Teacher research for professional development

Teacher research for professionaldevelopment

Derin Atay

Current in-service education and training programmes (INSET) are often foundto be unsatisfactory due to the fact that they do not provide the teachers withopportunities to be actively involved in their development and to reflect on theirteaching experiences. This study presents an INSETprogramme in which TurkishEFL teachers were provided with relevant theoretical knowledge along withguidance for research, reflection, and collaboration. Results of the study showedthat although teachers faced difficulties in conducting and reporting their research,the programme had a positive impact on their professional development. Thus,a research-oriented programme of this kindmay help to resolve the problems anddifficulties associated with INSET programmes in general.

Introduction There is general agreement that learning to teach is a lifelong process. Thisnotion of ongoing and lifelong professional learning for teachers in allfields has been emphasized by several researchers (for example, ZeichnerandNoffke 2001), and providingmeaningful professional development forin-service teachers is seen as central to this goal.

Traditionally, teachers’ professional development has consisted of short-termor one-shot in-service programmes conducted by outside ‘experts’ whodisseminated a knowledge base constructed again almost exclusively by‘experts’ (Cullen 1997). These programmes have been highly popular asthey provide teachers with a break in routine, a chance to meet newcolleagues and discuss their professional problems, and exposure tostimulating new ideas. However, the knowledge transmitted is generallyconceptually and practically far removed from the contexts of the teachers,and the situational factors affecting their classroom practices are not takeninto account. As a consequence, the aimof increasing teachers’ professionaldevelopment is rarely achieved.

In the last few decades, both educators and researchers have attemptedto alter methods of teacher professional development so that teachersassume control of classroom decisions and actively participate in their owninstructional improvement on an ongoing basis (Hopkins 1985;McDonough and McDonough 1997). Action research, research done bypractitioners using their own site as the focus of their study, has beensuggested as onemeans of fosteringmeaningful professional developmentfor teachers (Wallace 1998). It is a type of inquiry that aims at discovering,

ELT Journal Volume 62/2 April 2008; doi:10.1093/elt/ccl053 139ªª The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication January 24, 2007

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developing, or monitoring changes in classroom practice throughinterrogating one’s own and others’ practices and assumptions. Theemphasis here is on reflecting critically and conceptualizing alternativeperspectives on a problem, which according to Schon (1983), lie at the veryheart of professional development.

Teacher research as a form of professional development has been found tohave a profound effect on those who have done it, i.e. it helps teachers tobecomemoreflexible andmore open tonew ideas (Oja and Smulyan 1989),more awareof their impact on students (Allen,Cary, andDelgado 1995), andhave increased feelings of self-efficacy related to low achieving students(Boudah and Knight 1998). Moreover, it has been asserted that teacherresearch raises the status of the occupation of teaching in the society andproduces knowledge about teaching and learning useful to other teachers,policy makers, academic researchers, and teacher educators (Francis,Hirsch, and Rowland 1994).

Although there is a growing literature on the positive outcomes associatedwith teachers doing research, not much information is provided aboutthe specific characteristics and stages of the research process. Thus, thepresent study aims to discuss the research experiences of Turkish EFL

teachers in a research-oriented INSETprogramme. The followingresearch questions were addressed in this study:

1 What are Turkish EFL teachers’ attitudes towards classroom research?2 In their own view, how does research affect EFL teachers’ instructional

practices?

Context of the studySetting

The study was conducted at the English preparatory school of a highlycompetitive state university in Istanbul, Turkey, in the first term of the2004–5 academic year. At the time of the study, there were 923 studentsat different levels of English—i.e. advanced, intermediate, and elementarylevels—and 110 EFL teachers, 107 Turks, and 3 native speakers of English.

The present professional development programme was initiated at therequest of the head of the prep school and took the form of a collaborativeeffort between the university and prep school to promote teachers’ criticalthinking, collaboration, and instructional effectiveness through research.

Participants At the beginning of the first term all teachers were informed about theprofessional development programme which would be led by theresearcher. The researcher—the author of this paper—a teacher educatorat another state university, was introduced to the teachers. They were alsotold that the programme would be held in the afternoons after class forsix weeks, each session would last about four hours. Sixty-two teachersvolunteered to attend the programme and were grouped into foursections—two groups for each term. Eighteen teachers, 13 female and5 male, volunteered to participate as the first group. These teacherscompleted a background questionnaire and wrote down the topics theywould like to discuss in the programme.

The participants were all native speakers of Turkish with an average age of33.5 years (SD ¼ 6.87) and with 9.22 (SD ¼ 3.32) years of teaching

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experience. They were teaching English about 18–21 hours a week toTurkish students at different levels. All teachers indicated that they hadattended various one-shot seminars given by the Turkish Ministry ofEducation, BritishCouncil, or various publishing companies. None of themhad ever carried out research in their classes.

