Session Information
15 SES 02 A, Practice Issues and Partnerships
Paper Session
Contribution
One of the main global purposes of educational research has been to produce knowledge for improving education practices inside schools and classrooms (UNESCO, 2015). However, even though teachers are crucial for achieving better teaching and learning processes, they are usually underestimated as active agents and protagonist actors of their own practice in different educational systems around the world (Giroux, 2013; Christianakis, 2010). Rather they are often viewed as a means for implementing policies and research findings which preserves a technical conceptualisation of their role. This has resulted in a problematic issue from different positions; policymakers and educational authorities have observed with concern how some policy efforts tend to fail or have unexpected outcomes. Researchers have aimed to support teachers to incorporate educational findings into their classrooms but have not been widely able to produce pertinent knowledge from teachers’ perspective (Pesti et al., 2018).
Critical pedagogues address this problem from a more complex perspective on the nature of teachers’ work as creative, research-based, and transformative (Freire, 1970; Giroux, 1988). For Kincheloe (2003), inquiry is an inherent dimension of teaching, and teacher research has the potential to foster teachers’ empowerment. These critical perspectives have sparked many new initiatives on teacher research, and it continues to be a pertinent lens to address issues of empowering teachers and enriching teaching and learning process in the classrooms. But even though there has been plenty of successful experiences from research conducted by teachers, this tends to be subject to scrutiny since it challenges the traditional, positivist research culture (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 1999; Kincheloe, 2003; Cloonan, 2019). Recognising the teachers’ research role is considered a pivotal factor when it comes to linking teaching practices to inquiry and reflection, yet this notion has encountered several constraints.
There have been several initiatives on teacher research, and most of them have suggested collaborative university-schools research as a fructiferous form for incorporating research in teachers work (Cloonan, 2019; Christianakis, 2010). The collaborative research-based approach becomes potentially useful and has gained ground from diverse contexts, aspirations, methodological and theoretical orientations. In particular, Research-Practice Partnerships (RPPs) between the University and the School has become a prevalent approach. In general terms, these are long-term collaborative partnerships between practitioners and researchers that are organised to investigate problems, contributing to more robust educational theory and practice for improving schools and school districts (Coburn and Penuel, 2016). A RPP can potentially enhance the role of the teacher as a researcher that facilitates the professional development of both pre-service teachers and in-service teachers (Cheng and So, 2012). This approach seeks to look at research in education by reconfiguring the roles that take part in this process, mainly fostering teachers’ leading role in their professional development.
University staff might provide a range of research expertise, training and resources to support teacher inquiry activities, but there are the teachers who ensure that the findings are translated into the schools (McLaughlin and Black-Hawkins 2007). Thus, the alliance between the university and the school also allows us to understand research as a facilitating tool in the construction, elaboration, and validation of knowledge. Moreover, this type of research constitutes an opportunity to link teachers in processes that move from reflection on practice to description, analysis and finally to action (Gray and Campbell-Evans, 2002).
In this article, we focus on how collaborative RPPs between school and university foster teachers’ role as researchers. Building from the perspectives of teachers who undertook research projects framed Research-Practice Partnerships in Chile, we reflect on the benefits, challenges and tensions that emerged from this process, and we propose recommendations for further teacher research projects aiming to strengthen the teachers' research role.
Method
This study is framed as a qualitative approach and an interpretative-comprehensive design, which is characterized by inquiry into the perceptions of the participants, and it aims to understand the particularities of the research context (Flick, 2007). The instruments to evaluate the experience consisted of an open-response questionnaire answered by 30 teacher researchers, which aimed to collect perceptions about the experience of doing collaborative research, and on focus groups involving 42 teacher researchers, which aimed to complement and expand responses from the questionnaires. Both instruments were answered voluntarily by teacher researchers who participated in establishing the RPPs within seven collaborative projects. The RPPs involved 15 university researchers from a Chilean public university and 67 members of seven schools from Chile, including in-service teacher researchers, head teachers and school principals. Thematic analysis guided the analysis of teacher researchers’ perceptions, following an inductive process and the phases of thematic analysis proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006). The phases to analyse the data were: (1) familiarizing with the data; (2) generating initial codes; (3) searching and reviewing for themes; (4) defining and naming themes; and (5) producing a report. NVivo 12 software was used for themes codification and as a tool supporting the process of analysis. The RPPs were carried out for a one-year period. The first stage involved an open call for school-based research proposals directed to a network of schools linked to the university. In particular, the university asked the schools to develop a diagnosis and formulate a problem based on everyday school-life issues that they encounter, and that would contribute to their students’ learning processes. A committee established by university researchers selected school applications based on the researchers’ expertise and affinity with the topics. The second stage was focused on the design of projects through collaborative work. Teacher researchers selected the methods and research approaches according to their specific contexts and the nature of their research problems. For instance, in three of the projects, the researchers used surveys and implemented focus groups with the students, who were considered the main beneficiaries of the research. All the projects were framed on action research based on a participatory action-inquiry approach. During this stage,university researchers provided information and literature to support the projects in dialogue with teacher researchers.
