Introduction

Scottish Teachers for a New Era (STNE) is a partnership project in Initial Teacher Education aimed at developing a new model of teacher education based on principles of collaboration and evidence-informed practice, with a view to “increasing pupil learning gains”.  However, within the current accountability framework, which is largely based on pupils’ performance in tests, learning is equated to a product:  the teacher is given the role of tracking and controlling the achievement of specific outcomes using tests as generators of hard evidence. This view of learning is detrimental to the development of social competence and higher order cognitive skills. However changing the notion of pupil learning gains held by teachers requires an exploration of the complexities of the relationship between knowledge and learning, in the context of their own practice. The STNE partnership offered a group of teachers the opportunity to critically reflect on changes in their own practice through undertaking action research projects. This paper reports on the ways in which this experience generated new conceptualisations around the understandings of pupil learning gains.

Theoretical Framework

In the conventional, behaviourist, model of learning and teaching, learning is reduced to a simple process of transmission of knowledge, which can be stored in the memory. Testing serves to check how effectively students have memorised given representations. In contrast, the socio-cultural model of learning recognises the importance of students’ interaction with their contextual reality, as the cognitive system is in dynamic relationship with the system of social representations. This paper explores how  engagement in action research can support a re-conceptualisation, by teachers, of the meanings of learning and teaching, and serve to challenge their position in the process. 

Action-research is advocated as a process for generating conceptual change (Tabachnick and Zeichner, 1999), for contributing towards the development of educational theory (Elliot, 2009) and for promoting teachers’ empowerment (Kincheloe, 2003). For example, action-research is seen as a counter to the limitations of more traditional, positivist and reductionist  research methods (Marshall, 2004; Davis and Sumara, 2005; which take the locus of responsibility away from the stakeholders involved. In action-research, the teacher-researcher is integral to the situation being studied. Hence the reflection that occurs is not simply rational and intellectual, but interacts with thoughts, feelings and actions.

Schön (1983) distinguished between ‘knowledge in the action’ and ‘reflection on the action’ The former is the tacit knowledge that the teacher taps into and retrieves when acting, whereas the latter is the process through which the knowledge and beliefs held by the practitioner are contrasted with reality. Following Schon’s distinction reflection allows teachers develop practice which is rooted in explicit values.

However, Mule (2006) indicates that, depending on the focus of reflection, the nature of the action-research projects can differ and range from technical to personal concerns, problem-solving or critical interests.  

This paper addresses the research question:

•           How do the changing practices of teachers during action-research relate to evolving conceptions of children as learners?

Clément, P. (1994) ‘Représentations, conceptions, connaissances’ in Conceptions et Connaissances edited by Giordan, A., Girault, Y. and Clément, P., Paris, Pter Lang, pp. 15-47. Davis, B. and Sumara, D. (2005) Complexity Science and Educational Action Research: toward a pragmatics of transformation. Educational Action Research, 13 (3), 453-466. Elliott, J. (2009) Building Educational Theory through Action Research, in Noffke, S. and Somekh, B (Eds) The SAGE Handbook of Educational Action Research. London: Sage. Kincheloe, J. (2003) Teachers as Researchers. Qualitative Inquiry as a Path to Empowerment. London. Routledge Farmer. Marshall, J. (2004) Living systemic thinking Exploring quality in first-person action research. Action Research; 2; 3: 305–325 Mule. L. (2006) Preservice teachers’ inquiry in a professional development school context: implications for the practicum. Teaching and teacher education, 22, 205-218. Schön, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. How Professionals Think in Action. London, Maurice Temple Smith Ltd. Scottish Executive Education Department (2004) A Curriculum for Excellence. http://www.acurriculumforexcellencescotland.gov.uk/ Tabachnick, B. R. and Zeichner, K.M. (1999) Idea and Action: Action Research and the Development of Conceptual Change Teaching of Science. Science Education, 83 (3), 309-322