Practitioner Research

Situated practice research offers rich possibilities for recognising and developing practitioner knowledge in social care. In this article, I document the application of anthropological methods and thinking within a research programme in autism services. Drawing on Donald Schön's model of the refl ective practitioner, I argue that participant observation, aimed at the holistic documentation of autism services, provides a means to systematic reflection, comparison and learning in order to inform practice. This approach stands to broaden the field of autism research from unidirectional models of knowledge 'translation' to include research and insights generated from services. I also advocate the relational nature of anthropology as a means to meaningfully engage autistic people with intellectual disabilities in research through collaboration with practitioner researchers.

Conversations about rehabilitation and how to address the drugs-crime nexus have been dominated by academics and policymakers, without due recognition of the experience and knowledge of practitioners. Not enough is known about the cultures and conditions in which rehabilitation occurs. Why is it that significant numbers of practitioners are leaving the alcohol and other drugs field, while disproportionate numbers of criminal justice practitioners are on leave?

Rehabilitation Work provides a unique insight into what happens behind the closed doors of prisons, probation and parole offices, drug rehabs, and recovery support services drawing on research from Australia. This book is among the first to provide a dedicated empirical examination of the interface between the concurrent processes of desistance from crime and recovery from substance misuse, and the implications for rehabilitation work. Hannah Graham uses practitioner interviews, workforce data and researcher observations to reveal compelling differences between official accounts of rehabilitation work, and what practitioners actually do in practice. Practitioners express a desire to be the change rather than being subject to change, actively co-producing progressive reforms instead of passively coping with funding cutbacks and interagency politics.

Applied examples of how practitioners collaborate, lead and innovate in the midst of challenging work are complemented with evocative illustrations of insider humour and professional resilience. This book is a key resource for students, academics and practitioners across fields including criminology and criminal justice, social work, psychology, counselling and addiction treatment.

This paper shows Living Theory research as a form of research that enables me to recognize and research the integration of my personal, professional, and political educational practice to improve, with the hope of give fuller expression to my ontological and social values in practice and live a loving life that is satisfying, productive and worthwhile. Changes in policy and practice in 2012, demanded by central government, meant my field of practice had to change. My concerns however were, and still are, that practice, theory and research often appear to lose connection with the educational purpose of education; theory and practice appear to be developed independently and without explanation or evaluation related to educational values and; educational practitioners appear to practice in discrete worlds, each vying to exert their hegemony over the development of educational theory, practice and provision. In this paper I show how, by continuing to research as a Living Theory research...

This paper discusses the importance of holistic assessment in the teaching and learning process at all levels of education, both in schools and in higher education institutions. Redesigning classroom assessment for holistic learning to improve student learning is not a new idea. Educators conduct assessment for a variety of purposes such as determining the level of student academic achievement or identifying weaknesses and strengths of students. Educators need to be equipped with ways to maintain these processes to determine the quality of student achievement. Assessment should reflect the understanding that learning is a complex process by engaging a varied selection of techniques, comprising those that require real and authentic performance, utilising them over a period so as to disclose evolution, progress, and emergent steps of integration. The assessment should be continuous and balanced. Implementing holistic assessment benefits the students, teachers and stakeholders. Educato...

This paper investigates the conceptions of research held by English as a foreign language teachers in Argentina. Quantitative data from 622 participants from an online questionnaire were followed by qualitative data from online interviews with 40 of those participants. Results show that the teachers conceptualised research through conventional notions closer to a quantitative paradigm. They felt research was not part of their job, and a lack of time was the main reason for not engaging in/with research. Teacher development, agency, empowerment, and autonomy could be sought by engaging teachers with forms of research which are meaningful to them, such as action research.

"Between 2000-2004, a number of practising teachers in the West Midlands were awarded ‘Best Practice Research Scholarships’ from the DfES. The Scholarships allowed them to carry out practice-based research and to report on their findings.

