Getting Connected: Involving Part-Time Tutors of Adults in Researching Their Own Development

Research, Teaching and Learning: making connections in the education of adultsPapers from the 28th Annual SCUTREAConference

Getting connected: involving part-time tutors of adults in researching their own development.

Ann Jackson, East Riding of Yorkshire Community Education Service, England.

The problem.

Decisions about what constitutes appropriate staff development and training for part-time tutors of adults are normally taken by those who are structurally removed from them. They may manage such staff or have a specific staff-development brief. In the latter instance they may have a vested interest in the continuation of a system in which they may have become acknowledged experts. In the former, it may be difficult for them to initiate a dialogue with part-time tutors when at the end of the day – or at least at the end of the term! – they have the power to hire and fire.

As a manager and trainer of part-time adult educators in the Local Authority sector, I was aware that, despite adult learning principles of learner autonomy and involvement, those tutors were not in a position to materially affect the training and development which they received. I began to question whether what they were offered, which I myself was involved in delivering, was appropriate. How did we as managers and trainers know that the staff-development programme was really what part-time tutors needed and wanted? Indeed, did the part-time tutors themselves know what they needed and wanted? When a set menu is on offer, and nothing outside that menu has been experienced, how can we begin to imagine what else we might try, and whether we would like it if we tried it? Perhaps all we can imagine is spam, eggs and chips without the spam.

I therefore decided to involve a group of part-time tutors in an exploration into what might constitute for them effective professional support and development. By adopting an action research approach, we would be setting up a cycle of planning, action, reflection and further planning which mirrors Kolb’s experiential learning cycle. Underpinning the project, therefore, is a recognition of the educative purpose and nature of research. The educative purpose of research is customarily seen in terms of increasing the knowledge base; its educative nature, however, is reflected in the researcher(s) learning from both the product and the process of research.

Methodology

One of the key concerns addressed in this research project was to uncover the meanings which part-time tutors themselves brought to and derived from the training, staff development and professional support which they experienced. This constructivist approach presupposed a qualitative rather than a quantitative research design. Therefore the project was set up as a case-study, within which the research questions concerning the effectiveness of professional development and support were addressed through a series of action research cycles or spirals, a ‘recursive rather than linear research process’, which, as Sharon Nodie Oja and Lisa Smulyan point out, ‘allows practitioners to use their own reflections, understandings, and developing theories to inform both practice and research.’ (Oja and Smulyan, 1989, p16).

Fourteen tutors at the Centre which I managed volunteered for the project and remained actively engaged throughout the period of almost three years over which the study extended. During that time, they met termly as two groups – one in the daytime, the other in the evening – time-tabled to fit into busy working schedules. These meetings provided the forum within which the techniques of professional support and development tried out during the previous term were analysed and the projects for the coming term decided.

Any findings resulting from such a small-scale qualitative study must necessarily remain tentative. Moreover, because participants in the project were all volunteers, there is no control over just how representative these individuals were of part-time tutors in general. Nevertheless, strengths of the study to some extent help to balance these limitations; the longitudinal nature of the project enabled checks on internal consistency to take place, and the fact that the part-time tutors were volunteers meant that one of the fundamental principles of adult education – its voluntary nature – was being observed within the research approach.

A further methodological limitation concerns my own role within the project, which was not simply that of key researcher. I also line-managed all of the tutors who participated, and had trained some of them as part of my Service-wide staff development role. Thus the study was contaminated by existing relationships between myself and the other participants. However, those existing relationships might well at least partly explain why these tutors volunteered for the project in the first place.

The approach to the study was cross-curricular in nature, with members of the case-study groups coming from different subject areas. This proved to be an advantage, as it encouraged a focus on generic issues surrounding teaching and learning, something noted also in the survey of part-time tutors carried out by Graham et al.

Although a fair proportion had experienced a variety of subject based courses previously there was little doubt that trainees definitely approved of general training… ‘It doesn’t matter what the subject… the teaching problems are basically the same’ Moreover, it was considered to be positively beneficial to be working alongside teachers from different specialisms and backgrounds.

