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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PRACTITIONER RESEARCH
Chapter Objectives:
• Understand how practitioner research differs from professional, academic
research
• Understand the roots of practitioner research and current iterations
• Understand the three types of practitioner research
• Understand the steps in the action research spiral
• Understand how teacher research was defined by Cochran-Smith & Lytle
• Understand the Cochran-Smith/ Lytle typology of teacher research
• Understand how inquiry as stance is different from teacher research
• Understand the meaning of inquiry as stance and its goals
Overview
Research Perspective
Practitioner research focuses on issues that arise in professional practice
and is designed and implemented by the people who are most likely to
use knowledge for the benefits of their students.
Practitioner research traces its roots to the work of Kurt Lewin, a psychologist
and social reformer who believed ”Research that produces nothing but books
will not suffice (1946).” Many researchers have adapted Lewin’s central idea
under a variety of descriptors such as ‘action science’ (Argyris, 1985) ,
‘participatory research’ (Freire,1970), and ‘collaborative practitioner research’
(Heron, 1996 ). Since its introduction, the idea of practitioner research has
gained recognition and legitimacy. It is published nationally and internationally
and has generated its own peer-reviewed journals, such as Action Research,
Educational Action Research, Invitational Theory and Practice, and Networks: An
Online Journal for Teacher Research. The nation’s premiere professional
education research organization, the American Research Association has
recently established a Special Interest Group devoted to it.
Practitioner research invests in practitioners the authority usually reserved for
professional researchers to identify a problem or question, to decide on methods
of data collection, and to analyze and interpret results. Privileging collaboration
over individual authorship and craft knowledge over abstract theory, practitioner
research has a twofold purpose: to deepen understandings of practice and to
promote actions that lead to change, improvement, and --in some cases-- social
transformation.
Comparison to Traditional Research
Proponents of practitioner research offer it an alternative to traditional
professional research, which they view as being externally driven, motivated by
institutional and professional interests, and “ being in the hands of a ‘monopoly’
of expert knowledge producers, who exercise power over others through their
expertise” (Gaventa & Cornwall, 2006, p. 206). The table below highlights some
of the differences between professional and practitioner research
Professional Research Practitioner Research
Is conducted by professionals who are
located in universities and centers
Is conducted by practitioners in their own
settings
Generates research questions from
the academic disciplines or the
literature in a field.
Generates research questions from the
realities of practice.
Views professional researchers as the
legitimate producers of knowledge and
practitioners as consumers of
knowledge
Views practitioners as legitimate producers
as well as the consumers of knowledge.
Findings are useful to other
professional researchers and policy
makers
Findings are useful to practitioners and
may become part of a social movement for
school transformation.
Depends on traditional data collection
and rules of evidence
Depends on both traditional & innovative
data collection and rules of evidence
Table 1 Practitioner and Professional Research Compared
Approaches to Practitioner Research
In order to navigate the wide landscape of practitioner research practices,
we have found it useful to focus our discussion on three current approaches:
action research, teacher research, and inquiry as practice
Inquiry as stance is “ a continual process of making current arrangements
problematic; questioning the ways knowledge and practice are constructed,
evaluated, and used; and assuming that part of the work of
Action Research
Action research is “comparative research on the conditions and effects of
various forms of social action and research leading to social action (Lewin,
1946, p. 206).”
Kurt Lewin’s l definition of action research continues to serve as the prototype
of a genre of practitioner research that is oriented toward problem-solving and
improvement. It utilizes a six step process called the action research spiral that
is represented and described below.
Figure 1. The Action Research Spiral
1. Identify the Question/ the Problem: The first step is for the action
researcher to identify a problem that is important personally and
professionally, is of interest to other practitioners, and needs to be solved
in order to improve practice and educational outcomes.
2. Collect initial data: The next task is to collect baseline data that are
directly related to the problem and that can be compared to data that will
be collected after the intervention or action. Data may be qualitative, in
the form of interviews, documents, or observations; or data may be
quantitative in the form of surveys and tests; or data may combine the two
methods.
3. Design a Plan of Action: In designing a plan of action, the researcher
has to choose an intervention that has some likelihood of solving the
problem. There are basically two sources for this information: research
reviews of promising practices and consultation with colleagues. In action
research, both sources are considered legitimate and of value. This is in
keeping with the view expressed by Corey that ” the consequences of our
own teaching is more likely to change and improve our practices than is
reading about what someone else has discovered of his teaching. (1953, p.
70)
4. Implement the Plan of Action: The researcher carefully implements the
action or intervention and documents the process.
