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Learning to Do Action Research
Through a Thought-Experiment Approach
Abstract
Action research is defined and scholarship is presented to suggest a central role for the action-research cycle of framing an inquiry question, developing and implementing an instructional plan, collecting and analyzing data on the outcomes and possible answers to the inquiry question, reflecting on the results in consultation with students and colleagues, and using new understandings to inform subsequent rounds of the cycle. A thought-experiment approach is suggested for the purposes of fitting into a teacher-preparation syllabus a vivid enough introduction to the action-research cycle for teacher candidates to internalize the process and be able to utilize it to continually improve their teaching practices. The author describes and analyzes his own effort to teach the action-research process in two sections of an introductory course in special education within the undergraduate teacher education program at an institution of higher education in western Kansas.
“Action research” is a term and teaching approach that enjoyed a great deal of popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the field of international English language learning (Nunan, 1990). More recently, action, or “participatory,” research has influenced social sciences and even STEM scholarship (Nielsen, 2014). Exciting work in education and teacher preparation suggests action research as a key aspect of the process through which teachers develop new approaches, bring these into their lessons, evaluate the results, and reflect on ways to continually improve their own understanding of teaching and learning as well as the outcomes and accomplishments of their students (Hopkins, 2017; Laprise, 2017; Morales et al, 2016; Szecsi, 2015).
Nielsen (2014) provides examples from the field of ethics to illustrate the three key features of Aristotelian “praxis,” considered the origin of what is called “action research” today.
This connection of the researcher and his or her research activity to the effects of the research and the potential of this activity to transform the researcher as well as influence the context of the research is a fundamental and distinctive quality of participatory action research, with implications for teachers and future teachers regarding the social purposes of their lessons.
According to Glassman and Erdem, participatory action research became a unifying force driving educational and political reform throughout the world during the 1960s and 1970s.
Freire’s ideas framed much of the discussion and development of socially relevant action research, as described by Glassman and Erdem (2014):
Glassman and Erdem (2014) describe this participatory and community-based dimension of action research using the terms “vivencia,” “praxis,” and “conscientization.” According to these authors, “vivencia,” or participation, is “a full experience of an event with all its possibilities, lived through direct participation…. cannot be observed; it can only be lived, felt, and experienced” (p. 212). Glassman and Erdem remark that participatory researcher Fals Borda coined the concept “sentipasentes,” or “feel-thinkers who act through emotions but use cognitive strategies to survive” (p. 212). The basic idea of “viviencia,” then, according to Glassman and Erdem, is that it is “achieved through participation, sharing, sensing, feeling, and thinking” (p. 212) together with the communities the researcher is studying.
“Praxis,” according to Glassman and Erdem, is “reshaping ideas into actions… an act of engaging, exercising, and practicing ideas” (p. 212). These authors make frequent allusions to Freire (1970), who popularized the concept of praxis, which they paraphrase him in describing as “actions taken by the oppressed in the processes of their liberation and path to freedom” (Glassman and Erdem, 2014, p. 212).
The third element in participatory action research, according to Glassman and Erdem, is “conscientization,” or research. “Conscientization….is actually about creating new community-based problem-solving processes,” (p. 213) these authors explain. “[Participatory Action Research] introduces new research methodology that reconstructs the roles and value of academic research as well as researchers and participants” (p. 214).
Respect for communities being researched is a central assumption underpinning the community-participation aspect of the action research model. In many cases, these are traditionally marginalized communities, whether on the basis of ethnicity, race, language, culture, disability, or another feature of socioeconomic status (Powers, 2017). According to Powers, there is growing awareness in the field of disability studies regarding “action approaches” (p. 43).
Powers lauds recent participatory research “more fully involving youth and adults with severe disabilities in both disability and non-disability focused research, as optimally engaged participants, advisors, and leaders” (p. 43). According to Powers, “action research that positions community members with [developmental disabilities] as equal partners also has potential to minimize the risk of exploitation and maltreatment” (p. 43).
The Action Research Cycle for a teaching context is outlined straightforwardly by Laprise (2017) in an article titled “Empowering the Music Educator through Action Research.”