(Graham, Daines, Sullivan, Harris and Baum, 1982, p149)

Twelve of the fourteen participants were women, and this represented an even greater imbalance than that suggested by the ratio of part-time tutors in the Centre as a whole, where women constituted 70% of the population.

Learning from research

As previously indicated, action research is an experiential learning process, and as such can itself be an effective staff development method. This is increasingly recognised in the literature. (Jacullo-Noto, 1988, McNiff, 1988, Lomax, 1995). It is seen as particularly effective in involving participants in examining aspects of their professional lives, preferably with the support of colleagues who share the same purpose. The outcomes which result are therefore those perceived by the ‘insiders’, a necessary perspective sometimes neglected by those carrying out traditional positivistic research, and therefore also by those devising staff development programmes based on such research. However, Pamela Lomax warns that this strength of action research also has its down-side.

A strength of action research is that practitioners have a subjective

understanding of the issues; a problem with this is that it is

difficult to see things objectively. (Lomax, 1995, p54)

One way of encouraging a greater level of objectivity is by ensuring that action research is a collegial rather than an individual activity, so that perceptions are mirrored and modified by others with similar experiences. O’Neil and Marsick see this collegiality in terms of ‘working in small groups to solve problems…Projects are meaningful to each person involved in the programme. Solutions are those over which reasonable people can disagree.’ (O’Neil and Marsick, 1994, p19)

Within the current project, action research played a complex role. First of all, it formed the underpinning methodology for the case study, through which participants explored the effectiveness of a range of professional support and development techniques. Secondly, as the study progressed and a climate of trust and openness evolved within the groups, a further action research cycle became established. Participants began to share problems of practice and to devise and subsequently evaluate ways of tackling them. These twin action research cycles created a rich learning environment for the part-time tutors which was firmly grounded in practice – something which from the start they had universally agreed was important. The developmental nature of the experience is echoed in the study carried out by Jacullo-Noto, which, although based in a school setting, has some similarities to the current study. She noted that two of her three groups ‘reported that this project had been an unmatched growth opportunity.’ (Jacullo-Noto, 1988, pp68-9)

The results for the part-time tutors in the current case study also echo some of the Jacullo-Noto outcomes, and include an increase in confidence, and in awareness of their own professionalism. Perhaps the most significant outcome of the Jacullo-Noto study was the perception by participants that development for teachers is much more a matter of generic and process issues, rather than it being limited to and by a product focus.

Their realisation that development can be process-oriented, rather than product-oriented, was the most dramatic outcome for them.

(Jacullo-Noto, 1988, p70)

This observation is again reinforced by the findings of the current study, where the benefits of a cross-curricular approach which encouraged a concentration on the broader issues of teaching and learning was recognised by the participants. There was also evidence of a shift to a more student-centred approach to teaching and learning and an increase in critical awareness and reflectivity.

A range of professional support and development techniques was suggested and tried out by participants in the case study over the life of the project. That a range of activities was devised was important, as it allowed for individual preferences and learning styles to be catered for. It also meant that because the tutors themselves were involved in the decision making as to what activities were to be undertaken and where and when they were to take place, they maintained a sense of ownership over the whole process. Activities were therefore perceived as relevant, and responding to their wants and needs.

However, it was membership of the case-study groups themselves, and the discussions around problems of practice in particular, which participants consistently identified as having been the most significant experience of the project, both as regards learning and development, and in terms of providing professional support. It is significant that the groups were not specifically set up with the intention that they become support groups; they actually developed along those lines. This indicates that it was something those part-time tutors wanted and needed, even though they were perhaps not consciously aware of it from the beginning. However, it is suggested that for a group to become a supportive environment for its members, there are certain prerequisites in the way that it is set up. It would be most difficult to envisage a successful support group as something which could be imposed upon people. The spirit of trust and openness which it depends on is much more likely to result from a voluntary undertaking which participants feel ownership of.

The case-study participants were indeed volunteers. Moreover, because the whole purpose of the project was to explore what constituted effective professional support and development for part-time tutors, all activity was designed around, and as often as possible, by the tutors themselves. This encouraged a sense of ownership amongst group members.

