Abstract:

In this paper, we suggest an approach for practice-oriented research to provide relevant knowledge contributions for both educational research and teaching practice. This entails methods we applied in a 2-year research project in close collaboration with 16 secondary school teachers, aiming to develop theory and practical knowledge of teaching with digital textbooks.

In Sweden, there are governmental initiatives to create long-term collaboration around practice-oriented research between academia and schools. The purpose is to increase evidence-based teaching practices contributing to student outcomes (Swedish Government, 2018). However, Broekkamp & van Hout-Wolters (2007) have in their literature review observed that educational research does not sufficiently relate to problems experienced by practitioners, which means that research is perceived as irrelevant and are only little used. Further, a review showed difficulties for teachers to access, translate and apply educational research (van Schaik et al., 2018).

In a special issue of a Swedish journal dedicated to a debate on practice-oriented research many papers address a gap between educational research and practice due to conflicting priorities (Nordin & Vogt (Eds.), 2020). We have scrutinized the eight included articles and identified three main challenges for a coequal collaboration between researchers and practitioners. In what follows, we first identified a challenge concerning a short or a long-term perspective. One the one hand, practitioners often address actual problems that need a somewhat quick solution. It is also time-consuming for teachers to participate in research projects taking time from other responsibilities. One the other hand, research is based on many scientific steps that are conducted over time before results can be documented and disseminated. Further, it is also known that new methods or strategies that have not been given sufficient time to entrench in the organization tend to cease when the project ends. The second challenge concerns the role of the practitioner and the researcher. This address participation and equity and on who’s terms the research is conducted. Research can be conducted on teachers and view the teacher as a research object. Alternatively, research can be conducted together with teachers who study and change their practice. Finally, there is an underlying idea that researchers’ and teachers’ interests should merge into a joint research question to be able to do research together. However, researchers’ problem formulations and teachers’ own questions are sometimes very difficult to align.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the three methodological challenges we have identified and also experienced in our research project. We will describe real examples from a practice-oriented research project on how we handled and overcome these challenges. The arguments are based on empirical findings from the project.

Keywords:

Practice-oriented research, professional development, school development, education, collaboration.