Teachers as researchers: Implications for supervision and for teacher education

Abstract

This paper focuses on the problems, dilemmas and issues which confront facilitators of teacher-based action research in schools. The paper incorporates a biographical strand in which the author describes three action research projects he has been involved in as a facilitator during the last 15 years. In doing so he attempts to show how each project addresses problems, dilemmas and issues for facilitators which were unresolved in previous ones. He attempts to illustrate the development of his understanding of the facilitator's role over time. The paper also attempts to clarify the theoretical and philosophical assumptions which underpin the action research movement in education. Finally one of the central points that the author wishes to stress is that teacher-based action research emerged in the U.K. as a dimension of school-based curriculum development initiated by teachers. He argues on the basis of personal experience that the action research movement was not something primarily transmitted from the higher education sector into the school system, even though teacher educators within higher education institutions have played a major role in facilitating action research and articulating its underlying logic.