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- Title
STARFENDARANNSÓKN TIL STARFSÞRÓUNAR LEIKSKÓLAKENNARA: ÁVINNINGUR OG ÁSKORANIR.
- Authors
SIGURÐARDÓTTIR, INGIBJÖRG ÓSK
- Abstract
Action research is an umbrella term used for research conducted with and by practitioners. The aim of action research is to improve practice and therefore the methodology has been effective for teachers' professional development. Professional development deepens and widens teachers' competences, knowledge, perspective, motivation and independence. This can happen both through formal and informal education and promotes teachers' performance, satisfaction and reduces the likelihood of burnout or elimination from the profession. The study reported in this article was a collaborative action research project where two communities with different aims and demands meet: a scientific community and a practice community. Such research can be understood to involve two joint learning cycles that together create a process of change. In collaborative action research, in a school-university partnership, both parties benefit from the collaboration. It is suggested that from the collaboration of researchers and practitioners, a third space can emerge when a successful partnership is achieved. In this study, the collaboration was between seven preschool teachers in one Icelandic preschool and one university teacher. The research lasted over two years. The preschool teachers focused on their own professional development in relation to values education, which was the focus of Nordic research project this study was part of. The researcher's role was to support and encourage the preschool teachers throughout the whole process and to collect the bulk of the data. In this article, the focus will be on the advantages and challenges the participating preschool teachers experienced during the research process, as well as how they experienced the collaboration with their colleagues and the university teacher. The focus here is not on findings related to values education, which was the research topic since these have been presented elsewhere. The data for this study was collected as follows: Firstly, three interviews were conducted at the end of the research process, two focus group interviews with the preschool teachers working with the children and one individual interview with the preschool principal. Secondly, recordings from all meetings during the action research process were used as data for this study. Thirdly, journal writings from four preschool teachers were part of the dataset, three participants did not hand in their journals as data. Finally, notes from the final project meeting were used as data, where the participating preschool teachers evaluated the research process. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings show that when the preschool teachers looked back at the end of the pro cess, they agreed that the action research had been a successful journey. The principal mentioned that this was because all participating preschool teachers were interested and ready to make changes in their practice. However, the participants experienced ups and downs during the research process where the advantages and their own development stages were not always clear until they looked back. The main advantages the preschool teachers experienced during the process related to professional development, improvement of practice and children's learning and well-being. The main challenges the preschool teachers faced were associated with finding time for the action research, uncertainty concerning the process of action research and values education, and how to influence the whole preschool. Finally, the preschool teachers reported that collaboration with the external researcher and with colleagues was a crucial factor in making the project successful. The study contributes important knowledge about how the methodology of action research can be used for teachers' professional development and simultaneously supports findings from previous studies. Furthermore, the findings from this study shed light on the main challenges teachers might face during the action research process, which gives future action researchers opportunities to reduce the likelihood of these common challenges hindering the process. Finally, the findings highlight the importance of good collaboration when conducting action research, both with insiders and outsiders.
- Subjects
TEACHER development; CAREER development; PRESCHOOL children; PRESCHOOL teachers; ACTION research in education; TEACHER role; COLLEGE teachers; NONFORMAL education
- Publication
Icelandic Journal of Education / Timarit um Uppeldi og Menntun, 2022, Vol 31, Issue 2, p65
- ISSN
2298-8394
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.24270/tuuom.2022.31.9