Practitioner Research for Teachers

Diana Burton, Steve Bartlett

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781446234587
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Investigación en educación

`This is a really useful book. It is full of helpful ideas and examples and discusses the importance of research for teachers. While addressing both the why and the how of practitioner research in school settings the authors have kept closely in touch with the practical concerns of busy professionals? - Professor Anne Edwards, School of Education, University of Birmingham

This is a book about how to do your research. It?s aimed at teachers involved in classroom-based research projects such as Best Practice Research Scholarships and Networked Learning Communities.

This book is a significant text for teachers involved in practitioner research. It will discuss how the notion of classroom research has evolved from previous movements based upon school effectiveness and action research. It will show how being able to conduct and understand research is vital for the professional development of teachers. The text will then consider the practical issues of the design and carrying out of classroom-based research. The book contains practical examples to illustrate points where appropriate. Each chapter includes recommended further reading and practical tasks.

Chapter 1

Teacher professionalism, development and research

Why are we writing this book?

We are interested in practitioner research because we engage in it ourselves and we work with teachers and teacher educators who are steeped in it. We also come from a generation of teachers who started their careers when it was mostly teachers themselves who decided what they taught, how they taught it and why they taught it that way. It is easy to romanticize and, of course, there were examination syllabi to follow and agreed protocols to guide us. We enjoyed the freedom, though, to develop from scratch an integrated humanities scheme of work for lower school (Key Stage 3) pupils; to set and mark our own mode 3 Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) examinations; to experiment with completely integrated days for 11–14-year-olds and to grow sociology from a one teacher subject to a whole department teaching 350 pupils annually. We wrestled with the philosophical basis of the ‘core’ curriculum, argued about the purpose and value of mixed ability groupings and had debates on teaching style with Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (HMI) inspectors. OK, enough reminiscing!

We found those exciting times but now, with the great advances in our understanding of how people learn, the availability of fantastic learning technologies, the ubiquity of more varied and stimulating teaching strategies, the development of cross-curricular teaching projects and the welcome return of an emphasis on creativity in the curriculum, we are seeing that excitement rekindled and magnified. In recent years interest in practitioner teacher research has accelerated across the world and, with the shrinking of distances via electronic communication, the globalization of teaching strategies and research methodologies is commonplace. Communities of like-minded practitioners can share their experiences and extend their understanding in international as well as very local contexts. So we are writing this book because we are excited about the potential of practitioner research to make a vital contribution to the collective, collaborative endeavour of enquiring about and improving teaching and learning practices. We are writing it as teachers, with teachers and for teachers, whether they are in training, beginning their careers or established crafts people.

What does this book do?

In setting out to write this book on practitioner research we were faced with an initial dilemma. It is our contention that practitioner research and professional development are heavily interrelated so it is difficult to know where to start, since in considering one aspect first, some knowledge of the rest has to be assumed. We have imposed a form of order by considering the theoretical underpinnings of practitioner research in the early chapters, and dealing with the practical aspects of research in the remainder of the book. This is an organizational device and not a privileging of theory over practice.

In Chapter 2 we discuss current conceptions of educational research. The UK government would like to promote research that is directly applicable to practice that identifies the ‘best’ approach so that teachers, who are now encouraged to consider empirical evidence, can implement it. The promotion of practitioner research now takes this process a stage further by encouraging teachers themselves to become the researchers into their practice. This is certainly a positive development; however, the version of classroom that it promotes remains rather narrow. This is, of course, not the only interpretation of practitioner research. It can also be conceptualized as a process whereby teachers are looking critically not only at their own practice but at broader educational questions. In this version of practitioner research a greater understanding of the complexity of education, and a realization of how uncertain the whole education project is, assumes ascendancy. The paradigms that underpin the research process, along with a consideration of some fundamental research concepts, are also discussed in this chapter. A penchant for the positivist paradigm tends to characterize government-sponsored practitioner research. This is perhaps due to a rather instrumentalist view that assumes only one approach to research, overwhelmingly quantitative in nature, will lead to the discovery of the ‘correct’ results. However, in beginning their research projects the limitations of this single paradigm approach becomes apparent to many practitioners.

Chapter 3 considers the growth of the teacher research movement through action research. This is seen as an enlightened research-based approach to teaching. Action research tends not to be universally embraced in ‘official’ versions of practitioner research, perhaps because of its stress on a broad approach to teacher development. Ultimately, the development of the current practitioner research movement will depend upon how effectively teachers are able to articulate the research process and how much autonomy they have in steering their own professional interests. Three case studies of best practice researchers and their movement towards different research approaches from those originally envisaged are used to illustrate these points in Chapter 4.

