Section archive - Research Methods

In this study, the authors explore educators’ experiences in a research design that adheres to collaboration with educators; in this case in a year-long formative intervention in the context of teacher education. This analysis revealed three main contrasts, all of which the teacher educators experience as being consequential for their participation in the research. The first reflection related to how the teacher educators perceived their own position. The educators describe this position as one of agency and ownership, coupled with recognition of their expertise. Secondly, the position of the researcher was experienced as one that explicitly involves learning. Lastly, the research was experienced as being integrated.

This article presents an extended perspective based on Charles Sanders Peirce’s concepts of abduction, deduction and induction. The author intends to show some of the integral relationships between these concepts which can be relevant for interpretative case studies exemplified by classroom research.

This article argues that physical scientists are attempting to advance knowledge in the so-called hard sciences, whereas education researchers are laboring to increase knowledge and understanding in an “extremely hard” but softer domain. The author suggests that given the highly contextualized nature of educational processes, embedded in shifting complex social settings, and the relevance of all variables, very little education research is able to pursue predictive power.

In this article, the authors focused on findings from qualitative research on the effects of action research by reporting two linked quantitative studies. The authors' first goal was to triangulate the findings from their quantitative inquiry with the results from qualitative studies in order to increase the generalizability of claims previously reported. Their second goal was to identify potential moderators of action research impact on teachers. The contribution of these two studies to the corpus of action research literature is twofold. First, the authors confirmed two important benefits of action research participation reported by qualitative researchers, improved teacher attitudes to educational research and increased self-efficacy. Second, they found moderators of the impact of action research that help identify conditions in which action research is particularly likely to benefit teachers.