The aim of my research was to create and lead a programme of support for early years educators which would enable them to develop and enact a more extended professionality. I recognised the potential of the process for changing the lives of the participants, the institutions in which they work, and the children and families with whom they work. I also viewed it as a professional learning opportunity for myself, in my new role as a researching practitioner. I intended my leadership of this action to inform and generate insights, knowledge and understanding about both the issue of professionality and the process of support.
This chapter provides the rationale for selecting an action-based methodology, one that supported me to plan a research project, and design an intervention, that enabled me to meet my practical and moral aims. There are seven sections. The first rehearses the aims and key features of the project that my chosen methodology would need to accommodate. In the light of this, I justify an action-based approach to my research, highlighting its emergent and developmental nature and how action- research methodologies influenced my planning. I next outline the project design, a strategic, time-bound, sequence of related activities and events. I explain the intervention itself, the programme 'Making a difference in the early years.’ Next, I describe how the programme lent itself to generating the types of data most likely to:
• capture the research process and
• evidence its transformative effect upon the participants enactment of professionality
I explain how I planned to analyse the broad range of evidence collated and outline my plans for analysing the data gathered. Finally, I consider the notion of ‘ownership’ of the data and the ways in which knowledge generated might be shared more widely. The following chapters provide a critical narrative of the process, including reflections on the extent to which I realised my methodological intentions.
Aims and key features of my research project
In this section I revisit the aims and key features of my project. I required a methodology which would be a good fit with these and support me in realising my aims for my work. For me, engaging in research was an opportunity for generating and finding new possibilities for action in my work. The starting point was a professional concern that I felt compelled to address. I intended to bring about tangible change both with regards to individual educator’s enactment of professionality in their workplaces, and also in my own learning. I sought to do this by creating, exploring and evaluating the ways in which I might enable and support early years educators to think and act differently in their work with young children. The support would be provided by a year-long programme, ‘Making a difference in the early years’ which I would facilitate for a group of early years educators. My exploratory study, and consideration of professional identity and the conditions for professional learning, led me to assume, with some confidence, that this action would lead to change in an immediate and direct way.
My aim was to improve practice and generate knowledge through an innovative change process that had potential to ‘change the lives of the participants, the institutions in which individuals work and the researcher’s life’ (Creswell, 2003:9). Underpinning this action, therefore, was a political agenda (Robert-Holmes, 2005). For me the research process was an opportunity for promoting social justice, rather than purely seeking understandings of or truths about a social phenomenon (Carr and Kemmis, 2003; Gomez, Puigvert and Flecha, 2011). Therefore, my approach to the research was necessarily action-based and developmental in nature.
Additionally, it was also my intention that leadership of this action would inform and generate insights, knowledge and understanding about both the issue of professionality, and the process of supporting its growth (Cohen, Manion, Morrison and Bell, 2013). I share Schratz and Walker’s (1995) view that knowledge building and practice are symbiotic.
In summary, a number of features had to be accommodated by the methodology I chose for my research project, including:
• The starting point for my study was a professional concern rather than a specific question.
• My intention for early years educators to develop and enact extended professionality.
• The need to create knowledge about the enactment of professionality in the early years sector.
• My intention to develop, provide and improve support for this type of professional development.
• The need to create knowledge about developing and facilitating such support systems.
• My ‘insider’ role in the research process and the need to both account for this and to embrace it.
Developing an action-based methodological approach
In the following sections I account for the development of an action-based methodological approach. I consider the nature of my research (i.e. its possibility, scope, and general basis, the nature of knowledge that would be generated,); the key processes involved (i.e. the notion of cyclical, iterative and reflective approaches to inquiry) and its key practices (i.e. the description of methods and rationale for the choice of methods, the data produced and how this is analysed).
The group of research methodologies known as ‘action research’ immediately appealed to me as a useful tradition to draw upon. Action research has a complex history. It is not a single academic discipline. It has emerged and developed over a long period of time in numerous, different contexts (Brydon-Miller et al., 2003; Sandretto, 2007). These approaches include, practitioner research, participatory action research, collaborative inquiry, emancipatory research, action science, classroom action research, action learning, and critical action research (Noffke, 1997). These have been employed in diverse fields such as, education, healthcare,
anthropology, the promotion of social justice and civil rights, and in a wide variety of public, private and community-based organisations.
Despite these disparities, each of these is considered as ‘research leading to social action’ (Day et al., 2006: 451). I therefore comment on the resonance and degree of usefulness of action research for my own study, but also draw attention to any possible shortcomings.
The nature of my research
Action research approaches are defined by a focus on improving practice (Eliot, 2006). This allows researching practitioners to reflect upon the outcomes of their own questions, beliefs, assumptions, and work activities to develop, understand, and improve their own practice while simultaneously influencing the organisation or institution within which he or she works. Key to my study was my plan to do just that. My vision was for the educators, with whom I worked, to develop an enhanced professionality; one where the focus is collegial and each is a member of a learning community; where the orientation is towards innovation and agential activity; where the drivers are early years educators’ principles and moral purposes (Frost, 2014). However, knowledge creation about this process of improvement was equally valuable to the outcomes of my study. I was particularly keen to understand how I might generate and build knowledge that was authentic, valid and vital.
