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This is a simple sample proposal which will help students understand how to write a research proposal. By Sadia Hassan.
Introduction:
The
topic of my study is the use of self-study to investigate the complexities of
teaching practices in the context of teacher educators. Self-study has growing
worth in the field of education. Most of experience teachers use the self-study
methodology to find out the problems related to their teaching practices.
They
use it to gain experiences and to hold more expertise in their field. Teachers
have an important role to play in helping students to acquire the necessary
skills. If they are experienced and well equipped then they are able the
students to do their best effort in their carriers.
We
talk about the self-study to improve our teaching practices because it brings
clarity and depth to our understanding of the ways in which teacher educators
respond to tensions. The main challenges of self-study are to go beyond one’s
own perspectives and taken-for-granted assumptions to look at and understand
practice in new ways (Fransson, & Holmberg, 2012).
In other words, the lenses provide the space to examine the negativity of old
experiences on which to reflect.
Background:
Self-study methodologies emerged during the
1990s as powerful techniques that teacher educators can use to examine their
practices and to sort out their teaching dilemmas (Fletcher, and Bullock, 2012.). Now
the field of self-study of teacher education practices (S-STEP) has grown
rapidly in the last 10years (Loughran, 2005). Self-study has emerged due to the
influence of other field work such as reflective practice, action research and
practitioner research. It is a response to them involving teacher educators as
a researcher. It inspire many teacher
educators to recognize and respond to their self-practices. Researcher conduct
self-study to challenge their teaching practices. Intensive focus is on
self-examination of their work (Loughran, 2005).
Researcher
uses self-study approach with the aim of critiquing and questioning their own
practices to facilitate meaningful learning experiences. The growth in the
field of self-study of teacher education practices has largely been based on
teacher educators’ desire to better understand their teaching and learning (Allard,
Gallant, 2012 and Loughran, 2005).
In
the present, different researchers use self-study approach to examine their
teaching practices as an educator. The work of Robert Bullough and Stefinee
Pinnegar (2001), Ardra Cole and Gary Knowles (2001), Morwenna Griffiths (2003),
Mary Hamilton (1998), Fred Korthagen (2004), Clare Kosnik (2005), Vicki
LaBoskey (2004), John Loughran (2005), Jean McNiff (2002b), Tom Russell (2002),
Anastasia Samaras (2006) shows the
importance of self-study as a qualitative research approach in teacher education(Pithouse, Mitchell, and. Weber
2009.).
As
a way of researching and learning about teaching and teacher education,
self-study has become an important way for (teacher) educators to recognize and
respond to the importance of researching and better understanding their own
practice (Nilsson, 2010.). They have increasingly concerned that they were
making teaching appear non problematic. They wanted to see “beneath the surface
to the complex thinking and the wealth of experience so crucial in shaping
pedagogically meaningful learning experiences” (Loughran & Russell, 2007
and (Garbett, and Heap, 2011).
In self-study research,
critical friends act as a catalyst. They examine our practices and pass
critiques for a meaningful change. As Pernilla Nilsson act with the student
teachers as a critical friends. They worked together; they share their ideas,
issues and other concerns. In this way him able to look deeply into the
perspective of students about his teaches complexities (Nilsson, 2010.). Bullock,
2012 uses the self-study approach to analyze his practices as a beginning
teacher educator during practicum placement learning. From the literature and
his previous researches he found that Self-study was thus a best fit to explore
the teacher’s professional knowledge. McDonough & Brandenburg in 2012
conducted a self-study to examine their role as a teacher mentors, how we make
our real practices visible to others. He mention that “Conducting our research
as a self-study assisted us in trying to better understand and resolve the
dilemmas and tensions we were confronted with as mentors”. Fransson &
Holmberg self-study research project focused on experiences of planning,
teaching, and evaluating a course in initial teacher education. The focus of
the research is to acquire a deeper understanding of the challenges and
opportunities that teacher educators and student teachers encounter while
working with, and learning about, ICT as a tool for learning. Donnel, K
conducted his first 2-year self-study for addressing his experience of learning
as a new teacher educator. He is interested to explore systematically the
issues and questions which educator struggle most of time. Nilsson, 2010 acting
as a critical friend, worked with six engineering teachers in a Master’s
program in Machine engineering for two years in order to stimulate their
reflection on their own teaching and learning.
