teachers engaging in action research: challenging some assumptions

Educational Action Research, Volume 12, Number 4, 2004

535

Teachers Engaging in Action Research: challenging some assumptions

JUDY PETERS University of South Australia, Australia

ABSTRACT A number of recent professional development projects in Australia

have expected teachers to engage in action research as a process for

professional learning and educational reform. This study investigated the

experiences of ten teachers from one school who spent a year undertaking

action research projects as part of the Innovative Links Project. The author was

a participant observer in the study in her role as the school’s ‘academic

associate’ for the project. In this article, the project’s expectations of the

teachers are examined to reveal the extent to which they were based on realistic

assumptions about the conditions within which the teachers worked as they

tried to achieve them.

Keywords: teacher research; educational reform; professional learning;

conditions for inquiry; challenging assumptions

Introduction

In Australia, action research has been advocated as an important means of teacher renewal and educational improvement for at least three decades. As a young teacher I was first introduced to the process in 1977 and during that year I implemented my first classroom-based research project to investigate the extent to which my new student-centred spelling program was supporting students in their learning. I later reviewed the benefits of action research in a brief article (Peters, 1982). Since moving into teacher education in 1992, I have continued to be involved in teacher professional development projects that have been based on action research-based approaches to teacher learning and educational change. These have included the Innovative Links Project (Innovative Links between Schools and Universities for Teacher Professional Development, 1994-1996), the Australian National Middle Schooling Authentic Assessment Research Circle (1997) and the School-based Research and Reform Project (1998-2000). In each of these projects I have taken the role of an academic colleague or

Judy Peters

536

critical friend who supports teachers as they attempt to engage in action research. I use the word ‘attempt’ because one of the most notable aspects of these projects has been my growing awareness of the extent to which teachers struggle to implement action research within contextual conditions that are inconsistent with the process of teacher inquiry. In this article, I draw on doctoral research undertaken while I was a participant in the Innovative Links Project (Peters, 2002) to illuminate the disparity between assumptions inherent in the project expectations and teachers’ experiences as they tried to implement the expectations.

Background

The emphasis on educators using action research has been associated with a gradual move away from what Grundy (1995) describes as ‘“pit stop” professional development’ – isolated, externally provided, training sessions designed to ‘fix teachers up’ (p. 7). Such approaches to professional development have been criticised for:

• being piecemeal, haphazard, brief, atheoretical (Collinson & Ono, 2001) and poorly delivered (Hawley & Valli, 1999);

• ignoring the needs of individual participants (Lieberman & Grolnick, 1997), the complexity of their lives and how they learn (Day, 1999);

• failing to take account of the contextual conditions in which participants work (Hargreaves, 2000), or the need to address processes for holistic organisational change (McInerney et al, 1997);

• focusing on knowledge and skills for the ‘here and now’, rather than on the processes and understandings needed for lifelong learning (Day, 2000).

It has been argued that educators require new models of professional development if they are to meet the challenge of the rapid changes in roles, contexts, pedagogy, accountability demands and professional identity engendered by an increasingly diverse student population, and a highly technological and globalised future (Hargreaves, 2000). What are needed instead, according to Lambert (1998), are ‘opportunities to learn that (involve) collaboration, dialogue, reflection, inquiry and leadership’ (p. xi). In Australia and elsewhere there has also been recognition that individual development needs to be allied with organisational development, leading to an emphasis on professional development that is school-based and aimed at developing the school as a ‘learning organisation’ (Ewing & Smith, 1999).

It is against this backdrop of changing views of professional development that there has been a growing number of proponents of practitioner research as a potential source of teacher learning and educational change. Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1992) contended that research enables educators to ‘pose problems, identify discrepancies between their theories and their practice, challenge common routines, and attempt to make visible much of what is taken for granted about teaching and learning’ (p. 302). They saw this process as the means of altering, not just adding to,

TEACHERS ENGAGING IN ACTION RESEARCH

537

knowledge in the field of teaching. Action research, in particular, is depicted as a means of engaging practitioners in rigorous cycles of planning, observation, action and reflection, which can lead to change in understandings and practice. Benefits claimed include development of ‘the habits of mind and the disciplines of inquiry’ and becoming ‘more effective practitioners, but also more fulfilled educators’ (Sagor, 1997, p. 172) and educators becoming the ‘agents of knowing and constructors of knowledge’ thereby ensuring that their voices are heard ‘so that any changes can serve the educative and not the political-systematic agendas of schools’ (Grimmett. 1995, p. 124).

However, concerns have also been expressed about the pressures for teachers to become researchers. Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1992) argued that there are serious obstacles to be overcome before teachers can be expected to engage in research. These are caused by ‘teacher isolation, a school culture that works against raising questions, a technical view of knowledge for teaching, and the negative reputation of education research’ (p. 304). Gore & Zeichner (1995), while advocating teacher research as a means of validating teachers’ personal, professional and political knowledge, disputed the claim that it necessarily provides a voice for teachers. They suggested that there is: ‘a sense in which the ‘scientific’ mask of action research, of social research generally, can be seen to devalue what teachers know and the ways in which they have traditionally practised their work’ (p. 209).

