Session Information
Contribution
The point of departure for this paper is The Lade project, a three-year action research project (2006-2009) with the overriding research question: “With the pupils’ learning as the starting point: How can teachers and researchers cooperate to develop teaching practice and school as a learning organization?” The project, funded by the Norwegian Research Council, was conducted in Lade school. A key premise was that the basis for research questions related to various sub-projects should be connected to the teachers’ own school workday and challenges when implementing the new National Curriculum of 2006 made for cultural and societal changes in late modernity. The aim of this paper is to identify a range of ethical issues during the processes of an action research project, and discuss if, and in which ways, the ethical issues are even more challenging in action research than in ordinary qualitative research (cf. Eikeland, 2006). One position in the research literature says that ethics in action research is hardly noticed (Goundwater-Smith & Mockler, 2007), another claims that a more suitable approach to ethics in action research is necessary (Zeni, 2009).
Ethical questions in traditional qualitative research are usually handled by the researchers according to certain guidelines within the research community (Nolen & Putten, 2009). In action research ethical questions concerns both the validity of knowledge construction (Heikkinen, Huttunen & Syrjälä, 2007; and democratic collaboration between teachers and researchers as partners on equal terms (Furu, Lund & Tiller, 2007; Zeichner, 2001). The partners reported in this paper were two researchers and fifteen teachers in a primary school, and the research question focused on portfolio assessment as a strategy for pupils’ academic and social development. The researchers were invited inside classrooms and participated in meetings to support the improvement of the teachers’ school practice (Eikseth & Steen-Olsen, 2009). The situation where the researchers are supposed to be facilitators in educational development at the same time as researchers and teachers are supposed to be equal partners is crucial to understand when discussing ethical challenges in action research. The theoretical the framework is Dewey’s theory of reflective ethics within American pragmatism (Dewey, 1922, 1932). According to him the situation with participants is the point of departure for moral deliberations. A ‘moral situation’ occurs when a person is confronted with contradictory values and where incompatible courses of action may be likely. Then he have to investigate the situation with dramatic rehearsals of the possible pathways before acting (Dewey, 1932). Moral deliberations and valuations are connected to a person’s habits or traits gained through experiences. These are according to Dewey concurrent with habits in the general processes of reflection. In moral deliberations a person uses all his resources, those of knowledge in different areas, habits, empathy, sensitivity and emotions.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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