Undertaking practitioner research: choices and considerations for school leaders

Introduction

At some point in a school leader’s career, the prospect of undertaking some academic research or practitioner enquiry will appear on the horizon. Whether this research possibility is in response to an academic qualification or part of a collaborative networking opportunity, leading or participating in research activity is both exciting and challenging. Undertaking practitioner research offers participants a new set of skills and capabilities accompanied by access to networks, conferences and maybe even a graduation. For busy school leaders, however, the initial question must be why spend time on research, at all?

The answer to this question is important because undertaking research as a practitioner is a choice and one that will involve a time commitment. Two possible answers come to mind in response to this question. The first response is linked to personal and professional development as a school leader and maybe a qualification or some recognition along the way. The second response is about making a difference to learners, in other words undertaking research so it has some impact on the school and the classroom level. These responses are not mutually exclusive, it is possible to do both but with practitioner research it would seem strange if an impact upon learners was not the central driver for undertaking research. We have argued elsewhere (Harris and Jones 2019) that professional learning should be learner focused and that some resulting impact on learners, from professional learning, should be discernible. The same is true of practitioner research. If research has a zero impact on learners and learning, then you might conclude, as a school leader, that it has no point.

In this editorial, we aim to touch upon some choices and considerations for school leaders who are undertaking practitioner research. The aim is not to replace the detailed guidance and expert advice offered by universities and other organisations. We cannot, in a short editorial, cover the content of comprehensive research methods handbooks and do not intend to try. Instead, our purpose in the next few pages is to highlight some pointers that might be helpful to school leaders embarking upon, or part way through, a practitioner research journey.

Choices

To begin with, it is important to underline that in terms of a research process there is little to distinguish practitioner research or enquiry from academic research or enquiry. The design process is the same but unlike academic research, practitioner research offers teachers and school leaders the opportunity to systematically investigate and learn from their own practice. There is a strong emphasis on reflection and collaboration within practitioner research that contributes directly to professional knowledge, growth and understanding (Wyse et al. 2021).

Whatever the research orientation, the basic planning required, and the tools of research engagement remain the same. Any research must follow certain contours if the outcomes, whether for academic or practitioner consumption, are to be meaningful and useful. One of the first issues that school leaders will face is where to start? Often, a starting point is reading written accounts of research or enquiry undertaken by other practitioners. Through this reading there is a temptation to believe that research is a straightforward, logical, coherent, and clear process whereas in reality, it is messy, complicated, confusing, and unclear. It can require wading through data and confronting many U turns and blind alleys along the way.

It is the job of the researcher, of course, to make some sense of the mounds of data and turn this messy process of investigation and reflection into something clear, readable, and ultimately helpful to others. Undertaking any research means living with the complexities and the contradictions inherent in the research process by applying large doses of patience and resilience.

In any type of research, there are very rarely ‘eureka’ moments, so rule number one is to be kind to yourself particularly if you feel that what your findings show is not earth shattering or worthy of some prize. Most research findings are incremental, they add to the knowledge base, whether academic or practical, and do so in reliable and valid ways. Research ensures that our understanding of any topic is constantly being updated, refined, challenged, and critiqued through small and large-scale research.

There are some key choices to make before commencing any piece of research that are important to note. First, think about the nature of your research, what form will it take (empirical, exploratory, investigative, a review, action enquiry, reflexive, etc.) as this will subsequently inform your design and the methodology that you will employ further down the line.

Second, your research will be positioned in some over-arching field of research or enquiry (e.g. educational leadership) and this will be an important reference point and a roadmap to other research studies that will help guide and inform the research process.

Third, most research undertaken by busy practitioners is most likely to be small scale, so it will be important to employ a research design that is manageable, practical, and feasible in the professional time available. Planning a big, complex, ambitious project may seem exciting at the start but will soon lose its appeal, when you are awash with data and trying to cope with many aspects of the work that were simply unanticipated. Most importantly, undertaking small-scale research does not mean by default that it is less significant. In fact, the opposite is often true. Undertaking a small-scale research project with tight and definable boundaries and a very clear practical focus may in fact be a route to securing more meaningful and impactful findings.

A myth that seems to perpetuate in some academic spheres is that complexity is somehow to be cherished and reflects better scholarship. In other words, the more convoluted, jargon laden and theoretically dense the piece of work, the better it is discerned to be. In contrast, the most powerful ideas are often expressed in the most straightforward, practical way, allowing a wide audience to understand and apply them. An example that comes to mind is ‘assessment for learning’ underpinned by a mass of high-quality scholarly endeavour but clearly understood and applied in many school contexts, globally.

For those unfamiliar with academic journal articles, this form of research reporting can often appear intimidating and difficult to understand. The language of academia can appear as some foreign language, written in ways that seem determined to obscure or diminish meaning. The best pieces of scholarly work, however, are those where the language is crystal clear and the narrative is easily understood, despite the inherent complexity of the subject matter or the research findings. The key skill of any researcher, whether novice or expert, is to make findings clear and accessible.

Clarity at all stages in the research process cannot be emphasised enough. At the outset of any research process must be clarity about the key question or questions. As a school leader ask yourself, are the intentions of your research 100% clear to you (or others) if not, think again. Could you explain your research as a 3-minute elevator pitch? If not, then you are not as clear as you might be about the nature of your research. Time spent being clear at the start will save precious time later in the research process.

Next, we offer some considerations about key aspects of the research process. Again, these are not intended to replace invaluable research training courses and more detailed research methods guidance. They are simply points to reflect upon and to consider.

