Section archive - Research Methods

This paper explores the concept of empathetic validity, that is, the potential of practitioner research in its processes and outcomes to transform the emotional dispositions of people towards each other, such that greater empathy and regard are created. The paper argues that practitioner research that is high in empathetic validity contributes to positive human relationships and, as such, is an important form of research in an age of increasing violence as well as stress and tension in the workplace.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of action research by ten preservice teachers in early childhood from a small university in the West. Their goal was to assess the impact of their teaching on student learning with children birth to 8 years of age. The preservice teachers studied the effects of specific learning strategies or activities, first upon the development and learning of the young children they taught, and then upon the results from the assessments in order to guide further instruction.

The paper focuses on oral storytelling and transformation through the significance of the liminal zone as thresholding. Involving the reader-listener in an experiential and performative approach, the article draws on all of the senses, using a wide range of data such as dreams, drawing, writing, as well as the act of (sacred) oral storytelling and feedback, reflection, conceptualising, as well as other theorists and writers.

The paper rechoreographs the process that enabled storytelling to emerge as a method of inquiry and a mode of representing the research. Crucial to the process was the supervisory relationship wherein my supervisor modeled a decolonizing pedagogical practice that held uncertainty in chrysalis while the methodology emerged.