Research Partnerships

Research Partnerships:

Engaegement and Enaction

Vivienne Baumfield

Thinking Skills Research Centre

University of Newcastle

Presentation delivered at the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme, First Annual Conference - University of Leicester, November 2000

Slide 1

The following observations on research partnerships are drawn from over 5 years experience of working with teachers and regional LEAs. The Thinking Skills Research Centre is involved in a number of projects exploring the infusion of thinking skills approaches into the curriculum in primary and secondary schools. We are interested in pupil outcomes such as how best to promote understanding within different subject disciplines and evidence of transfer across subjects. We are also concerned with teacher outcomes, particularly the fostering of critical engagement, through action research, with the claims made for different approaches and the contextualisation of the pedagogy of teaching thinking within their own practice.

For the last three years we have been funded by the TTA to establish a School Based Research Consortium. The funding and the links with the other 3 consortia in the project have enabled us to focus on the development of evidence informed practice within the teaching profession. We are increasingly concerned with developing an understanding of the distinctions between engaging in and with research. Currently, we are also working with the NUT on their Continuing Professional Development programme and with the DfEE on the Transforming Teaching and Learning initiative.

Slide 2

Slide 3

We need to think more carefully about our description of colleagues as ‘users’. It is an unattractive word and implies a certain dependency that is at odds with the understanding of partnership; it is possible to describe all of us as ‘users’ of research.

Slide 4

The type of critical engagement that the partnership with teachers promotes mirrors the process in the classroom when the pedagogy of teaching thinking is being developed and is one of the reasons that the intervention is particularly fruitful in linking research and practice.

As Hopkins (1997) has observed “…there is a major impediment to achieving powerful learning … it is that in this country we do not have a sufficiently robust and sophisticated language for teaching…we need as a an educational community to systematically and strategically expand our lexicon of teaching.” It is through the dialogues arising from the analysis of concrete classroom situations within a research partnership that this common language can be developed. For the discussions to be worthwhile, there is a need for a common point of reference and also, I would argue, a requirement to act. The partnership needs to bring together the different perspectives on teaching and learning to share understanding but should do so with a specific purpose in mind.

Any attempt to develop a shared language through dialogue needs to be open to challenge if it is to avoid the consequences of what Higgins (1999) has called the ‘saying is believing’ effect. Exploring bias in social cognition he identifies how such things as following the standard communication rule of taking one’s audience into account can have the unintended consequences of biasing the communicator’s own knowledge and evaluation. The problem is compounded when there is a close network and communication is experienced as a shared reality and comes to be seen as an objective source of knowledge and evaluation.

Need to strike a balance between a fragmentation of viewpoints and lack of shared mental models and ‘groupthink’ characteristic of a cohesive in-group when “…the members’ striving for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.” (Janis, 1983, p.9).

Each of the partners can be characterised as a user and generates knowledge about teaching and learning in accordance with their experience - the need to promote synoptic understanding requires change but need not mean appropriation or the adoption of an easy consensus. The process is best understood as one of re-alignment. It does, however, mean being prepared to act outside one’s area of present expertise and that the precise outcomes cannot always be predicted.

Slide 5

Tensions between different normative worlds affect all applied education research and were articulated by Bell and Raffe (1991) in their account of the Scottish evaluation of TVEI. They found that although there was basic agreement on the purpose of the research - to generate knowledge that would inform both policy makers and practitioners - the emphasis was different with the research world being more concerned with summative evaluation and implications for the general understanding of educational change and future policy, whilst practitioners were more concerned with formative evaluation and impact on current practice. Circumstances have changed and the understanding of the collaborative nature of partnerships has evolved but tensions remain - particularly when relationships are under stress due to scarcity of resources - especially time. Our experience in the North East School Based Research Consortium arises from an enterprise focused on developing a context in which partnerships can flourish and as such has been free of some of the pressures working on a specific research project can bring. Issues of authority and control are likely to be more acute the more specific the particular outcomes are.

One of the changes in circumstance has been the recognition of the need to incorporate partnership with users and beneficiaries into education research and whilst this can, and does, have mutual benefits it could also lead to ‘marriages of convenience’ and exploitation. It is for this reason that we must be as explicit and transparent as possible in declaring our intentions and expectations of the partnerships we forge.

Slide 6

We need well-conceived research studies to develop understanding through detailed information on how and why the elements of different designs work in different local contexts. Essentially, research carried out in authentic settings and with indications as to how small scale or intensive studies can be ‘scaled up’ to become an integral part of classroom practice.

