When first introduced to the idea of Action Research, I was particularly keen to undertake Participatory Action Research. This was partly because the non-hierarchical approach aligned with my own pedagogical values, but also because I felt that involving the students in the design of a mentoring programme made it more likely to meet their own needs. However, given the time restraints of the project it became clear that I would not be able to authentically co-author my research with students, and I was keen to avoid the issue Timmis et al (2024) described as commonly occurring, where ‘co-researchers are often only involved in data collection and therefore can only respond to and produce data for a pre-figured set of aims and methods.’ Instead the compromise I reached was to be as open as possible with the participants about what I was doing and invite their input at any stage. This has left me with a robust set of suggestions for improving the programme in future academic years.
My initial approach to data collection was to produce questionnaires, which participants were asked to respond to at the end of each session. These comprised of both quantitative and qualitive questions, with the intention of tracking how these developed over both sessions. I received 10 responses to the first questionnaire and 8 to the second, so while this was enough to take some insights, it was only around a quarter of participants and felt insufficient to draw strong conclusions from. Students had the opportunity to opt-out of completing the questionnaire, so it is also possible that those with strong opinions that would have skewed the results chose not to contribute it.
Summary of data from questionnaires after Interchange sessions 1 & 2
Full collection of responses from questionnaires after Interchange sessions 1 & 2
Confronted with what I saw as a lack of empirical data but a wealth of observations, I found Braun ad Clarke’s (2022) writing around having a ‘qualitative sensibility’ very useful, one of the conditions being ‘a desire for understanding that is about nuance, complexity and even contradiction’… and ‘the ability to embrace the idea that knowledge comes from a position, and a disinterest in the idea of a singular universal truth to be discovered.’ This has helped me to see appreciate the understandings that I did have, and how I could develop my understanding of these.
Once I’d narrowed my focus to making a meaningful experience for third-year students, I proposed some semi-structured interviews with third-year participants to get further insight into their perspectives and experiences. I was very wary of asking for more time from students that had already contributed a lot and were in the final stages of writing their dissertations. As predicted, uptake was limited, but I was pleased to be able to interview three students, whose contributions proved very insightful.
Full transcripts of interviews with Students S, P and G.
The data I have collected brings together material from different sources and perspectives with own subjective interpretations, which are heavily influenced by my prior knowledge of the participants. I enjoyed Jones, Holmes, Macrae & Maclure’s 2010 text ‘Documenting classroom life: how can I write about what I am seeing?’ who champion a ‘montage’ approach to compiling data, considering how a ‘faithful’ depiction of an observation may not necessarily be neutral or objective, as it combines subjective, temporal and other understandings of the scene. As an artist, this immediately made me think of the 1923 Picasso quote ‘art is a lie that makes us realize the truth’, and I began to think how to tell the ‘story’ of what I had found.
References
- Braun V., Clarke V. (2022). Thematic analysis: A Practical Guide. Los Angeles: SAGE.
- Jones, L., Holmes, R., Macrae, C. and Maclure, M. (2010) ‘Documenting classroom life: how can I write about what I am seeing?’, Qualitative Research, 10:4, pp. 479-491. Available at: https://journals-sagepub-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/doi/pdf/10.1177/1468794110366814
- Sue Timmis, Emmanuel Mgqwashu, Sheila Trahar, Kibashini Naidoo, Lisa Lucas & Patricia Muhuro (2024) Students as co-researchers: participatory methods for decolonising research in teaching and learning in higher education, Teaching in Higher Education, 29:7, 1793-1812, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2024.2359738
- Picasso, P in interview with de Zayas, M in The Arts: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine Covering All Phases of Ancient and Modern Art, New York, 1923.