Overall, although there is much agreement about the benefits of action research, there is growing recognition that if teachers are to successfully engage in action research and associated practices, such as collaboration, critical reflection and professional reading and writing, more information is needed about the conditions that support or impede these practices. The study reported in the rest of this paper illuminates a range of personal, structural and cultural conditions that were influential in supporting or hindering teachers’ engagement in these activities in the Innovative Links Project.

The Study

The Innovative Links Project was an action research-based professional development project initiated in Australia as a National Professional Development Program. Teachers involved in the project worked in partnership with academic associates from fourteen universities to use collaborative action research to implement programs of school reform aimed at improving teaching competencies and learning outcomes for all students. Specifically they were expected to:

• use action research to implement programs of school reform; • engage in professional discourse and critical reflection; • engage in professional reading and writing; • engage in reciprocal learning about teaching, learning and educational

reform;

Judy Peters

538

• translate learning into improved teaching and learning outcomes for students.

In South Australia, six teacher educators from the University of South Australia worked with teachers in six schools. The findings reported in this article arose from doctoral research which examined the experiences of professional development, and partnership of all the academics and teachers who participated in South Australia (Peters, 2002). However, the focus for this article is solely on the experiences of the ten teachers with whom I worked as an academic associate in one of the participating schools. The data were collected over a 12-month period during which I worked intensively with the school-based research coordinator and nine teachers on a research and reform program in the areas of critical reflection and constructing student success.

The school is in Adelaide and comprises year levels 5-12. Two of the teachers taught primary year levels and the other eight taught secondary classes, although the school was focusing on a middle years program for students in years 6-9. To preserve anonymity the school will be referred to as School A from this point onwards and all participants have been given pseudonyms.

Throughout the 12-month period data were collected through:

• participant observation at research meetings, seminars and informal discussions at the school over the period of a year;

• two individual conferences and one semi-structured interview with each teacher at regular intervals throughout the period;

• project documentation such as teachers’ informal notes, written research plans, reflective journals and case studies and the minutes of the meetings;

• my reflective journal.

A grounded theory approach was used in the data analysis whereby theory was inductively derived from the data (Bernard, 2000). For the process of coding, comparing and categorising data, I used NUD* IST software Version 3 (Richards & Richards, 1994). As categories were developed they were reviewed to identify similarities, differences and other patterns that linked them. This process led to the themes that are used as the framework for presenting the findings in this article. Each theme is expressed as an assumption against which the data are examined.

To present my findings about teachers’ experiences in School A I have used a form of reporting referred to as ‘portrayal’. Stenhouse (1983) described portrayal as ‘an attempt to preserve some of the qualities of narrative in descriptive writing that lacks a natural story-line’ (p. 39). The Southern Cross Roundtable Portrayal Evaluation Team (1996), who used portrayal in an early evaluation of the Innovative Links Project, likened it to ‘a documentary film. Characters, incidents and descriptions are juxtaposed to provide a picture which is at once interpretative and holistic’ (p. 18). I realised that portrayal written in the first person would be well suited to


539

presenting the analysis of the varied array of data I collected as a participant researcher in School A. This form of reporting enabled me to richly describe aspects of our experiences by loosely interweaving my descriptions of critical incidents and participants’ responses to them with the multiple perspectives provided by their written and spoken words.

Examining the Assumptions Underpinning the Expectations of Teachers in School A

When School A was accepted into the project it was decided that a member of the school’s leadership team, Tom, would take on the role of school-based research coordinator. He invited nine teachers to become members of a research team. In issuing these invitations he approached staff members whom he thought would be interested or who had shown leadership in earlier reform initiatives, and who represented a range of year levels, subject areas and core responsibilities in the school.

Tom was committed to adhering to the national expectations as closely as possible. In consultation with some staff members, he developed a professional development plan, which he presented to the research team participants and me, as the academic associate, for approval. The plan required participants to:

• attend regular research meetings; • individually or collaboratively develop, implement and review action

research into an aspect of their teaching related to the construction of success for students;

• engage in critical dialogue with each other and me; • keep a reflective journal; • write a report at the conclusion of research for publication for the wider

staff and other interested audiences; • access resources to support their work, including reading relevant

literature.

My role was to support the teachers to engage in these processes and to collaborate with Tom as co-facilitator of the research meetings.

Analysis of the data about participants’ perceptions of their experiences, as they tried to implement the expectations outlined above, revealed themes which could be interpreted as the following assumptions underpinning the expectations of teachers:

• participants valued professional discourse, action research, reflection and professional writing as processes for school reform;

• participants already knew or could quickly learn these processes; • participants had the time and energy to engage in the activities expected

by the project; • teacher learning and educational improvement would be outcomes of the

project.

Judy Peters

540

It is these assumptions, expressed as questions, which are used in the rest of this article as a framework for examining participants’ perceptions of their experiences. The intention is to illuminate the extent to which each assumption was confirmed or challenged by the project data. Each of these next four sections begins with a brief portrayal based on the data analysis, followed by a discussion of the conditions that were influential in supporting or hindering participants’ attempts to meet the project expectations.

Did Participants Value Professional Discourse, Action Research, Reflection and Professional Writing as Processes for School Reform?

