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I have been told that there is a correlation between being a good teacher and being a good researcher (like this paper, in page 15, point 3.6), but i have not found any references or studies about it.
Does any know if there is really such correlation, or have studies to confirm or deny it?
I don't think there can be any studies to confirm or deny something like that, simply because neither "good teacher" nor "good researcher" can be quantified objectively without bias, and in the absence of that, how can you compare?
But qualitatively, I think the conclusion naturally follows in most cases - both require one to be enthusiastic about their subject in the first place, and require a certain depth of comprehension before they can either publish their results or interact with inquisitive students successfully!
It seems likely that there's some nonzero correlation. Certainly, there are factors that should lead to positive correlation; for example, some personality traits (like conscientiousness) should lead to both better research and better teaching. There are also factors that should lead to negative correlation; for example, teaching and research are activities that are competing for a limited amount of time. It would be strange if all these factors nearly cancelled each other out, so we should expect some net correlation. Here's an argument for positive:
Let's distinguish between two aspects of teaching, namely exposition and psychology. Exposition means finding simple explanations, coming up with illuminating examples and analogies, mapping out the most important topics and the relationships between them, etc. Psychology means understanding where students are coming from and what they do or don't understand, empathizing and bonding with them, arousing their interest and inspiring them to achieve great things, etc. Both of these are important factors in good teaching, although neither is absolutely essential. A master of exposition without a good understanding of psychology may be clear but dull, and someone who understands psychology but isn't good at exposition may have to follow a textbook closely, but either one will be much better than some teachers.
Expository ability is almost certainly correlated with research ability, since they both rely on a deep, creative understanding of the subject matter. In mathematics, the standard example is Jean-Pierre Serre, who is both a brilliant mathematician and the author of several amazing graduate textbooks, and one can see similar characteristics in his research papers and textbooks.
However, the psychology side of teaching is probably not closely connected with research ability. There may be some correlation, just because smart people tend to be better than average at all kinds of thinking, but I'd bet the correlation is small. Certainly, there are wonderful researchers who have a terrible understanding of psychology, and vice versa, in a far more dramatic way than for exposition.
I see this split as perhaps explaining why there's so much debate about whether good research and good teaching are correlated, with some people saying obviously yes and others obviously no. The answer depends on which aspects of teaching you view as most important.
Only reference I know of:
Feldon et al (2011) Graduate student's teaching experiences improve their research skills. Science, 333, 1037-1040. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/1037.full
The authors found a that students who taught improved their abilities to generate testable hypotheses.
So yes, I assume that this means that there is a correlation between being a good researcher and being a good teacher beyond the simple point of being able to communicate your findings more effectively.
It's hard to evaluate, but from my experience I don't think such correlation exist, or if it exists, it is not extremely evident. Age can certainly be a discriminant, but assumed equivalence in age, a good teacher spends a lot of time in teaching activities, such as preparation, testing, and student nurturing. This leaves very little time for research. Also, most brilliant minds are too involved in their own projects (at the limit of being asocial) and don't make good communicators. The great advantage of a teacher is that he must be "not that smart", that is, he must understand where a difficulty may lie, and come up with a brilliant example to make it clear. Not everyone is Feynman..
I would to add a review point to the discussion that could imply a negative correlation. Teaching students takes empathy, understanding that they do not yet understand and what makes them not understand. A top researcher has probably not experienced this when he/she was in school. Lesser researchers might be better at understanding why a student doesn't get it. Also, a good mind does not imply excellent communicative skills. I would say the correlation is non-existing or slightly positive.
Correlation is not causation. Beware of studies that confuse the two.
For those with non-statistical background, it is like "eating ice cream and "driving a car". There may be a positive or negative (or no) relationship between eating ice cream and causing an accident but ice-cream in itself does not cause the accident.
Similarly, it is not necessary to be a good researcher because one is a good teacher and vice-versa - a notion that is sort of reflected in the many answers.
This is significantly after the fact, but this paper just came out. It purports to show that students learn the most/best from instructors who are NOT tenure-track professors, potentially due to the added burden performing research has on an instructor.
I don't have any formal evidence, but I can tell you that at my university there are people who are only doing teaching (and are good at it). If being a good teacher implied being a good researcher, these people would be at least involved in research as well.
Similarly, there are many people who are good teachers at high school level and not involved in research in any way.
There are any number of reasons that teaching and research might be correlated, or be anti correlated. These reasons will all combine and interact, so you will see a range of extents of correlations. Here are a few:
They can be positively correlated because communication is a part of research, so giving good lectures and scientific talks, writing good papers and lessons will be correlated.
They must be negatively correlated as a consequence of both taking time from the same individual academic. No one has infinite time.
They can be positive correlated because excellent departments and universities value their academics' time and provide resources like secretaries and teaching assistants to help academics have time for both.
There's a negative correlation. It's been well found in my experience. If you're a good researcher, you'd not be your students favorite. It's like thinking a professional in say big data would teach a subject of big data properly. It sounds like it might, but it won't. A professional would always be in a hurry to go to office, keep thinking about his job, he's doing teaching just as a means to make money in a greedy sense. Same goes for researchers, they're there teaching just so that they can get funds to research, they don't want to teach kids about concepts that can be learnt by reading 10 pages of a textbook. They're there for bigger and better things.
So my answer isn't necessarily if a good teacher and good researcher has any correlation. My answer is that anyone who is doing multiple professions just to make more cash (or benefits) isn't going to do it very well. And professors in university have very good power. We had professors who failed 90% of his students, used to come half a hour late to class and left half a hour earlier, we learnt that we were just too dumb. The professor still teaches.
Nobody doing multiple professions can be best at both job. Teaching and writing are two jobs that people don't take seriously. Only students know how serious of a job is teaching and only readers know how difficult of a job is writing. Everyone else thinks, otherwise.
