I presented my draft research question and action plan to my tutor and a small group of peers.
Feedback from the group has lead to the development of my project, with the key changes being to my research methods:
- I will remove the student questionnaire from my project
- I will add autoethnography as a second research method
I had wanted to gather the opinions of students on my topic, as I believe that their views and experiences are important to the development of good practice. I feel that my research being, in some way, a collaboration with students where we co-create a better pedagogy is important, and this could be a valuable aspect to my continuing practice. However my tutor proposed that, based on the nature of my question, as practitioners my colleagues would be best placed to contribute my research at this stage and should be prioritised. I also reflected that feedback from student participants may be most valuable when I had delivered an intervention. Due to the scope and scale of this project, my final presentation will include plans for this, but I won’t have had a chance to deliver it. Therefore, student contributions could form the next phase of evaluation and development in the action research cycle (McNiff and Whitehead 2006, p. 9), but this will be outside of the scope of my SiP.
This prioritisation of my colleagues’ experiences also raised the suggestion by my tutor that I could be a site of research, using autoethnography as “an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyze (graphy) personal experience (auto)” (Ellis, Adams and Bochner 2011, p. 1.). Using this method will enable me to evaluate my own practice and experiences, exploring the paradigm shifts in my thinking.
In my reading around research methods, this has raised the question of whether my project has now become a ‘mixed methods’ approach, as I will be using two forms of research (focus group and autoethnography). Many understandings of this approach, such as Creswell (2014), see it as using quantitative and qualitative approaches within a single project, which does not align with my research methods. However others see it is as more of a philosophical or theoretical approach, which can combine qualitative approaches. For example Kara (2015) speaks of ‘bricolage’ a technique for combining qualitative methods. Furthermore, it is generally seen to have an “emphasis on practical approaches to research problems” (Denscombe 2010 p. 138), which aligns with my action research methodology. Considering that a mixed methods approach generally requires a focus on the link between the research methods used, this is an area I will continue to research and consider as I continue with my project.
References
Creswell, J.W. (2014) A Concise Introduction to Mixed Methods Research. London: SAGE Publications, Inc
Denscombe, M. (2010) The Good Research Guide: For small-scale social research projects. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Ellis, C., Adams, T. E.and Bochner, P. A. (2011). ‘Autoethnography: An Overview’, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12 (1). Available at: https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589/3095 (accessed 25 October 2021)
Kara, H. (2015) Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide. Bristol: Policy Press.
McNiff, J. and Whitehead, J. (2006). All you need to know about Action Research. London: SAGE Publications, Inc