Portrayal 1 Tom and I had negotiated that my role in the school would be that of critical friend and co-facilitator of the research meetings. In this role I felt that my main responsibility was to structure situations that encouraged teachers to engage with the processes expected by the project. To do this I provided time in meetings for teachers to share their progress in their research and to plan and discuss. I arranged times to have individual conferences with teachers to talk about their research plans, progress, questions, concerns and findings. In meetings early in the year I allocated time for reflective writing and in one session I provided a reflection sheet incorporating questions about their learning. Late in the year I provided models for their report writing and offered editorial assistance. The teachers’ responses to these different situations were varied. They appeared to be united in their enthusiasm about the opportunities presented by the project for talking about teaching and learning. Cathy reflected the feelings of the group when she said: What interested me most of all was that when we met together for the Links stuff people were talking about what they were doing in classrooms ... we’d finally got back to what was important for kids. (Interview, December) However, they had differing responses to the other processes in which they were expected to engage. Tom, Cathy, Matthew, Dave and Len had all worked in other professional development projects that had used action research based approaches and involved opportunities for discourse, reading and documentation. From the beginning they appeared keen to have further opportunities to use the processes and took an active role in


541

promoting particular aspects, as occurred when Len used past experience to pass on advice about data collection: Len ... talked about the value of informing and involving the students in the research, and about the need to design techniques, such as a questionnaire in a way that questions are free from bias and data are freely and honestly given. (Meeting Notes, February) Other teachers were less convinced of the benefits of some of what they were asked to do. Paul recalled, ‘I was ... very keen to make sure that it wasn’t just a matter of you know reading articles and writing things’ (Interview, November), while Jan clearly had some initial doubts about the potential ill effects of the action research process on students. She opted to use the process only with her Year 11 Mathematics class because she felt that it might prove too disrupting for her Year 12 students to trial any new strategies in their important final year. I quickly became aware that most of the teachers did not find reflective writing a particularly valuable activity. The first inkling came when I provided time within a meeting for teachers to write in their journals. During the allocated time I wrote in my own journal, ‘We now have more people talking than writing so we might not pursue that idea’ (Journal, February). Joy later confirmed that she was not inclined to use writing for reflection: I’m not a journal person at all. I’ve tried to keep a diary and it’s like the first month and then nothing for a year. So I’m more of a mental note taker. (Interview, November) It became clear that the teachers were keen to reflect through collegial dialogue, but did not want to ‘formalise’ their reflection in writing. I turned to other strategies to promote reflection such as providing them with the transcripts of our individual conferences as a record of their reflection, and recording and distributing key challenges arising from meetings and conferences to use as a basis for reflective discussion. When it came to writing about their research for sharing with others, the teachers generally agreed that it was a useful process for recording and reviewing the research process and outcomes, but some, such as Kym, were less sure that the writing would be of any value to others: I guess a lack of confidence that that was of any value really. I mean I certainly found it of value but you know just thinking ...

Judy Peters

542

people may pick this up and say, ‘Well so what? I knew that. Why did you bother doing that?’ (Interview, December)

It can be seen in this brief portrayal that there was variation in the extent to which participants appeared to value some of the project processes. While they all saw professional discourse as important to their learning, some teachers had doubts about the extent to which action research was a useful process. Most teachers did not feel that reflective writing was a productive use of their time, or that writing for others would be valued.

There appear to be two main conditions that were influential in the extent to which teachers valued the expected processes. The first was their priorities. Whitford & Metcalf-Turner (1999) referred to the different priorities that exist for teachers and academics when they work together. Teachers’ top priority tends to be improving their practice and student learning outcomes, while academics are keen to produce the kinds of research-based knowledge and publications that are rewarded by universities. It is hardly surprising that, in implementing project processes, teachers appear to have valued most strongly those aspects that were congruent with their priorities. The research indicated that of the expected processes, the one that appeared to be a priority for the teachers was that of professional discourse. Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1992) advocated talk as important to the generation of knowledge about teaching. They used Geertz’s (1973, cited in Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1992) notion of ‘thick description’ to describe the kind of sharing that occurs when educators ‘make visible and accessible day to day events, norms and practices and different ways they are understood’ (p. 310).

The second condition that can be seen to be influential in teachers’ valuing of project processes was the extent to which they had what Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1999) described as an ‘inquiry stance’. Teachers who have an inquiry stance are those who ‘work within inquiry communities to generate local knowledge, envision and theorize their practice, and interpret and interrogate the theory and research of others’ (p. 289). They argued that teachers need both a personal inquiry stance and a shared stance with others so that they can operate within an inquiry community:

In communities where inquiry is stance, groups of teachers engage in joint construction of knowledge through conversations and other forms of collaborative analysis and interpretation. Through talk and writing, they make their tacit knowledge more visible, call into question assumptions about common practices, and generate data that make possible the consideration of alternatives. (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, p. 294)

Some of the teachers in School A had, or developed, an ‘inquiry stance’ conception of how teaching knowledge is constructed and learnt. Those who did found value in project processes of reflection and action research, but those who did not would clearly have preferred an approach grounded more firmly in everyday practice.