Step 1: Developing a Focus
According to Laprise, the research focus is determined by the “teaching situation.” The author suggests journaling, videotapes, student feedback, ideas from colleagues, and input from supervisors. “In short, find a focus that is meaningful to you. Try to have an understanding of the possible benefits of what the research could tell you….developed into a specific research question or questions that can be investigated and answered in your teaching situation” (pp. 28-33).
Step 2: Creating and Implementing the Plan
Step 3: Making Sense of the Data
Laprise describes this step as an examination of the data to discover trends that answer research questions. “Action research is most empowering,” explains the author, “when the data support the teacher’s actions as being effective or guide the adjustment of his or her practice to be more beneficial to the learning environment” (pp. 28-33).
Step 4: Reflecting, Modifying Practice, and Replanning
According to Laprise, a teacher can use insights from data analysis to not only change his or her teaching practice, but also to determine a new “research focus to further investigate a similar topic or one inspired by the previous action research cycle” (pp. 28-33). The author also endorses sharing results with colleagues.
A Summary of the Action Research Process
Hopkins (2017) rephrases five propositions about teacher research attributed to Freeman (1998):
2) Research can be defined as an orientation towards one’s practice. It
Is a questioning attitude…leading to “inquiry” conducted within a
“disciplined framework.”
3) There is, as yet, no publicly recognized “discipline” of teaching. Teachers
do not think of themselves as producing knowledge; they think of
themselves as using it.
4) Inquiry—and not procedure—is the basis of teacher-research.
5) Creating a discipline of teaching requires making public one’s
findings. To do so, teacher-researchers need to explore new
and different ways of telling what has been learned through
their inquiries.
(Freeman, quoted in Hopkins, 2017, p. 16)
According to Hopkins, “action research aims to help us explore the connection between teaching and learning….[placing] the teacher at the hyphen in the role of ‘teacher-researcher’”(p. 22).
• Engages teachers in reflection upon evidence of learning
as a result of planned learning outcomes
• Collects data that might support the connection between
teaching and learning
• Suggests how influence upon learning can be enhanced
based on research results
• Invests teachers with a level of responsibility for exploring
“how” their students are learning
• Contributes to making teaching a “discipline” through the
publication of research results
(Hopkins, 2017, p. 22)
The argument presented in the preceding section of this paper depicts action research as a process at the heart of any teaching activity because of its potential for improving the learning environment for students, prospects for a school community, and the teacher’s own awareness, understanding, and practice. An implication of this premise would be the notion that teacher-preparation programs ought to illustrate by example a participatory action research process, so that teacher candidates benefit from a context supportive of a set of skills essential to their development as lifelong teachers (and learners). A key challenge facing the teacher educator is determining how to provide candidates with experiences of action research in practice within the constraints of an already complex array of standards-based curriculum mandates: how to “bundle” and integrate action research in alignment with required standards, basic principles such as universal design for learning, and the idiosyncratic traditions of a particular academic setting.
Thought Experiments
The main focus of the present paper is to describe an initial effort at introducing undergraduate teacher education students to an action-research thinking process, within the context of a special education introductory level course. The instructor based this “action research project” on suggestions from colleagues (Paige, 2017; Ali, 2017, personal communication) implying that greater levels of student engagement result from student participation in research activities. The only tentative evidence so far indicating positive results from the “action research project” would be: the instructor’s enjoyment in reading the students’ written reports, part two of the project; student feedback on several survey questions included on the final written exam; a number of creative, attractive, and interesting student posters, part three of this three-part project; and a “whooping” yell emitted by the instructor in response to project proposals, the first part of the assignment.
A “thought experiment” is one way of accommodating to the limits of space and time encountered in a traditional classroom setting at a typical institution of higher education. Hubert (1999), in an article titled “The Thought Experiment as a Pedagogical Device in Nursing Ethics Education,” reports that “thought experiments are commonly employed in such diverse fields as theoretical physics, mathematics, and philosophy” (p. 374), and are especially valuable because students are encouraged to use “their own intuitive moral judgments [as well as] competing theoretical frameworks” (p. 374).
