Dialectical Responses

Dialectical Responses to

“Discovering Action Research: The Evolution of My Research Question,”

by Barbara Bell Angus

Directions:  Review the excerpts that Dr. Carolyn culled out of the Bell Angus article about the way that one teacher researcher approached the study process. In the right hand column, select eight (8) of these excerpts, and respond to them, using the following prompt to guide you.

How might Bell Angus’ process toward understanding her students and her research

inform your own upcoming research study?

‘Graph #	Excerpt	1-2 sentences how this statement might inform your own future research (with a total of 8 excerpts selected)
2	Powers (2000): “ ‘the richness in practitioner research evolves from the dissonance or discrepancy when what occurs is different than what was expected.’”	Bell Angus’ research became richer and more effective due to her results not being neither what she expected not what she wanted, which speaks to the necessity for me as a teacher researcher to be flexible and willing to change when executing my own researcher. This statement informs the reality that my true or best research may come from failed questions and interventions first.
15	“Again no one mentioned any of the conversation skills on which I had been focusing for the previous six weeks. Not only had they not made my goals their own, they had not even recognized my goals.”	Here, this allows me to see a researcher critically engaging with unsatisfactory results, which lets me know that I may see what I want to see in my research. This is why it is so important that I am analyzing my data as often as possible.
16	“..Although I was frustrated at first, it was, as Cazden had predicted, the beginning of more interesting and productive work. So I abandoned the idea…”	In order to find a truly productive and useful research question, frustration and failure must come first. I will not be able to pursue a real issue without some sort of trial and error.
17	“I involved the students in designing and evaluating their own assignment. Discourse was no longer the means; it was now the end. Now my question became more basic. If I involve my students in designing the task and evaluating themselves, can I get them to focus on their discourse and to improve it?”	I must engage my students in my research and make it our research. If the students feel like they are a part of solving a problem that they see meaningful, they will act more intentionally to improve it.
19	“Why did the students in this situation, without any instruction, discern my goals? I think it was because they were also their goals.”	This statement really emphasizes the necessity for student input and buy in for a successful research project. After students become co-researchers, they can articulate the goals of the research!
24	“…the discrepancy between what I expected and what occurred forced me to look more closely for answers. Therefore, I scrutinized the videotapes in more detail and discovered critical aspects of student interaction. I believe my observation concerning the influence and power of students' social relationships outside of class will fundamentally change my understanding of and approach to classroom interaction.”	Here, I am now aware to concentrate on not just the way my students behave in the classroom but really how they interact with each other. Only after observing and analyzing her students’ interactions with each was the author able to conduct meaningful research that the students truly responded to.
26	“…But it was only through careful scrutiny of videotaped recordings and subsequent reflection that I was able to make these observations and, consequently, to change my approach to teaching my high needs students.”	Classroom research depends so heavily on qualitative data, and this passage is informative in that it gave me the idea to video tape my classrooms in order to collect less  biased and more accurate data to further inform my research question.
27	“With respect to defining my research question, I have learned that my question must arise more closely from actual classroom incidents.”	To me, this reinforces that I need to choose a research question based on things I see in my actual classroom with my actual students, not just theoretical questions or general questions I have about education or classrooms.