The remaining chapters examine the practicalities of designing a research project, accessing and reviewing literature and gathering and analysing data. Our approach is to describe and explain these processes through practical, real-life examples of research undertaken by teacher practitioners. We are proposing that practitioner research should form part of a reflexive approach to teaching and lead to a greater awareness of the complexity of the education process.

We have been privileged to work with people who have generously allowed us to extract from and comment upon their studies to illustrate in a practical way how and why teacher research can be tackled. We hope the book demonstrates how small-scale research projects might be tackled and whets readers’ appetites to consult more authoritative research texts if they wish to develop a deeper engagement with the principles, processes and problematics of research. The suggested readings and reference list provide a good starting point and attempting some of the tasks at the end of each chapter may help the juices to flow!

We turn now to two discussions that will set the context for the remainder of the book. In the 1980s and 1990s there have been fierce debates about the nature and value of educational research and about the changing nature of teacher professionalism.

A crisis in educational research

Academic research in education has been criticized for a number of reasons in recent years. In the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) Annual Lecture of 1996, David Hargreaves, an influential UK educationalist, highlighted what he saw as the failure of educational research to serve those working in education. He called for teaching to become a research-based profession similar to medicine. He suggested that teachers at that time made little use of research evidence to inform their practice, through no fault of their own but because researchers were not producing findings that supported practice. Hargreaves (1996) suggested that current educational research was poor value for money and that it inadequately served the teaching profession. He called for the setting up of a National Education Research Forum ‘which would shape the agenda of educational research and its policy implications and applications’ (1996:6). He also suggested that funding should be redirected from academic researchers to agencies committed to evidence-based practice and to fund teachers as researcher practitioners. This speech, whilst promoting heated debate amongst both academics and professionals concerned with education, was a forerunner of the TTA policy that promoted practitioner research (TTA, 1996) and an initial pilot project encouraging teachers to conduct their own practice-based research. The work of one of three TTA-funded projects from this time is outlined in McNamara (2002). The book shows how the researchers had to engage in a process of discussion and negotiation with their funders to reach a mutually agreeable position on a number of issues of ideological difference. McNamara and Rogers (2002) explained that the TTA moved from being sponsors to partners in the research process.

Both the Tooley Report (Tooley and Darby, 1998) funded by the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), and the Hillage Report (Hillage et al., 1998) funded by the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), also raised questions concerning the quality and usefulness of educational research. Hammersley (2002) and Elliott (2001) argue that these criticisms, Hargreaves’s in particular, all take a rather simplistic view of how research is able to inform practice. They assume that causal relationships can be revealed by research and that findings can be easily applied to all schools. This would mean that variables can be identified and allowed for, ignoring the complexity of what actually happens in classroom situations. Both Hammersley and Elliott maintain that what is essentially a positivist approach suitable for medical research is inappropriate in educational investigations. They also suggest that there is a values dimension to education that a natural scientific methodology looking for absolute answers fails to recognize. Elliott suggests that acquiring the questioning approach of a researcher is an essential part of teacher development. We should treat the whole research process as problematic with teachers taking a more interpretivist approach to classroom research rather than the positivist one which was inferred from Hargreaves’s speech.

If, as Hammersley (2002) and others argue, there are different forms of research that are carried out for different purposes, it could be claimed that their outcomes should be evaluated differently because they offer complementary strengths and weaknesses. However, there is a danger that this could exacerbate the ‘hierarchy’ of research outputs that already exists. Greenbank (2003) points to how policy-makers, such as the former Secretary of State for Education, David Blunkett, hold quantitative research in higher esteem simply because of the way it is presented and to the assumption by the former Chief Inspector, Chris Woodhead, of qualitative research as ‘woolly and simplistic’ and a ‘massive waste of taxpayers’ money’ (cited by Wellington, 2000: 167). There also exists a hierarchy in terms of where educational research is disseminated. ‘Academic’ peer-reviewed education journals of national or international repute do not publish professionally oriented research – this finds expression through professional publications, conferences and in-service courses. Since Hargreaves (1996) questioned the relevance of ‘academic’ educational research to teachers, the complexity of the debate has been revealed, imbued as it is with political tensions around research funding policies and the hijacking of so-called professional, accessible research in pursuit of the ill-defined populist agenda of raising standards. In an article describing the work of a community of teacher researchers in Denbigh, Evans et al. (2000) are scathing about the difficulties of getting teacher research published in academic journals and books that purport to talk with authority on schools, education and teaching and learning processes. Notwithstanding the differences in emphases of different types of research, there is every reason and every need, in our view, to assign parity of status to ‘professional’ and ‘academic’ research since practitioner research must be every bit as rigorous and is almost certainly at least as relevant.

