EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This research was funded by the Learning Connections Division of the Lifelong Learning Directorate, Scottish Government, during spring and summer of 2008, to achieve two purposes. The first was to support practitioners in leading a research project looking at the individual learning planning ( ILP) process. ILPs are central to the literacies field in Scotland, as they are used for defining objectives, planning instruction, and assessing achievement by learners. The second purpose was to record the process of practitioner research systematically, leading to the refinement of a model that would be viable in a Scottish context. It was hoped that by building on the earlier Practitioner-Led Action Research ( PLAR) project, lessons could be learned about ways to increase retention, as well as encouraging practitioners to continue research after the project was over. This would potentially increase the research capacity in the Scottish literacies teaching community. This summary covers the second purpose only.
Research Team
Ralf St.Clair, Kathy Maclachlan and Stuart Hall, University of Glasgow Lyn Tett and Vivien Edwards, University of Edinburgh
Method
The research team contacted literacies partnerships and recruited 22 practitioners to work together in clusters on a range of projects looking at the individual learning planning process. The clusters were geographically focused and averaged two to three members. Each cluster had a key member of the research team associated with it. At the end of the project there were 13 active participants in seven clusters.
Participants were expected to commit to attend one half day workshop per week for ten weeks, plus spend limited time in preparation and writing. This relatively intense schedule was intended to address the issues identified by Maclachlan et al. (2006) regarding time commitment and perseverance by moving the work for the project out of practitioners' daily working lives into a 'protected zone' of workshops over a short time scale.
Participants were not paid by the research team to participate in the research, nor was there money available for time-release or travel. In the end, while some participants were given clearly designated time to dedicate to the PLAR project, a substantial number completed the work on their own time, sometimes covering their own travel expenses.
Recommendations
1. PLAR can be an effective mechanism for professional development and for knowledge generation
This project supports the potential for dual outcomes for practitioner-led action research. It can lead to useful insights into pressing problems of practice as well as broaden and deepen practitioner understanding. A further benefit is practitioners' increased interest in conducting research.
2. The cluster model is effective, especially when cross-sectoral
Having clusters of people from the same location or same organisation working together both reduces the drop-out rate and leads to the completion of more complex research projects.
3. Expectations about research training must be realistic
For researchers involved in PLAR, especially those who customarily teach research methods, it is important to be careful and realistic about balancing a desire to train participants as researchers and conducting a useful research project in a limited time.
4. Effective intensity and duration may lie between the two earlier models
Comments suggest that the most effective timetable for PLAR projects lies between the timescale applied in this project and the 2006 project, most likely around four months with meetings every two weeks. This sort of timetable would help with holidays and other breaks in data collection and meeting schedules, a problem experienced by most clusters in one form or another.
5. Line managers must be actively supportive
The clusters with active support from management had an easier time undertaking the research, not least for pragmatic reasons such as easier preservation of dedicated time. As well as support during the conduct of the project, it is extremely desirable that line managers help to ensure that the project outcomes can be usefully applied in the programmes.
6. Changing membership of clusters and withdrawal of practitioners are normal
Given the part-time nature of literacies employment, and the general turnover of the workforce, it is inevitable that there will be people withdrawing over the life of the project. A key message is that PLAR projects must over-recruit to allow for inevitable changes in personnel.
7. PLAR tends to focus on practitioners' knowledge rather than that of learners
One interesting aspect of PLAR that emerged quite clearly from this project was that PLAR tends to work within the boundaries of professional practice, meaning that questions are often generated and addressed by literacies staff rather than learners.
8. Investment in PLAR brings high returns
Despite the extra resources involved, PLAR goes further than training workshops by increasing competence, engagement and commitment. Within the context of an emerging professionalised workforce, the PLAR process provides good value for money.
9. A consistent programme of PLAR is essential
For PLAR to be effective as both a mode of research and a CPD strategy will require building a long-term programme. It will have to become a 'taken-for-granted' feature of Scottish adult literacies work, running several times a year and featuring carefully designed dissemination strategies pertaining to both the research findings and the research process.