Presented here are some of the reports which resulted. The collection is designed to exemplify some of the issues which the teacher-researchers faced, the approaches they took, and how they presented their findings. It also disseminates to a wider audience the results of their investigations and their recommendations for professional practice in schools.

See also ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Doing Your Education Research Project’, published by SAGE: http://bit.ly/IrLHvD, and on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/QsLY2Q"

‘A Beginner’s Guide…’ is a step-by-step guide for students new to research. It covers every stage in turn, starting with learning from other research, choosing a topic, designing research questions, writing a literature review, deciding on methodology, designing research instruments, and consideration of validity and reliability; then moving to carrying out the investigation, analyzing quantitative and qualitative data and finally writing up the project. The ethical issues of doing education research are examined throughout.

Included are case studies to illustrate common problems and solutions; 14 ‘Project Sheets’ (available on this Academia page) which allow students to build up their work in stages and prepare draft text for their final written project; also key points, activities, recommended further reading and a glossary of research terms.

The book is written for undergraduate students doing education courses and Masters-level students new to research. It is relevant to students of all phases of education: early years, primary, secondary and further education, and to a range of international settings.

More information: http://bit.ly/IrLHvD
Also on Facebook at: http://on.fb.me/QFobAp (click on Like to get news feed)
More information about the author: http://bit.ly/Hk3L6h

Although artistic practices have been shown to have value for intercultural education in contexts such as community projects, research into the use of these methods for Critical Intercultural Communication Pedagogy (CICP) in HE is scarce. This reflexive, interpretivist practitioner case study addresses this gap, investigating the value of creative, arts-inspired tasks for learning within my own undergraduate Intercultural Communication course at a large university in Germany. Three subquestions addressed (i) the participants' attitudes to the tasks, (ii) the role of creative process for learning, and (iii) the relative merits of the tasks set.

Twenty-four participants carried out a collaborative poster-making task and created individual collages which were subseqently shared. Their experiences were discussed in individual and small group semi-structured interviews, carried out in two phases. Participants' reflective course portfolios and my own researcher diary supplemented this data in a 'bricolage' approach to research that was adapted to the study's context and aims. Analysis was characterised by processes of abduction (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009) whereby theory and empirical data are successively reinterpreted in the light of each other in an intellectual rather than technical process. Ellingson's (2009) conceptualisation of 'crystallization' informed the inclusion of artistic work and 'interludes' alongside the main narrative in the thesis.

The contribution of the study is two-fold, demonstrating the value of artistic practices for undergraduate learning and as an application and extension of CICP specifically, developing the theoretical work of Halualani (2017) and Sobré (2017). Six key findings emerged from the discussion of the data. Three key findings demonstrated the ability of artistic processes and products to (a) fulfil the need for relatedness, (b) allow the generation of insightful, personally meaningful knowledge, and (c) serve as prompts for reflective thinking. Two further findings identified productive dialectical tensions for the creative process and qualitative differences between the collaborative and individual tasks. The final finding showed how arts-inspired work could advance and extend notions of CICP in HE, encouraging open attitudes and authentic connections with others, a tolerance of ambiguity and risk, an appreciation of difference, and critical self-reflection. Because the tasks were also found to validate undergraduate students' unique voices and nurture agency, it is argued that they offered participants more emancipatory ways to approach their learning.

