1. Introduction

This week, your driving question is

Which research question will I answer?

This week is where the course leaves Assignment 1 and moves onto Assignment 2. In particular, it marks the move into actively engaging in the phases of a Teacher Inquiry into Student Learning (TISL). As the driving question suggests, this week you’re focus will be on phase #3 of the TISL model being used in this course

Formulation of the design objective and the research question;

 There is an assumption within this week's learning path that you have already

1. Clearly identified the specific, disciplinary learning and teaching context that you will use as the basis for Assignment 2.
2. Already developed some ideas for issues, challenges or problems that you'd like to address through a TISL process.

If you haven't done that quite yet, there will be some explicit pointers within the learning path.

2. This week's learning path

This week's learning path consists of the following four sections.

Experiencing - Example research questions & some starting points

Asks you to respond to a series of starting points for sparking your thinking about research questions that are relevant for you. Provides a list of example good research questions related to TISL.

This includes:

• 1 Moodle book with a total of 4 pages.

• 1 activity responding to some starting points.
  The output of this activity will be used again later in the learning path and as you work on Assignment 2.

Examining - What makes for a good research question?

Provides some criteria for a good research question and asks you to use them to analyse some of the good research questions from the Experiencing book.

This includes:

• A single Moodle book with a single page.

• 1 activity analysing a couple of good research quesetions.

Explaining - Developing a good research question

Structures you reading of some pages from Pine (2009) to learn more about the requirements and process for developing a good TISL research question.

This includes:

• One Moodle book with 5 pages.

• Read:

  • 12 pages of Pine (2009)

• Complete a series of activities linking the Pine reading to your own context.

Applying - Which research question will you answer?

A collection of activities intended to help you identify which research question you will answer for Assignment 2.

This includes:

• One Moodle book with 6 pages

• Exercises to help progress Assignment 2.

3. This week's references

The following references can also be found in the Week 7 section of the course Zotero library.

Reference list

Agee, J. (2009). Developing qualitative research questions: a reflective process. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22(4), 431–447. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518390902736512

Caro-Bruce, C. (2000). Action Research Facilitator’s Handbook. National Staff Development Council, P. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED472452

Emin-martínez, V., Hansen, C., Rodriguez-Triana, M. J., Wasson, B., Mor, Y., Dascalu, M., … Pernin, J.-P. (2014). Towards teacher-led design inquiry of learning. eLearning Papers, (January), 1–12.

Hansen, C. J., & Wasson, B. (2016). Teacher inquiry into student learning: The TISL heart model and method for use in teachers’ professional development. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 11(1), 24–49. https://doi.org/10.18261/issn.1891-943x-2016-01-02

To read (12 pages) Pine, G. (2009). Conducting Teacher Action Research. In Teacher Action Research: Building Knowledge Democracies (pp. 234–263). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452275079

Rust, F. O. (2009). Teacher Research and the Problem of Practice. Teachers College Record, 111(8), 1882–1893.

1. Introduction

It’s been argued that a good research question won’t ensure a quality research investigation, but a poor research question will make it significantly more difficulty to achieve a quality research investigation. The aim of this week’s learning path is to help you develop a good quality answer to this week’s driving question

Which research question will I answer?

You may already have an idea of what research question you might like to answer. As explained earlier in the course, the Initiation phase of the TISL model can be sparked by a particular challenge, interest or question. By the end of this week you will have revisited that spark, perhaps reframed it, and made some progress in identifying the research question you will focus on answering for the rest of the course (Assignment 2, Parts A & B).

Is the research question important?

Since this course is informed by the Teacher Inquiry into Student Learning (TISL) literature, let's see what that literature says about research questions.

Hansel and Wasson (2016) suggest that

One key to using student learning for developing one’s own practice is the ability to find research questions driven by one’s own interests, which imparts the ownership of questions and findings. (pp. 29-30)

And later they write

Literature within the field suggests that the formulation of a question is key to the teacher inquiry process, and that the question is rooted in practice ... focused on student learning....The research question feeds into the heart of the TISL Heart, the Method, which expounds how to collect student data to answer the research question. (p. 39)

2. Starting points

The assumption for the following activity is that you have already been giving some serious thought to the particular learning and teaching context that will be the focus of your TISL.  While it isn’t necessary to have finalised on which context you will use (just yet), you should be looking at achieving this by the end of this learning path. 

3. Some example good research questions

TISL is a refinement and specific form of teacher research. Emin-martinez et al (2014) define it as

a systemic approach to teacher inquiry, has its roots in “insider view” approaches such as critical inquiry, action research, and teacher research, where teachers conduct their own research, in real classrooms and school settings, focusing on local practices. (p. 2)

Meaning that not all good research questions would be considered good quality research questions for TISL. The origins of TISL within teacher research and subsequently action research means that research questions from those settings are more appropriate.

The following sample of good research questions are adapted from Caro-Bruce (2000, p. 86). As you can probably tell these take a focus on classroom research in primary and secondary settings. While the specific questions may be less than appropriate to a tertiary context, their features as a research question do apply well to TISL within a tertiary context.

3.1. Example good classroom action research questions

 The following questions are from Caro-Bruce (2000, p. 86)

1. How can I help the students in my classroom feel comfortable working with diverse groupings of classmates and overcome, at least part of the time, their desire to always be with their friends?