Expected Outcomes
Overall, the findings suggest that the partnerships were highly valued among teachers because the partnerships allowed them to develop pedagogical reflection towards the improvement of their practices and required especial awareness and recognition of roles and the relationships between practical and theoretical knowledge. We highlight the importance of considering the teachers’ voices since the acknowledgment of the professional and cultural boundaries when teachers participate in research-practice partnerships are crucial. Because the process of collaboration must deal with the complexity and recognition of cultural and professional boundaries, we consider that RPPs between schools and universities might move towards the acknowledgment of the inherent inquiry component within teaching practice. In this study, RPPs were high valued instances among teachers because these kinds of activities appear to be potential tools to develop pedagogical reflection and to generate collaborative work among teachers towards the improvement of their teaching practices and student’s learning. However, RPPs require awareness about multiple dimensions as knowledge hierarchies, roles recognition and the relationships between practical and theoretical knowledge. Moreover, organisation, material conditions and time can be key factors to consolidate these kinds of activities. Thus, further research might consider university researchers’ voices and perceptions of RPPs to complete the picture, and to strengthen projects framed on action research that bring together action and reflection, fostering teachers’ research role.
References
Beycioglu, K., Ozer, N., and Ugurlu, C. T. (2010). Teachers' views on educational research. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(4), 1088-1093. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2009.11.004 Cheng, M. M. H., and So, W. W. M. (2012). Analysing teacher professional development through professional dialogue: an investigation into a university-school partnership project on enquiry learning. Journal of Education for Teaching, 38(3), 323-341. doi:10.1080/02607476.2012.668331 Christianakis, M. (2010). Collaborative Research and Teacher Education. Issues in Teacher Education, , 19(2), 109-125. Cloonan, A. (2019). Collaborative teacher research: Integrating professional learning and university study. The Australian Educational Researcher, 46(3), 385–403. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-018-0290-y Coburn, C. E., and Penuel, W. R. (2016). Research–Practice Partnerships in Education. Educational Researcher, 45(1), 48-54. doi:10.3102/0013189x16631750 Cochran-Smith, M., and Lytle, S. L. (1999). The Teacher Research Movement: A Decade Later. 28(7), 15-25. doi:10.3102/0013189x028007015 Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. Giroux, H. (1988). Teachers as intellectuals: toward a critical pedagogy of learning / Henry A. Giroux ; introduction by Paulo Freire ; foreword by Peter McLaren. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin and Garvey, ©1988. Kincheloe, J. (2003). Teachers as Researchers: Qualitative Inquiry as a Path to Empowerment. New York, USA: Routledge education classic edition series. McLaughlin, C., and Black-Hawkins, K. (2007). School–university partnerships for educational research—distinctions, dilemmas and challenges. Curriculum Journal, 18(3), 327-341. doi:10.1080/09585170701589967 Penuel, W. R., Allen, A.-R., Coburn, C. E., and Farrell, C. (2015). Conceptualizing Research–Practice Partnerships as Joint Work at Boundaries. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), 20(1-2), 182-197. doi:10.1080/10824669.2014.988334 Pesti, C., Győri, J. G., and Kopp, E. (2018). Student Teachers as Future Researchers: How do Hungarian and Austrian Initial Teacher Education Systems Address the issue of Teachers as Researchers? Center for Educational Policy Studies, 8(3), 35. doi:10.26529/cepsj.518 Richard, V., and Bélanger, M. (2018). Accepting Research: Teachers' Representations of Participation in Educational Research Projects. International Journal of Educational Methodology, 4(2). doi:10.12973/ijem.4.2.61 Santos, D. (2016) ‘Re-signifying participatory action research (PAR) in higher education: What does “P” stand for in PAR?’. Educational Action Research, 24 (4), 635–46. Online. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2015.1103658 Schiera, A. (2014) ‘Practitioner research as “praxidents” waiting to happen’. Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education, 11 (2), 107–21. Schön, D. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Storm, S. (2016) ‘Teacher-researcher-leaders: Intellectuals for social justice’. Schools: Studies in Education, 13 (1), 57–75. Online. https://doi.org/10.1086/685803
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