Teachers as researchers: Reflecting on the challenges of research–practice partnerships between school and university in Chile

Gonzalo R Guerrero-Hernández,Rocío A Fernández-Ugalde

doi:10.14324/lre.18.3.07

Gonzalo R Guerrero-Hernández, Rocío A Fernández-Ugalde

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.14324/lre.18.3.07

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Abstract

Teachers have tended to be underestimated as experts of their own practice and relegated to a technical role. In this context, action research appears as a form to legitimate teachers as active agents and producers of educational knowledge. This article aims to examine how a collaborative research–practice partnership between schools and universities in Chile fosters teachers’ role as researchers. It adopts a qualitative methodology based on thematic analysis of data collected from questionnaires and focus groups. In particular, it reports perceptions of in-service teacher researchers who conducted research projects between 2016 and 2017 as a part of a researcher–practitioner partnership strategy implemented by a university in Chile. The findings suggest that the partnerships were highly valued among teachers because the partnerships allowed them to develop pedagogical reflection towards the improvement of their practices and required particular awareness and recognition of roles and the relationships between practical and theoretical knowledge. Finally, possibilities for strengthening teachers’ role as researchers and collaborative research are presented at the end of the article.

Highlights

One of the main purposes of educational research has been to produce knowledge for improving education practices inside schools and classrooms (OEI, 2015)
The research–practice partnerships (RPPs) developed in this project aimed to: (1) foster a dialogue between the different actors from university and schools, building complex and multidimensional diagnoses of problems emerging from school contexts; (2) promote and develop projects based on collaborative research among communities, in particular, between in-service teachers and university researchers; (3) encourage teachers to become teacher researchers, instead of relying solely on university experts to provide solutions to their problems; and (4) strengthen and build bridges between different educational actors to promote solid processes of pedagogical reflection and collaborative work
Based on teacher researchers’ perceptions about conducting research, we explored the role of collaborative research–practice partnerships in promoting teachers’ role as researchers

Summary

Introduction

One of the main purposes of educational research has been to produce knowledge for improving education practices inside schools and classrooms (OEI, 2015). Even though teachers are crucial for achieving better teaching and learning processes, they are usually underestimated as active agents and protagonists of their own practice (Kincheloe, 2003; Biesta, 2017). Rather, they are often viewed as a means for implementing policies and research findings that preserve a technical conceptualization of their role (Schön, 1987; Gandin and Gomes de Lima, 2015). In-service teachers perceive research as an area distant from their classroom practice, and even as irrelevant to their daily practice (Beycioglu et al, 2010)

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