Teachers as professionals

In embarking on any project it is important to set a context and try to develop some shared meanings. Thus, because we take the view that teacher practitioner research is inextricably linked with professional development, we will spend the remainder of this chapter considering the nature of teachers’ work and the political context in which the term ‘professional’ is applied to them. Recent political developments within education are germane here since these have directly influenced current notions of teacher professionalism, teacher development and teacher research.

There is currently great emphasis on the continuing professional development of teachers. However it is important to distinguish between a narrow, technicist, or ‘technical rational’ (Habermas, 1974) view of teacher development and a broad approach that is more likely to lead to significant educational improvements. The raising of educational standards has been linked, in part, to the performance of teachers and has resulted in the UK in changes to the structure and funding for professional development. The government approach, as in many other parts of the world, tends to be largely instrumentalist, viewing education as a product to be used in social and economic development and teaching as imparting the proscribed curriculum to pupils. The most effective teaching methods can be identified and then applied. From this perspective teaching is very much a technical activity and so the means of researching it tend also to be conceived of as technical or mechanistic.

The role of the teacher is, however, very complex, embracing a multitude of skills (Squires, 1999; Sugrue and Day, 2002). What constitutes ‘good’ teaching is still very much open to debate and depends very much on particular circumstances (see Bartlett et al., 2001, for a discussion of this). Some people may argue that teaching involves a transfer of knowledge to pupils. Others may emphasize the teacher’s role in facilitating learning. What is learned and how it is learned depends upon a range of factors, from the teacher’s pedagogic beliefs to the syllabus being followed. For instance, infrequently facts are required to be reproduced verbatim so they may be learned by rote. For other knowledge pupils may conduct experiments or apply ideas to new problems. Developing certain skills will probably be done through practice and repetition. Thus ‘lessons’ can take many forms depending upon the professional judgements of the teacher (Burton, 2001; Hayes, 2000). However, education involves much more than the development of knowledge and skills. It has a very important moral and social dimension, in which teachers care for the pupils’ welfare and foster the values of mutual respect and tolerance required in a democratic society.

The term ‘profession’ is frequently applied to the work of teachers but what does this actually mean and to what extent can teachers be regarded as professionals? Becker (1962) saw professionalism as merely a symbol for an ideology used to justify actions and behaviours, with many occupations using the symbol in an attempt to increase their autonomy and prestige. Many researchers have attempted to identify the features of a profession. Bottery (1996) suggested that at least 17 different criteria have been claimed at one time or another to describe professional behaviour. Salient characteristics included subscription to an exclusive, specialized body of knowledge partly learned in higher education, a code of professional conduct and ethics with a strong emphasis on service and a high degree of self-regulation by the professional body itself over entry, qualifications, training and members’ conduct.

Looking at the past 50 years we could probably say that the teaching force embodied a number of these characteristics until the end of the 1970s. Teaching was seen as a worthwhile occupation and teachers were generally well respected within communities. As workers, teachers had enviable autonomy and independence but this was to alter radically through the 1980s and 1990s. Concern with ‘standards’ of learning led to ‘The Great Debate’ inspired by Callaghan’s Ruskin speech in 1976. On gaining power in 1979 the Conservatives embarked on a radical programme of educational change predicated on free-market principles of greater parental choice and institutional autonomy. Coupled with this, paradoxically, was greater emphasis on public accountability and centralized curricular control. Policy changes such as the introduction of increasingly prescriptive curricula, publicly available school inspection reports, the publishing of pupil performance in league tables and the encouragement of bureaucratic management systems served to regulate the autonomy of teache...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Teacher professionalism, development and research
• 2 Defining educational research
• 3 Teachers as reflective practitioners
• 4 Best practice case studies: evolving research approaches
• 5 Getting started: beginning a research project
• 6 Accessing and using literature
• 7 Research strategies: case studies and experiments
• 8 Questionnaires and interviews
• 9 Observation
• 10 Use of existing documents
• 11 Research biographies and logs
• 12 The way forward for practitioner research
• References
• Index