Marzano (2011) recounts that Einstein’s theory of relativity eventually developed from “a thought experiment when he imagined himself running to catch up with a beam of light” (p. 82). According to Marzano, there are four steps, or “phases,” a teacher can lead students through when using thought experiments to aid instruction:
Phase I: Imagine
“When sufficient background knowledge is in place, the teacher begins by guiding students through the creation of mental images,” explains Marzano, who illustrates this phase in the context of a lesson about the moon’s effect on ocean tides, with the following instructions for the students: “form a picture of the earth rotating, with the moon next to it. Focus on the ocean on the side of the earth that’s closest to the moon. Feel the pull of the moon on the waters of the ocean and see the bulge in the ocean start to rise…” (pp. 82-83).
Phase 2: Explore
“In this phase of the [thought] experiment, the teacher introduces a new element to the students’ images,” according to Marzano. “The teacher might ask students to broaden their mental image…” (p. 182).
Phase 3: Describe
“In the ‘describe’ phase,” according to Marzano, “the teacher asks students to explain their conclusions to one another and to the class” (p. 182).
Phase 4: Confirm
“In this last phase of the thought experiment,” explains Marzano, “the teacher and students seek out information from textbooks and the Internet to determine whether their conclusions are accurate, and they discuss what they’ve learned” (p. 182).
Hopkins quotes Freeman’s 1998 definition of a thought experiment “in which you simply think through a situation, research issue or design using various alternatives and carrying them to their conclusions” (Hopkins, 2017, p. 4). Hopkins introduced the idea of using a thought-experiment approach to train teachers in the action research process, in his text currently in preparation, titled “Action Research: Using Classroom Activities to Explore the Links Between Teaching and Learning” (2017).
Robb Scott's Action Research Project: Fall Semester 2017
First Description / August 23, 2017
In developing your project, thank you for following these guidelines.
2) This action research project is centered on a “thought experiment” or “imagined class” which is comprised of four students.
3) Your “thought experiment” covers a time span of 11 days, starting on a Friday, going through two weekends, and finishing on a Monday.
PROCEDURES:
2. Do library-based and anecdotal research on effective teaching practices for each of your four students (Information for your student with a disability can include what you find in our textbook)
3. Do Internet based research on the Kansas standards for the subject area and grade/age level
4. Write your ACTION RESEARCH PROPOSAL by the due date of September 10th
[Your proposal includes: A) brief bios for your four students; B) results from your research on effective teaching practices, inclusive teaching practices, and the pertinent Kansas standards for the students’ grade/age level and the subject area your lesson is going to address]
5. Develop your 11-day lesson plan (starting on a Friday and running through two weekends and completing on a Monday)
6. Write a reflection on what types of data you will be collecting during your lesson to determine whether these imaginary students are making progress towards the objectives, how you are planning to collect the data, how you can make certain that the data brings you the answers you need, and what you expect to learn from the data as well as how you would be able to improve your action research procedures for additional lessons in subsequent weeks with these same students.
7. Turn in your ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT report by the due date-Oct. 23rd
Several due dates changed as this assignment proceeded. The final reports were turned in by most students during the first week of November, and a third part was added: posters on tri-fold poster boards for in-class display and descriptions in the first week of December. Also, the proposals, mostly done on schedule by early to mid-September, were prepared as PowerPoints and presented by individuals and teams in front of the class.
It was during these presentations of the proposals that the instructor started to fully appreciate how this assignment was differentiating this activity for these teacher candidates while also profoundly changing the instructor’s own experience of teaching these two sections of this course. The most significant difference from the instructor’s perspective was finding out in detail about the particular grade-level (for elementary education majors) and subject-area (for secondary education majors) these candidates were planning to teach in several more years, when they finish their degree and licensure programs.