543

Did Participants Already Know or Quickly Learn Project Processes?

Portrayal 2 Shortly after they became involved in the project the teachers were expected to begin planning and implementing individual or collaborative action research projects with the goal of documenting the process and any outcomes by the end of the year. My role was to support them. For those teachers with no previous experience of action research, the year provided many challenges. Even those teachers who had some experience found some aspects of the process difficult to implement. The meetings early in the year were dominated by teachers’ questions and concerns about implementing their action research projects. Steve and Len had difficulty pinpointing a research focus, while for Matthew, designing and implementing data gathering strategies was an aspect about which he sought clarification in an early research team meeting: I think I need to look a little more at how to collect data on what I’m doing, not just what the kids are doing and how they’re responding to it. (Meeting, February) Dave, Paul and Kym had some ideas about how they might collect data, but some of their proposed strategies, such as shadowing particular students for a day, or having someone come in to class to observe particular groups of students, were not realistic within the available time and resources. I found that I needed to counsel teachers about the need to keep data collection as simple and time-efficient as possible: I guess one of the things I’m trying to say to people is [that] if there’s any way you can get your data collection as just a fairly normal part of your lesson, rather than you having to sit down and design something that takes you time, then do it. (Individual Conference with Matthew, March) Joy was one teacher who did manage to incorporate data collection into her normal classroom teaching, but she made the point that working in the primary years helped her to do this: Because I’m with my class for the majority of the day my data collection was just on the basis of speaking to my students, observing certain things they do in the classroom. (Meeting, November)

Judy Peters

544

Several teachers, especially those who had backgrounds in the sciences, had a preconception that research needed to be ‘scientific’ to be credible. By this they meant fitting with a positivist paradigm. Paul and Kym expressed concern about whether they had selected a big enough sample of students (Individual Conference, March), while Dave was worried that his data collection ‘was too much based on my perceptions of the situation of how much kids have learned rather than being very clinical type data’ (Interview, December). In one meeting, Matthew suggested that Cathy use an experimental design by comparing her class to another ‘control group’ class (Meeting, March). I found I needed to provide frequent reassurance and explanation about the interpretivist nature of action research. Once teachers had collected some data, some found it difficult to work out what it meant. Cathy found herself in this situation having collected a substantial amount of data about her students’ perceptions of working in teams through observation, talking to them and having them write in their journals. Once she had the data she wasn’t sure what to do with it: I’m looking at teaming and stable table groups and how effectively do stable table groups work as a team, and I don’t really know what I’m trying to answer – I don’t know what I’m really trying to look for. (Meeting, March) Most teachers came to accept that, despite their best intentions, it was difficult to maintain a consistent focus on the action research: As is often the case with these projects the best laid plans of mice and men don’t always come off and it fell in a hole for about a month and a half I guess. For the second term it picked up and was much better and I think it was an effective project. (Matthew, Meeting, August) The teachers persevered with action research and all but one managed to implement some aspects of it with varying degrees of success. However, their struggle with learning and implementing the process meant that much of the discussion in our meetings and individual conferences was given over to addressing technical problems. I developed a genuine concern that the process might be limiting our learning, rather than enhancing it: I felt concerned that a lot of last term was spent trying to sort out the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of action research questions and data


545

gathering techniques, and that there was little time or opportunity for reflection about what we are learning about the construction of success or failure in our teaching. (Journal, May)

This portrayal illustrates the difficulties that some teachers in School A had with learning and applying the action research process. This had the unwanted effect of focusing much of their attention on solving problems with the process at the expense of paying attention to improving student success, which was the purpose of the research.

Once again, there are two conditions that appear to have influenced the extent to which teachers were able to quickly learn and implement action research. The first condition was their level of expertise related to action research. The teachers brought a great deal of expertise to the project in terms of the ‘inside knowledge’ they had developed within the context of their work (Lieberman & Grolnick, 1999, p. 303). Some also had prior experience and expertise in the area of action research, but some did not. The latter group looked to me and other experienced members of the group for support, but still found it difficult to learn the process quickly enough to be able to implement it with any confidence. Even some teachers with existing expertise struggled with aspects such as finding a specific focus and interpreting data. This finding is congruent with the experiences of McTaggert et al (1997) who discovered that action research was a difficult process for teachers to learn and sustain because of its complexity and lack of congruence with the hectic nature of life in classrooms.

A second condition that appeared to be influential is that of ‘adaptability’, a competency of emotional intelligence identified by Goleman (1998) as the extent to which people are able to manage uncomfortable emotions. All the teachers experienced emotions such as anxiety, frustration, uncertainty and guilt as they struggled with learning and/or implementing action research. Smith et al (1999) suggested that anxiety about learning new things may be exacerbated for teachers because schools have ‘a preoccupation with success in such a way that the importance of failure is overlooked’ (p. 437). According to Goleman, possessing the competency of ‘adaptability’ enables people to ‘relish change and find exhilaration in innovation’ (p. 98), have the ability to be flexible and the emotional strength to ‘stay comfortable with ambiguity and remain calm in the face of the unexpected’ (p. 99). The participants who engaged most successfully with project processes appear to be those who were able to demonstrate such adaptability. They were able to sustain positive feelings, such as interest, enthusiasm, confidence and trust even in the face of considerable adversity.

