‘Drama is like reversing everything’: intervention research as teacher professional development

Abstract

This paper reports on a one-year project in a Singapore ‘neighbourhood’ school where the researcher was invited to assist the teachers of two secondary English classes to incorporate drama strategies to enliven their pedagogy. Few teachers involved had any prior experience of drama in schools and none had studied drama during pre-service teacher education. The project was faced with a number of challenges, most significantly the extent of teacher ‘buy-in’ for the research; this was influenced by the hierarchical nature of school administration, teacher resistance, teacher and community pre-conceptions about drama, and the degree of willingness to engage with change practices within the school. This paper discusses the challenges facing long-term intervention research in schools. It addresses issues of teacher commitment to the research, teacher–researcher relationships, and the challenges that impeded significant change taking place in this particular school context. It considers methodological issues for researchers who wish to engage in schooling contexts which are by nature complex, chaotic and diverse.

Keywords:

• drama education
• design research
• teacher professional development
• educational research
• intervention research

Notes

1. This paper makes use of data from the research project ‘Speaking Out: An Exploration of Process Drama and its Contribution to Oracy’ (CRP27/05MS), funded by the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, National Institute of Education, Singapore. The views expressed in this paper are the author's and do not necessarily represent the views of the Centre or the Institute.

2. In line with ethical research protocols the names of the school and individuals involved in this project have been changed to protect anonymity. Informed consent was gained from all participants (teachers, students, parents and school administrators) and documents verifying this have been kept in the research project archives.

3. At the time of this study there was no official curriculum support for drama in Singapore and drama was not offered as a course of study in the undergraduate teacher-education programme at NIE.

4. The technical report from this project is available at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, National Institute of Education, Singapore (http://www.crpp.nie.edu.sg).