I was interested in how individual early years educators characterise their professional role. I wanted to help them explore how their identities have been formed and are continually modified. I planned for them to use these reflections as a basis for action in their work with young children. This is in complete contrast to the role and positioning of early years educators espoused by the current neoliberal discourse (see Chapter 1). I wanted to generate fresh critical insights into the professionalisation agenda in the early childhood education sector, particularly in terms of the notion of worthwhile professional opportunities that run counter to the dominant model. I was concerned with enabling early years educators to draw upon
and enhance their human agency, instead of disempowering them with a top-down accountability strategy.
A programme of support
I recognised that the mobilisation of early years educators’ enormous potential required specific support, in terms of planned intervention and dedicated structures, activities and tools to inspire them and enable them to develop this prospective aspect of their professional identities. I aimed to develop and offer a transformative professional development opportunity, intended to have an immediate and lasting impact on educators, the young children they teach, their schools and the wider community. My preliminary exploration of early years educators’ professional identity and their experience of professional development opportunities was a starting point for my empirical work. The programme I planned was based on the findings from my exploratory study. In this, participants indicated three expressed needs for professional development opportunities in which they would experience being valued, having connections and making a difference.
My role and position in the process
I wanted to use the research process as a way of developing myself as an advocate for those working in this educational sector. I considered that this might be achieved by articulating and amplifying educators’ voices throughout the research process (Apple, 2006). My hope was that my research might engage people’s interest and enthusiasm and lead to ‘new ways of thinking, new possibilities for action and perhaps a new sense of direction (Schratz and Walker, 1995:3).
I also wanted to engage in professional development for myself, examining my perceptions and actions in my own work context, as I try to provide opportunities for early years educators to consider their own practice. I am mindful of Schön’s words with regard to this.
If educators hope to contribute to the development of reflective practitioners, they must become adept at such reflection on their own teaching practice
I was to be central actor in the research process. In the previous chapter, I rehearsed the role that reflexivity would play in the research project. As such, a further consideration was that the methodological approach selected would acknowledge that knowledge production would be taking place in a context that was neither value- free nor neutral in its endeavours or predictable in any way. It would be messy work. It would, I envisaged involve planned opportunities for professional dialogue and collaboration gradual insight, but also would encompass complex relationships, possible conflict and differences of opinion (Maguire, 2005).
The relationship between knowledge generation and action is valued and recognised by certain action researchers. Freire (1972) emphasised praxis or theory/practice integration. Lewin (1946) talked about a circle of planning, action and fact-finding about the result of the action. Such a cycle or spiral is common to many action research approaches. Some describe this cycle as ‘plan, act and observe, reflect (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988:11), others more simply, ‘look, think, act (Stringer, 2008:8). According to Raelin and Coughlan (2006) this merging is intentional. Dick et al., (2008) helpfully explain how within the spiral thought guides action, which in turn guides thought.
Thought draws understanding or insight from the experience of acting. Action then puts the understanding to the test.
(Dick et al., 2008:6) Knowledge building, integration or development is therefore apparently built into the process. Despite this, I could not take it for granted that knowledge building would happen automatically. I acknowledge that I have approached my research with an informal theory about how professionality might be enhanced, informed by my professional observations, reading of the literature and previous experiences. I chose actions that I thought would result in the outcomes I wanted to see. However, the literature provides little guidance about how to develop knowledge built on these perhaps taken-for granted theories within a participative, action-based approach process. Winter’s (1993:316) reminder that action research is ‘above all an elaborate model of learning’ was helpful. In pointing towards Piaget’s (1972) theories of the assimilation of new experiences into existing cognitive schema and Kolb’s (1984)
explanation of experiential learning cycles, I was reminded of the early years’ education practice of documentation (Magaluzzi, 1996).
Pedagogical documentation is a continuous and cyclical process, whereby the everyday activities, successes, challenges, possibilities, and thoughts of children and adults are rendered visible. These are then open to debate and reflection (Carr and Lee 2012; Dahlberg, Moss and Pence 2007; Picchio, Di Giandomenico and Musatti 2014; Rinaldi, 1998). Such documentation may include a range of artefacts, such as, photographs, video recordings, handwritten notes, transcribed conversations, drawings, reports. Dialogue and reflection is included, and also documented in the process, with the intention of developing pedagogy within early years settings. The use of documentation is perhaps distorted in many English early years settings due to the continued emphasis on recording ‘child observations’ linked to prescribed, normative developmental expectations, and the prevalence of adult-centred and outcomes-oriented assessment processes. However, I considered that using a similar, considered approach to documenting educators’ own enactment of professionality would be one way of ensuring that dialogue and reflection on action and therefore, knowledge creation and sharing would be a focus of the whole process. On an immediate level, this would be with respect to the individual educators involved and their communities, but I considered it might contribute in some way to the promotion of larger-scale, democratic social change. The idea of a ‘portfolio’ was an aspect of the research and the programme, developed with the participants, and reported on in the following narrative chapters.