My research is a case-within-a-case study concerned with the wellbeing of helping professionals who work with those who are traumatized. The demands from constant technological growth, globalization, and migration, which effect societal change at an unprecedented pace, push the capacity of many helping professionals to cope with the resulting burnout, secondary trauma, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and overall lack of inner peace in their own lives. My research focuses on unresolved transgenerational trauma carried by helping professionals into their work, which can create heightened emotional responses to the trauma of others, limiting effectiveness and the capacity to affect peace. The science of epigenetics shows the measurable emotional inheritance of descendants, with the wounds of parents and ancestors passing down through the body, impacting thoughts, belief systems, motivations, behaviours, actions, relationships, and wellbeing. Research reveals that traditional methods of addressing trauma such as talk therapy, which tend to pathologize symptoms, are not sufficient for addressing trauma or transgenerational trauma, since both require a body focus. An inward turn is needed, and yet, proactive and preventative inner peacebuilding continues to receive little attention or resources. This research examines my own wellness praxis as the overarching case, examining client files as subcases, and the feedback of clients through an interview and a survey. The research revealed a new approach for working through the embodied nature of transgenerational trauma utilizing body focused systemic constellations as ritual. The approach is adaptive for use in many helping professions and promotes access to embodied and collective knowledge in a way that is transformative, systemic, ancestral, and body focused.

Keywords
Body and Embodied, Burnout and Compassion Fatigue, Epigenetic, Helping Professionals, Inner Peacebuilding, Systemic Constellation, Systemic Healing and Transformation, Systemic Practitioner, Transgenerational Trauma, Secondary and Vicarious Trauma

Traditional notions around research and teaching tend to project the two as separate, often conflicting, activities. My dissertation challenges this perceived dichotomy and explores points of connections, or continuities, between teaching and research through my own practice as an adjunct community-college English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor as well as a doctoral candidate at a research-intensive university. I use Wenger’s (1998) framework of communities of practice to locate my practitioner research at the intersections of the academic community and the teaching community. I also employ Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s (2009) ideas around the dialectic of practice and research to conceptualize the integration of research and practice in my dissertation project.
I employ a pluralistic approach to the dissertation design and procedures by drawing upon and adapting elements from different research traditions and approaches in ways that best fitted my integrated practitioner research. Keeping doability and ethicality as my guiding principles, I provide authenticity to the thesis report by writing with deep reflexivity. With inquiry as my ongoing stance, I identify ways in which I integrated teaching and research: by primarily harnessing teaching tools to do research, and research tools to teach. I then propose that practitioner inquiry is an ongoing process, wherein the practitioner researcher analyzes in-depth a specific aspect of her pedagogy post-instruction to make research non-parasitic on teaching. I provide an example of such an ongoing inquiry by analyzing deeply a specific aspect of my own instruction—global Englishes and translinguistic identities in my ESL classroom.
I thus make a case for engaging in practitioner inquiry that integrates teaching and research, and discuss the implications of my dissertation work for teacher preparation and professional development, doctoral education, TESOL and community college practice, as well as practitioner research at large. I finally conclude my doctoral thesis by reimagining myself as a pracademic: a coherent unified and hybrid identity that allows me to be both a practitioner and an academic at the same time without privileging either role; and invite my readers to push the boundaries of their own thinking about the roles of teachers and researchers in the academy.

This paper investigates the conceptions of research held by English as a foreign language teachers in Argentina. Quantitative data from 622 participants from an online questionnaire were followed by qualitative data from online interviews with 40 of those participants. Results show that the teachers conceptualised research through conventional notions closer to a quantitative paradigm. They felt research was not part of their job, and a lack of time was the main reason for not engaging in/with research. Teacher development, agency, empowerment, and autonomy could be sought by engaging teachers with forms of research which are meaningful to them, such as action research. El presente artículo investiga las concepciones de investigación sostenidas por docentes de inglés como lengua extranjera en Argentina. Los datos cuantitativos de 622 participantes obtenidos a través de un cuestionario fueron seguidos por datos cualitativos de entrevistas en línea a 40 participantes. Los resultados muestran que los docentes conceptualizaron a la investigación a través de nociones convencionales cercanas a un paradigma cuantitativo. Los participantes reflejan una posición marginal para con la investigación. La falta de tiempo es la razón principal para no involucrarse en investigación docente. El desarrollo profesional, la agencia, el empoderamiento y la autonomía pueden ser explorados para involucrar a los docentes en formas de investigación, tales como la investigación-acción que les resulten significativas. Palabras clave: agencia, desarrollo docente, investigación docente, participación en investigación.