Considerations

Reviewing the evidence

Whatever topic or issue you are thinking of researching, someone, somewhere will have also thought of it, possibly not in the same way or in the same context but research on the same topic will normally exist in some form. So, once you have your question or questions clearly articulated then it is time to find out what research already exists. For scholarly articles, if you go to Google Scholar and put in the word ‘Leadership’ you will get approximately 5 million hits or more, so whatever database you are using (e.g. Web of Science,¹ EBSCO²) it is suggested that you limit your search by:

1. Search terms e.g. instead of women in leadership (try being more specific) so, women in leadership in primary schools in the UK. Being far more specific with search terms will narrow down the volume of literature returned.

2. Specific dates (you can select a date-range on most databases so try a 10-year period 2014–2024). You may go back further of course, particularly if there is some important work to include but a look at the most contemporary evidence on the topic first, would be advisable.

3. Type of study – you may be looking for other mixed methods studies, so use this in the search (e.g. women in leadership in primary schools in the UK mixed methods studies or Mixed method studies of women leaders in primary schools in the UK). You will need to try different search combination to get the exact literature that is most useful to you.

Other things to think about are when compiling your review of the evidence:

1. Recording – have a way of recording and logging the literature you have sourced otherwise you will spend a long time trying to locate it again. Systematically record the reference (in whatever form is required – Harvard, APA, etc.) and make sure you use some online reference tool (Endnote, Mendeley, etc.) as this will save you hours when writing up the section about other research on the topic.

2. Reading is not Writing – Everything you look at will be interesting in some way but reading one more article can be a distraction from writing. When looking at the evidence therefore don’t be tempted to go down ‘a black hole’ by getting lost and distracted by the vast amount of literature that exists. Being disciplined about your search will help you focus and will save you time.

3. Look for recurring themes – The more you read on a topic, you will see that authors, ideas and findings are recurring. This repetition is a basis for summarising the literature (i.e. highlight common ideas, findings, theoretical perspectives and authors). This way it is possible to sort the evidence into a manageable form for subsequent writing up.

4. Look for existing summaries of the evidence – It is more than likely that a review of the evidence or a contemporary review of the literature might already have been published on your research theme or topic. Search explicitly for such published literature reviews before you examine the evidence for yourself. Such reviews offer useful signposts to and summaries of the evidence.

5. Look at other sources – It is perfectly acceptable to look at forms of writing and accounts of research that do not feature in scholarly articles. As with scholarly articles always keep an open mind about the nature and quality of the research presented.

Research decisions, ethics and data collection

When commencing research, whatever its nature, scale and scope, certain decisions will need to be made. Some of these decisions relate to the research design, data collection methods, the selection of respondents and the type of data analysis you will undertake. Underpinning all these decisions, is the issue of ethics. When collecting data, of any type or any form, but especially with human subjects the critical issue of maintaining ethical standards is important.

To simplify it, research should do no harm to respondents in the process and strict guidelines need to be in place to oversee that research is undertaken in an ethical manner. Normally, any research overseen by a university, or some other professional organisation requires ethical approval. Therefore, it will be important to become familiar very early on with the ethical dimensions of any proposed research, especially but not exclusively if that research is close to practice. As a school leader you may have access to many different groups (pupils, staff, parents, governing body, employers) but in the role of researcher, you will need a carefully constructed and approved plan to collect data, in any form from any group or individual, however, well you know them.

In the social sciences, any data collection with people requires informed consent and their full understanding of the process in which they are playing a part (see BERA Ethical Guidelines³). The various decisions made around research design should be informed by the well documented philosophical debates about the nature of knowledge (ontology and epistemology) and the contours of what is possible within clear ethical parameters. Against this backdrop, research design decisions will also be governed by pragmatics, time, resource, and opportunity.

From the outset, it will be important to think about the data collection processes and the type of respondents long before developing any research instruments. In addition, to avoid drowning in data it will be imperative to think about the analysis of data before collecting any. This may sound odd, but without really thinking through exactly how to analyse your data the potential for data overload and is high. Think of it like this, you wouldn’t buy a microwave or a dishwasher without knowing how to use it, so why would you collect data without knowing how to analyse it?

In making decisions about the design of any research project, including its methodology, there needs to be a decision about how to analyse the data, very early on. Often in the rush of enthusiasm to collect data quickly, the issue of analysis is overlooked or side-stepped in the hope that the data itself will prove to be sufficient and will magically sort itself into neat categories. This never happens. As many researchers will testify, the lack of attention to data analysis at the start will subsequently prove to be a costly and time-consuming mistake.

Opting for familiar data collection methods without fully understanding their advantages and their disadvantages is also a basic error. While the idea of ‘doing some interviews’ or ‘sending out a questionnaire’ might initially seem easy, relying on stock approaches without fully considering the range of options will have consequences later down the research line. Quite simply, the advice here is to pause and think about different research design options carefully, including data collection methods and approaches, before moving too quickly ahead. Take expert advice and recognise that there are no quick fixes in research just simply informed decisions to be made.

Coda

There are more choices and considerations about research than this editorial has space to cover but here are some final thoughts about undertaking practitioner research. First, ensure that the research undertaken is manageable and is based on realistic goals that can be achieved in the time available. Think about the practicality of doing the work – how to allocate time, how to connect with the day job and how the research will be useful to others. Second, set deliverables for your research work, at its different stages, so you can see the progress made and can keep on track.

Third, network with others on a similar research journey. Collaborative support, mutual wisdom, and collective empathy are the keys to success in practitioner research. Fourth, as Hattie (2012) says ‘know thy impact’. Ensure that your work is always focused on the learner as the end goal. Finally, enjoy it and remember, your research may not change the world but it will change you and your place in it.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 https://access.clarivate.com/login.

2 Education Research Databases|Education Journals|EBSCO.

3 Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research, fifth edition (2024)|BERA.