The discussion above demonstrates my position within the research process. My plans had much in common with ‘practical action’ research. According to Carr and Kemmis, this can be said to be taking place when:
outside facilitators form cooperative relationships with practitioners, helping them to articulate their own concerns, plan strategic action for change, monitor the problems and effects of changes, and reflect on the value and consequences of the changes actually achieved.
Although these were indeed my aims, I did not think of myself as an ‘outside’ facilitator. What particularly provoked my thinking here was the word ‘cooperative.’ It appeared to me that using this word to describe the relationships in my own research might be problematic. For me, this term is perhaps indicative of an unequal power relationship. It might imply that I would be an expert, imparting advice, and not involved directly in the process of learning afforded by the research project. This is not what I envisaged for my study. I was placed in the middle of the action as a key protagonist, not on the outside, as an observer and/or experimenter. However, what I could not account for at the planning stage of the process was the participants’ expectations of me as a facilitator and their expectations of the programme ‘Making a difference in the early years.’ What was perhaps slightly unusual was that participants would ‘sign-up’ for a professional development opportunity and discover that the entire process was the focus of a doctoral study. It was vital that I was explicit about this with participants when they expressed an interest in the programme. The ways in which I managed this transparency are detailed in the following narrative chapter.
Crucially, I was not planning on researching ‘on’ educators, but ‘with’ them in order to support the development of their professionality and produce improvements in practice. I did not characterise early years educators who participated in the process as being passive recipients of an externally conceived professional development opportunity. I recognised them as people whose professional identities are non- static, changeable, dynamic and multi-faceted and that changes in their professional identities are linked to the concept of human agency. I wanted educators to be brave and confident at fostering practices that are responsive to their contexts and children’s needs.
In the same way, I wanted to recognise and respond to the learning needs of educators participating in the programme. My experience concurs with that of Dadds’ (1997:32) who remarks that teachers do not enter into professional development opportunities as ‘empty vessels.’ In order to help these individuals enact aspects of their professionality and produce tangible changes in their daily work, I avoided the delivery model of professional development with its
connotations of educators being uncritical implementers of outside policies. Rudduck’s words inspired me as I planned a programme to enhance early years educators’ sense of agency in their practice. She urges teacher educators to:
find structures and resources to help teachers re-examine their purposes…and feel more in control of their professional purposes and direction. Some sense of ownership of the agenda for professional action, is in my view, a good basis for professional development and professional learning.
(Rudduck, 1988: 210) I recognised my decision to make my research a mutual, collaborative endeavour may seem puzzling to participants initially. Part of this process would be addressing what might appear to be a paradox in the way that I think of and portray professionality. I share Frost’s (2017) understanding of the role and power that forms of collectivity such as, collegiality, collaboration, networking and community building, play in the construction of individual’s professional identity and enhancement of professionality. Individuals may indeed ‘articulate their own concerns, plan strategic action for change, monitor the problems and effects of changes’ (Carr and Kemmis, 1986:203). However, the context for this is their settings, the teams of colleagues they work with, the children and families in the setting’s community and wider networks. This resonates particularly with the work of early years educators who do not normally work in classrooms in isolation from their colleagues.
The key processes – a viable design
In order to meet my aims to lead a collaborative and reflective venture, I created a viable design for my research project. The overriding characteristic of the process associated with action-based research is iterative, cyclic, and reflective. McTaggart and Kemmis (1988) describe this as: problem identification; planning; action; monitoring; reflection/evaluation and renewed action. In situ reflection and continual analysis is then key to capturing the facilitation of both the development of the intervention and the ways in which educators enact their professionality.
My design of the process was also influenced by the way in which development work is conceptualised in the HertsCam Network.
Strategic, focused and deliberate action intended to bring about improvements in professional practice. It takes the form of collaborative processes featuring activities such as consultation, negotiation, reflection, self-evaluation and deliberation which take place in planned sequence.
(Ball, Lightfoot and Hill, 2017: 75) Here the opportunities for purposeful dialogue, ongoing reflection and further careful action are planned for strategically within a given timeframe. In common with action-based approaches to improvement and knowledge generation, my research incorporated a necessary spiral of self-reflection. This plan enabled me to put my ideas into practice, to act and observe the process.
When designing the project, I found the work of Kotter (1996) useful in helping me envisage and plot these various phases or steps of the timebound project (Appendix 6.1). However, my previous experience told me that the process may not be as clear cut as an action-research spiral or indeed my own staged design suggested. I was aware that it is less important to dutifully follow these steps than to capture and reflect upon the growing sense of development in mine and the participants’ practice, to reflect upon our growing understandings of what it is to be an early years educator in a challenging political and social wider environment, and how we can influence those contexts in which we live out our identities.
Each of the phases is explained in greater detail in the critical narrative of the