An action research inquiry: facilitating early childhood studies undergraduate researcher development through group supervision

ABSTRACT

This paper reports an Action Research Inquiry that aimed to develop research supervision as a learning strategy, in order to facilitate early childhood undergraduates’ completion of a primary research project and dissertation in the final year of their degree programme.  Researchers in this context are conceptualised as a community of practice where there is a common goal for undergraduates to become researchers.  In this community, supervision accompanies students along their research project; it provides opportunities for learning for the supervisor and the student.  Communities of Practice are spaces for social learning.  The objectives of introducing supervision as a group social practice were to provide a space to develop researcher identity, apply research skills and make sense of the experience of research. Group Supervision represented a shift in teaching and learning practice. Action Research was applied as a research method.  Such an approach placed emphasis on the participation and collaboration of lecturers in a strategy for changing practice.  The research was conducted in a University in the United Kingdom.  One cycle of action research was completed.  Findings from the study suggest Group Supervision is valued and understood, by lecturers and students, as a social learning process.

KEYWORDS:

• Group Supervision
• undergraduate research
• dissertation in early childhood
• action research

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank lecturers within the university’s ECS research community for their engagement with this Action Research Inquiry. The research inquiry was supported by the International Centre for the Study of the Mixed Economy of Childcare at the University of East London.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the International Centre for the Study of the Mixed Economy of Childcare at the University of East London. [Grant].