A further important factor is that the project was long-term rather than short-term, and support groups need time to evolve if they are to be fully effective. However, longevity isn’t enough. It is not simply a matter of how long the group has been in existence that is decisive in whether or not it evolves into a support group, but the type and quality of relationships which develop within the group. For a tutor to feel sufficiently at ease to talk freely and openly depends on having the confidence that group members wish to help and would in no way use the information gained to undermine that tutor. This need for time and an appropriate dynamic for openness and trust to grow is corroborated by the Group for Collective Inquiry, who noted after a considerable period as co-researchers:

We learned (and are still learning) how to participate with each other. Respect and openness cannot be mandated; they need to be established through experience.

(Group for Collaborative Inquiry, 1994, p61)

A final factor which may well have contributed to the effectiveness of the case study groups as support groups concerns the numbers involved. Participants pointed out that they did not believe that the level of openness required to explore problems of practice would have been achieved if the groups had been larger. And the literature supports the suggestion that members of small groups find it easier and quicker to get to know and identify with each other (Gosling, 1985).

A range of factors, therefore, contributed to the climate of openness and trust within the groups which enabled the sharing of problems of practice to take place. This was a process which participants found particularly beneficial. First of all, it illustrated for them that problems which in their professional isolation they thought were unique to them were in fact shared by others. Secondly, the problems of practice were generated by and therefore directly related to their work situations. They were therefore relevant and potentially rich learning resources. Finally, the process encouraged them to critically reflect upon and then propose ways of improving their practice.

The ability to reflect is a skill essential to effective experiential learning and action research. It enables us as teachers of adults to make sense of our experience;

Experience alone does not make a person a professional adult educator. The person must also be able to reflect deeply upon the experience he or she has had. (Elias and Merriam, 1980, p9)

By reflecting on their teaching, participants in the case study were therefore taking part in a process which had the potential to stimulate professional development. The supportive climate of the groups and the consideration of problems of practice encouraged members to become reflective practitioners in the Schonian sense, moving through a process of reflecting-on-action towards the self-critical self-developer involved in reflection-in-action.

Although there was a recognition on the part of some members of the case study that they had previously reflected on their practice, albeit in an unconscious and/or unsystematic way, there was acknowledgement that without a stimulus and a framework for reflection, it was largely ineffective as a means of encouraging professional development. The fact that a time and place were set aside for reflection ensured that it took place and that actions were decided upon and followed up. The involvement of a significant other or others in this process resulted in feelings of commitment which again ensured that reflection took place and led to action.

Reflection was not something encouraged by the group meetings alone. The other techniques of professional support and development devised and carried out by the participants also contributed to the process. These included peer observation, the videoing of teaching sessions, a series of one-to-one evaluatory/reflective interviews with myself and one-off training sessions arranged to meet needs which the part-time tutors themselves had identified.

Observation of the teaching of part-time adult educators is something which forms part of most courses leading to teaching qualifications in the sector, but which appears to happen rarely outside that context. In the programmes surveyed by Graham et al there were opportunities for observation by peers and trainers during micro-teaching, and observation of actual teaching sessions occurred with trainers or occasionally Centre Heads visiting trainee tutors. (Graham et al, 1982, pp165-6). Observation in the context of such programmes tends to be regarded as a means of assessment rather than as a technique with staff development potential. The tutor who is being observed receives feedback but the tendency is to regard that feedback as judgement on the teaching which has taken place rather than as a supportive developmental tool.

The decision by the case-study participants to extend the technique to paired peer observation was an imaginative development based on the fact that a majority of them had experienced micro-teaching and observation as part of their initial training. They had found it useful to get an ‘outside’ perspective on their teaching and on the student learning which was taking place, a benefit also noted by the respondents to Graham et al.

Peer observation was clearly something which participants believed they benefited from, and the subsequent discussions within the groups and one-to-one with myself indicated that the experience encouraged them to look critically at their own teaching from a range of perspectives. It was apparent that both being observed and an observer led to this process of self-reflection, an outcome supported by Kilbourn’s study of graduate teachers when he notes:

teachers frequently report that in the process of observing, discussing, and reflecting on another teacher’s practice, they learn as much about their own teaching as they do that of the person observed. (Kilbourn, 1988, p95)