Judy Peters

546

Did Participants have the Time and Energy to Engage in the Activities Expected by the Project?

Portrayal 3 In the first individual conference I had with Len he explained why he had not been able to start his action research: It’s just a matter of getting time because we’re all committed to other things as well. Tomorrow afternoon I’ve got a meeting with the Year 8’s looking at Middle Schooling. And then we’ve all got co-curricular [meetings]. I’ve got a parent teacher interview and then Friday morning I meet with the primary staff. Tonight I’ve got a staff meeting. Tomorrow night I’ve got a staff meeting. (Individual Conference, March) Len was not alone in finding that lack of available time prevented him from fully engaging in some project activities. We all found that our busy schedules, and the time and workload structures in our organisations, clashed with the heavy time demands of project expectations. After taking time away from their classes for two half-day introductory seminars on action research, the teachers made a decision that, even though there was funding to provide further release, they wanted all future research meetings to be out of school hours so that students were not disadvantaged by their absence. From that point on meetings were held from 4.00 p.m. to 6.00 p. m. but there was not one meeting in which we were able to achieve a full complement of members. On each occasion, one or more of the teachers was absent, or arrived late, or had to leave early because of conflicting commitments. On at least two occasions meetings were cancelled because report writing, parent interviews or other commitments made finding a time to meet impossible. In addition to planned commitments there were also the unexpected demands such as when Steve arrived half way through a meeting, visibly distressed, and explained that he had been dealing with the aftermath of a student having been knocked off his bike as he exited the school. And, naturally, there were times when personal commitments took precedence: ‘Well, what can I say? I haven’t done anything ... I’ve been on camp, had a birthday, bought a new car – nothing to do with Innovative Links’ (Joy, Meeting, March). For some teachers, the tightly structured school timetable also proved problematic when it came to implementing action


547

research. Matthew found that his research, which focused on students using cooperative learning in Science practical lessons, was spasmodic because only a limited number of lessons were scheduled in the laboratory. Steve explained that he had been unable to distribute a questionnaire to his students ‘because I wasn’t here the week after I did it, and last week the kids weren’t here, so I haven’t had a chance to get around to it’ (Meeting, March). Paul ran into problems because he only taught each of his classes in six-week blocks. Cathy, on the other hand, felt that the longer contact with students provided by middle school structures was an advantage in implementing her research plans (Interview, December). The increase in the teachers’ workloads became particularly intense towards the end of the year when they were expected to write an account of their research for a wider audience. Although there was enough funding to provide teachers with at least two release days for the task, this did not prove adequate for some. Matthew told how he resorted to ‘a few very late nights to do it’ (Interview, November), while Jan felt that she could not take time away from her Year 12 students and so used part of her holidays to write her report. Joy and Steve were not able to find the time to complete their writing and Len, who had been struggling to keep up with the workload throughout the year, found the pressure so great in these final months that he withdrew from the research team altogether.

It can be seen that the rigid time structures in School A and the heavy workload already carried by participants, meant that they could only find the time and energy to implement project activities by working longer and harder than normal. This placed them under considerable pressure and also meant that, at times, they had to limit the extent to which they were involved in project processes because they simply could not accommodate them within their available time. It was clear that the extent to which they had time for implementation was an influential condition in the extent to which they could meet project expectations. Hargreaves (1997) used the descriptor ‘prisoners of time’ to highlight the way ‘particular distributions and organizations of time are basic to the given grammar of schooling’ (p. 82). The teachers who were heavily involved in this project were very much ‘prisoners of time’ in that their time was tightly structured so that the majority was allocated to classroom teaching. An added complication for those who taught in the secondary years (8-12) was the fragmented nature of the timetable. Most teaching time occurred in 40-minute segments, many students only saw teachers on particular days of the week and some teachers only worked with classes over limited time frames within a semester or a year.

Judy Peters

548

The funding provided by the project was intended to provide teachers with at least some release time, but this proved problematic because they felt that their students would suffer if they left them in the hands of temporary relief teachers or, alternatively, their colleagues would suffer if they were expected to take additional lessons to cover release time. The teachers were not unusual in having these feelings. Hargreaves (1994) attributed teachers’ feelings of guilt partly to a ‘commitment to care and nurturance’ and maintained that the ‘more important that care is to a teacher the more emotionally devastating is the experience of failing to provide it’ (p. 145).

A second influential condition was the extent to which there could be integration of project work with normal workload. Hargreaves & Fullan (1992) cited ‘overload’ as one of the greatest barriers to successful reform endeavours (p. 3). The participants in School A were targeted for involvement because they were seen as highly professional and committed to ongoing professional development. Ironically, this meant that they already carried heavy workloads in terms of additional responsibilities in the school, involvement in other projects and/or part-time study. The project activities simply added to what were already demanding workloads and placed increased pressure on available time. For some teachers, trying to accommodate the additional demands of the project on top of a full workload led to a reduction in the quality of their teaching or in the effort they put into other professional commitments.

