Session Information
99 ERC SES 03 C, Interactive Poster Session
Poster Session
Contribution
Researchers argue that determining one’s positionality requires one to reflect on his/her multiple identities derived from group membership, roles and responsibilities, personality and value systems, characteristics and even language use. These factors may influence the research questions, methods and the way you interpret research findings. Hence, this small-scale research aimed to explore the teacher’s positionality in conducting collaborative action research.
The issue related to our own positionality was identified when we, as teachers, engaged in collaborative action research to examine students’ engagement in classroom learning (SECL). The SECL collaborative action research project was introduced as a part of the SHARE (School Hub for Action Research in Education) initiative that our school joined in September 2023. The team consisting of five teachers, who are the authors of this paper, from Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools of Physic and Maths in Astana (NIS), participated in trainings on SECL project conducted by Emeritus Professor of the University of Cambridge Collen McLaughlin, Ex-Principal of Bottisham Village College Kate Evans and the national coordinator of SHARE in Kazakhstan, Dr Nazipa Ayubayeva. In SECL collaborative action research, teachers were tasked with conducting structured action research, including delivering a lesson, videotaping this lesson, conducting a reflective interview with a teacher and students, transcribing and making sense of collected data and organizing an in-depth discussion of the findings. Each team member was responsible for one of the processes to be undertaken in the project. In all this processes we were asked to observe the ethical considerations.
The first stage of the SECL project was concluded with a reflective discussion on the processes undertaken facilitated by the national coordinator of SHARE. Through this deep reflection and discussion, it became evident that understanding our own positionality as teachers in this project was crucial for effectively harnessing the collected data to achieve valid, transparent, and accurate results for action. Hence, a decision was made to explore the aspects of teacher positionality before digging into the data on the SECL project.
Method
In this study, we employ the term “positionality” as an individual’s world view and the position they adopt about a research task and its social and political context (Foote & Bartell 2011, Rowe, 2014). We align with the assertion that “positionality is never fixed and always situation and context-dependent” (Holmes, 2020). To explore this there are two main sources of information were used to explore the concept under study. Firstly, a systematic literature review was conducted guided by the research question. Google Scholar served as the primary platform for literature search. The key words related to the subject such as “positionality in action research”, “positionality in collaborative action research” and “teacher positionality”, “practitioner positionality”, “language and positionality” and “power and positionality” to find relevant literature. These terms were translated into Kazakh and Russian languages and search was conducted in three languages simultaneously to ensure a comprehensive exploration of context-dependent aspects. Additionally, we determined that each participant in the SECL project should compose a reflective account on the processes and conducted components of the study with the focus to learn about our own positionality, and clarify how it might impact the results of the study. Notably, two members of our team hold administrative roles within the school authority. Due to their administrative duties, these teachers faced challenges in completing their part of the research activities promptly. Consequently, their full engagement in the study’s process was limited. Hence, the team members honest and transparent reflective accounts not only to serve us to enrich the literature review conducted, but also flagged the issues related to our context, which will be valuable insight to share within the SHARE community and beyond.
Expected Outcomes
The findings of the study highlighted importance of reflecting upon and understanding a researcher’s positionality, particularly engaging as an insider researcher or a practitioner researcher involved in collaborative action research initiatives. As such, our team defined four key aspects in our roles as practitioner researchers. These aspects encompass teachers’ behavior when conducting research with students; understanding research activities; researcher’s language position; and the teacher’s position in action research. Teachers conducting research should take an honest and critical stance throughout their future research and at any given stage of a particular research project. (Mellisa Chin et al., 2022). It is necessary to make a contract with students during research, or if it is necessary to ask for permission. The languages used and spoken by participants and researchers can significantly influence the quality of the data collected (Cormier, 2017). In any study, whether the researcher is a linguistic outsider, or an insider plays an important role. This can affect not only the reliability and validity of the data, but it also affects the relationship dynamics between the researcher and the participants. Jemma Simeon (2015) discusses about relationships between research participants that may affect the accuracy of the research. Hence, while conducting action research project teachers should critically understand their own positionality. For further research we intend to identify what types of positionality teachers encounter while conducting research activities and to explore how these research challenges affect their research results. he outcome of the team’s research is to create a framework; teachers may use it to know how to escape the situations that decrease the efficiency of their study because of teacher positionality.
References
Foote, Mary Q. and Tonya Gau Bartell. “Pathways to Equity in Mathematics Education: How Life Experiences Impact Researcher Positionality.” Educational Studies in Mathematics, vol. 78, 2011, pp. 45-68. Gail Cormier (2017): The language variable in educational research: an exploration of researcher positionality, translation, and interpretation, International Journal of Research & Method in Education, DOI: 10.1080/1743727X.2017.1307335 Holmes, Andrew Gary Darwin. “Researcher Positionality - A Consideration of Its Influence and Place in Qualitative Research - A New Researcher Guide.” Shanlax International Journal of Education, vol. 8, no. 4, 2020, pp. 1-10. Chin, M., Beckwith, V., Levy, B., Gulati, S., Macam, A. A., Saxena, T., & Suwarningsih, D. P. S. (2022). Navigating researcher positionality in comparative and international education research: Perspectives from emerging researchers. International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 21(2), 21-36. Rowe, Wendy E. “Positionality.” The Sage Encyclopedia of Action Research, edited by Coghlan, David and Mary Brydon-Miller, Sage, 2014. Simeon, J. (2015), "A reflexive account on my positionality in a collaborative action research project in a Seychelles secondary school", Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 2-19. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-05-2014-0016
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