The early weeks of the introductory special education course are partially devoted to learning about the “Standards of Effective Pedagogy for At-Risk Students,” from the Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE), and the three principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Through the student presentations of their Action Research proposals, the instructor incidentally was tapping into the CREDE Standard of Relevance/Contextuality and the UDL principle of multiple forms of engaging with students, by discovering the subjects and grade levels they hope one day to be teaching, ranging from kindergarten English language arts and music to middle school physical education and high school pre-calculus and ag science. A secondary school art education major went back to his hometown high school and interviewed his art teachers to find out how they accommodated in art lessons for youth with special needs. Several future high school woodworking teachers interviewed one of their current professors in the Applied Technology Department to determine the key elements in a successful lesson plan. A mathematics teacher candidate shared how she came to love calculus because of a great teacher she had in high school. Hearing these prospective teachers talk about their chosen areas of emphasis gave insights to their motives and aspirations, providing background that enabled the instructor to more fully understand each individual’s personal context and interests.
From an action-research perspective, these personal insights may have generated something like “vivencia,” a shared reality between the community (students in the intro special education course) and the instructor (researcher) and functioned to transform the researcher as well as the context influencing the outcomes of this action project and thought experiment. The question that remains, however, is whether a thought-experiment assignment can give students a vivid and realistic enough experience of “vivencia” and the other features of action research for them to internalize the process and understand how to apply this method of inquiry in future teaching opportunities.
Second Description / September 21, 2017
Stage Two / Action Research Project
The project proposals, where singly or in teams we introduced our imagined students, their ages, the grade level, the school subject—including state and/or national standards—we intend to teach to them and the additional guidelines, standards, and best practices we have started to understand through a process combining traditional research as well as interviews and suggestions from experienced educators, were presented wonderfully by you and your classmates.
Now we have a new challenge facing us. Our deadline will be the end of October and our goal is to develop the Action Research Project itself, which consists of:
Collaboration with a College of Education Colleague
Kevin Splichal, Ph.D., directs the building leadership program in the Department of Advanced Programs, and all his courses for the fall semester were online. He is a mid-career teacher educator with ten years of experience as a high school social studies teacher and assistant principal, along with another ten years as a teacher educator at Fort Hays State University. Most interestingly, he has a passion for teaching “face to face” in on-campus classrooms, and was seeking opportunities to guest lecture that semester. Having collaborated before with Dr. Splichal, the instructor of this introductory special education course invited him to teach a unit on lesson-planning to help these students develop their ideas for the 11-day lesson plan at the heart of their Action Research written reports. The students responded positively to this guest speaker, and his vivid explanation of how to write lesson plans in alignment with local curricula and state content standards. For many of these students, these sessions with Kevin Splichal were the highlight of the semester and, clearly, his instructions had a significant impact on their enthusiasm for their projects. His intervention was a “shot in the arm” for our thought experiments and may have generated the crucial sense of “vivencia” that Glassman and Erdem (2014) believe is an essential feature of the action research experience.
Based on these lesson-planning discussions, the instructor developed a lesson-plan template (see Appendix 1), but students were also free to utilize a similar one shared by Dr. Splichal, or any other format they were familiar with from their own particular programs and/or personal preferences. Two required elements in these lessons were any necessary accommodations as well as aspects to promote inclusion. A number of ideas and suggestions were provided in the course textbook, “Exceptional Lives: Special Education in Today’s Schools (8th Ed.) by Turnbull et al (2016).
Collaboration with an International Education Mentor
David B. Hopkins is an English Language Specialist for the U.S. State Department and TEFL Curriculum Developer and Teacher Educator, based in Thailand. It was his suggestion that prompted the instructor of this introductory special education course to attempt a “thought experiment” to introduce teacher candidates to the action research process this past fall semester. Professor Hopkins believes that the teaching profession must be “saved” by teacher-researchers courageous and disciplined enough to use an “inquiry approach” and actually collect and analyze data “instead of just telling each other stories about what they think happened in their classrooms” (personal communication, 2017). He suggests the following as a starting list for ways of collecting data:
According to Hopkins, “research, by its very presence, changes the dynamics in a learning environment” (p. 28). He wants the researcher to ask himself or herself “what [they] are going to stage to accomplish the research” and “how … the research process will affect the ‘framework’ of the lesson” (p. 28). A final consideration, suggests Hopkins, “is the degree to which the research will intervene in the process of the lesson” (p. 28).
