Action research – a way to improve your practice with collaboration between researchers and practitioners

Every teacher knows when there is a need to change or improve an aspect of their practice. It is mostly done instantly and is often not reflected upon. The difference between instant improvements and action research is that in action research, you follow up on the improvements so you are aware of what works and through that, improve your understanding of your practice and the context in which your practice takes place. Action research is, in other words, a process that through inquiries, improves aspects of your practice and is followed by collecting of information for analysis and conversations with colleagues that are facilitated by a researcher. A short example from of this process is presented below:

The project called Early Language Support Activities (ELSA-model) was conducted over one year in an early childhood education setting with a group of children aged 2–4 years. The focus was on circle time (gathering the children around you), where the early childhood teachers noticed that they did not support language interaction enough. With the help of researchers, they used a structured language-supporting work method to increase their skills. This process involved:

1. Focus on prepositions in circle time (identifying aspects to be improved)
2. Presenting the story, the Three Billy Goats Gruff (a Norwegian fairy tale) with supportive figures (planning an action)
3. Video recording the circle time (collecting information)
4. Marking the interaction on a matrix after viewing the video (analysing information)
5. Conversations about the teaching theme (collegial conversations facilitated by a researcher about the data and reflections)
   • We need to talk to each other how to interact more with the children,
   • Supporting figuresworks well; the children know the story and we can freely play with the characters,
6. Further reflections and conclusions
   • When the children use the supporting figures, I can watch them and capture so much more than expressions e.g., face, body language,
   • One child is interested in circle-time. Afterwards, she organised her own circle time and illustrated the tale with the characters and therefore captured the other children's interest in conversations.

With these steps, the teachers got insights into what happened when they used supporting figures to illustrate the story rather than just reading the book. Their conclusions were that they got increased awareness of the importance of interaction and having a structure for language support. Furthermore, they acquired knowledge and competences of using inquiry and collegial conversations for changing practices.

In collaboration with practitioners’ action research can be seen as three layers of an onion where the core is improving of the practice, the middle layer is increasing understanding of the practice (including dialogue with colleagues), and the final layer is understanding the context (communicating of the processes with others in a wider field to share enhancements).

The researcher has an important role in the beginning of the process to facilitate the different steps. However, it is important to hand over the process to the teachers themselves by letting one of them be a middle leader to assist the team.

To conclude, action research is a process and not a product to achieve. The most important features are inquiry and conversations with colleagues in order to sustain the improvements and reach understanding of their practice.

Karin Rönnerman is a professor of education at the University of Gothenburg focusing on researching school development and professional learning through action research.

References

• Carr, W. & Kemmis, S. (1986). Becoming critical. Education, Knowledge and Action Research. The Falmer Press.Edwards-Groves, C., & Rönnerman, K. (2021). Generative Leadership. Rescripting the Promise of Action Research. Springer.
• Grootenboer, P., Edward-Groves, C., & Rönnerman, K. (2020). Middle Leadership in Schools: Leading Professional Learning. Routledge. Doi:10.4324/9781003026389
• Rönnerman, K. (2022). Aktionsforskning: Vad? Hur? Varför? Studentlitteratur.
• Rönnerman, K. & Nordberg, A. (2022). Språkstöd i förskolan genom aktionsforskning. Lärarförlaget.
• Rönnerman, K. Edwards-Groves, C. and Grootenboer, P. (2015). Opening up communicative spaces for discussion ‘quality practices’ in early childhood education through middle leadership. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy 3.