The research-oriented INSETprogrammeStaging and focus

The programme started in the third week of the term and consisted ofthe following sections:

1 Theoretical knowledge on ELT (2 weeks).2 Issues for investigation (2 weeks).3 Investigating the classroom and doing research (2 weeks).

Theoretical knowledgeIn planning the course I had decided to focus initially on the topics teachersasked for. The information collected during the first informal meetingwas used for this purpose. Their suggestions were grouped under thefollowing topics: student motivation and attitudes, learning styles andstrategies, and classroom management issues, especially ways ofquestioning and giving feedback in ELT.

After I met the group, I realized it was necessary to update their knowledgeof ELT. So in the first two weeks, I provided them with theoreticalknowledge on each topic; I introduced the relevant topic and terminology,and gave examples from research studies.

Most of the teachers wanted to take notes indicating they ‘wanted to keepall this knowledge in mind’. After each point, the teachers were askedto share their relevant teaching experiences with others. Sharing theirexperiences was found especially useful by the teachers.

Issues for investigationIn the third week, teachers discussed what research meant to them and wefocused on their ideas on professional development. I again provided themwith theoretical knowledge on concepts like ‘action/teacher research’,‘reflection’, and ‘collaboration’. At this point my aim was to make themunderstand the difference between the knowledge-transmission type ofINSETprogramme and the present research-oriented INSETprogrammein which they would act as researchers and active builders of knowledge.The different roles assumed by the teachers in both types of programmewere discussed in detail.

The rest of the timewas devoted to discussion of the research process and toencouraging teachers to reflect on their own practices and the situationin which they were practising based on the information they gatheredthemselves. I also encouraged the teachers to have collaborative dialoguewith their colleagues, and to use students and other teachers as sourcesof information (Ponte 2002; Wallace op. cit.).

To achieve these aims, teachers were first asked to reflect on issues theywanted to investigate in their own classroom settings. Some of the topicswere as follows:

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n The attitudes of their learners towards learning English.

n The unwillingness of their students to communicate inside and outsidethe class.

n The effects of using different vocabulary/reading/writing activities onstudent learning.

n Their own teaching practices with an emphasis on classroommanagement skills.

n Different ways to increase the amount of student participation.

After helping the teachers to develop research questions out of these topics,I introduced in the fourth week different data collection instrument(s), forexample, audio recording, questionnaire, observation, and vocabularyknowledge scale, which they could use to gather systematic informationabout themselves. The teachers indicated their concern about how to‘prepare a questionnaire/scale’ or ‘what to observe in a class’. At this stage,authentic examples of instruments used in ELT, i.e. a willingness-to-communicate questionnaire, a classroom-observation scheme, werepresented. In thisway the teachersnot only became familiarwith theuses ofvarious data collection instruments in ELT but were also sensitized to theproblems and questions which might be related to their own research.

At the end of this session, the teachers were told that they were expectedto carry out research in their own classes and write a report on their studies.For the upcoming session, they were asked to prepare an informalresearch proposal with the following sections: an introductory paragraph,research question(s), subjects, and data collection instruments.

Investigating the classroom and doing researchIn the fifth week, the teachers discussed their research proposals, as noneof them had prepared a written proposal. They acted like critical friends,discussing and reflecting on what they were planning to research and why.In the same session, basic data analysis methods, for example, frequencycounts, were discussed briefly. Complex statistical analyses were notintroduced as I felt they were beyond the scope of the programme.

In the sixth week, teachers who had begun with their research askedme detailed questions about the data collection process and shared thealternative plans of actions they had in mind with the others. For example,one teacher considered using retelling to increase the vocabulary useof her students. Another teacher thought about using extra readingmaterials to supplement a ‘boring’ coursebook.

After this session, the teachers continued with their research and duringthis time they contactedme by email with their questions, for example, howto narrow down the topic, adapt a questionnaire to the Turkish context,plan alternative actions. With all teachers, support was needed at all stagesof research.

Six teachers handed in their reports to me on time. It took some moretime for the others to finish them. Most of the reports included a researchquestion, data collection about the current situation, description of theintervention andabrief discussionof results.Due to time limitations I couldprovide feedback only through email.

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Data collectionand analysis

Data for the study came from teachers’ narratives and journals. At thebeginning of the study participants were asked to write theirunderstandings of research. Moreover, throughout the research processteachers kept a journal in Turkish as they felt they could expressthemselves better in their native tongue. In every session I reminded themto include their understandings of research and the outcomes of it intheir journals. I collected the journals twice to have an idea of theirdifficulties, as it was not possible to deal with all questions during thesessions.

Although it seemed time consuming at the beginning, writing down theirown thinking in a journal was later found highly useful by teachers inhelping them to become more alert to what they were doing. Thus, it wasused as both a method of data collection and as a reflective tool whichassisted their ongoing research.

