May Britt Postholm

May.britt.postholm@ntnu.no

Department of Teacher Education, NTNU

A research group that I lead consists of eight persons, two professors, one in pedagogy and qualitative methodology (me) and the other in school leadership, three associate professors in pedagogy, one of them the post-doctor in the project, one associate professor in mathematics and two assistant professors in mathematics. The project (2023-2027) is a collaboration project between the university and a municipality with six schools. In the period of writing an application to the Norwegian research council, it was decided that the theme to work on was teachers’ professional digital competence, and that the leaders at the school should receive support in how to lead school-based development and how to guide teachers' joint analyses based on observed teaching lessons to enhance professional learning in the school.

All the member in the research group have worked as teachers in school, from two to 15 years, and I have supervised three of them during their PhD - research using cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) as their theoretical framework. CHAT is also the theoretical framework for the development and research work in the schools and for the research on the research group, using the activity system and tensions and contradictions as the driving force for development (Engeström & Sannino, 2010). According to Rex (2010) the solving of problems in schools requires complimentary research, and research groups can manage to meet the demand to build new theory in a learning network pooling expertise together (Lee, 2010). The main research question for the project was the following: How can collaboration between researchers and schools, which focuses on leaders’ learning for the sake of leading the development of teachers’ professional digital competence, contribute to development in both teacher education and schools?

According to Wong et al. (2014) collaboration in research groups can be strengthened when members are from different levels, and particularly when led by experienced researchers. Wong et al. (2014) have also found that group dynamics must be focused on, leadership is needed to drive collaborative research to prevent stagnation, and that collaborative groups need facilitative structures and resources. According to Hanganu-Opatz et al. (2015) leadership involves inspiring a research group to do their best work towards a shared goal, and that weekly meetings are common in many groups. Researchers have also put forward an ethical dimension related to leading people in a research group, saying that people should be treated fairly and with respect (DuBois & Antes, 2018). Research suggests that project members are more likely to be productive and effective when feeling they are in a psychological safe environment, supported and respected, and thus felt valued (Javed et al., 2019). Furthermore, Javed et al., (2019) state that to talk to each person individually and to have “scientific fun” (p. 3015) is important. However, these researchers that problems will crop up during the work, as when members are not listening to instructions and feedback, arguing over authorship and author order, and even not showing up for long periods. 

Research on facilitating groups of teacher educators is according to Ping et al. (2018), almost entirely lacking, thus being “an under-researched” group (Murray, 2016, p. 35). The purpose of this study is to make the processes of leadership and collaboration in the research group visible. The problem formulation that directs the research is the following: “How can a research group that both support school development and publish from this work be facilitated to improve the members' dual competencies?”

The study is defined as a case study, following Creswell (2013) stating that such studies are bounded in time and place. This study focuses on the meetings within the research group and has a duration of four years. I use Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and the activity system (Engeström, 2015; Leontév, 1981) to analyze and understand my own role and the processes in the research group during the project. I collect data by recording all the meetings in the research group and conduct continuous readings and analyses of the transcripts of these recordings. In the meetings, I introduce mirror data (Cole & Engeström, 2007), representing utterances made by the members, to direct provocations at the members of the research group, aiming to solve tensions and contradictions that I detect during the analyses to enhance development in the group. I analyze the data material by using the constant comparative method of analyses (Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Corbin & Strauss, 2013). So far, I have developed categories that provide headings for the processes about one and a half years into the project. These are: “Subject content or teacher learning processes to develop a learning culture”, “Development from the inside or the outside” and “Structured development and structured joint analyses”. The first category includes a tension between direct work in the classroom led by researchers and processes leading to a joint development question formed by the teachers to develop their practice towards a common goal, before focusing on concrete teaching in the classroom. The second category is about the content of the development of teaching, the tension is about who knows that best, the researchers or the teachers. The third category deals with how structured the development work aiming to develop a common goal in the collegium should be and how structured the joint analyses on observed teaching should be. During the research period I write memos (Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Corbin & Strauss, 2013), constructing preliminary theoretical frameworks and analyses, guiding the following meetings in the group, aiming for development.

The preliminary findings show that there are tensions between the members in the research group. One of them utters in a meeting: “Because it's clear that there will be tensions in that school. I am experiencing tensions here and now”. The members are discussing the focus on digital tools. One of them wonders if the teachers share a collective motive regarding what we are going to work on. Then I say: We'll see if they manage to develop ownership of the work. The object or the frame for the work and what we got funding to work on in the schools was: “Leaders leading teacher collaboration focusing on learning using digital tools”. In the group, we also experience tensions regarding who should decide the content to work on—the teachers or the researchers—and tensions about how structured the processes related to planning observed teaching lessons and the joint analyses afterwards should be. My preliminary conclusion is that we need monthly meetings to discuss the development processes, and that I need to conduct continuous analyses of dialogues in the meetings to be able to follow up, guide and provoke development within the group. I think that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to leading a research group, and I have so far experienced that the leading researcher should establish leadership practices that fit the styles and personalities of the members and the work to be accomplished in the group.

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