In order to generate data that is effective in producing useful knowledge to improve the teacher’s understanding and teaching practices, Professor Hopkins suggests the following considerations at the outset of an action research cycle:
“It is critical and essential … that you go beyond trying to prove something that you already think to be true,” warns Hopkins. “This is not research. Researchable questions are those which allow multiple answers, and possibly only raise more questions and no answers” (p. 48). He also suggests five different types of “triangulation” to increase the validity and reliability of data analysis.
Splichal helped to generate a sense of “vivencia” essential to the traditional practice of participatory action research; Hopkins’ reminders regarding the elements of rigorous, disciplined inquiry, helped to ensure that “conscientization,” or “problem-solving processes” at the heart of Freire’s community-based data-analysis methodology, would exert an influence in the thought-experiment assignment this semester as well. The third element of action research, as described by Glassman and Erdem (2014), is “praxis,” or the action taken on behalf of the community (and in practice by the teacher in subsequent research cycles) as a result of the “experiment,” that is, the effects of the research on the community and on the teacher-researcher.
Scoring Rubric for Action Research Reports
INTRODUCTION / 5 pts possible
BIOGRAPHIES / 15 pts possible
STATE, NATIONAL, PROFESSIONAL, & OTHER STANDARDS IN ALIGNMENT WITH YOUR PROJECT & LESSON PLAN(S) / 10 pts possible
LESSON PLAN(S) / 25 pts possible
DATA COLLECTION PLAN / 10 pts possible
RESEARCH BASE / FOUNDATION SUPPORTING YOUR IDEAS / 10 pts possible
DAY IN THE LIFE / 5 pts possible
RESULTS OF THE STUDY / 10 pts possible
CONCLUSION / 10 pts possible
These reports averaged about 20 pages in length, and it took the instructor an average of 45 minutes per report to read through and fill out the scoring rubric on each one. The “Day in the Life” was an imagined typical day in the life of the teacher candidate within a scenario during the week at the center of the 11-day lesson plan, and candidates were encouraged to describe what would be on their minds traveling from home to school, working through the day, and en route to home again at the end of the day. Candidates worked either on their own or as teams of two or three members on these Action Research Projects. In the case of teams, each member was required to compose his or her own “Day I the Life” section; also, on teams, each member was required to write his or her own “Conclusion.” Students from the Speech and Language Pathology program in the Department of Communication Disorders also take this same introductory special education course, and three of these SLP candidates opted to prepare their project around an imagined SLP scenario with four elementary school children being pulled out of classes for speech therapy.
As the deadline drew near for turning in the written reports, students made a number of requests in class that indicated they were feeling anxious (and hopefully invested) in this major goal they had embarked on and discussed with the instructor starting in late August and were now nearly finished with as the month of November began. It was at this point that the instructor chose to introduce the idea of one further activity to bring closure to the projects: tri-fold posters displaying a summary of the key aspects from each person’s or each team’s project. This new development stimulated a great deal of in-class discussion between the instructor and the students. One student expressed exasperation with the entire process and disbelief that yet another layer was being added on top of what already had been for many students an overwhelming and time-consuming assignment. The instructor sensed both a challenge and an opportunity in the atmosphere of the classroom at that moment, and paused before, first, expressing gratitude for a level of rapport with the students which had allowed such a frank statement to surface and, second, making a risky concession: any student who got to any point while writing the project report and felt that the whole thing had become “just busy work,” could stop, draw a line on the paper and write “this is just busy work,” and turn it in unfinished without losing points.
As it turned out, the student who had raised the concern was in the midst of completely changing career and life paths, having decided to leave the university and open a hometown photography studio. The student visited the instructor’s office a few days later, explained the situation, and was given an alternate assignment of writing a paper about how the interest in photography had developed and what the new plan was. Only one other student chose the “this is just busy work” option, near the end of an otherwise complete project. All other individuals and teams seemed to take up the gauntlet and completed project reports that the instructor read with great interest.
