Developing a research partnership: teachers as researchers and teacher educators

This paper discusses a combined university–school research project involving three associate teachers from the pre-service teacher education degree at the University of Otago, New Zealand in the examination of their literacy teaching practice. The provision of resources for this collaborative study allowed the teachers to design the project in response to the learning needs of the children in their classrooms. The paper specifically analyses the research experience for the teachers as they theorized their classroom literacy practice and utilized the research findings to inform the content and processes of teaching at both the primary and tertiary classroom levels.     

Seeing classes: toward a broadened research agenda for critical qualitative researchers

This paper proposes a research agenda that foregrounds social class in US public schooling. The author suggests that the relative invisibility of social class in academic discourse on schooling limits the value of research in at least three ways: (1) middle‐class academics’ propensity to speak on behalf of the poor and working class limits analysis of class and schooling; (2) the class and gender constraints on the work of teachers has been inadequately theorized, while simultaneously the work of teachers ha been invoked as proxy for deeper social and structural inequalities; and (3) researchers have declined to ‘study up’ power structures within which the work of schools is embedded, limiting our understanding of relationships between schooling and the economy. It is suggested that researchers’ work will make deeper contributions to the reform of schools to the extent that they acknowledge how norms of scholarship sustain their own middle‐class privilege.     

Attitudes of researchers toward deception in communication research

Eighty communication researchers representing twenty‐six universities responded to a questionnaire designed to assess attitudes toward deception‐related practices in conducting communication research. Nearly seven out of ten of the respondents perceived misleading and/or misinforming human subjects as an acceptable research strategy when accompanied by debriefing. The majority of the respondents favored research review boards and informed consent procedures and indicated familiarity with the APA standards for ethical research involving human subjects.     

Constituting information technology research: the experience of IT researchers

The collective consciousness of effective groups of researchers is characterized by shared understandings of their research object or territory. In this study, we adopted a phenomenographic approach to investigate information technology (IT) research, and its objects and territories, as they are constituted in the experience of IT researchers. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with researchers representing different sub‐disciplines. Analysis revealed the variation in meaning associated with the idea of IT research; and the awareness structures through which participants experience variation in ways of seeing the object and territories of IT research. Eight ways of seeing IT research were found. The outcomes of our project appear to make visible the changes and developments that are an essential part of the character and experience of contemporary IT research.     

Tapping autobiographical narratives to illuminate resilience: A transformative learning tool for adult educators

Adversity has always been a part of life, however, today’s hurricanes and earthquakes in increasingly populated areas, violent unrest creating a global refugee crisis, battlefield stress and work-place harassment, and the challenges of aging populations are demanding a better understanding of how individuals cope with adversity regardless of the source. One answer is resilience. This paper describes a narrative strategy that captures resilience in its many forms based on current research on resilience and transformative learning. Resilience research has moved from a focus on personality traits that help some to rebound to resilience as a process and outcome. As process and outcome, resilience is seen as a teachable attribute. This article applies two metatheories—one from resilience research and one from transformative learning—to data gathered in a qualitative research study on life-story writing. The results provide educators with a tool for facilitating resilience in their learners, clients, and patients.     

Learning joyfully: An emotional and transformative experience

Abstract

In this article I focus on the emotion of joy in the classroom and identify the role that experiencing joy has in promoting engagement and satisfaction in learning. For educationists, the implication that the emotional climate of the classroom has as much to do with cognitive growth as it does with attitudinal needs to be recognised and addressed. As Bloom and his colleagues noted in 1956, the idea of dualistic notion of cognition and affect is untenable as these inform each other. How the brain is structured and developed affects how we learn. Because the circuitry of the brain is sculptured by emotional experiences it can alter during one's lifetime. Emotions contribute to the brain's neural circuitry experiencing joy will lay down neural pathways likely to serve the individual well for a lifetime. Furthermore, joy promotes holistic learning through engaging both left and right hemispheres. Joy, as an emotion, involves accepting challenges that stretch one's capacity and persevering through often‐painful experiences until a successful outcome is reached. This ultimate achievement can then be celebrated and recognised as a joyful learning experience. Teachers who promote the experience of joy in the classroom may do more than simply promote successful learning.     

Teacher educators as researchers: A profile of research in Israeli teacher colleges versus university departments of education

The teacher research movement has encouraged the development of practitioner research action-oriented and reflective studies among teachers and teacher educators alike. This study compares the profile of research conducted in the Israeli academic teacher colleges with that performed by university faculty. A content analysis of the 204 papers presented at the recent conference of the Israeli Association of Educational Research reveals, that teacher college research indeed focuses on teacher education issues and the relevant study populations. Yet, it does not depart from traditional university research in terms of types of studies and research methods. Dream and reality are therefore mixed in teacher education research.     

Improving research on teacher quality in science and mathematics: Report of a symposium of scientists,educators, and researchers

Many initiatives designed to improve the quality of elementary and secondary teachers have been proposed and implemented at national, state, and local levels. It is unclear whether these initiatives are based on a common definition of teacher quality or adequate knowledge about the conditions that produce quality teaching. This article summarizes the results of a symposium of the National Research Council on the state of research knowledge on teacher quality. Topics for needed research that were identified in the symposium included studies on the effects of state and local policies which set new standards for teachers, studies on the subject-matter knowledge and preparation of teachers, analyses of alternative methods of developing teaching skills, and assessments of the effects of school conditions for teaching on career patterns of teachers.     

