Session Information
01 SES 13 C, Action Research and Lesson Study Research
Paper Session
Contribution
Although teaching focuses on the activities teachers perform, its purposes and outcomes involve changes occurring on the part of students (Svensson & Doumas, 2013). The complexity and uncertainty involved in teaching generate innumerable problems occurring in the context of classroom environments. It gives the impetus to solve those problems through research, especially action research. Action research as a democratic and participative orientation to knowledge creation brings together action and reflection, theory and practice, in the pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concerns (Bradbury, 2015).
Classroom action research (CAR) can be based on diverse research perspectives and take on different forms. The core feature of it is the idea that there should be an intimate, two-way relationship between research and some form of practical activity‒such that the focus of inquiry arises out of, and its results feed directly back into, the activity concerned, in a spiral of improvement (Hammersley, 2013, pp. 85-86). Therefore, CAR is practice- and reflection- oriented. It means that teachers engage in action research aiming to explore methods of solving real classroom problems in order to improve their pedagogical practice. As a result, CAR connects meaningfully with student learning and potentially becomes an effective strategy for school improvement.
CAR also closely relates to teacher professional development. Flynn and Bruce (2019) paralleled the characteristics of teacher professional learning with action research structure. They both emphasize evidence-informed practice, the need to balance teacher voice and the bigger context of school goals, and the need for supportive and engaged leadership. Therefore, CAR has been regarded as one of the most powerful strategies for teacher professional development. It can help teachers develop new knowledge directly related to their classrooms, promote reflective teaching and thinking, and expand teachers’ pedagogical repertoire (Johnson, 2019, pp. 258-259). It is becoming increasingly known as an approach that encourages teachers to be in control of their own lives and contexts (McNiff, 2010). An issue related to the connection between CAR and teacher professional development is concerned with what types of knowledge CAR constructs. CAR produces living knowledge or practical knowledge that is useful to people in the everyday conduct of their lives (Reason & Bradbury, 2001, pp. 1-2) and insider knowledge that is not accessible to traditional researchers coming from outside (Somekh, 2006).
Since 2022 the EU Academy has offered a self-study module “Improving Classroom Practice through Action Research” for classroom practitioners to reflect on and innovate their teaching practices and analyze the effects of their innovation (European Commission, 2022). In Taiwan, the government has launched a series of curricular and instructional reforms entering the 21st century. The Grade 1-9 Curriculum Guidelines had been gradually implemented since the academic year 2002 in order to meet national development needs and public expectations (Ministry of Education, 2008). Then, the Curriculum Guidelines of 12-Year Basic Education have been implemented since 2019 in response to the emerging social issues such as the low birth rate, population aging, diversified interactions between ethnic groups, growing awareness of social justice, and so on (Ministry of Education, 2014). Both guidelines encourage teachers to engage in diverse professional development activities such as action research and to conduct innovative teaching experiments or action research with funds and assistance provided by relevant competent authorities. Thus, the number of CAR on teaching is quite large in Taiwan. The rise in the number of CAR results in the need for knowledge synthesis in order to provide more convincing evidence for practitioners and policymakers. However, the findings of those studies produced as a whole have been less known so far. The purpose of this study was to synthesize the findings of CAR on teaching in Taiwan.
Method
A mixed-methods research synthesis (MMRS) is a type of systematic review aimed at the integration of results from both qualitative and quantitative studies in a shared domain of empirical research (Sandelowski et al., 2006). Since qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research designs are appropriate for and all types of data can be used in action research (Mertler, 2022), the findings of classroom action research can be integrated through MMRS. After formulating the research questions which focused on what findings of classroom action research on teaching were generated in Taiwan, searching for and retrieving action research studies focusing on topics including curriculum development, teaching strategies, subject matters, and instructional media in grades K-12 in Taiwan and published in academic journals in English or traditional Chinese between Jan. 1, 2002, and Dec. 31, 2020 were performed. Moreover, the author, or at least one of the authors, should be a teacher in grades K-12. A total of 188 classroom action research studies were retrieved and met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Among those CAR studies, 104 studies (55.5%) were conducted in elementary school; 41 studies (21.8%) were conducted in junior high school; 27 studies (14.4%) were conducted in kindergarten’ and only 16 studies (8.5%) were conducted in high school. The subjects/domains involved in the studies were diverse, such as integrative activities, mathematics, arts, Mandarin, and social studies. Moreover, 83 studies (44.1%) collected qualitative and quantitative data, 75 studies (39.9%) collected qualitative data, 11 studies (5.9%) collected quantitative data, and the data types of 19 studies (10.1%) were not identified. The duration of action plans was 5-8 weeks in 40 studies (21.2%) and 9-12 weeks in 30 studies (16.0%); however, 33 studies (17.6%) did not mention the duration of action projects. A large portion of the studies (77.7%) used innovative teaching as the action strategies, which included experiential learning, cooperative learning, picture book reading, and so on. Joint displays are visual displays that are used to integrate quantitative and qualitative data during data collection, analysis, and interpretation. (McCrudden et al., 2021). Although there has been limited use of joint displays in mixed methods reviews, they exemplify an effective visual representation of integrated datasets (Younas et al., 2021). In this study, the side-by-side joint displays were used to represent merging by arraying findings of qualitative-, quantitative-, and mixed-methods-oriented CAR studies next to each other.