This research, conducted by the author when a Senior Researcher at Newcastle University, UK, was funded by a UK governance organisation to help them assess, integrate and improve their understanding of the governed population.

ABSTRACT: Governance organisations have been urged to develop more holistic evidence-based approaches with partners to better deal with issues affecting the governed population. This presupposes an understanding of the population, yet there has been little research work addressing how governance organisations come to understand their governed population, nor how this understanding can be improved upon within such organisations.

This case study examined in-depth how understanding of a governed population was developed within one UK local governance organisation and it explored how such understanding might be developed and improved through more holistic and evidence-based organisational learning within the organisation and its governance partnerships.

The research methodology involved placement within the governance organisation, participant observations on several projects and innovative initiatives, observations within, across, and outside the organisation, and also interviews with varied key stakeholders.

The study examined:

- stakeholder engagement and networks
- current and varied understandings of the population
- mechanisms actually used for developing understandings
- the influence of context on organisational learning

and analysed these to arrive at a recommendations to improve organisational understanding of the governed population.

In the case studied, significant strengths were found: including innovative past learning trials for development, extensive ongoing networking activities, and many varied and accumulating quantitative datasets available across partnerships.

However, entrenched organisational approaches and practices constrained the development of holistic evidence-based understanding, for instance: the absence of systematic maintained collective learning processes; weak recording and forgetting of understandings; methodological exclusion of stakeholders from the development of understanding; the relative neglect of qualitative data, explanations, investigations, interpretations, and reflexivity; and also implicit organisational acceptance of such limitations and low aspirations.

Nonetheless, untapped opportunities existed to enable change including: latent practitioner knowledge and innovative management champions, the desire for improvement and raised aspirations within learning networks, and the development potential of alterative learning approaches.

It was concluded that more holistic evidence-based understanding was possible, but required new learning approaches beyond those then in use in both local government or academia.   

Recommendations are made to utilise and develop improved organisational learning approaches trialed and reported in the case study.

It is argued that the case study findings, conclusions, and recommendations may be applicable to other similar local governance organisations and partnerships that seek to better understand local populations, services and interventions.

The work was also submitted for, and awarded, an MPhil (at Newcastle University, supervised by Prof. Patsy Healy)

English as a second language (ESL) classrooms in the United States increasingly include students who have had exposure to more than one global context of English. Unless explicitly dis- cussed, the variations within global Englishes can lead to confu- sion and obstruct learning. In addition, sometimes teachers fail to acknowledge the Englishes that their students bring into the classrooms as valid and valuable, and miss an opportunity to teach their students even more effectively. Teachers who are themselves familiar with global contexts of English can draw upon their own translingual practices and translinguistic identi- ties to validate their students’ Englishes while teaching the tar- get variety and developing their students’ translingual competence. Translingualism in TESOL is emerging as a new paradigm, and the advances that have been made in theoriza- tion about translingual practices need to be supplemented with translingual pedagogies. In response, this article presents a practitioner research report on teaching ESL in a community college from a translingual perspective, and offers snapshots of classroom discussions around variations in postcolonial English- es. The author emphasizes the need for teachers to acknowledge and validate the Englishes and translinguistic identities present in their classrooms, and shares implications for ESL practitio- ners’ professional development, teacher education programs, as well as practitioner research.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to synthesise the prior literature on strategy maps to develop a practitioner’s guide to the design of strategy map frameworks. Robert Kaplan and David Norton introduced the strategy map in their 2000 Harvard Business review article. A strategy map visually represents how the critical elements of an organisation’s strategies are linked together. In an organisation’s strategy  execution process, a strategy map complements a performance measurement framework such as the balanced scorecard.
Design/methodology/approach – This is a technical paper, which primarily builds on the prior literature on the strategy map design. In particular, this study reviews 41 publications on strategy maps in the period 2000-2015, including observation of 333 strategy map frameworks.
Findings – This study develops 14 design principles across seven features of a strategy map framework. This study also identifies a significant lack of empirical research on strategy map design features and principles.
Research limitations/implications – Future research could examine whether and why various design features and principles could exert different or same effects (e.g. decision-relevance).
Practical implications – The developed design features and principles can be used by practitioners as guidance for developing customised strategy maps for their organisations.
Originality/value – This paper contributes to the literature by serving as a one-stop shop” for both practitioners and researchers seeking a comprehensive understanding of the current state of the strategy map design features and principles.