It is this kind of research that is best done in close partnership with practitioners.

Need to develop means of discriminating between what is a good idea, good practice, which implies some kind of validation, and best practice, which implies that it has been shown to be superior to other good practices.(Hargreaves, 1999).

Such discrimination will be possible within the Teaching and Learning Research Programme if the links between projects and with similar work in the wider education community are fostered. Well developed networks can become the forum for debate and challenge that will offset any introversion and permit the calibration of perceptions against the views of the outside world.

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Slide 8

“there is nothing as practical as good theory and nothing so theoretical as good practice”. Kurt Lewin - developer of the action research paradigm.

We have lacked sophisticated theories and models of knowledge creation in education simply because such activity has not been seen as the key to educational improvement.

It is possible to look at the generation of knowledge about teaching and learning at 3 levels - that of the individual teacher, or small group of teachers, involved in action research; the school as a knowledge creating organisation; or networks encompassing wider communities of practice.

Recent developments have concentrated on the importance of innovation networks ‘ that bring schools together for intensive professional development and training , involves teachers as significant collaborators in the enterprise, encourages schools to interact closely with one another, and allows teachers and schools to engage in peer observation, the sharing of ideas and the provision of assistance. Such networks generate a self-sustaining structure of support and assistance that extend well beyond the time frames of particular initiatives.” (Hill, 1998,p.431).

Hill and colleagues at the Centre for Applied Educational Research, University of Melbourne have made significant progress in developing this approach through initiatives such as the Early Literacy Research Project. Catalyst is the generation of practical solutions to a specific set of challenges. School improvement through a focused initiative involving co-operation between a number of schools, state level data on pupil performance and a team of university-based researchers. Model supposes that such networks will become an integral part of continuous school improvement in the face of increased accountability, devolved responsibility and competition. Schools requiring staff to undertake action research projects into an aspect of their classroom practice - these contribute to the schools’ pursuit of continuous improvement but can also generate ideas for new research and programme design.

In this country, Hopkins through the Improving the Quality of Education for All initiative and more recently BUPIS has promoted innovation networks as a form of school improvement fuelled by enquiry that is creating a new discourse in which curriculum development and teaching practice are linked.

Slide 9

The interplay between theory and practice in the development of professional knowledge about teaching and learning has been the subject of analysis from at least the time of Dewey. Researchers are beginning to make inroads into understanding some of the dynamics but have yet to make the links with real change and improvement well understood by policy makers and practitioners.

The latest analysis to impact on policy is the notion of promoting teaching as a research and evidence informed practice. In the TTA consortia we have been exploring the means by which teachers in the partnership are able to render tacit knowledge explicit and reflect in action.

Collins (1990, p.4) distinguishes between 2 approaches to he acquisition of expertise - a top down algorithmic model in which knowledge is statable and transferable in something like the form of a recipe and a bottom up enculturation model where the process has more to do with unconscious social contagion. Both approaches assume a vertical view of expertise and ignore the horizontal dimension of collaborative problem solving and learning in team environments. In the world of work, horizontal expertise and boundary crossing are happening at a fast pace - academic researchers have been slow to notice these processes.

Slide 10

We have found that teachers are stimulated to engage with research once their need for answers has been stimulated by their engagement in research. The diagram sets out the current understanding of the extent to which teachers in one of the schools in the North East consortium are engaging in and with research during three phases in the project: Phase 1 where engagement with research is reactive in the sense that it is triggered by the question of what is working as the teacher focuses on the strategies and the immediate responses of pupils; Phase 2 when engagement with research is increased as the emphasis shifts from what is working to why is something effective in the classroom and attention is directed more towards learning and away from the management of the strategy; Phase 3 where engagement with and in research is pro-active and the influence of beliefs and attitudes to teaching and learning are seen to have a powerful impact on how the interventions function to have a long-term effect on pupil performance.

The phases highlight the need to achieve an appropriate match between the concerns of the teachers and the research focus if engagement with evidence is to occur. The importance of this issue was demonstrated at a recent cross-consortium meeting where the research of one school into teachers’ constructs of teaching and learning was reported. Whilst most of the teachers attending were very interested in the work, and some wanted to replicate the study in their own school, those teachers who had only recently become involved in the consortium found it difficult to see the point of the research and wanted more examples of thinking skills strategies ‘stuff they could use in the classroom’.

