Teachers as researchers in a major research project: Experience of input and output

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Abstract

Teachers have long participated in collaborative research. However, they have generally had direct stakes in the outcomes. Teachers in the Early Professional Learning (EPL) Project used their insider status to gather data not directly related to their own practice. Lessons for integrating a group of teacher–researchers into a major project are discussed. Some of these are practical, but also cover their unexpectedly experienced initial isolation within the project team, that has relevance for both forming and theorising communities of enquiry. An outline for a new concept of teacher–researcher begins to emerge that may influence the direction of educational research.

Introduction

Teachers have been involved in forms of collaborative research with academics for some time, even if that may often have involved little more than administering questionnaires (Johnson, 1975). However, even when teachers are more deeply involved than this, it is difficult to find examples of collaborative research that do not involve teacher–researchers studying their own practice, in either their own classrooms or within the wider school community. Consequently, they generally have direct stakes in the outcomes (Smith & Walker, 2007).

Various forms of this type of research can be found in the years that follow 1975. For example, teachers may research individually, but meet as a group with academic researchers. (Capobiancoa and Feldman, 2006, Evans et al., 2000). Sometimes a common theoretical framework may be supplied by the academics, for example, approaches to learning disabilities (Klinger, Arguelles, Hughes, & Vaughn, 2001) or mastery learning (Posthlethwaite & Haggarty, 1998), and applied across the classes of the staff involved. In other examples, teachers individually identify issues they wish to research and work singly and closely with an academic mentor whose role is to offer a different perspective from which derives challenging questions concerning teacher research and development of practice (Angelides, Evangelou, & Leigh, 2005). One impetus for teacher participation is often involvement with an academic course, such as a masters programme (Campbell and Jaques, 2004, Capobiancoa and Feldman, 2006, Evans et al., 2000). For some, research (finding out) is a motivation in itself (Watkins, 2006). Perhaps related to this, another stimulus to engagement is participation in major projects such as Professional Development Schools (PDS) (for example, Clark, 1999) or the Teaching for Understanding (TfU) Project (Wiske, 1998).

There is an expectation, therefore, that teachers will be able to apply any useful findings themselves and that others will see these applications, and so also adopt them. Involvement of teachers in the EPL project was relatively unusual in that the teacher–researchers were used as ethnographers to gather data not directly related to their own practice. That is, their insider status facilitated the collection process but they were obtaining data, and contributing to interpretations, that they would not necessarily use themselves in their everyday work, but which were intended to lead to interventions and induction strategies beneficial to new teachers and, through these, to the profession as a whole. Dissemination has to be through academic channels and also to those colleagues (policy makers, head teachers, new teachers' supporters, for example) in positions to effect change.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on aspects of the input and output processes involving the teacher–researchers (TRs) that may be of interest to other projects of a practice-related nature. First, there are lessons to be learned for ensuring integration of a group of TRs into a major project that also allows them to establish their identity as a team. Some of the lessons concerned help with technical matters but the TRs were also unsure of their input role until certain issues concerning isolation were resolved. That the TRs should feel isolated was not expected by all involved in the friendly and relaxed context of the early days of the EPL project. This experience can be articulated in terms of Cassidy et al.'s (2008) description of ‘communities of enquiry’. Second, once the above issues were resolved, the roles of TRs in the EPL project evolved to become what may be a new concept of teacher–researcher that could be further developed in other projects, where the practitioner as researcher may enhance the research design. This concept derives from the combination of the TRs' inputs and outputs for the project. Before reflecting on these features of the input and output of the TRs, it is necessary to give some background to the initial thinking behind their recruitment and initial relationships.

Section snippets

Recruitment of teacher–researchers and initial relationships

The EPL project was conceived to enhance the learning of new teachers by developing, evaluating and disseminating a research-based, practical model of early professional development, and to add value to previous approaches by integrating outcome-oriented competencies with informal learning, context and identity. The project was a multi-method study that used ethnographic data as a basis for model building, as well as the development of five quantitative indicators of new teacher development.

Introducing the teacher–researcher role to the schools

An early duty of the TRs was to establish the project within their schools. Crucial to this is the support of the school's senior management, mentors of the new teachers (NTs), and their heads of department. In practice, obtaining this was no great problem. In the case of the Head Teachers, permission was required to apply for the teacher–researcher role and, for two, application for the role had been suggested by the Head in the first place. So, there was little to do at this stage, other than

Gathering the interview data

The first phase of the ethnographic research was conducted in the teacher–researchers' schools by interviewing the NTs and by observing first hand the conditions in which their learning occurred. The rationale of this relatively new research approach rested upon previous experience of the academic team and their reading of the literature which suggested that conventional interviews by external researchers have difficulty getting at tacit learning processes; being embedded in the workplace, it

Transcribing the interview data

This was by far the most time consuming task in the project's first phase. It had been agreed that transcribing, in the first phase at least, would assist TRs to become familiar with their data. However, there was a learning curve to negotiate. The time required for transcribing was another constraint on time for interviews. TRs with more NTs to interview were under pressure to either do fewer interviews, or to be selective in their transcription, perhaps paraphrasing or skipping some sections.

Identity issues

As noted earlier, the EPL made novel, or at least unusual, use of TRs. They did not research their own practice within the school. In fact, the focus of the project was not directly on the practice of the TRs' colleagues either, but on how new teachers learn. The practices observed in schools were the contexts in which the learning of NTs were facilitated or restricted. Of course, it was expected that a result would be an ability to describe practices that support new teachers' learning. A

Bridging cultures

The major lesson from the above is that time is required for communications to be truly established between all members of the team. It is only when the TRs were able to come together to form their ‘own tribe’, so bridging the differences between their own backgrounds and school cultures, that they could then work more effectively with the academics and tap into the terminology and theory they were developing, and make their own contributions to its development. To the TRs, the ‘default

A new concept of teacher–researcher?

In this section, some speculations are offered, based on the recruitment of the teacher–researchers and the way they worked in the EPL project, that begin to outline the possibility of developing a new concept of teacher–researcher. Let us tease out some possibly salient features.

a) The teachers involved are from different subject backgrounds and schools and had no direct personal investment in the outcomes of the project.

Other projects may involve teachers from different subject backgrounds,

Conclusion

One metaphor that emerged as a description of new teachers' experiences of their early days was that of a roller coaster. The TRs also experienced something of a roller coaster as they struggled to find their identity and make their contributions to the inputs and outputs of the EPL project. There are practical and theoretical lessons to be learned from these experiences. Foremost among the practical lessons for projects of the type and scale of the EPL project is the need to really open up

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