5. Collect and Analyze Data: The researcher collects and analyzes the
data on outcome of the implemented action. In analyzing qualitative data,
qualitative data, the researcher codes the data and develops themes that
are grounded in the data. For quantitative data, the researcher calculates
and displays data in visual form
6. Evaluate the results: The last stage of the research process involves
the researcher in reflection on the project and evaluating whether it met its
goals. This sometimes involves sharing the results with others.
Example of Teacher Action Research
Don Chouinard, an English teacher in a rural high school , conducted an
action research project that focused on changing the reading achievement and
attitudes of the male students in his classes. (2011). He defined the problem as
“How can I improve the reading attitudes achievement of my ninth grade male
students?” and conducted his project in four of his ninth grade classes. In
reviewing achievement data of the early fall, he found that males scored lower on
all standardized tests of reading. Results of a Google survey about attitudes
toward reading for pleasure indicated that 88 % of females reported they “ loved
“ or “ liked” to read as opposed to only 18% of males. In devising an intervention
and an action plan, he reviewed literature to help clarify his intentions and to
decide on this course of action: (1) developing a reading loft, a comfortable
reading space stocked entirely with donations from community members, (2)
compiling “The Guy List” of approximately 200 male-friendly novels, and (3)
providing alternative assessments on book tests to those students who failed the
first assessment.
The plan was implemented in January when the reading loft was open for
use. Furnished with a carpeted floor, three recliners, a rocking chair, a beanbag,
a sofa, and several large throw pillows, it ultimately housed over 500 donated
high interest books. “The Guy List” was compiled and consisted of over 200
male-friendly novels. Alternative assessments that included writing “novel
responses” and oral/conferencing with him about a book were also put in place.
Data collection and analysis depended on a Yin mixed method case study of
three purposefully selected male students. He used qualitative interview and
observation methods and gathered quantitative data from achievement tests
administered periodically through Northwest Evaluation Association Assessment
(NWEA) assessments. His analysis showed that while standardized test scores
remained unchanged for two of the three students, the weakest among them
showed progress. Book test scores and observed engagement in reading
improved for all three students. Most important for Chouinard, there was a noted
increase in attitudes toward reading. Students attributed the change in attitudes
to the “Guy List’ and the reading loft.
Chouinard concluded that the actions he took produced the results he had
desired. He noted, “Although the loft has taken longer to create than I anticipated,
once operating, it was a much more effective tool in promoting literacy and
positive attitudes toward reading than I had originally imagined.” As a result of
sharing his project with colleagues, the reading loft, the “Guy List” and alternative
forms of assessments were regularized as features of language arts instruction in
the school.
Teacher Research
Teacher research is the "systematic and intentional inquiry carried out by
teachers" (Cohchran & Lytle, 1993, p.7) that leads to deeper knowledge of
teaching and learning
Since 1987 Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan Lytle have been the major
voices for teacher research. As they explained,
Neither interpretive nor process-product classroom research has
foregrounded the teacher's role in the generation of knowledge about
teaching. What is missing from the knowledge base for teaching, therefore,
are the voices of the teachers themselves, the questions teachers ask, the
ways teachers use writing and intentional talk in their work lives, and the
interpretive frames teachers use to understand and improve their own
classroom practices. (1990, p. )
Like Lewin, Cochran-Smith and Lytle challenged the long-held views of what
research entails and who should it be doing; and they provided guidelines for
doing the work. They also proposed a typology of teacher research that is
presented in the table below.
Type Purpose Method
Classroom/School
Studies
To study one’s
own practice and share understandings
with colleagues.
Established qualitative and
quantitative methods of data
collection and analysis
Journal Studies
To illuminate one’s practice, examine
and reconstruct understandings, clarify
Written records that capture
personal experiences and
questions, and seek answers reflections as they occur
Conceptual
Essays
To explores big issues or answers
broad questions and reach a wide
audience
Reflective essays intended for
dissemination to an audience of
teacher researchers
Oral Inquiries
To explore issues of teaching and
learning through structured and
protocol-based dialogue with colleagues
Reflective Conversations
Descriptions of Children’s Work,
Staff Reviews of the Child
* See the Appendix for details
Table 2. The Cochran-Smith/Lytle Typology of Teacher Research
Examples of Teacher Research
These three examples of teacher research are drawn from chapters in
Cochran –Smith & Lytle & Lytle (1993)
1. Penn Starr, a teacher of the deaf, conducted a classroom study. She
wanted to understand how deaf children transfer what they compose in the
visual language of Americana Sign Language to the language of written English.