The other important matter that arose in that pivotal class discussion was regarding the due date for the project posters. It was decided by the instructor in deliberation with the students that the due date ought to be after Thanksgiving break, so that deadline turned out to be in the first week of December, at nearly the very end of the semester.
Poster Display Notes Based on Grice (1975)
Posters started to appear the first several days of December, as students would bring them in and ask the instructor to hold onto them until our poster display day.
[Click here for a 2 minute video tour of a few of the posters that were turned in by the students]
On the given day, students as individuals and teams arrived at the classroom a few minutes early, helped the instructor move desks and tables around to create a semi-circle with space for “milling” in a big area in the center of the room. Students and teams counted off 1-2-1-2 etc. and the “ones” stood by their posters to explain their projects to “twos,” who took on the role of “appraisers,” listening to each presentation, asking questions, and taking notes on sheets based on Grice’s four principles of conversational logic, from his “Logic and Conversation” (1975). These appraisal notes were handed directly to student and team presenters, who were able to inspect the feedback from their classmates and select which notes to turn in for the instructor to review as part of the grading of the project posters. After about 10 or 15 minutes of presenting and receiving feedback, the “ones” switched roles with the “twos,” who stood next to their individual or team posters to present, answer questions, and receive Grice notes feedback from the “ones.”
Not Taking Credit for Your Students’ Accomplishments
At the start of his teaching career, the instructor spent a semester teaching English language arts and journalism at the Kickapoo Nation School in Powhattan, Kansas. He brought fiction written by Native American authors, such as Leslie Marmon Silko, into these classes, as well as reading through the Ken Kesey novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1962), with the juniors. It was an enjoyable six months for the instructor as a young, impressionable new teacher eager to learn from interesting experiences. Inspired by the short stories included in the collection “The Man To Send Rainclouds” (1974), the sophomores decided to create their own play, which they called “The Rez.” The instructor felt great about so many things that happened at the Kickapoo school, and especially was impressed and proud of the students for their work on “The Rez,” loosely based on people and places on the Kickapoo Reservation. This perhaps would have been a good opportunity to develop an article for publication about all the things the students had accomplished, but, as the instructor collected his degree at nearby University of Kansas, said farewell to students, colleagues, and tribe members at that year’s Kickapoo Nation School graduation ceremony, and prepared for a move to a teaching job in Ecuador, he reflected on the experiences and rapport he had enjoyed with the Kickapoo community and made a decision not to use the students’ creative work, not to take credit for their achievements, not to seek personal glory for what he felt lucky to have witnessed there.
Years later, this past semester, as the action research experiment developed, the instructor remembered the ethic that had motivated his early career decision to show respect for his students by not attributing their results to himself. Many of this semester’s students freely handed over their posters to the instructor after the poster-display activity, and a number of these now decorate his office, which is an impressive sight to behold and provides him with further inspiration as tokens representing some of the “praxis” of these participatory action research projects. But the instructor did not invite faculty colleagues to the poster-display activity and is resisting the temptation to share photographs of the posters in any context suggesting that they are his accomplishments rather than his students’. Even writing the present paper has been made more difficult by a gnawing sense that it may have ended up being more about what he did than what the students did.
How the Spirit is Strengthened by Friendships
The instructor, who is the author of this paper, was inspired to make the effort of adding an action research component to his on-campus classes by examples of teachers mentoring students on research projects in a number of settings at the institution of higher education where he presently works. He was also spurred on by the fact that a long-time friend and mentor happened to be starting a new project teaching a research methods course for teachers in Asia, and sharing notes as he prepared that curriculum, including the idea of using a “thought experiment” approach. Another friend and colleague brought so much contagious enthusiasm to this project by offering to visit the classes and share insights on lesson-planning that connected to these students and helped them to imagine themselves in the roles many of them will be living out in a few short years. Yet another colleague became a friend this semester through a collaboration with this author on a session they co-presented at a diversity conference hosted by their university in late October.