For the purposes of this paper, data coming from both sources wereanalysed by means of pattern coding to reduce the ‘large amounts of datainto a smaller number of analytic units’ (Miles and Huberman 1984: 69)and to organize the data, particularly that coming from the journals.

ResultsInitial ideas aboutresearch

The analysis of teachers’ narratives on their understandings of researchshowed that 4 out 18 teachers described research as a professionaldevelopment activity. For example,

I go to the British Council regularly and read the recent issues of ELTjournals.

I attend seminars sponsored by publishing companies. Lecturerspresent research on different topics.

Some other teachers (5 out of 18) equated research with statistics or maths:

I did not like math when I was a student so I’m not sure about research.It’s numbers and statistics, and impossible to understand.

Research is a term that frightens me. I know that it’s useful but I can’tdeal with all the tests and numbers, etc. By the way, I haven’t seen onesingle English teacher who told me about the research s/he has done.

For some teachers research meant solving classroom managementproblems:

We have students in class who are ‘entertaining themselves by watchingand judging the teacher’ just like they are watching TV at home, in thiscase maybe research can help me, but I don’t know how to find thisresearch.

As can be seen, in general teachers’ statements revealed their awarenessof the usefulness of research as well as their fear and lack of knowledgeof the process.

Reactions after theprogramme

Two weeks after the programme all the teachers handed in their journals.The following categories that emerged from the analyses of the journalswill be discussed in this study:


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1 development of research skills,2 increased awareness of the teaching/learning process,3 renewed enthusiasm about teaching,4 collaboration with colleagues, and5 general problems with research.

Development of research skillsThe analyses of teachers’ journals revealed the ways teachers approachedand solved different problems in their classes. The research process,especially collecting their own data, seemed to have positive effects onteachers’ perspectives towards research:

After having done research myself, I think what I can claim aboutmy classroom or my students is much more reliable because I havemy own data which I collected with a questionnaire and classroomobservations.

The role of a researcher was ‘strange’ for some teachers as they had thoughta researcher would do more ‘complex’ and ‘sophisticated’ research, yet,they still seemed to benefit from this role:

To me the most impressive aspect of research was that it combined tworoles into one: the role of the teacher, who knows the real classroomatmosphere, and the role of the researcher, who suggests theories aboutteaching and learning.

Increased awareness of the teaching/learning processMany teachers indicated that ‘research led to an increased sense ofprofessionalism’, and focused particularly on how research raised theirawareness to their own teaching practices:

In the class I observed, some students had difficulties in grasping theteachers’ expectations. They just sat back and stared at the teacher withblank eyes and when she started the activity, these students couldn’t doanything. I realized that when you give instructions for an activity you’redoing for the first time, you should pay particular attention to slowlearners.

Reflecting on their own data encouraged some teachers to initiate changesin their teaching practices:

Today I interviewed 9 students during lunch break. I told them thatI wanted to learn their opinions ... . They don’t like the topics andactivities in our pack. I realized I should find more interesting topics forthem. ... I copied two articles on Turkey’s membership to EU from the‘Daily News’ for all students and we had silent reading. After goingover the key words, they made groups and started discussing the articleswith access to the articles and key words. It really went much better ...

Renewed enthusiasm about teachingResearch for experienced teachers seemed to be a ‘break’ in their routine:

After teaching English for 11 years, I truly didn’t feel that I could dosomething new in my teaching but while doing research I used two

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different questionnaires with my students: one to assess their attitudeand one for anxiety. I really liked analysing and interpreting them.

Collaboration with colleaguesThere were two main issues within the topic of collaboration: benefitsof collaborating with others and problems during collaboration. Someteachers discussed how collaboration made them reflect on their ownpractices:

Putting theory into practice was great. It was nice to dwell on each other’slessons objectively and to try to find solutions to the problems together.I find it difficult to reflect on my own work when I’m alone, but whena colleague tells me about my weaknesses and encourages me to talkabout myself I find a solution easily.

Although they thought that collaboration might be beneficial, someteachers found it difficult to work with a colleague:

Collaborative observation has brought about an awareness of my owncontext but I still think the observation my colleague made was notcorrect. She couldn’t back up her criticism with concrete examples.

General problems with researchMost of the journals included writing about teachers’ ‘struggles’ throughthe research process:

I think research is especially useful in that it helps you see differentperspectives and think of a variety of relevant solutions. But, it isa demanding task; I may not always find time and energy to collect dataand analyse it.

Some teachers felt ‘lost’ at different stages of the research process:

Data analysis seems to be the most troublesome area ... I can’t sort outthe data. I think I need more guidance.

To summarize, analyses of narrative essays showed that most of theEFL teachers were not familiar with the aims of doing research at thebeginning of the study. Some felt that itwas reading articles andothers felt itwas mainly statistical research. Analyses of their journals at the end ofthe study revealed that teachers realized the importance of analysing theirown classroom data, and collaborating with their colleagues as a meansof improving their classroom practices.