As a nascent interdisciplinary field, this study triangulates a pragmatic mixed methods approach exploring the role of educators’ literacies practices in research-engaged andragogy, aimed at improving learning outcomes. E-survey and e-interview instruments combine statistical and thematic analyses undertaken with a broadly representative sample of post-compulsory educators, who demonstrate a positive bias towards higher education levels and greater experience in research and literacies andragogy.

Findings are strongly indicative that literacies practices associated with research-engaged andragogy improve learning outcomes, and educators’ professional well-being. Salient characteristics of the literacies practices relate to reading and talking for ideas and evaluative feedback; talking about learner profiles, contexts and evidence; writing to generate and process ideas, evidence and evaluative feedback. These are emphasised as dialogic processes, and implicate professional learning communities.

This study draws on ‘social practices’ approaches to argue that the diversity of ‘situated’ literacies associated with forms of evidence-based, research-informed andragogy are a source of technical knowledge and skills. Analysis explores a curricula and CPD gap associated with a growing human resources challenge. Recommendations provide a base for future curricula, where utilising a range of models is argued to develop epistemological bases and bridge inherent ontological divides. They underpin a capacity to build mutual cultures of trust, distributed leadership and self-improving systems with leadership implications.

The primary recommendations are (1) ‘ethnographic-style’ research into a diversity of scalable existing situated literacies practices in post compulsory education, related to evidence-based and research-informed andragogy, including professional learning communities; in parallel (2) targeting existing institutional and cross-sectoral mechanisms to optimise the literacies practices which mediate sharing practice, evaluative feedback, and forms of writing as process; and (3) an information campaign raising the profile of higher order literacies’ status.

This article canvasses practitioner and decision-maker perspectives of the influences of electronic monitoring (EM) in processes of desistance from crime, with a particular focus on their views of its use with young people aged 16 to 25 years old. Presenting findings from a qualitative mixed methods study, we offer a bounded exploration of the views of different actors working in the Scottish criminal justice field, which are framed and analysed here through the lenses of desistance scholarship.

This study was designed using a practitioner-research model (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009). Serving in dual roles – ESL teacher and researcher of her own instructional practice – the researcher critically examined what happens when adolescent immigrant students are positioned as significant contributors to their literacy curriculum.  Engaging a student-led, inquiry based pedagogical model, the students chose ‘immigration in the U.S.’ as a curricular topic of focus, which guided them into a year-long inquiry of U.S. immigration history and, consequently, a study of racial oppression and discrimination.  The teacher-researcher ¬approached her role(s) through the lens of critical multiculturalism (McLaren & Torres, 1999), pursuing greater understanding of race-based, systemic biases, which contributed to generative conversations within the classroom community, as well as personal and professional growth.
The work presents the concept of a ‘third-space-imagined-community’, which offers concrete connections between theory and practice with respect to teaching and learning environments that include immigrant youth.  Four main cyclical, intertwining and inter-temporal elements of theory and practice contribute to the third-space-imagined-community framework.  Each cycle informs each other both independently and collectively, creating the potential for dynamic, authentic, and personally relevant learning as well as positive identity development for historically marginalized students and their teacher.