The results highlight how making teaching visible through the use of
self-study offers new ways to capture the complexity of practice. Garbett,
& Heap, in 2012 conducted their self-study to check the impact of tiered teaching
on making the complexity of pedagogy while teaching science education to
pre-service primary teachers. Teacher educators have to open student teachers’
eyes to the complex skills to play in their wider practice (Bullock, 2012).
The literature about
self-study has provided a methodology for critically examining own practices as
a teacher educator. By analyzing the experience in our own learning, we better
able to provide opportunities for teacher candidates to construct their
professional knowledge. It provided us with a starting point to understand
better and to address more successfully the challenging moments of practices
(Garbett, and Heap, 2011).
Significance
Of the Study:
My
study is not the explanatory research. I am not going to put the fabulous findings
the field of self-study. I am just going to explore the phenomenon. It having
less worth for the experienced researchers but it helps the beginning
researchers to understand the research process. It helps them those who are
interested to read the self-study process. The aim of my study is to explain
how teacher educators foster it. The beginning researcher will able to
highlight their area of focus and try to resolves the issues related to the
conduction of study (Nilsson, 2010).
Defining
the Concepts:
For
this study I use the term self-study, teaching complexities and critical
friend. Self-study means to study one self. In this research I use this term in
the context of teacher educators. Experienced teacher educators use this
technique to understand self-practices. They try to remove the ambiguities of
their learning process and to understand deeply. After understanding the
dilemmas of their practices they try to illuminate these drawbacks and to
improve them (Loughran, 2005 and Nilsson, 2010).
The
second term that I use is the teaching complexities. These are those problems
that students face in understanding the learning process. These complexities
may be in teaching style, teacher behavior and also with the subject matter.
Due to these complexities learner are unable to understand fully (Nilsson, 2010).
The
third one is the critical friend. It is defined as the trusted friend.
Different researchers use this term in their researches. In this research it
means that teacher researcher use this technique as a teaching strategy.
Teachers work with the students, they help the students in their working as their
friends (Nilsson, 2010.).
Research
Aims:
Self-studies
bring clarity and depth to our understanding of the ways in which teacher
educators respond to tensions. In other words, the lenses provide the space to
examine the negativity of old experiences on which to reflect (Lee, Perlaki,
& Stachelek, 2011).
The
aims of my self-study are:
What
is self-study in teacher education?
In
what ways did self-study enable us to understand more about our practice and
professional learning?
How
did the experience of working with teacher candidates change the principles of
practice of teacher educators?
Research
Paradigm:
My
research is about the study of those teachers who foster self-study to investigate
their complexities as their teaching practices. The paradigm of my research is
interpretivism because I will interpret knowledge by observing their practices.
I believe that knowledge is changeable and it changes its color and texture
with the changing context. I will try to explore the self-study process through
deep understanding. I will try to understand how teacher educator’s apply
self-study and in what way it will be more productive. I myself not
implementing the self-study but I will study those teachers who apply it in
their class rooms. I am not constructing knowledge myself but I will interpret
the knowledge by observing other practices (Breck, & Krim, 2012).
Theoretical
Framework:
I
am using self-study methodology as my approach or as a theoretical perspective.
Research methodology or approach is more than a research paradigm and methods.
It is a bridge between our research paradigm and our methods. As we using
self-study methodology it means that it is an overall approach that we are
using to investigate and interpret the phenomenon by using different methods (Breck,
& Krim, 2012).
Self-study research has
been an empowering methodology now these days to investigate teaching dilemmas (Garbett, and Heap,
2011.). It
a research methodology in which practitioners seek to make clear the evidence
that helps them to develop deeper understandings of their practices. Self-study
methodologies also challenge our prior assumption and open new dimensions of investigation
(Fletcher, and Bullock, 2012 and Nilsson, 2010) and (McDonough, and Brandenburg
2012.).