She focused on one student in her classroom and observed his development as
a writer over two years, making note of his adaptations and changes. She came
to view the process of writing for deaf children as being a form of second
language acquisition; the result of her inquiry was a firmer understanding of this
process that, “invites rather than forecloses further interpretations” (p.32)
2. Lynne Yermancock Strieb, an elementary teacher in an urban school,
engaged in a journal study and identified two audiences for her inquiry. She saw
herself as her first audience and used her journals to help with her teaching and
to provide a way to record and reflect on how she planned, how she looked at
students, how she thought about her curriculum, and how she might think and act
differently. Her journals were spaces in which she could raise questions and seek
answers, identify problems and seek solutions. Her second audience was the
group of teachers who participated with her in The West Philadelphia Writing
Project, a long-established teacher research community. There Streib joined with
Deborah Jumpp to develop a collaborative research project about journaling.
Both Jumpp and Streib had been using individual journals in their classes when
they decided to join forces. Their collaboration led to seeing their own practices
differently, raising new questions to explore, and uncovering new ways to share
perceptions. They also discovered how they used the journals as curriculum” to
help student learn about their own learning and to help them learn about journals
as a versatile genre “ (p 146); and they found that they used their journals as
tools for assessing student interests and progress,
3. Bob Fecho, a high school English teacher, and Samona Joe, a sixth
teacher of math and science published conceptual research essays. Both were
active members of the Philadelphia Writing Project, a local teacher research and
writing community. Fecho wrote a conceptual piece about what it means to read
as a teacher. He argued that “teachers constitute a distinctive interpretive
community—particularly as it related to the reading of educational research and
theory—has clear values and standards that dominate the ways teachers
ultimately interpret readings” (p 266). Joe’s essay raised questions about how
issues of gender, race, and class played out in her teaching and her student’s
learning ( p 290-298).
Inquiry as Stance
Inquiry as stance is “a continual process of making current arrangements
problematic, questioning the ways knowledge and practice are
constructed, evaluated, and used; and assuming that part of the work of
practitioners individually and collectively is to participate in educational
and social change" (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009, p. 121)
Seventeen years after the publication of Teacher Research, Cochran-Smith
and Lytle revisited their ideas in a book whose title, Inquiry as Stance:
Practitioner Research for the Next Generation (2009), signaled two important
shifts in their thinking. In selecting the term practitioner research, they extended
their original method to a broader community of educators to include
administrators, university teachers, parents, community-based educators, and
social activists as well as P-K teachers. They described this new approach as
“a transformative orientation that engages practitioners in research that can lead
to changes in the organization of education toward goals of equity and social
justice. ” Their intention was to respond to what they saw as
the “trying times” (p.5) that educators were facing in national and local stages
that valued generic, ‘expert’ knowledge and devalued the contextualized and
craft knowledge of practitioners. And they issued "a call for practitioner
researchers in local settings across the country and the world to ally their work
with others as part of larger social and intellectual movements for social change.”
The process of inquiry as stance both embraces and expands upon the
goals of action and teacher research. Like teacher research, it seeks to examine
practice with the aim of increasing knowledge and insight. Like action research, it
is problem oriented and explicitly promotes an agenda of social improvement. It
expands on these other forms by looking to critical theories of race, gender, and
class as organizing concepts for developing strategies for transforming
educational arrangements toward norms democratic practice and social justice.
Example of Inquiry as Stance
Gary McPhail, a primary grades teacher focused his inquiry on the
interplay of gender and writing. Having used the writer’s workshop approach for
over ten years as a teacher of first graders, he came to the reluctant conclusion
that
… this writing instructional model biases certain literary interests over
others. Many of the genres and styles to which many boys gravitate (e.g.,
comic books, adventure stories, silly fictitious stories, sports pages) are
considered low status by many teachers (and parents) and are not
welcome in many classrooms during writing time because they are either
“inappropriate” for school or deemed not worthy of instructional time
(Newkirk, 2002.) Thus many boys come to realize that their interests are
not worthy of being taught in the classroom and as a result come to view
writing as more of a female activity than male.
He decided to create a new writer’s workshop curriculum that included
some units especially appealing to boys and others especially appealing to girls.
He titled his inquiry “ Teaching the ‘Bad Boy’ to Write” and focused on the
development of David who, like boys in many primary classrooms, pushed
boundaries and sought attention in inappropriate ways and was also reluctant to
write about personal issues.
McPhail quoted extensively from his research journal as he described the
changes in David’s writing over the course of the school year. As the curriculum
shifted from personal narratives to letter writing and units on comic books and
fiction that engaged his interests, David’s writing became more expressive and
less violent. His behavior changed as well; his abandonment of the ’bad boy
stance’ became most evident in the anti-war poem that David wrote at the end of
the year.