Although the school leaders were supportive of teachers’ involvement in the project, there were aspects of the overall structure of the school that were not. Participants’ workloads were not lightened to accommodate project processes, nor were their extraordinary efforts acknowledged by colleagues or within the reward structures of their organisation. An additional complication was that the school was involved in several projects at the same time, each focused on implementing changes, resulting in some teachers feeling that they were suffering from ‘innovation overload’ (Peters et al, 1996). In School A there was an attempt to tie the focus of reform to a pre-existing plan for school development and an overall school vision. However, there was evidence that some teachers perceived there to be what one teacher referred to as a ‘project mentality’ in their school. Fullan (1997) suggested that this perception occurs when: ‘Much of school life seems to follow an endless cycle of soliciting funds, implementing new initiatives, and then going out to solicit more funds for even newer initiatives to replace current ones’ (p. 26).

Were Teacher Learning and Educational Improvement Outcomes of the Project?

Portrayal 4 When the teachers reflected on their learning from the Innovative Links Project they were in no doubt that it had changed the ways


549

they thought about some aspects of educational practice. The research focus on ‘the construction of success for all students’ encouraged them to look closely at their students and their teaching. Cathy captured the impact of this sustained focus on learning and teaching when she said: I think at schools we get so caught up in what’s happening outside the classroom ... But because I was involved in the Links Project and also the Classroom Discourse Project, it forced me to be in the classroom and it forced me to look at what I was doing and what was happening with my kids and their curriculum in the classroom. (Interview, December) It was clear from their comments throughout the year that all teachers felt they had a better understanding of their students as a result of the information they gathered. Paul found out that his students were particularly motivated by visual stimulation and excursions (Individual Conference, May), Matthew became more aware of the differences in students’ abilities to stay on task (Individual Conference, May), and Cathy came to realise that some of her students did not value cooperative tasks as much as she did (Individual Conference, May). There were also indications that some teachers had developed a more reflective approach to their teaching in general. Matthew reported asking more questions about his teaching decisions: ‘Is it just because it’s something that’s written in the curriculum or is it something I believe in or is it something I believe is of value to the students?’ (Staff Meeting, September). Dave felt that he was more questioning about whether his expectations of students were realistic and found himself thinking more about ‘how the impact of the activities they had done had heightened their learning or restricted their learning’ (Interview, December). As their thinking changed about how to construct success for their students some teachers began to see ways that they could improve their practice. Jan realised that she needed to make her teacher directed approach to teaching mathematics ‘link up with the real world ... so that the students see the importance of Maths in all aspects of life’ (Interview, November). Matthew recognised the importance of using ‘a variety of assessment and opportunity in the classroom so as many students as possible can achieve success to one degree or another’ (Interview, December), while Tom began to see the potential of more student centred approaches with senior secondary students (Interview, November).

Judy Peters

550

However, most teachers found that it was not a simple process to translate changes in their thinking into changes in practice because of the complex range of student needs and contextual factors that impacted on their decisions. They found themselves grappling with dilemmas such as determining the appropriate balance between student initiated and teacher directed learning experiences (Tom and Jan), between written and visual literacy (Dave); between students’ social and academic needs (Cathy, Joy and Matthew); and between the set syllabus and making learning experiences relevant to students’ interests and needs (Jan and Steve). Jan’s comment in a research team meeting half way through the year is indicative of the kinds of dilemmas all the teachers faced: Because of the constraints from the universities and (externally imposed assessment requirements) and so on, it makes it difficult for you to use [investigative approaches] because you won’t get through everything, so you tend to use the traditional approach. (Meeting, June) Most of the teachers shared the perception that their insights from the project were having, or would have in the near future, some influence on improvement at the wider school level. Steve reported that his research findings about students’ learning preferences for using Information Technology were being used as a basis for ‘developing some different types of tutorials’ by teachers in his area (Individual Conference, May). Tom observed that those teachers who were involved in the development of a middle school, were using their insights from the project to effect change in that area (Interview, November). There were also perceptions that the project had enhanced whole school awareness of the importance of professional development (Steve, Interview, November). Their attempts to implement reform in the wider school made some teachers more aware of the need to institute structural reform at the school-wide level. Tom, as a member of the school leadership team, saw it as a positive outcome that teachers were starting to challenge inhibiting structures: I think a lot of what people are saying about how they teach and how they could change has led them to question whether the structure needs to be the way it always has been because they’re now a bit more critically reflective about what they want to do and how they’re doing it. (Interview, November)


551

It can be seen that for most teachers learning was an outcome of the project, but they found that translating the learning into educational improvement in the form of changed practice was more problematic. There appear to have been three conditions that were influential in the extent to which teacher learning and educational reform were outcomes of the project.

The first condition that appears to have supported teachers in their learning was their foregrounding of teacher and student learning. The teachers who became involved in the project had a pre-existing commitment to improving their own and students’ learning opportunities. Involvement in the project helped them to refocus their attention on their students in ways that they had not been able to manage when preoccupied with surviving the demands of their normal working lives. As they engaged in action research, most sought students’ perceptions about various aspects of schooling. As a result, they became more aware of student learning styles, preferences and needs, which caused them to rethink aspects of their teaching practice. Much of the current literature about improving teaching focuses on the use of students as informants as a condition for teacher learning (see, for example, Lohman & Woolf, 2001).

