Constructive Action Research: a perspective on the process of learning

ABSTRACT

This paper describes an action research enquiry conducted by a primary science tutor in Higher Education. It focuses on his work both with students on an initial teacher education course and with qualified teachers on in‐service courses. The main theme of the paper concerns parallels between the research process and the approach adopted by the researcher to teaching adult learners. Both were underpinned by explicit epistemological assumptions based on a constructivist view of learning. This view of learning led to a particular approach to teaching, which was evaluated and refined over three years. The emergence of these parallels was a metacognitive outcome of the enquiry that led to the conceptualisation of ‘constructive action research’. The paper explores the extent to which his approach to the research was genuinely constructive. It considers the links between the researcher's learning, that of the adult learners he taught and the learning of the children they taught. The account includes discussion of a multi‐layered approach to analysis through a series of cycles and reviews. A range of concerns, related to the researcher's teaching, were identified through the analysis of classroom episodes. The account provides a model of how multiple concerns can be addressed through systematic analysis and action planning. It also highlights the significance of collaboration to action research enquiries and provides an example of an enquiry combining self‐evaluation and the evaluation of a specific model of teaching. The criteria that were used by the researcher to evaluate his enquiry are in the form of questions that are applicable to other action research projects.