What have i learned from all this? four years of teaching an action research course: insights of a ‘second order’

Abstract

The author examines the development of her thinking in regard to the value, the purposes, the process and the outcomes of teaching an undergraduate course in action research for the past 4 years. The emergent understandings were informed by recurrent hermeneutic cycles of interpretative readings of the formal written and oral feedback conducted with the students at the end of each year, the students’ final action research projects submitted at the end of each course and personal field notes kept in journal writing. These sources have yielded rich longitudinal data that sheds light on the impact of a course for the learning of both its participants and the course professor. The article focuses on the actions that the author has undertaken in the design and implementation of the course as a result of her learning or on how action research ‘of a second order’ has informed the structure of ‘first order’ action research. The exploration has led the author to important insights regarding her role as course professor, issues of pedagogy, reflection, process and products of learning as they play out in an action research course at undergraduate level.