In addition, it was clear that teacher learning was brought more to the fore by the project. This is hardly surprising given that the focus of the project was on teacher professional development, but the research showed that most participants felt that there was greater awareness of the importance of professional development and increased opportunities for teacher learning.

Another condition that was a factor in teachers’ learning was their development of reflective skills. According to Middleton & Hill (1996) participants’ capacities to develop new insights is related to growth in their ability to analyse their own and others’ learning through ‘skills of self-reflection, reflective thinking, self-questioning, visualisation and listening’ (p. 92). Most teachers identified growth in their reflective skills as an integral part of their development through the project. They felt they were more aware of their practice and of the thinking that informed the decisions they made and that this, in turn, led to some changes in thinking and practice. There was also evidence that, through the opportunities for professional discourse in the project, the teachers became more aware of their colleagues’ thinking and practices, and the ways these informed school-wide policy and practice.

When it came to translating their learning into changes in practice, the teachers found that there were significant constraints caused by project demands, students’ needs and some aspects of their classroom and school contexts. The extent to which they could achieve educational reform appears to be linked to a third condition – the extent to which they felt empowered to address dilemmas and contextual constraints. It is generally recognised that addressing dilemmas and constraints is an integral part of learning and change. Groundwater-Smith et al (2001) drew attention to the centrality of dilemmas to educators’ work. They described dilemmas as

Judy Peters

552

‘complex situations in which the choices have to be unraveled and the consequences for taking particular paths weighed up’ (p. 13). Grundy (1996) cited her work with Kemmis (1981) in which they identified the three goals of educational action research as improvement in practices, the situation in which the practice is occurring, and in understanding both the practice and the situation (p. 9). It has been claimed that increased understanding of practice and the situation in which it occurs empowers educators by enhancing their capacity for critique and activism (Carr & Kemmis, cited in Robertson, 2000).

The research indicated that many participants in the project achieved Grundy’s third goal of improving their understanding of practice and the situation in which it occurred. In particular, they became aware of the dilemmas and constraints that existed in individual classroom contexts, and at the school and system level that prevented them from achieving the goal of improvement in practices and contexts. Having become aware of these constraints and dilemmas, they varied in the extent to which they felt empowered to address situational constraints. Some felt that some obstacles were insurmountable, at least in the short term, and their reform efforts foundered, while others became more determined to achieve reform, and united to lobby for change at the wider school and system level.

Conclusion

The examination of the assumptions underpinning the expectations for teachers in the Innovative Links Project has revealed a number of conditions that influenced the extent to which the expectations were achieved. These are:

• priorities that were consistent with the activities expected by the project; • a personal and communal ‘inquiry stance’ conception of how educators

learn (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999); • the expertise to implement the project processes; • the emotional competency of adaptability in coping with the anxiety and

uncertainty induced by change endeavours (Goleman, 1998); • time to implement project processes; • integration of project work in normal workload and plans for long-term

organisational development; • the development of reflective skills that enabled participants to identify

changes in their thinking and practice, and critique their own and others’ practice in the light of explicit theories and beliefs;

• feeling empowered through reflection and research to identify and address contextual constraints and dilemmas.

This study found that only some of these conditions were present for the teachers in School A, and as a result they were not able to fully meet the project expectations. Its findings are consistent with a recent assessment of research and development partnerships by Sachs (2000):


553

The future challenge is to create the political and professional conditions where new cultures can emerge in schools, education bureaucracies and faculties of education in which teacher research is rewarded and respected instead of being placed at the margins of university priorities. (p. 93)

Despite the difficulties these teachers faced, there was still some evidence that engaging in action research had, to some extent, transformed their thinking and practice – enough to confirm the potential of action research as a vehicle for teacher learning and educational reform. It is clear that if teacher research is to reach its potential as a significant part of future approaches to professional development then more attention needs to be paid to examining the assumptions that underpin any associated expectations, and determining the nature of the conditions that will enable expectations to be achieved.

Correspondence

Judy Peters, Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences, University of South Australia, Magill Campus, St Bernards Road, Magill, South Australia 5072, Australia ([email protected]).

References

Bernard, R.H. (2000) Social Research Methods: qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S.L. (1992) Communities for Teacher Research: fringe or forefront? American Journal of Education, May, pp. 298-324.

Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S. (1999) Relationships of Knowledge and Practice: teacher learning in communities, in A. Iran-Nejad & C.D. Pearson (Eds) Review of Research in Education, 24, pp. 249-305.

Collinson, V. & Ono, Y. (2001) The Professional Development of Teachers in the United States and Japan, European Journal of Teacher Education, 24(2), pp. 223-248.

Day, C. (1999) Developing Teachers. London: Falmer Press.

Day, C. (2000) Teachers in the Twenty-first Century: time to renew the vision (1), Teachers and Teaching, 6(1), pp 101-115.

Ewing, R. & Smith, D. (1999) Framing a Professional Learning Culture: a case study, paper presented to the Australian Curriculum Studies Conference, Perth, September.

