Practitioner research

7.5.5.1 Emphasis on understanding rather than action and change

As a teacher researcher, I am conducting a study which concerns my practice. As already said above, the study's main aim is to observe practice and understand what happens, more than to improve or change it. Despite this, however, some of the issues and features of practitioner research (and to some extent, also action research) are relevant here, and an analysis of these may be helpful in clarifying the methodological approach of the study.

Practitioner research (Burton & Bartlett, 2004; Center for Practitioner Research, 2012; Dadds, 1998, 2006; Fox, Martin, & Green, 2007) is a form of research carried out by a practitioner in their own working context (a teacher, but also some other kind of

professional, usually within educational, social or health services) with the purpose of developing deeper understanding of that practice, improving upon action, solving practical problems, and facilitating change in themselves, in others, or in an institution. Practitioner research often has a collaborative and emancipatory nature and is committed to empowering (a group of) practitioners and promoting their professional development.

Closely related to practitioner research is action research (Cain, 2008, 2011; Carr & Kemmis, 1986; McNiff, 2002; Rusinek, 2012). Action research is ethically-informed inquiry undertaken by practitioners into their own practice with the aim of changing it. It usually begins with the question: "How do I improve my work?" and it involves identifying an interesting or problematic issue which is worth researching, devising a possible solution, implementing it, evaluating it, and changing practice in the light of the

evaluation. This action research cycle can be applied only once or, possibly, more times in the research process, as a flexible spiral of successive choices, actions, and

systematic reflections. Action research is preferably collaborative, involving a number of practitioners working on their own or with a researcher. Its validity as research does not only rely on the correctness of the methods used, but also on the degree of reflexivity that the researcher demonstrates and on the values and ethical intentions underlying the research. Educational values, aspirations to social transformation, empowerment, and social justice are essential for this kind of engaged research. Though usually regarded as providing weak evidence in comparison to 'proper' research, action research can

generate practical knowledge that is useful for practitioners working in similar contexts (Cain, 2010).

With regard to the present study, I claim that there surely is an 'action research

component' in what we did as teachers. The role and contribution of the teacher in this study was to plan, implement, observe, and reflect on the pedagogical process so as to create situations where lots of creative interactions between children could emerge. So, there was an 'evaluative element' in what we were doing ("how does it work?"). As teachers we were thinking about our decisions and actions and the impact that they had on children's learning over time. The advantage of being the teacher here was that I/we could intervene directly in the teaching process in order to provide the researcher with relevant and possibly abundant data to collect and analyse for the research aims.

However, in the context of this study change and improvement were not the main focus of the investigation, no more than a secondary perspective – though of course a valuable by-product of the research. In this sense, therefore, this is not 'action research'.

Moreover, I think it would not be strategic to adopt an action research approach at this stage, for a simple reason. Before concentrating on my own practice I need to understand what is there. I need to look at the situation first, to focus on what children do, how they behave, and what they experience. My investigation is situated more in the observe and reflect phases, rather than in the plan and act ones.

If this had been an action research study, the research questions would have been phrased differently. The main research question might have been: "How do I foster creative interactions in children's music making?", and the sub-questions might have been: "How can I structure the learning process in such a way as to effectively involve children in a group creative process? What kind of initial stimuli can I offer to children? What kind of guidance is more effective to have children develop their own creative ideas and interactive skills? How can I evaluate the outcomes of the creative learning process?" These questions are implicitly contained within sub-question n.2 ("What component aspects influence children's collaborative work on creative tasks?"), which among other dimensions takes into account the active role of the teacher in guiding the learning process. Part of my job has been to answer those questions, of course, because I was teaching and I needed to look at the whole situation, yet the focus of this study is on the children themselves, not on my action as a teacher. The main issue is now not how to do it best, rather to see what happens there. At this stage it is more important to investigate children's learning than to improve the teacher's teaching, in other words I want to understand rather than to problem-solve. So, in this sense this is not 'proper' action research.

7.5.5.2 Benefits and pitfalls of being an insider

Carrying out the study as teacher-researcher entails a number of advantages as well as challenges which are important to be aware of in order to avoid methodological mistakes. Insiderness may well provide the researcher with an intimate knowledge of the situation which may be precluded to an external observer, yet a certain distance is also necessary to obtain a more complete and less partial picture of the context. The issue here is that of involvement versus detachment, and about how the teacher researcher is able to

negotiate and come to terms with both in the attempt to produce valid knowledge.

In analysing the dilemmas of being an insider participant observer, Labaree (2002) points out that an insider, thanks to his long-term experience within a community, has a

privileged access to contextual information and participants' perspectives which may not as easily be achievable by an outsider. Sharing a common cultural background with participants – being 'one of them' – facilitates the insider in building trust, in establishing a more intimate relationship with them, and in better understanding their meanings and behaviours. However, insiderness is not an all-or-nothing matter. Rather, it is achieved at different degrees in different moments, just as building and nurturing trust is an ongoing commitment for the researcher. In relation to the present study, if on the one hand I had a strong working relationship with my co-teacher, on the other hand I could not take for

granted that I would develop a good rapport with a new group of children just because I was the teacher. In my relationship with them, I had to gain and maintain my insiderness. Perhaps the most critical aspect of being an insider is what Labaree (2002) defines as the "insider's dual role as both object and subject" (p.109) of the study, which is highly

relevant in my case, as I was both the researcher and part of the researched. This poses problems of accuracy and objectivity in the representation (or better, neutrality,

disinterestedness, dispassion, or detachment), and calls for reflexivity. "Possession of advanced knowledge should not lead to a disregard for questioning one's own insider knowledge" (p.108). In fact, familiarity with and full immersion in the context can also be a trap, which can induce different forms of bias towards what is being researched, resulting in the researcher's distorted interpretations, omission of relevant data, or over-

identification with participants' emotional dispositions.

With specific regard to practitioner and action research, Lytle and Cochran-Smith (1992) claim that the advantage of the teacher researcher is that of being a "native inhabitant of the research site" (p.465). In comparison to university-based researchers, a teacher researcher investigates his own context from an emic perspective, and has the potential to generate a different kind of knowledge – potentially more significant for the practical concerns of teachers – and even to disclose new areas of study. In addition to that, the richness and complexity of teacher researchers' analytic frameworks, deriving from the long-term, direct experience of many learning events, may enable them to perceive things that an outsider may not notice. Along the same line, Hammersley (1993) acknowledges the plausibility of the methodological arguments according to which practitioners are best able to understand their own intentions and thoughts, have first-hand knowledge about the educational setting, and can rely on close relationships within the field. At the same time, however, he calls attention to some countervailing arguments that critically

reconsider the position of the practitioner researcher. I mention here those that I think are relevant for this study. Firstly, a teacher may be wrong or self-deceptive about his own motives and may unwittingly be biased in the evaluation of a situation. An external observer, instead, might have a wider or different perspective on what is happening, which takes into account further issues that the teacher, being so personally involved, might overlook or not be aware of. Thus, familiarity is a double-edged sword: as a teacher researcher I may see things which outsiders cannot see, but – due to a selective,

restricted, or even prejudiced gaze – I may also not be able to see things that an outsider can see. Secondly, the knowledge of the teacher is often developed implicitly and in function of the specific role and concerns they have in that context. This again places constraints on the kinds of understanding they of a situation. Interestingly, Hammersley

(1993) does not resolve this tension between being an insider or an outsider in the research, and leaves the solution to be found in relation to the characteristics of each specific study.