Presentation given to HEA Network Group 25/1/18

1. Action research in
Higher Education
Dr. Lydia Arnold
Harper Adams University
@HarperEdDev
Lydiaarnold.net

2. • Why action research
• Where it fits in a ‘system’ of development
• Examples
• Benefits and prospects
• Problems ... and solutions

4. Projects include:
Understanding learning spaces (where do students learn)
Understanding prior study experiences
Virtual field trips
Flipped classroom
Developing interactive teaching methods
Librarians working with staff to promote reading
3D health and safety
Improving consistency of marking judgments within a team
Clickers for student engagement

6. Benefits
• Self development
• Transforming practice (note taking example)
• Impacting policy and culture (e.g. belonging,
mobiles)
• Networks and relationships (acculturation)
• Empathy for supervising students
• “it gives us a language for talking about
pedagogy”
• Personal transformation
• Feeds the system of enhancement

8. For my interviews I deliberately chose two
academics who I had hardly spoken to previously
and, as with all my interactions on the project, this
proved fruitful in developing my relationship with
them and raising my professional identity. I hope
to build on this both informally by visiting the staff
common room more frequently and formally by
requesting occasional slots at departmental
meetings.

9. The whole action research process has provided me with
the opportunity to work and think like a student,
exploring the three-way transaction between the student,
teacher and the material being studied (Entwistle, 2015);
something I have not done for many years. This is
hugely beneficial as it gives me another perspective as
a teaching practitioner; an insight into how it feels to
undertake research, and to cope with the
uncertainties and ‘mess’ that results.

10. Whilst conducting my action research project, I
have realised how important it is that I consider
the evidence and literature behind my teaching
practices, and that I do not just follow certain
teaching practices because it is what other
colleagues in my department do. It has enabled
me to develop more of a questioning mind-set.

11. • Opportunity to develop all of the dimensions of
practice (K, A, V)
• Learning to be scholarly (V3)
• A chance to support and mentor or others D3vii
• Opportunities to gain student feedback and
respond (K5)
• Disrupting and working for those not heard (V1,
V2)

12. Problems
• Reflection not action research
• Methodology is so unfamiliar …. The move from
‘prove’ to ‘understand’ ‘appreciate’ and ‘explore’
• Time frame and ethics
• Repetition and over surveying
• Moving beyond reflection
• Building confidence to publish

13. Solutions
• Negotiation of topics
• Incentives
• Unobtrusive methods (walks, bars and
coffee)
• Self help
• Just in time methods support (customized)
• Forums to share (long game of disruption)
• Create publication and sharing opportunities
• Paradigm shift - simplifying the
unnecessarily abstract reading around
action research ....