Teaching business English classes in the UK academy can sometimes prove  challenging; stuffed syllabuses and relatively low contact hours may allow only minimal opportunities for informal teacher-learner dialogue. Combined with the well-documented  limitations of formal, mandatory evaluation tools such as Student Evaluation of Teaching (SETs) questionnaires (Richardson 2005; Clayson and Haley 2011), teaching practitioners may be left feeling somewhat disconnected from their learners.

This talk explores how obtaining meaningful learner feedback and evaluations has the potential to enhance local classroom quality of life through an improved understanding for both teachers and students alike. Recounting a two-year research project exploring the issue, the speaker demonstrates how to ensure a space is created for dialogue and that maintaining this represents the optimal method for learning (Mortiboys 2010).

After a brief outline of the local teaching context, the talk  highlights a number of issues related to the gathering of learner feedback and evaluations, ranging from  ritualistic behaviour to the importance of following up on feedback obtained (Williams and Brennan 2004). Following this, an approach that incorporates a range of complementary tools for obtaining learner feedback and evaluations is outlined. Finally, the way that these activities can be used to engage learners, facilitate reflection on the totality of the learning experience, and even adopt the learners as co-researchers in evaluating and providing feedback is also explored.

Het lectoraat Boundary crossing praktijken van opleiders en onderzoekers gaat over de samenwerking tussen opleiders en onderzoekers rond praktijkvraagstukken. Onder opleiders wordt hier verstaan: docenten, kennismanagers en innovatoren (al dan niet in opleiding) en hun eigen opleiders. Bij onderzoekers gaat het vooral om degenen die onderzoek doen in, met en voor de praktijk: als praktijkonderzoeker, praktijkgericht onderzoeker of iets ertussenin.

In het lectoraat staat de volgende vraag centraal: Hoe kunnen grenspraktijken tussen opleiders en onderzoekers worden versterkt? De uitwerking hiervan luidt: Hoe werken opleiders en onderzoekers samen aan praktijkvraagstukken rond leren en ontwikkelen? Welke kwaliteiten zetten ze in? Hoe kunnen ze zich hierin ontwikkelen? Wat zijn opbrengsten? Welke condities zijn hierbij ondersteunend?

Uitgangspunt is dat zowel opleiders als praktijk(gericht)onderzoekers bepaalde kwaliteiten (wijsheid) nodig hebben om succesvol bij te dragen aan het doorgronden en oplossen van praktijkvraagstukken rond leren en ontwikkelen. Vooral bij complexe vraagstukken zou het kunnen helpen als opleiders en onderzoekers samen aan het werk gaan met het type ‘trage denken’ dat onderzoek heet.

Twee hoofdtypen boundary crossing kwaliteiten van opleiders en onderzoekers die worden onderscheiden zijn: 1) onderzoekend vermogen: in staat zijn om met een onderzoekende houding te werken, gebruik te maken van bestaand onderzoek en zelf onderzoek te doen, plus om anderen te ondersteunen bij het ontwikkelen van onderzoekend vermogen. 2)
Transdisciplinair vermogen: in staat zijn om over grenzen van theorie en praktijk heen samen te werken en wederzijds van elkaar te leren. Het gaat hierbij om gewoon goed onderzoek doen (valide en betrouwbaar), interactief samenwerken aan onderzoek en onderwijs geven over onderzoek.

De lectoraatsagenda richt zich vooral op die contexten waarin onderzoek, educatieve opleidingen en beroepspraktijk samenkomen en waarin het Modus 2- en het Ecological and Transdisciplinarily Inspired Research (ETI)-perspectief (Gibbons et al., 1994;  De Jong, De Beus, Ruijters & Richardson) aan de orde (zouden kunnen) zijn. Dit zijn situaties waarin de kansen op transformatie als leermechanisme voor de betrokkenen het grootst zijn. Opleiders (in opleiding) hebben in deze contexten onder meer rollen als docent, docentonderzoeker, kennismanager, innovator en onderzoeker, spannende combinaties met tal van crossovers en bijbehorende dilemma’s.