2. How can I more effectively facilitate independent writing in my kindergarten classroom?

3. How can I, a school nurse, better help classroom teachers address the complex issues of educating students with ADHD?

4. How can fifth grade students be encouraged to write thoughtful inquiry questions for a science fair?

5. How can the science department and the special education department heterogeneously group a wide variety of students in the same classroom and make it a successful experience for the students and staff?

6. How does the Writing Workshop approach affect my students' writing and their feelings toward writing?

7. What kinds of assessments best help me understand and teach a particular learner with autism?

8. How does chronic staff absenteeism impact the education of students with cognitive disabilities at my school, and how does it impact the staff who provides their education?

9. What changes in our teaching styles, curriculum design, materials, and professional support are needed to implement a new math program in our inclusive classroom?

10. How can I, a high school social worker, use the resiliency principles and research to more effectively support student success?

11. How does the direct teaching of anger management skills affect the classroom climate in primary-age school children?

12. What classroom strategies are effective in developing student self-evaluation of their learning?

1. Some initial criteria

The following table offers some criteria for what makes a good Action Research Question. It is adapted from Caro-Bruce (2000, p. 76)

1. Introduction

So far this week you’ve examined some example good questions and been asked to analyse those questions against a sample set of criteria. You started this week be responding to some starting points that might help you identify research questions relevant to your context.  The aim of this part of the learning path is to provide some additional activities and abstract conceptualisations to help you refine these initial starting points into a good quality, specific question.

Some notes on “research”

Before you start focusing on the specifics of developing your research question, time to contextualise the use of the term research.

This paragraph sums up nicely the perspective of research adopted within TISL. The focus here is not on establishing whether or not a particular intervention will work perfect in all contexts. You will not be engaged in large double-blind, randomised control trials as part of your work in TISL.  The focus of TISL is in discovering and inventing what will work within your context.

2. Where does TISL research question come from?

Hopefully the starting points section in this reading reminded you of something from this learning path.

Pine (2009) made the point that identifying a research question is recursive and iterative. Finding the right question for you at this time from the “almost infinite number of research questions” is not straight-forward, takes some time, consideration and reflection, and is liable to change.

3. What are the characteristics of good research questions?

Earlier in the learning path you were introduced to a set of criteria for good research questions adapted from Caro-Bruce (2000). The following reading reinforces and hopefully expands your insight into what makes for a good research question.

Again in this reading, Pine (2009) reinforces the value of not being overly wedded to a particular question. Changing questions, in a process like TISL, can be of significant value.

4. Focus on the students, not the teacher

Pine (2009) makes a point of emphasising the point that teacher research should have a focus on benefiting students. It is important that your research question and all that you write about your TISL should illustrate this focus on improving student learning or the student experience. In doing this, the language you use is important. The following provides a few simple pointers and examples to illustrate.

Which of the following descriptions do you think has more a focus on student learning, rather than the teacher and teaching.

I taught the course EDC3100, ICT and Pedagogy for five years.

Over a five year period I have helped over 1000 students learn how to use ICT to enhance and transform their pedagogy.

Language should focus on students and what they are learning, rather than the content or course you are teaching.

5. How to finalise and frame your research question

In the Apply section of this learning path - coming up next - the focus will be for you to commence (and eventually finish) the journey of identifying your answer to the driving question for this week

Which research question will I answer?

Before we start that section, time to look at Pine’s (2009) advice

1. Introduction

The following offers a sequence of activities intended to help you answer this week’s driving question

Which research question will I answer?

While you can choose not to engage with the activities, you will need to be able to answer this week’s driving question. Since developing a research question is a key phase in the approach to TISL adopted in this course, you will need to develop a research question. The rubric for Assignment 2, Part B explicitly mentions the need for a research question.

As mentioned in Pine (2009) and other sources, maintaining a journal (e.g. your blog) can be a useful and important tool for successful teacher research. As is engaging in on-going critical reflection. For these reasons it is suggested that you use your blog to make explicit, share and reflect upon the recursive and complex process of finalising your research question.

To help you step through that complex process, the following activities are suggested:

1. Finalise your context

2. Expand upon your starting points

3. Develop some relevant research questions

4. Question assumptions

5. Ask others your question

2. Finalise your context

Much earlier in the course you were asked to share a description of the higher education teaching context that will form the basis for your inquiry into learning and teaching in this course. For Assignment 1, you were asked to think of a specific teaching episode that you could use to develop an evaluation plan. At the end of week 2 you were asked to respond to a range of specific questions about your teaching discipline, your specific context, and what you know about teaching in that discipline. This was the start of a process you would need to develop a plan to explore the conceptions of teaching within your discipline (Assignment 1, Part A)

You know need to distill all of that and other thinking to identify a specific learning and teaching context.

3. Expand upon your stating points

At the very start of this learning path you were asked to use this Word document to generate some responses to some starting points. Along similar lines, Pine (2009, p. 242) cites Spradley’s (1979) “grand tour questions” about your context as useful for guiding your inquiry. These grand tour questions are

• What is happening here?

• What problems are most salient about my teaching situation?

• What might happen if I change something in my teaching situation?

4. Develop some relevant research questions

 Earlier in the learning path you were shown some criteria for good research questions and throughout the learning path you were encouraged to add further criteria drawn from the literature.

5. Question your assumptions

 An important step in the TISL process is questioning assumptions. We are invariably influenced by our assumptions. Your research questions will be a product of your assumptions. Before going to much further it is important that you think clearly about the beliefs and assumptions that underpin your questions.

6. Ask others your question

 Lastly, it’s time for some peer (and not so peer) review.  The following activity is adapted from Caro-Bruce (2000, p. 92)