By writing this happy anti-war poem, David allowed himself to be
vulnerable and showed his classmates that he was kind and that he wanted to
change his reputation as resident bad boy. This social transformation took time
but by the end of the year, when our poetry unit took place, David managed to
break out of his emotional straight jacket and abandon the boy code. It is
important to note that if the writing curriculum had not been able to connect with
David’s interest in violence, he would not have been able to write about his
interest freely, which contributed to his desire to change his social reputation. By
being more inviting, the writing curriculum helped David rebel less against the
classroom culture and become more interested in Writer’s Workshop.
McPhail concluded his piece by looking at the broader social implications
of his inquiry and urged a re-thinking of writing curriculum for boys by “diffusing
the personal from the curriculum” and attending to their tastes and interests.
Evaluating Practitioner Research
Because practitioner research challenges many of the assumptions of
professional, academic research, it is not appropriate to apply those criteria in
evaluating practitioner inquiries. We recommend that that a judgment be based
on the trustworthiness and usefulness of the work and how these questions are
answered .
• Is the issue, problem, or concern clearly defined?
• Is the purpose of the inquiry and its audience made clear?
• Are practitioners the chief researchers?
•
• How are results used?
•
• Do the findings make a contribution to practitioner knowledge and
practice?
Practitioner research is not without its critics, who question the validity of
the research because it does not meet the established standards or ethics of
university-based research, the importance of the research questions, the
sufficiency of evidence to draw conclusions, and the ability of researchers to be
objective in studying their own practice. At the root of these criticisms is the
question of what, in fact, constitutes knowledge and who is capable of producing
it.
There is also apprehension among practitioner researchers themselves
about possible misuses of the method. They are concerned that school
administrators who are under pressure to show improvement in student
achievement too often appropriate practitioner research to have teachers collect
data for the externally-driven agenda of raising test scores. In addition, there are
concerns that practitioner research tends to be conflated with professional
development and is viewed as yet another staff development strategy.
Chapter Summary
• Practitioner research has its roots in the work of Kurt Lewin and has been
adapted and modified by various theorists.
• Practitioner research challenges academic research in terms of who has
the authority to identify questions and conduct inquiry, the audience for the
research and how findings are uses of findings, and methods of data
collection and rules of evidence rules of evidence.
• Practitioner research may be oriented toward solving practical problems of
practice, developing deeper understanding of teaching and learning and/or
transforming educational arrangements in support of equity and social
justice
• Action research solves identifying and solving context-specific problems of
practice and uses as a template Lewin’s spiral of six steps: (1) problem
identification, (2) initial data collection and analysis, (3) planning an action,
(4) implementing the action, (5) collecting data on outcomes of the plan,
and (6) evaluating results.
• Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1993, p.7) defined teacher research as an
approach that developed understanding and insight through "systematic
and intentional inquiry carried out by teachers."
• Cochran-Smith & Lytle developed a typology of four approaches:
classroom and school studies, journal studies, conceptual research, and
oral inquiries.
• Oral inquiries include reflective conversations, descriptions of children’s
work, and descriptive reviews of the child
• Cochran-Smith and Lytle ( 2009) refined their earlier ideas and replaced
teacher research with the notion of practitioner inquiry as stance,
extending the community of researchers to include all educators and
expanding the purpose of inquiry to include the transformation of
education in support of equity and social justice.
• Practitioner research is evaluated on criteria of integrity and usefulness.
• Despite its academic critics and internal sources of apprehension,
practitioner research has gained legitimacy as a research approach that is
acknowledged in peer-reviewed journals and in research organizations
and conferences.
Terms and Concepts
Practitioner research Orientation toward problem solving
Orientation toward understanding Orientation toward transformation
Action research Action research spiral
Teacher research Teacher research typology
Classroom and school studies Journal studies
Conceptual research essays Oral inquiries
Reflective conversations Descriptions of children’s work
Descriptive review of the child Inquiry as stance
Review, Consolidation, and Extension of Knowledge
1, The practitioner research focus for both Chouinard and McPhail was the ‘boy
problem in literacy.’ They used different methods to conduct their inquiry.
Compare the action research approach of Chouinard to the inquiry as stance
approach of McPhail. What is similar? What is different?
2. Choose a problem of practice that you want to solve in an action research
project and either complete steps 1-3 of the action research spiral, or complete
all 6 steps.
3. Either independently or in collaboration with a colleague, choose one or more
of the approaches from the Cochran-Smith/Lytle teacher research typology to
explore.
4. Using an electronic database, search for a practitioner research (action or
teacher research) study on a topic of interest. Read the article and comment on
• its purpose,
• its methods,
• its findings,
• its usefulness to you as a practitioner
• Is it research or staff development?