How teaching influences learning: Implications for educational researchers,teachers, teacher educators and policy makers

This article is a tribute to Graham Nuthall's contribution to classroom research from his early experimental studies through to his recent work on theory integration. It also explains the potential of the methodology, findings and theory building in our collaborative work to make a substantial positive difference for diverse students. The article explains the significance of, and need for, research linking learning to teaching processes (a scientific realist approach to putting ‘process’, socio-cultural context and theory building into a new process–product paradigm). Findings of student outcomes contrary to educational goals (for example, teaching designed to enhance appreciation of cultural differences triggering racist abuse) signal the importance of research that explains the impact of teaching on learner outcomes. The article also foreshadows the implications of the work that Graham and I did for teaching, teacher education, research and educational policy. The article concludes with Graham's view that the most important contribution his work would make, would be to initial teacher education.     

Synthesizing epistemological belief research: Tentative understandings and provocative confusions

The definition of epistemological beliefs takes on different shades of meaning from study to study; but, in general, researchers of personal epistemology are interested in what individuals believe about the source, certainty, and organization of knowledge, as well as the control and the speed of learning. Epistemological beliefs have been found to relate to reading comprehension, learning in complex and ill-structured domains, as well as learners' active participation and persistence in learning. Researchers are at odds on the issues of epistemological development and the roles that education and culture play in epistemological beliefs.     

Study and research courses as an epistemological model for didactics

The aim of this paper is explain how the notion of “study and research course”, a recent construct in the anthropological theory of didactics, provides a general tool to model mathematical knowledge from a didactical perspective. We do this from two points of view. First, the notion itself arose as a tool for didactic design, particularly in mathematics teaching involving modelling type subjects, and we introduce a new diagrammatic representation in order to present and analyse a selection of such designs. Secondly, we demonstrate how the same representational tool can be used to analyse other didactic processes as study and research courses. In both cases, our examination of cases reveals that designers and teachers are often more explicit about their intention to enable students to do “research” (e.g. exploring a challenging problem) than to enable students to engage in autonomous “study”; moreover, the role for students is mostly confined to search for answers to questions raised, essentially, by the teacher. These observations point to directions which deserve more attention in design research related to the notion of study and research course.     

The implications of the differences between design research and instructional systems design for educational technology researchers and practitioners

Design research (DR) has been an emerging research paradigm in the field of educational technology as well as in education generally for two decades. Educational design research integrates design and research into a socially responsible approach to inquiry related to learning and teaching. Given its still relative novelty, design research requires further discussion regarding what it is and how it can be effectively executed. Instructional Systems Design (ISD) is one of the major activities carried out by educational technologists. Both ISD and design research deal with the enactment of design to improve educational practice. This paper describes the differences and similarities between these two activities and addresses the implications of these differences and similarities for educational technology researchers and practitioners.     

Some lessons for educational researchers: Repositioning research in education and education in research

This paper is a reflection on the current policy moment in educational research in Australia in the context of globalisation. Set against a consideration of the emergent structure of feeling, the paper draws on three case studies of research to draw out some lessons for educational researchers and the research community. The argument is put that the dangerous ‘we’ of AARE needs to support increased funding for education and for educational research and, for the latter, to support a range of funding sources, types of research, methodologies and dissemination approaches. Increasingly there are pressures upon such eclecticism because of governmental attempts to ‘instrumentalise’ relationships between educational research and practitioner needs as perceived by governments. While such research is necessary, there is also a need within a democratic polity for research framed by agendas set by researchers that critiques government-directed developments. The paper argues there is a complex relationship amongst researchers and educational policy and pedagogical practitioners and as such the concept of ‘impact’ as applied to educational research requires substantial theorising. Contemporary research policy has tended to inhibit the dissemination of academic research to educational practitioners, while educational policy has tended, inappropriately in the argument of the paper, to construct teachers as the mere recipients of policy and research done elsewhere.     

Seven maxims for institutional researchers: Applying cognitive theory and research

The paper presents seven institutional research maxims that are based on research and theory about how people cognitively process information: (I.) More may not be better. (II.) Augment humans with models. (III.) Chunk your data wisely. (IV.) Know your decision makers. (V.) Heuristics are not always helpful. (VI.) Arrange tables by patterns. (VII.) Negative evidence and new hypotheses are okay. Cognitive findings underlying each maxim are given, with concrete examples of how institutional researchers can apply the maxims to improve the collection, analysis, and especially the presentation of information for decision makers.     

Action research and transformative learning in teaching development

The article reports on an action research project, informed by transformative learning theory. Transformative learning involves individuals gaining an awareness of their current habits of mind, and resulting points of views accompanied by a critique of their assumptions and premises, an assessment of alternative views, a decision to negate an old perspective or view in favour of a new one, or to make a synthesis of old and new, resulting in more justified beliefs to guide action. The action research was designed to change the perspectives and practices of higher education teachers from a teacher-centred to a learning-centred dialogic approach. The research demonstrated that a transformation in teaching perspective could be achieved through action research that involved inquiring and interactive teaching. However, implementing the new perspective required additional sustained support. The research also confirmed that action research is a viable means of exploring transformative learning in educational settings.