This teacher inquiry project, conducted by an undergraduate teacher candidate with support from a faculty member, explored the use of visually rich technology and its influence on elementary school students’ motivation and learning outcomes in writing. Students used visually rich technology as part of the writing process. We found that when students used technology to support the writing process they showed incremental gains in motivation as well as gains in student learning outcomes. Implications for practitioners highlight a need for teachers to consider how visually rich technology can support students’ aspects of the writing process as well as development in other literacy areas. Further inquiry projects should examine how technology influences students with consideration of their grade level, academic background, and level of motivation in writing and literacy.

This practice note discusses why movements have a need to learn and the kinds of problems that present them with this need, both in identifying the need for movement and when movement institutions fail to have the effects intended. It discusses who owns the means of intellectual production that movements rely on and the differing capacities movements have around learning. It asks how we can place movement logics rather than media or academic ones at the centre of our learning, and concludes with three brief examples.

The research gives voice to the educational dilemma that teachers face in the ESL/MFL classroom on using L1 in an L2 context. The paper sheds light on the concerns of students and teachers in the form of a practitioner research project undertaken at a large Waldorf School in Germany. The findings show that the use of L1 can be used as a pedagogical tool that serve both teachers and students. This paper was created in partial fulfillment of the  requirements for the postgraduate degree in education at Oxford University.

In this paper, I describe how I engaged a group of
teachers in Lesson Study (LS), a form of teacher
professional development, in an ELT context in Turkey
and supported them throughout the entire process. I
further share the reflections of those teachers on this
process. The project reported here is a pilot application
of this form of CPD - LS - which has been conducted
under the support and guidance of the Lesson Study
Research Group (LSRG) at the School of Education at
the University of Leicester in the UK.

Ergünay, O. (2018). Investigating self-reported reading comprehension via exploratory practice. In K. Dikiltaş & J. Hanks (Eds.), Developing Language Teachers with Exploratory Practice: Innovations and Explorations in Language Education (pp. 83-101). Cham (Switzerland): Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-3-319-75734-6.

As teachers, we try to survive in a context full of puzzles. Comprehending reading texts in classrooms and answering reading comprehension questions in exams appeared to be a puzzle for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in my classroom. A useful workshop organized in my institution gave a start to the exploration story. During the workshop we became aware of Exploratory Practice (EP), tried to design an EP study on puzzles in our classrooms collaboratively. After the workshop, I became aware of EP through further reading and making discussions on EP with my colleagues. I carried out an EP study in my own classrooms and collected the data through ‘normal’ pedagogical activities, particularly individual essays and posters. Throughout the study, I felt free of the methodical limitations in research and will continue to conduct further EP studies. My chapter includes the details of my EP story.

This accessible guide provides practical support on becoming research engaged and research active within the school and beyond. It explores the meaning of research and clarifies multiple types of research which lead to different views on ‘what works’, all whilst showing how to engage with the latest educational findings and how to conduct classroom-based research as part of career-long professional development.

Divided into three parts, this book examines the various understandings of being ‘research-engaged’ and covers key issues such as:

- Finding and interpreting research
- How to apply and evaluate findings in reliable ways
- Planning and carrying out a classroom-based project
- Building a culture of research within a school
- Establishing local research networks
- Publishing work

lllustrated with inspiring examples of how to these implement ideas in schools, The Teachers’ Guide to Research is perfect for practicing schools teachers, student teachers and educational leaders who are looking to expand their research knowledge and rekindle their professional curiosity.

Written as a teacher-autobiography, this paper presents a story of one educator's experiences with online teaching and learning. This critical, reflexive dialogue with her own contexts and realities, and with herself as an online educator of research methods helps the author to draw lessons for her practice and practice of fellow online educators. The notions of academic quality and community building in an online teaching-learning environment are emphasized. By focusing on the narrative and reflective nature of the first-hand experiences of an online educator, this paper adds to the growing knowledge in the field of online and distance education.

