When educational research is conducted from within the classroom, knowing and acting are no longer sequential processes but simultaneous, entangled practices. Across Europe, the idea of “teaching as a research-engaged profession” is being accorded increased importance (Kowalczuk-Walędziak & Ion, 2024). In my presentation, I explore the dual role of classroom teacher and academic researcher within the European context, and discuss my own experiences in taking on this role in my doctoral research study on student led co-design of assessment practices in a German primary school. My unique positionality as a teacher-researcher provided deeper insights and allowed for greater discussion opportunities, otherwise not necessarily afforded to external researchers (as seen in the experiences of French et al., 2019, and Niemi, 2019). 

Practitioner inquiry has a long tradition in European educational research, particularly through Scandinavian participatory action research and the British teacher research traditions of Stenhouse and Elliott. Recently, greater attention is being paid to the lived methodological, ethical and identity-related tensions that arise when teachers simultaneously inhabit the roles of educator, insider, and researcher (Janssen et al., 2025; Zólyomi & Széll, 2025). Drawing on my experience as a practising primary classroom teacher undertaking doctoral research with their own students, I explore how this dual role operates not as a fixed position but as a dynamic and negotiated practice shaped by context, relationships and institutional expectations, revealing “the power of practitioner research to inform teachers about their classroom worlds and to transform their thinking and actions” (Baumann & Duffy, 2001, P.613).

The research study is informed by a qualitative, grounded theory approach and draws on data generated through classroom observations, focus group discussions, and informal interviews with students. As both teacher and researcher, I occupied an insider position that afforded sustained access, relational trust, and a deep contextual understanding of classroom practices. Consistent with previous empirical studies of teacher-researchers, this positionality enabled the co-construction of rich, situated data and supported participatory forms of inquiry that foregrounded student voice, agency and autonomy (French et al., 2019; Niemi, 2019).

At the same time, the research process revealed significant tensions inherent in the dual role. These included challenges related to role conflict, power relations and ethical decision-making, particularly when negotiating moments in which pedagogical responsibilities intersected with research aims. Similar tensions have been documented in European studies of practitioner research, where teachers report oscillating between advocacy, facilitation and analytic distance (Zólyomi & Széll, 2025; Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). Reflexive journaling and iterative analytic cycles were therefore central methodological strategies for managing these tensions and for making visible the influence of my professional identity on data generation and interpretation (Meyer & Willis, 2019).

Rather than treating the teacher-researcher position as a source of bias to be minimised, this presentation conceptualises it as a productive epistemic stance through which educational knowledge is generated in close relation to practice. In line with scholarship which positions teachers as legitimate knowledge producers (Banegas & Cad, 2019; Flores, 2018; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009), my personal experience highlights a potential for teacher-led research to contribute uniquely to knowledge production by bridging the persistent gap between research and practice.

I conclude by offering personal reflections on the implications for research design, ethical review processes and professional learning when inhibiting the dual role of classroom teacher and doctoral researcher. Viewed through the mirror of classroom practice, practitioner research reveals how knowing and acting become mutually constitutive, expanding the conditions under which educational research can be both methodologically rigorous and pedagogically consequential.

My presentation explores my positionality as a teacher-researcher within my doctoral research project. Entitled “Reassessed: Student-Led Task Co-design of Assessment Practice in the Primary School”, I worked with my own students, over multiple co-design sessions, as they engaged with the idea of assessment and collaborated in the creation of assessment tasks. Within my role as a teacher-researcher, I identified three key areas of attention, these being an awareness of my own positionality, a reflexive and iterative approach to research, and ongoing consideration of ethical issues. In conclusion, I reflect upon the potential for participatory research within the wider realm of educational research. This study is situated within a qualitative, practitioner research paradigm that recognises teachers as legitimate knowledge producers and positions educational knowing as embedded in practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009). My positionality as both classroom teacher and academic researcher shaped all stages of the inquiry, affording sustained access to classroom interactions and enabling the development of trust-based relationships with student participants. At the same time, this insider position required ongoing attention to power relations and role boundaries, particularly in a primary school context where pedagogical authority and care are central (McLaughlin et al, 2004). Rather than attempting to neutralise this positionality, I understand it as an epistemic condition through which situated educational knowledge can be produced. The methodological approach was explicitly reflexive and iterative in nature. Grounded in an interpretivist epistemology and structured within the framework of critical theory and social constructivism, the research project explored the student participants’ attitudes and understanding of assessment practice through focus group discussions and participatory lesson observations. Alongside detailed fieldnotes, I maintained a reflexive journal, which I used to reflect upon assumptions, questions, challenges and student responses. These reflections led to amendments and adaptions throughout the course of the project, supporting the advice that “throughout the research process, researchers need to question their decisions” (Orange, 2016, P.2176). Ethical considerations were integral to the methodology, given the dual role of teacher and researcher and the involvement of children as participants. Particular attention was paid to issues of consent and assent, as well as to the potential for role-based power to shape participation and data generation (Christensen & Prout, 2002). In line with European practitioner research traditions, ethical decision-making was treated as a situated and relational practice, requiring continual negotiation rather than procedural compliance alone (Abrar & Sidik, 2019).

This presentation offers a reflexive account of practitioner research as experienced from within the dual role of classroom teacher and academic researcher. Rather than advancing a generalisable model, it has sought to illuminate how participatory forms of inquiry may operate under the specific conditions of everyday classroom practice, where knowing and acting are closely intertwined. Viewed through this lens, the teacher-researcher position appears not as a methodological anomaly, but as a potentially productive site for educational knowledge-making. Drawing on my own experience, and alongside empirical studies conducted by European teacher-researchers working with their own students (e.g. Niemi, 2019; French et al., 2019; Janssen et al., 2025), it might be suggested that practitioner research may create conditions in which teachers and students participate meaningfully in the joint research process. These studies indicate that such approaches have the potential to generate contextually rich insights grounded in sustained relationships and responsiveness to local conditions. At the same time, they highlight the ethical, emotional and methodological labour involved in inhabiting the dual role, underscoring the importance of reflexive and ethically attuned research practices. Theoretically, this analysis aligns with scholarship that conceptualises practitioner research as a stance through which teachers act as knowledge producers rather than passive recipients of externally generated evidence (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2019). Recent European work further suggests that practitioner research holds potential to reposition teachers within broader research ecologies, provided that institutional conditions acknowledge and support the complexity of this work (Kowalczuk-Walędziak & Ion, 2024). Taken together, this presentation suggests that practitioner research may contribute to the changing conditions and potentials of educational research by bringing knowing and acting into closer, more reflexive dialogue within the everyday realities of classroom life.

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