Discussion andimplications

The aim of the INSETprogramme discussed in this paper was to updateexperienced EFL teachers’ theoretical knowledge of pedagogical issues andresearch, and to engage them in the practice of conducting research. Theunderlying goal of the programme was for experienced teachers to seeteacher research as an opportunity to question their own belief systems,and a tool for reaching understanding about the things they encounter intheir classrooms with a view to initiating changes in their classroompractices. To facilitate this, teachers were encouraged to seek ways ofconnecting the abstract concepts and principles examined in theliterature to their own classroom context. My concern throughout the


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programme was that the experiences and perspectives of each teacher bereflected, shared, and accorded recognition.

Unlike typical INSETprogrammes, ‘which offer information andexperience which is insufficiently related to the concerns of the participantsand which offer theory unrelated to practice’ (Bolam 1987: 27), thetheoretical knowledge part of this programme was prepared according tothe suggestions of the teachers. Yet, teachers were not only recipients oftheoretical knowledge but were also provided with the opportunity tobecomeactive researchers of their own teaching context. Inaddition, a socialframework based on discussion and reflection was established to supportthe implementation of knowledge and research skills acquired intraining. As in previous studies carried out with teachers in other fields(Christenson et al. 2002; King 2002), teacher research, though it was foundto be a ‘complex’ and ‘demanding’ task by the teachers, proved to havepositive effects on the professional competence of the teachers.

The present INSETprogramme had some weaknesses which should bementioned for further research in this area. First of all, I had not expected itto become such an intensive one. In the six-week period I had to cover toomany issues.Moreover, due to time limitations itwas not possible toprovideevery teacher with sufficient feedback during the research process and tohave a follow-up or presentation session.

Despite these limitations, this study has several implications for teachereducation. First, as the research-oriented programme proved to be highlyeffective in fostering teacher development, it can be utilized as an INSET inschools and universities. As school administrators seem to lack thenecessary knowledge and expertise required to deliver these programmes,it would be more appropriate for university educators specialized inresearch and teacher training to implement these programmes. Moreover,after the initial training, teachers should be encouraged to continue withthe research practice in their classes, write reports on their research, andshare these with others. In this way teacher-researchers will have thepotential to enhance their professional image and become effective agentsof change.

Final revised version received April 2006

ReferencesAllen, J.,M.Cary, andL.Delgado. 1995.Exploring BlueHighways. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.Bolam, R. 1987. ‘What is effective INSET?’ Paperpresented at the annual members’ conference of theNational Foundation for Educational Research inEngland and Wales, Bristol.Boudah, D. J. and S. L. Knight. 1998. ‘What aresecondary students with mild disabilities doing ininclusive classes?’ Paper presented at the annualmeeting of the American Educational ResearchAssociation, San Diego.Christenson, M., R. Slutsky, S. Bendau, J. Covert, J.Dyer, G. Risko, andM. Johnston. 2002. ‘The rocky

road of teachers becoming action researchers’.Teaching and Teacher Education 18: 259–72.Cullen, R. 1997. ‘Transfer of training assessing theimpact of INSET in Tanzania’ in D. Hayes (ed.).In-service Teacher Development: InternationalPerspectives. London: Prentice Hall.Francis, S., S. Hirsch, and E. Rowland. 1994.‘Improving school culture through study groups’.Journal of Staff Development 13: 12–15.Hopkins, D. 1985. A Teacher’s Guide to ClassroomResearch. Philadelphia: Open University Press.King, M. B. 2002. ‘Professional development topromote school wide inquiry’. Teaching and TeacherEducation 18: 243–57.

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McDonough, J. and S. McDonough. 1997. ResearchMethods for English Language Teachers. London:Arnold.Miles, M. B. and A. M. Huberman. 1984. QualitativeData Analysis. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.Oja, S. and L. Smulyan. 1989. Collaborative ActionResearch: A Developmental Approach. London: FalmerPress.Ponte, P. 2002. ‘How teachers become actionresearchers and how teacher educators becometheir facilitators’. Educational Action Research 10/3:399–423.Schon, D. A. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner: HowProfessionals Think in Action. Aldershot: Arena.

Wallace, M. J. 1998. Action Research for LanguageTeachers. New York: Cambridge.Zeichner, M. K. and S. E. Noffke. 2001. ‘Practitionerresearch’ in V. Richardson (ed.). Handbook ofResearch on Teaching. Fourth edition. Washington,DC: AERA: 293–330.

The authorDerin Atay currently works at the Department ofEnglish LanguageEducation atMarmaraUniversity,Istanbul, Turkey. She has published mainly inthe areas of in-service teacher education andmulticulturalism in teacher education.Email: [email protected]


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Teacher research for professional development