Another old friend, with whom the instructor had studied when they were earning their master’s degrees, in the early 1980s, visited the Hays campus this semester and shared her experiences from a lifetime of cross-cultural incidents and initiatives, including especially her current work in the field of health-care interpreting. She also engaged everyone she met in interesting conversation and visited several classes while she was here. In addition, the instructor volunteered this semester in teaching English to adult Spanish speakers in a program organized by the Department of Modern Languages, which reunited him with his old high school journalism teacher and also brought new local friends into his life.
Up and down the hallways of the second and third floors of Rarick Hall, the instructor continually encounters friendly faces and encouraging words of colleagues from a number of different departments. All of these friendships have nourished his spirit and given him clarity of mind to stay on top of the action research initiative during its different phases during the fall semester.
Results
These two survey questions were included at the end of the multiple choice final exam. Sixty-two percent of the students responded that they learned little or only just a few things from the Action Research Project activity. Also, 62 percent indicated that the project had helped them to develop an understanding of the teaching, reflection, and improvement cycle; yet a higher portion, 81 percent, indicated the project had helped them develop an understanding of writing lesson plans. Similarly, 84 percent said the Action Research assignment had helped them develop an understanding of accommodating teaching to the needs of students.
Conclusions
A person witnessing the poster-display sessions, with each student and/or team explaining what they had learned in the process of doing their project, would have noticed a level of intensity that now remains only as a fleeting memory except for the representative posters on display in the instructor’s office today. The instructor reported, in the days that followed, almost a disbelief at how much effort and creativity so many of the students had invested in designing their posters.
On the other hand, on the survey questions, nearly two-thirds of the students reported learning little or only a few things from the Action Research Project. Just 38 percent said that they had learned “a lot” from an assignment that occupied much of the class’s attention throughout the entire semester, from August to December.
At the same time, four out of every five of these teacher candidates indicated that this project had increased their understanding of how to write lesson plans and how to accommodate their teaching to the needs of their students. These are positive outcomes even if a smaller portion of the participants reported having improved their understanding of the action research cycle, which, after all, was the primary focus of inquiry motivating this research project.
In the second effort at preparing teacher-candidates through a thought-experiment activity like this one, for the purpose of increasing their understanding of and ability to utilize an action research cycle, it will be necessary to more clearly present the focus of inquiry, supported by precise performance objectives, to the students at the beginning and with reviews and reminders throughout the semester.
Charting an Improved Action Research Project
There is a sense of objective reality that results from asking questions and refusing to accept at face value the easy, reassuring analyses of superficial data regarding what the students are experiencing in your classes. At the same time, a certain amount of faith is required to carry on with an agenda and follow through on lessons you have planned based on what is likely to meet the needs of your students, as you currently understand them. When celebrating the accomplishments of the students, it is important not to forget the individual degrees of effort each of them has invested towards shared as well as uniquely personal goals. By measuring his own efforts against time-tested CREDE standards—known to be associated with lessons that assist at-risk students in succeeding—and the principles of UDL—essential to the building of inclusive classrooms—the author of this paper hopes to have found ways to improve the outcomes of his own action research to make it a more supportive context for this upcoming round of thought experiments.
References
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Grice, H.P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In J.P. Kimball (Ed.), Syntax and Semantics, Volume 3. (pp. 41-58). New York: Academic Press.
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Hubert, J. (1999). The thought experiment as a pedagogical device in nursing ethics education. Journal of Nursing Education. 38(8) 374-376.
Kesey, K. (1962). One flew over the cuckoo's nest. New York: Penguin Books.
Laprise, R. (2017). Empowering the music educator through action research. Music Educators Journal. 104(1) 28-33.
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Author's 1st note: This paper is also available in the format of 26 mp3 files at: http://www.multilingualadaptive.net/action/.
Author's 2nd note: For those wishing to find out more about the exciting up and coming education professional named Dr. Kevin L. Splichal, you'll enjoy reading his 2015 doctoral thesis at: https://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/handle/2097/19151! (Title = Lived experiences of two pre-service teachers from a midwestern rural university during internships)
2020 The Multilingual Adaptive Systems Newsletter
Photograph of the author, Robb Scott, in fall 2017
Bernstein’s (1971) and Eikeland’s (2008) interpretations of Aristotle
consider at least three important dimensions of Aristotelian critical
praxis: 1) joining rather than separating critical ethics and actionable
knowledge; 2) action research practice that developmentally changes
the action researcher and the external world; and 3) inductive practitioner
rather than academic literature-based theory building.