Fullan, M. (1997) Emotion and Hope: constructive concepts for complex times, in A. Hargreaves (Ed.) ASCD Yearbook: rethinking educational change with heart and mind. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Goleman, D. (1998) Working with Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam.

Judy Peters

554

Gore, J.M. & Zeichner, K.M. (1995) Connecting Action Research to Genuine Teacher Development, in J. Smyth (Ed.) Critical Discourses on Teacher Development. London: Cassell.

Grimmett, P.P. (1995) Developing Voice through Teacher Research: implications for educational policy, in J. Smyth (Ed.) Critical Discourses on Teacher Development. London: Cassell.

Groundwater-Smith, S., Ewing, R. & Le Cornu, R. (2001) Teaching Challenges and Dilemmas. Southbank: Nelson Thomson Learning.

Grundy, S. (1995) Action Research as Professional Development, Occasional Paper 1 for the Innovative Links Project. Perth: Murdoch University.

Grundy, S. (1996) Building Professional Research Partnerships: possibilities and perplexities, Australian Educational Researcher, 23(1), pp. 1-15.

Hargreaves, A. (1994) Changing Teachers, Changing Times: teachers’ work and culture in the postmodern age. London: Cassell.

Hargreaves, A. (1997) In Conclusion: new ways to think about teachers and time, in N.E. Adelman, K. Panton Walking-Eagle & A. Hargreaves (Eds) Racing with the Clock: making time for teaching and learning in school reform. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hargreaves, A. (2000) Four Ages of Professionalism and Professional Learning, Teachers and Teaching, 6(2), pp. 151-182.

Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (1992) Introduction, in A. Hargreaves & M. Fullan (Eds) Understanding Teacher Development. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hawley, W.D. & Valli, L. (1999) The Essentials of Effective Professional Development: a new consensus, in L. Darling-Hammond & G. Sykes (Eds) Teaching as the Learning Profession: handbook of policy and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lambert, L. (1998) Foreword, in M. Collay, D. Dunlap, W. Enloe & G.W. Gagnon Jr (Eds) Learning Circles: creating conditions for professional development. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.

Lieberman, A. & Grolnick, M. (1997) Networks, Reform and the Professional Development of Teachers, in A. Hargreaves (Ed.) ASCD Yearbook: rethinking educational change with heart and mind. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Lieberman, A. & Grolnick, M. (1999) Networks and Reform in American Education, in L. Darling-Hammond & G. Sykes (Eds) Teaching as the Learning Profession: handbook of policy and practice, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lohman, M.C. & Woolf, N.H. (2001) Self-Initiated Learning Activities of Experienced Public School Teachers, Teachers and Teaching, 7(1), pp. 59-74.

McInerney, P., Hattam, R., Lawson, M. & Smyth, J. (1997) Teachers’ Learning toward the Dialogic School – Enacting the Rhetoric Beyond Resistance, paper presented to the Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, Brisbane, November.

McTaggert, R., Henry, H. & Johnson, E. (1997) Traces of Participatory Action Research: reciprocity among educators, Educational Action Research, 5(1), pp. 123-139.


555

Middleton, M. & Hill, J. (1996) Changing Schools: challenging assumptions and exploring possibilities. Highett: Hawker Brownlow Education.

Peters, J. (1982) Learning on the Job, in G. Boomer (Ed.) Negotiating the Curriculum, Sydney: Ashton Scholastic.

Peters, J (2002) The Complexity of School/University Partnerships: participants’ perceptions of the Innovative Links Project in South Australia. PhD Thesis, University of South Australia.

Peters, J., Dobbins, R. & Johnson, B. (1996) Restructuring and Organisational Culture: National Schools Network Research Paper Number 4. New South Wales: National Schools Network.

Richards, T.J. & Richards, L. (1994) Using Computers in Qualitative Research, in N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln (Eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Robertson, J. (2000) The Three Rs of Action Research Methodology: reciprocity, reflexivity and reflection-on-reality, Educational Action Research, 8(8), pp. 307-326.

Sachs, J. (2000) The Activist Professional, Journal of Educational Change, 1(1), pp. 77-94.

Sagor, R. (1997) Collaborative Action Research for Educational Change, in A. Hargreaves (Ed.) ASCD Yearbook: rethinking educational change with heart and mind. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Smith, P., Keating, I. & Turner, A. (1999) Managing School-based In-service Education and Training in a Special School: benefits and tensions in the partnership between school and higher education institution, Teacher Development, 3(2), pp. 429-447.

Southern Cross Roundtable Portrayal Evaluation Team (1996) Partners in Research: teachers and teacher educators learning together. Murdoch: Murdoch University: Innovative Links Project.

Stenhouse, L. (1983) Case Study in Educational Research and Evaluation, in J. Ruddock & D. Hopkins (Eds) Case Study: an overview, 2nd edn. Waurn Ponds: Deakin University.

Whitford, B.L. & Metcalf-Turner, P. (1999) Of Promises and Unresolved Puzzles: reforming teacher education with professional development schools, in G.A. Griffen (Ed.) The Education of Teachers. Chicago: National Society for the Study of Education.

Judy Peters

556

teachers engaging in action research: challenging some assumptions

Documents