Expected Outcomes
The reasons why teachers conducted CAR related to factors of teaching, teacher, student, and policy. That teachers tried solving problems in the classroom and increasing their teaching effectiveness through action research was found in 73 qualitative-, 11 quantitative-, and 83 mixed-methods-oriented studies. Additionally, that teachers’ needs for professional development, application of professional development knowledge, and self-identification, students’ psychological and physiological growth, adolescent subculture, and change in educational policies motivated teachers to conduct CAR was mainly presented in the qualitative- and mixed-methods-oriented action research. The effects of action plans on students were presented in the qualitative results of 153 studies and the quantitative results of 98 studies. While the quantitative results provided more information related to effects on students’ academic achievement, cognitive competence, and physical health, the qualitative results provided more information related to effects on students’ affective competence, social competence, motor skills, and behavioral performance. The action plans also increased teachers’ general competence and behavioral, affective, cognitive, and social dimensions of pedagogical expertise in the qualitative results of 52 studies. A small portion of qualitative and quantitative results showed that action plans had positive impacts on parent-child relationships, classroom climate, and students’ peer relationships. Teacher knowledge is mainly generated by mixed-methods- and qualitative- oriented studies. The major types of teacher knowledge included pedagogical content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, teacher personal knowledge, learner knowledge, context knowledge, curriculum knowledge, knowledge of teaching purposes, values, and beliefs, research knowledge, and content knowledge. The CAR studies produced more pedagogical content knowledge related to how to teach mathematics, arts, students with disabilities, picture books, and so on than other types of teacher knowledge did. The research knowledge found as a distinct type of teacher knowledge but not generally regarded as practical knowledge, came from teachers’ experience of participating in action research and showed the connection between academia and practice.
References
Bradbury, H. (2015). Introduction: How to situate and define action research. In H. Bradbury (Ed.), The Sage handbook of action research (pp. 1-11.). Sage. European Commission. (2022). Teachers as Researchers – Improving classroom practice through action research. European Union. https://academy.europa.eu/courses/teachers-as-researchers-improving-classroom-practice-through-action-research-1658151350 Flynn, T., & Bruce, C. D. (2019). Action research as professional learning for educators. In C. A. Mertler (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of action research in education (pp. 273-294). Wiley Blackwell. Hammersley, M. (2013). The myth of research-based policy & practice. Sage. Johnson, A. (2019). Action research for teacher professional development. In C. A. Mertler (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of action research in education (pp. 253272). Wiley Blackwell. McCrudden, M. T, Marchand, G., Schutz, P. A. (2021). Joint displays for mixed methods research in psychology. Methods in Psychology, 5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.metip.2021.100067 McNiff, J. (2010). Action research for professional development: Concise advice for new (and experienced) action researchers. Author. Mertler, C. A. (2022). Introduction to educational research. Sage. Ministry of Education. (2008). General Guidelines of Grades 1-9 Curriculum for Elementary and Junior High School Education. Author. Ministry of Education. (2008). Curriculum Guidelines of 12-Year Basic Education. Author. Reason, P., & Bradbury, H. (2001). Introduction: Inquiry and participation in search of a world worthy of human aspiration. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice (pp. 1-14). Sage. Sandelowski, M., Voils, C. I., & Barroso, J. (2006). Defining and Designing mixed research synthesis studies. Research in the Schools, 13, 29. Retrieve from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2809982/pdf/nihms151622.pdf Somekh, B. (2006). Action research: A methodology for change and development. Open University Press. Svensson, L., & Doumas, K. (2013). Contextual and analytic qualities of research methods exemplified in research on teaching. Qualitative Inquiry, 19, 441-450. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1077800413482097 Younas, A., Inayat, S., & Sundus, A. (2021). Joint displays for qualitative-quantitative synthesis in mixed method reviews. Research Method in Medicine & Health Sciences, 2(3), 91-101. https://doi.org/10.1177/2632084320984374
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