This action research describes how three teacher educators invited preservice teachers to be in their bodies, or learn through “embodied pedagogy.” We wanted see how this pedagogy helped preservice teachers learn to reflect through their bodies, confront their own bias to cognitive ways of knowing, and ultimately begin to consider the use of embodied instructional strategies. We describe our questions, the activities we designed to help us answer them, and data collected from the first course in a pre-service teacher education program. Finally, we analyze these data and identify themes related to embodied learning and reflection and describe some potential implications for teacher educators. Although at times uncomfortable, we found the body became a tool for reflection whether through experiencing or accessing emotions or for uncovering new meanings and deep insights about themselves.

White, B., & Cossham, A. (2017).
Introduction. Academic libraries are seeking to extend their roles beyond traditional document provision and knowledge discovery into such areas as strategic research support, research data management and scholarly publishing. Consequently, more academic librarians will need to develop a robust understanding of the scholarly research process as experienced by academics. This paper examines a sample of recent articles in established library and information studies (LIS) journals to identify the comparative contributions of librarians (practitioners) and academics and the extent of collaboration between these groups, based on jointly written articles. Method. Journals were drawn from the Scimago Library and Information Sciences list and an algorithm was used to identify authors of individual papers as practising librarians or library and information studies (LIS) academics, or both (joint authorship). Keywords were extracted and aggregated by author category to identify the subject interests of these two groups. Analysis. Keywords were manually clustered, and filtered using Excel, to determine the topics of most interest to the different groups of authors. Results. Analysis of keywords highlights the different spheres of interest each group has, and questions the degree of alignment between the scholarly literature and the widely-recognised preoccupations of the field. The results indicate striking differences as well as broad areas of common interest. Conclusion.Currently, the two groups (practitioners and academics) are running on parallel, or even diverging, lines in their respective approaches to the practice of research within their shared discipline.

Action research began as an ambitious epistemological and social intervention. As the concept has become reified, packaged for methodology textbooks and professional development workshops, it has degenerated into a cure that may be worse than the disease. The point is not the trivial one that action research, like any practice, sometimes shows up in cheap or corrupt forms. The very idea that action research already exists as a live option is mystifying, distracting us from the deep challenge that action research ultimately represents. Though Joseph Schwab is sometimes credited as a forerunner of action research, it is likely that he would see the new talk of ‘the teacher as researcher’ as indicative of the very epitomization of which he warned. Dewey’s new conception of knowledge, action, and communication – and the vision of the teacher as learner it entails – requires nothing short of a radical rethinking of teaching and inquiry, schooling and teacher education. This essay recalls the promise of action research, explores its pitfalls, and attempts to get clear on the ongoing challenge it represents.

This chapter focuses upon the issues, opportunities and constraints faced by academic management researchers undertaking research that is immediately useful and relevant to practitioners.  Differences between management researchers and practitioners are explored in terms of their foci of interest, methodological cynosure, measurement of outcomes and how they view each other.  Two case studies, offered as insider accounts, are used to explore and discuss tensions and issues, highlighting associated opportunities and constraints for the management researcher as practitioner.  The chapter concludes by discussing how these can offer the management researcher additional research opportunities at the interface, albeit constrained by practitioners’ requirements.

Scotland has one of the highest prison population rates in Western Europe, coinciding with a recent growth in interest in electronic monitoring (EM) as a potential mechanism for diversion and decarceration. Scotland also has a relatively sophisticated suite of community sanctions and measures – from which court-imposed and prison-imposed EM orders have, for 15 years, been largely kept separate, until now. This article analyses the perspectives of Scottish practitioners and decision-makers regarding current stand-alone uses of electronic monitoring, canvassing relevant Scottish jurisdictional findings from within a larger European comparative research project. It reveals localised, institutional and professional differences in the Scottish criminal justice field. Our analysis demonstrates that Scottish practitioners want more integration in principle, but forewarns that the extent of their support may depend on how and by whom this is done in practice.