(p. 420)
In Tanzania, these ideas were described as “participatory research,”
in Brazil and Chile the approach was named “popular research,” in
India it became synonymous with initiatives of Gandhi and the poet
educator Tagore, and in Colombia it took on the name of “action research.” (p. 208)
Freire (1970) was interested in establishing social change through
adult education programs that increased autonomous behavior,
allowing individuals to break away from the habits of thought
developed and maintained by dominant groups….Freire believed
that education should lead to the recognition that individuals have
the ability to choose their activities and transform their own life
trajectories…. Freire’s argument was that it was counterproductive
to treat individuals in rural or urban communities as the sole focus
of study, detached from their relationship to the political context
of inquiry…. Accordingly, Freire offered a new slant on the evolving
participatory methodology…. After recognizing the problem, the
researchers should define a rural/urban area and recruit large samples
of individuals from this area and engage them in series of discussion
groups. The dialogue between the community members and the
researchers/facilitators would provide the data for a researcher
to analyze from a number of different perspectives.
(p. 209)
Action as praxis is a fluid, diverse, and confrontational concept that
requires constant reflection and dialogue during the change process….
Praxis opens doors for oppressed masses to criticize, problematize, and
claim their condition, which will eventually enable them to overcome it.
(p. 213)
Central to [Participatory Action Research] is the idea that you start
examination of human action not with an abstract research question
but with recognition and observation of human action as it exists. The
researchers work with members of the community to understand what
occurs in the network of human relationships that either moves it toward
or away from desired goals….The goal of research is not hypothesis
testing with objective measures but to participate in the realities
and experiences of the community….The research process is a cycle
of continuous exploration and understanding, an ongoing cycle of
“action as praxis,” “research as conscientization,” and “reflection leading
to transformation of praxis…”
(p. 214)
[This trend] is reflective of increasing focus on welcoming and respecting
the voices of community members with disabilities in shaping, conducting,
and applying research; on fostering capacity building and leadership among
community and academic researchers with disabilities; and on advancing
the impact of research knowledge on social justice.
(Powers, 2017, p. 43)
The plan can be adjusted throughout the process, but it should consider the
researcher’s role, the scope of the study, how data will be collected, who will
be involved, the validity (how accurately your data will support your claims),
and the timeframe.
(pp. 28-33)
Action research is primarily intended to benefit the teachers
and students involved in the research, but sharing your findings
with others is encouraged when notable new knowledge is
produced…. As a professional community, we grow and learn
through doing and sharing. This sharing does not have to occur
only through publications in magazines or peer-reviewed journals.
Sharing by talking to colleagues, presenting at conferences, or
writing blogs and forums can all be appropriate methods to help
inform other educators of your research.
(pp. 28-33)
1) To make research a central part of teaching, we must redefine research.
It:
[In the example about the moon and tides] the teacher would ask the
students to keep manipulating this mental image, trying to imagine how
the tidal cycle would change on the basis of the relative positions of
the moon, earth, and sun. During this phase, students might wish to
sketch or create graphs to aid in their exploration.
(Marzano, 2011, p. 182)
This is what you will be doing in your exploration of the steps
for action research. There simply is not time to perform this
with a real class over the period of time that might give credible
results. Thus, the task will include an element of your
“imagined” class. It is sufficient to introduce the process
of action research, what has to be done, how it has to
be done, and what is done to analyze the results.
(Hopkins, 2017, p. 4)
1) Decide whether you want to work on your own or with a partner.
1. Student Histories / For each of these four imaginary students, you will develop a student history (please give each student a first name)
The topic was related to multicultural education and the author was reminded of how much he had enjoyed his research on multicultural transition for his doctoral thesis a few years ago.
They presented their session twice in one day, and both were well attended and received positive feedback from participants as well as commendations from College of Education supervisors.
By Robb Scott
editor@multilingualadaptive.net