Methods
Of Data Collection:
In
self-study we collect our data in a number of different ways. Gathering data
from various sources is a principal characteristic that typifies self-study
methodology. The data generated from different ways clearly indicate the
quality and appropriateness of our method (Garbett, and Heap, 2011 and
Loughran, 2005.).
I
will choose four university teacher educators who implement self-study in their
classrooms while teaching student teachers. The sample of my study included
four teacher educator and all the student teacher studying in these four
classes.
The
primary tools of my data collection are in-depth interviews and observations. I
will conduct interviews with the teacher educators ant the format of the
interviews are semi-structured. Observations will be both direct and indirect.
In direct observation I personally observe them and in indirect observations I
will use audio tapes and videos. (Allard, Gallant, 2012 and Nilsson, 2010),
(Bullock, 2012).
Planning
The Data Collection:
Before going into the
context of the study mostly, we unaware about the issues that often arise. For
this, pilot study is suggested by the experienced researchers. I will also
conduct this pilot study to check the outcomes either the participant are interested
to respond. For this I will spend two weeks in the classrooms with the students
and teacher. I apply my instruments and other technique to check the validity
of my instruments. They are able to understand my study. Which modification I
can do to improve In my study? This pilot study helps me find out the weak
points in my study on which basis I will be able to re-organize my study and
make changes in it (Vivar, McQueen, Whyte, and Armayor, 2007) and (Breck, &
Krim, 2012). I observe them by looked at verbal comments, body language,
questions asked by each participant and interactions among all (Allard, and
Gallant, 2012.).
Procedure
Of Data Analysis:
There is no statistical
procedure / software to analyses qualitative data. We start our data analysis as
with the collection of our data. Firstly, i prepare my fields notes. I will
bring my all data into the textual form. I made transcripts of my audio
recording. The videos and our writings helped us to see our individually in
different ways (Allard, and Gallant, 2012.). I will read my data again and
again to find out meaning, to explore it, to find the relevant material. While
reading again and again I will reduce my data to the relevant material and
cutout all irrelevant material. I will highlight the different segments and
assign codes and memos to new and different aspect of the study. There is
software called NUD IST use in analysis. This software cannot produce the
analysis but it just helps the researcher to manage the data easily. Researcher
itself produces the analysis by reading again and again and forms it relevant
to the research questions (Breck, & Krim, 2012). A complete description of
the study will be made which allow the readers to critically examine my study
(Vivar, McQueen, Whyte, and Armayor, 2007).
Reporting The Ethical Issues:
Before
conducting my study, it is important for me to take permission from my
supervisor and my department. Then, I will write the application to the professor
who fosters self-study in their classroom to take permission from them. I will
clearly write the purpose of my study and request them to allow me to observe
their practices. If they allow me then I will tell the students that I am in
their classroom to research. If they participate and respond fully then I am
very great full to them. I will tell them about the VLC cameras fitted in their
classroom for observations. I told them all the aspects of the study
truthfully. It will be sure to them that their data must only be used for the
research purposes and they will not be misused. The results of my study will be
disclosed to the others for to take benefits (Vivar, McQueen, Whyte, and
Armayor, 2007).
Illuminating
The Limitation Of The Study:
As
self-study has a lot of benefits but as well as it has some draw backs or some
limitations. These are its some limitation:
Self-study
as a professional research appears to be problematic as it lacks of credibility
to our external audiences (Allard, and Gallant, 2012). It has lack emphasis on
the content of what has been learnt and its contribution to knowledge. Self-study requires low
involvement of others so that the learning outcomes are not as generalizable as
the traditional researches. It is also a plus point of self-study as well as limitation
(Loughran, 2005).
Disseminating
The Findings:
This
is about the presentation of the research findings. After the productive
findings and analysis our research is almost completed. The next step is to
present the results to others. For this it is compulsory to publish the
research in journals. I present my study to the experts in seminars and in
different conferences. I will give the summery of my research to the
participant to discuss. It may enhance the interest of the audience into my
research. In this way i will able to
generalize the research results to the greater extent. The readers and audience
can take any part of my study which is relevant to their context (Vivar,
McQueen, Whyte, and Armayor, 2007).
