Brian Wakeman - Convenor of the BERA Practitioner-Researcher Special Interest Group writes:

"We invite you to share your ideas about practitioner research on this e-space list.

Our aims:

1. To encourage colleagues

-to ask questions
-to share their current practitioner research
-to discuss issues
-to report findings
-to raise problems about carrying out action research in schools, higher education, and other walks of life
-to join in discussions
-to check out emerging hypotheses


2. To provide a means of sharing new understandings or knowledge

3. To give opportunities for isolated practitioner researchers to talk to interested colleagues.

4. To offer a network of colleagues who may be able to assist new researchers

5. To network with other bodies and interest groups working in practitioner research

In using this conversation JISCMAIL you agree to follow these four simple procedural guidelines:

A. CONTRIBUTE Write mailings in a way that will contribute to your own and other colleagues' understandings.

B. CLARITY Try to write in a way that will be clear and accessible. If you use technical or esoteric phrases, please explain them to include all readers.

C. CONSTRUCTIVE Please aim to be constructive. Make comments that lead to human flourishing rather than to negative or destructive outcomes.

D. CONSIDERATE Please respect other contributors as fellow professionals.



If any participant feels concerned that the guidelines may be being breached then they should first write to express their concerns to me, as convenor of the Practitioner-Researcher SIG at brianwakeman@yahoo.co.uk"

 

BERA PRACTITIONER-RESEARCHER SIG E-SEMINAR 2006-2007

 

WHAT STANDARDS OF JUDGEMENT DO WE USE IN EVALUATING THE QUALITY OF THE EDUCATIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND EDUCATIONAL THEORIES WE ARE CREATING AS PRACTITIONER-RESEARCHERS?

 

 

CONVENED BY JACK WHITEHEAD, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF BATH

 

The Practitioner-Researcher 2006-7 e-seminar is taking place at a time of discussions in the British Educational Research Association about assessing quality in applied and practice-based educational research and when the theme of the American Educational Research Association in  2007 in Chicago is 'The World of Educational Quality'. 

 

All you need to do if you wish to participate is to access the practitioner-researcher e-forum from http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=bera-practitioner-researcher&A=1

 

or from the What's New section of http://www.actionresearch.net . Once you are on the list you can enter the archives and respond to postings or create your own thread from the top menu items of the What's New section. The archives are organised on a monthly basis and we will be able to review and evaluate the quality of the understandings and knowledge gathered and generated through the e-seminar between September 2006 and August 2007.

 

Because the focus of the e-seminar in on standards of judgement in educational research I am suggesting that it is important to be clear about what distinguishes educational research from other forms of research in or on education. I am hoping that at some point in the conversations you will share your ideas about what constitutes the educational, for you, in educational research.  I shall be using a distinction between education research that is focused on contributions from the 'disciplines' of education that draw on social sciences, philosophy and history and educational research that is focused on contributions from practitioner-researchers to a scholarship of educational enquiry, to educational theory and to educational knowledge.

 

Many UK educational researchers are influenced by the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). This is a peer review exercise to evaluate the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. The 2008 RAE will selectively allocate money to institutions of higher education on the following criteria:

 

4* Quality that is world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour.

3* Quality that is internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance but

which nontheless falls short of the highest standards of excellence.

2* Quality that is recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and

rigour.

1*  Quality that is recognised nationally in terms of originality, significance and

rigour.

 

I am hoping that the e-seminar will make an original contribution to understandings of standards of judgement in practitioner-research. I am thinking of a contribution that recognises the political and economic significance of the above distinctions being used in the RAE in relation to originality, significance and rigour while going way beyond these distinctions in understanding the standards of practice and judgement in practitioner educational research that are contributing to the creation of a world of educational quality.

 

Here is an illustration of what I've got in mind. If you go into the living theory theses of practitioner-researchers at:

 

http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/living.shtml

 

you will find practitioner-researcher accounts that have been judged, by examiners with at least national, and often with international reputations, in terms of originality, significance, rigour and validity. In contributing to the creation of a world of educational quality I am suggesting that as practitioner-researchers we could provide, for public information and response, such evidence-based explanations of our educational influences and knowledge-generation. I am thinking of the educational knowledge we generate in evidence-based explanations of our educational influences in our own learning, in the learning of others and in the cultural and social formations that influence what we do, what we value and what we believe.

 

The living theory thesis of Mary Hartog of Middlesex University is one such account flowing through web-space from:

http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/hartog.shtml

 

If you click on this link you can access Mary's section on Abstract, Standards of Judgement, Contents, Acknowledgements, Preface.  In acknowledging the University's criteria for the award of a doctorate, Mary also asks the reader to judge her thesis in terms of her own standards of judgement that include:

 

"If this Ph.D. is differentiated or distinguished as a research process, it is because its methodology is underpinned by the values I as a researcher bring to my practice. It is with this in mind that I ask you to bring your eye as examiners to bear on the following questions, asking yourself as you read this thesis whether these questions are addressed sufficiently for you to say "yes, these standards of judgment have been met":

¥ Are the values of my practice clearly articulated and is there evidence of a commitment toward living them in my practice?

¥ Does my inquiry account lead you to recognise how my understanding

and practice has changed over time?

¥ Is the evidence provided of life-affirming action in my teaching and

learning relationships?

¥ Does this thesis evidence an ethic of care in the teaching and learning

relationship?

¥ Are you satisfied that I as researcher have shown commitment to a

continuous process of practice improvement?

¥ Does this thesis show originality of mind and critical thinking?"

 

To get the e-seminar underway I shall invite participants to comment on this original proposal for the e-seminar and to:

 

i) share urls that provide access to the educational knowledge we are generating as individual practitioner-researchers.

ii) start our own threads, where appropriate, that address the theme of the e-seminar and that focus on the standards of judgement we use to account for ourselves in the socio-cultural and social-historical context of our practitioner-researcher.

iii) Contribute to a thread that seeks to understand the criteria that each participant wishes to use in judging the success of the e-seminar for themselves and in terms of its theme.

 

I am assuming that each individual will be generating their own unique contribution to educational knowledge together with the recognition that the knowledge is being generated and legitimated within the power relations that reproduce and transform the socio-cultural formations in which we live and work. Any assumption I make above is held open to question in ways that will contribute to the educational knowledge being generated through the e-seminar.

 

As you join the e-seminar you have the option of asking for responses to be sent directly to your e-mail. Some participants in previous seminars have preferred this option. Others, like myself, like to access and respond to the correspondence in the archive from the What's New section of http://www.actionresearch.net .