowledge with practitioners already engaged in the subject. There needs to be more conceptual clarity about what Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) means in this context, including the forms it might take, the challenges and opportunities of this approach, and how teachers using this approach might evaluate its effectiveness and engage in reflective practise to refine and modify their teaching. This is true even though many academics teaching public policy and administration undoubtedly use inquiry-based learning in some aspects of their teaching. IBL's supporters assert that it benefits students and makes the most of institutions' focus on study. IBL is currently widely employed in the USA, particularly in research-intensive and liberal arts and science schools. This approach was pushed by official commissions on higher education like the Boyer Commission in the United States (US), which sought to improve teaching in universities. In the USA, where the idea of "problem-based learning" was created in medical schools in the 1950s, there is, in fact, a rather lengthy legacy of practical, problem-focused approaches to teaching higher education.

IBL is a thorough educational approach that includes a variety of strategies that are focused on encouraging students to learn through more active means rather than through standard didactic approaches because it generally embraces all of these teaching and learning concepts. In the latter method, students are required to read or listen to lectures in order to learn, memorise, and remember material. The teacher is viewed as the expert and the infallible source of knowledge, while the pupil plays a somewhat passive role. IBL, on the other hand, fits into the idea of communities of practice where students are seen as contributing in a peripheral but legitimate way to the academic community in which they are located. According to this concept, students could be seen as "co-producers of information" and "comrades in the pursuit of knowledge." Additionally, it makes an argument for the reconstruction of the idea of the student as a knowledge producer who collaborates with academics. These ideas fit in well with modern college teaching practises that deliberately work to perceive students as partners rather than clients. Study education has also been characterized as one sort of IBL, with the restriction that study educating contains some element of active discovery or engagement with the study on the part of students rather than just teaching about the substance of academics' own research. It identifies many engaging strategies for research-led instruction, including group or individual desk reviews, secondary data analysis, and student participation in primary research. Alternately, professors can work with students as co-researchers during the design, data gathering, analysis, and publication phases of the study.

Benefits, challenges and effects of IBL

These advantages and difficulties have been mentioned in studies and survey design using qualitative and survey methodologies, which have been used to explore students' and educators' opinions, experiences, and satisfaction with the methodology in the context of specific courses and modules. There have also been studies using experimental designs that contrast the impact of IBL-type approaches to more conventional educational approaches on student learning, with the majority of this work being done. IBL methodologies, according to some commentators, can promote greater inclusivity since they make use of a wider variety of educational activities that help students with weaker academic backgrounds. IBL thus supports the objectives of broadening participation. However, this is a contentious issue, with some pointing out the difficulties of true inclusivity in IBL-style learning assignments, which can be taxing for students, especially those who come from educational backgrounds that promote more structured learning.

The reasoning and objections for a transition to IBL are based on pedagogical study that looks into effective learning strategies and are also linked to the challenges that face modern institutions, such as the need to manage the dual roles of study and teaching while also giving students skills related to employability. Universities with a focus on study can increase the opportunity and incentives for academics to pursue study education by implementing and promoting these activities. IBL is a difficult endeavour, though, and is mostly certainly employed in conjunction with other strategies.