Time
Frame For Study:
The
time frame of my research will be six months. I will conduct my research in one
semester. My research will start with the starting semester. I will observe the
teacher educators throughout my study and at the end of the semester I will
take interviews from them. Mostly,
semesters ended in the four to five months and in the last month I will
properly analyze my data and ended my whole research in six months and submitted
it to my supervisor (Vivar, McQueen, Whyte, and Armayor, 2007).
Conclusion:
We talk about the self-study to improve our teaching
practices because it brings clarity and depth to our understanding of the ways
in which teacher educators respond to tensions. The main challenges of
self-study are to go beyond one’s own perspectives and taken-for-granted
assumptions to look at and understand practice in new ways (Fransson,
& Holmberg, 2012). In other words, the lenses provide the space to
examine the negativity of old experiences on which to reflect.
References:
Allard,
A. C and Gallant, A (2012). Is This a Meaningful Learning Experience?
Interactive Critical
Self-inquiry as Investigation. Studying Teacher Education: A journal of self-study of teacher
education Practices,8(3), pp. 261–273. Retrieved from:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2012.719128
Breck, S. and Krim, J.
(2012). Practice-based Teaching: A self-study by two teacher educators at
the
graduate level. Studying Teacher
Education: A journal of self-study of teacher education practices, 8(3). pp.
289-302. Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2012.719126.
Bullock, S.M (2012). Creating a Space for the
Development of Professional Knowledge:
A self-study of
supervising teacher candidates during practicum placements. Studying Teacher Education: A journal of
self-study of teacher education practices, 8(2), pp 143–156. Retrieved
from:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2012.692985
Donnell, K. (2010). Learning to Teach: A self-study
of a new teacher educator’s
introductory education
course. Studying Teacher Education: A
journal of self-study of teacher education practices, 6(3). pp. 227–234.
Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2010.518493
Fletcher, T and Bullock, S. M (2012). Enacting
Literacy Pedagogies: A collaborative
self-study by teacher
educators in physical education and science.
Studying Teacher Education: A journal of self-study of teacher education
practices, 8(1). pp. 19–33. Retrieved from:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2012.657011
Fransson, G. and Holmberg, J (2012). Understanding
the Theoretical Framework of
Technological
Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A collaborative self-study to understand
teaching practice and aspects of knowledge. Studying
Teacher Education:A journal of self-study of teacher education practices, 8(2).
pp. 193–204. Retrieved from:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2012.692994
Garbett, D. and Heap, R. (2011). Making Practice
Visible: A collaborative self-study of
tiered teaching in
teacher education. Studying Teacher
Education: A journal of self-study of teacher education practices, Vol. 7,
No. 3, pp. 235–248. Retrieved from:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2011.617117
Lee, J. E, Perlaki, E and Stachelek, R. (2012).
Foreseeing the Unforeseen through
Collaborative
Self-Study by a Teacher Educator and Two Teacher Candidates. Studying Teacher Education: A journal of
self-study of teacher education practices, 7(3). pp. 281-297. Retrieved
from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2011.617133
McDonough, S and Brandenburg, R (2012). Examining Assumptions
About Teacher
educator Identities by
Self-study of the Role of Mentor of Pre-service Teachers. Studying Teacher
Education: A journal of self-study of teacher education practices, 8(2) pp.
169–182 Retrieved from;
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2012.692990
Nilsson, P. (2010). Capturing the Complexity of
Practice: A self-study in the context of
engineering
education. Studying Teacher Education: A journal of self-study of teacher
education practices, 6(2). pp. 187–200.
Retrieved from; http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2010.495900
Pithouse, K. Mitchell, C. and Weber, S. (2009).
Self-study in teaching and teacher development:
a call to action. Educational Action Research, 17(1), pp.
43–62. Retrieved from:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09650790802667444.
Vivar, C. G., McQueen,
A., & Armayor, N. C. (2007). Getting started with qualitative
research:
developing
a research proposal. Nurse Researcher, 14(3), 60-73.
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