This symposium comes within the framework of NW 27’s special call on the collaboration between researchers and teachers in didactical research. During the two past decades, collaborative research programmes saw a steady increase and have become diversified. Researchers and practitioners (e.g., teachers, cooperating teachers, teacher trainers) engage more and more in participatory action research (Anderson et al., 2015), design-based research (Zheng, 2015), cooperative engineering (Morales, Sensevy & Forest, 2017), lesson and learning study (Dudley, Xu, Vermunt & Lang, 2019; Marton & Runesson, 2015), etc. Relying on different research traditions, these participative types of research are important sources of learning. They are assumed to contribute to practitioners’ professional development as well as to students’ learning through improved teaching sequences and instructional strategies. Researchers’ practices may also be enriched in the context of such collaboration (Savoie-Zajc & Descamps-Bednarz, 2007).

The aim of this symposium is to investigate who gains what within collaboration between researchers and practitioners in didactical research. In the second part of the symposium, relying on three empirical examples from different types of research and different european perspectives, we continue to analyse, discuss, contrast and illustrate the process through which outcomes result from researchers and practitioners’ participation in collaborative research programmes as well as the nature of these outcomes.

The first empirical example is anchored in theories, methodologies and results from the field of action research. In their analysis of the development dialogue between researchers and teachers, the authors found four challenges that will be described and discussed in their presentation.

The second empirical example comes within the framework of cooperative didactic engineering. The authors focus more particularly on the impact of cooperative work on the development of the professional skills and scientific knowledge of all the participants to such research. Studying this development raises theoretical and methodological questions. This contribution addresses the methodological tools and approaches used to review the initial practice and scientific background of the participants.

The third empirical example concerns a collaboration between researchers and teachers in the context of a curriculum change in Belgian Flanders. Researchers and teachers were supposed to learn from each other in a learning community, in order to overcome difficulties with such a curriculum change imposed from above. However problematic features have affected the collaboration. The authors argue that it is a common voice, of researchers and teachers, that has been gained.

The three presentations will be followed by a plenary discussion led by a discussant, which will address the methodological and outcome issues of the collaboration between researchers and practitioners in didactical research.

Anderson, V., McKenzie, M., Allan, S., Hill, T., McLean, S., Kayira, J., Knorr, M, Stone, J., Murphy, J. & Butcher, K. (2015). Participatory action research as pedagogy: investigating social and ecological justice learning within a teacher education program. Teaching Education, 26(2), 179-195. Dudley, P., Xu, H., Vermunt, J.D. & Lang, J. (2019). Empirical evidence of the impact of lesson study on students’ achievement, teachers’ professional learning and on institutional and system evolution. European Journal of education, 54(2), 202-217. Marton, F. & Runesson, U. (2015). The idea and practice of learning study. In K. Wood & S. Sithamparam (Eds.), Realising learning. Teachers professional development through lesson and learning study (pp. 103-121). London: Routledge. Morales, G., Sensevy, G. & Forest, D. (2017). About cooperative engineering: theory and emblematic examples. Educational Action Research, 25(1), 128-139. Savoie-Zajc, L. & Descamps-Bednarz, N. (2007). Action research and collaborative research: their specific contributions to professional development. Educational Action Research, 15(4), 577-596. Zheng, L. (2015). A systematic review of design-based research from 2004 to 2013. Journal of Computers in Education, 2(4), 399-420.