Teacher as Researcher

When teachers become researchers, they take on an expanded professional role that involves systematic, self-reflective, intentional inquiry into aspects of classroom practice. In addition to regular teaching duties, they engage in question posing based on perceived educational problems, collect and interpret data, and write up their findings in the interest of improving practice. This new role for teachers is consistent with a number of values and trends in the field of curriculum studies. First, teacher inquiry is primarily concerned with understanding educational experience. When teachers develop a deeper understanding of an educational situation, their capacities for wise judgment and sound decision making are improved, thus improving the quality of the educational experience for students. Second, when teachers conduct research into their practice, it disturbs the historic hierarchy in which research into curriculum and teaching is conducted by university-based social science researchers or discipline-based academics, and teachers are positioned as consumers of research findings who apply this new knowledge. At the heart of the teacher-research movement is an assumption that teachers can and should be [Page 843]generating knowledge and theories about teaching that are grounded in actual practice, as opposed to merely implementing the findings of expert, outside researchers. Third, many feminist curriculum scholars have concerned themselves with the theory-practice divide in educational work, and acknowledging the teacher as researcher further blurs the boundaries that separate these domains. Finally, the recognition of the teacher as researcher acknowledges the field's critical commitment to the democratization of the educational workplace, including classrooms, schools, and the arena of policy. In optimum settings, conducting research gives teachers enhanced responsibility, autonomy, and control over their labor, and teachers who feel thus empowered in their work are more likely to be sensitive to the democratic dimensions of their students' experience in the classroom.

This entry begins with a brief background of teacher research and then explains how it differs from conventional research. Next, this entry describes common teacher research approaches, data collection and analysis, and the purposes of teacher research. Lastly, this entry discusses criticism associated with teacher research.