The groups identify teachers in relation to the degree of their involvement in the project and the vertical dynamic shows how knowledge is elicited and shared through inducting new colleagues. One key feature has been the use of video and cross-subject coaching in the pedagogy of teaching thinking, this has proved to be a powerful means of rendering tacit knowledge explicit and of engaging teachers in and with research evidence.

The diagram is based on Rostow’s model of sustainable development and we have found his idea that leapfrogging stages of development is a risk because it may leave out the building of essential aspects of the necessary infrastructure useful when considering how to establish research partnerships. Not everyone needs to go through the process at the same rate and can learn from colleagues but some engagement in research needs to be part of the school’s life if the staff are to benefit from engagement with research.

The construction of this diagram was itself an example of partnership in action as it was the product of a morning spent with the school research co-ordinator discussing the use of research and evidence by teachers in her school. We jotted ideas down on a flip chart and as the diagram began to emerge the co-ordinator, being a geographer, suddenly realised that it matched Rostow’s theory.

Slide 11

Hargreaves (1999) identifies the following conditions and factors favouring

knowledge creation in schools:

decentralisation and flat hierarchies;

regular opportunities for reflection, dialogue, enquiry and networking;

internal hybridisation i.e. cross-functional teams and job-rotation;

sensitivity to the preferences of students, parents and governors;

positive climate that promotes diversity and is tolerant of ‘tinkering’;

mentoring and action research as tools by which what is tacit can become explicit, subject to scrutiny and validation;

importance of middle managers - not too far away from chalkface to have lost touch with daily reality but not so close that they lack discrimination.

Our experience of developing research partnerships confirms the importance of these factors and highlights the implications for dissemination of research if there is to be space for ‘tinkering’ so that teachers can make something their own, test its parameters in their own classroom context and embed it in their practice. It is essentially a process of determining the ‘tolerance’ of a theory or set of practices within the particular context of a classroom or school.

? We need to consider how we are to conceive of knowledge creators within the framework of terms such as user engagement and research impact. Is knowledge to be transferred or transformed?

Slide 12

Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) theory of knowledge is based on a matrix of conversions between tacit and explicit knowledge.

Implications for dissemination - combination phase is crucial and requires first that knowledge is explicit and can be the focus for professional discussion. It is also dependent on opportunities to work across traditional boundaries through networks and that the outcomes are both validated and valued.

Is this diagram best understood as a flexible heuristic or strict algorithmic rule? How confident can we be in the move from a matrix describing 4 different modes of knowledge representation to a developmental cycle? Could the categories be used to analyse different types of knowledge representation that are employed in the course of collaborative knowledge creation?

Slide 13

“…when a Western researcher begins to realise the impressive dimensions of theorising behind the activity approach, she or he may well ask: Is it worth the trouble?” Such a response would be understandable given the complexity of the theory and the unfamiliarity of the terminology in the English context.

We have found the combination of high theoretical ambition and rigorous striving for practical relevance in the work of Engestrom and his associates to be a useful analytical tool in understanding the changing dynamics of the research partnerships in which we work:

“…instead of classifying individuals or groups into general and stable categories, we aim at capturing important interactive processes and mediating artefacts involved in boundary crossing in specific cultural-historical activity systems.” (Engestrom, Engestrom and Karkkainen, 1995, p. 9).

Research partnerships are an example of innovative organisational learningwhere ‘adaptive learning’ must be joined by ‘generative learning’, learning that enhances our capacity to create” (Senge, 1990, p.14).

Flexibility is achieved by the willingness of participants to go beyond traditional job descriptions and fixed duties, to take risks and to think together.

Willingness to experiment in the face of a poorly understood problem situation gives rise to horizontal expertise, “…where practitioners must move across boundaries to seek and to give help, to find information and tools wherever they happen to be available”. (Engestrom, (Engestrom, Karkkainen, 1995, p. 23).

Boundary crossing requires identification of concrete problems and the engaging of partners but need not aim for consensus, it can lead to changes or reversals to roles as initially identified.

Working in this way opens up “zones of possibility” (Holzkamp, 1983).

Slide 14

Some key aspects of activity theory with direct relevance for developing research partnerships:

Human activity systems always contain the subsystems of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption.

Contexts are neither containers nor situationally created experiential spaces. Contexts are activity systems - they integrate the subject, the object, and the instruments (material tools as well as signs and symbols) into a unified whole.