Practitioner Research in Action: Two Scenarios

Prior to addressing the overall characteristics and usual designs associated with practitioner research, it is instructive to explore this idea through the use of fictionalized concrete examples. The two stories here are of two kinds, the first representing an individual teacher applying practitioner research to his own practice without the involvement of colleagues. The second is an example of a lawyer adopting it to her own practice, but engaging other lawyers in the process. In each of these examples a format adapted from Kemmis and McTaggart (1982) will be used to organize the phases of the investigative process. These phases or stages are focusing, planning, acting, observing, reflecting, and revising (cited in Jones et al., 1999, p. 12) and will be defined in each scenario.

Mr. Crane, Sixth-Grade Teacher

Our teacher, Mr. Crane, has determined that his students are reluctant to become verbally involved in classroom discussions (focusing). It is Mr. Crane's position based on both study and experience that increased verbal involvement by students is directly linked to student interest, motivation, and positive attitude, and ultimately to improved learning or at least to creating a better environment for learning.

Planning in this setting refers to Mr. Crane's thoughts about how to try something different that may have the potential to encourage greater student verbal involvement. Perhaps he could use more silence to give students increased opportunities to speak, or he might request that students respond to each other's ideas more often—a complicated idea in itself. He could also try to ask questions that are more open ended so that multiple responses are possible, making class members feel less need to produce one best answer. Mr. Crane must now decide during this planning phase what to try, perhaps selecting two ideas to keep the size of the “experiment” manageable. Limiting the variables in any tryout gives the practitioner researcher the ability to keep track of which strategies may cause the desired outcomes.

Mr. Crane decides to try the selected use of silence and, with some careful preplanning, the use of open-ended questions. He now teaches the lesson applying these new ideas (acting) and makes an audiotape of the lesson for later observation and reflection. When time first allows, Mr. Crane listens to the taped class, writing down what happens during the lesson when he attempts the use of silence at different intervals. The practitioner researcher, Mr. Crane, also writes down all the questions he asks during the lesson—as most teachers know, these are always different than those one plans to ask. He then examines these questions to gauge the extent of their open-endedness and if the better questions produced the student verbal involvement anticipated (observing).

By examining his observations, Mr. Crane is now reflecting on the relative effectiveness of his attempts to increase verbal involvement, deciding that these new questioning strategies did produce the wanted results, although he sees ways of refining these questions to make them even more effective (revising). However, Mr. Crane discovers that the use of silence was awkward, disturbing his normal teaching pattern and interrupting the pace of the class. Silence, he decides, looked like a much better idea on paper than in practice, and he will probably not experiment with it again, at least for purposes of increasing student talk.

This reflecting and revising by Mr. Crane leads to refocusing (focusing), that is, using the findings from the first set of observations, reflections, and revisions to make changes for the next research cycle. In turn, this revised planning moves Mr. Crane from the final stage of the Kemmis and McTaggart (1982) model to the beginning phase once again, thus designated as refocusing or focusing all over again, producing a new set of plans, acts, observations, reflections, and revisions. These full cycles, as suggested earlier, are quite close together, in this instance representing a lesson or activity of less than an hour that is subsequently observed and whose results are used for a new practitioner research plan.

Ms. Drake, Courtroom Lawyer

As an experienced defense attorney, Ms. Drake has learned that there is no such thing as too much information concerning the events surrounding each potential case. She also knows that most lawyers try to address this need for information during early interviews with clients and others associated with the case so they can determine if there is an actual case and, if so, how they will construct that case. Missing information or getting the ideas or facts wrong can be very costly later on.

Ms. Drake has decided that this is an important area to study using practitioner research following the Kemmis and McTaggart (1982) model. Some members of Ms. Drake's law firm have agreed to work with her on this issue and are interested in studying their own practice as well. To proceed, Ms. Drake has developed her own practitioner's theory that some of the information she gains from clients is probably clouded by her own biases and assumptions she brings to the early interviews. Ms. Drake guesses that she may well draw premature conclusions during these first meetings, thinking she understands what the case is before the client has fully disclosed the story (focusing). This happens to many professionals whose experience makes them potentially wiser but too anticipatory in their judgments.

To investigate this phenomenon, Ms. Drake and her colleagues discuss what kind of data she might collect to learn about this issue. There is the potential of using audiotape, a questionnaire, and even a colleague observing the early interview sessions. Although they know they have not exhausted the possibilities, all agree that it is important to learn if the client has had the opportunity to recount relevant events as well as to determine what techniques Ms. Drake could use to draw out the client's story (planning). Ms. Drake has the idea of using the technique of clarification by rephrasing what the client says at appropriate times both to clarify what has been said and to encourage the client to continue. This also can be achieved by asking clients to rephrase or restate what they have said. She had seen this used effectively in training seminars, but was not altogether comfortable with its use. She recalled an example in which a client said: “Well, my feeling was that explaining to the police that I saw the accident happen was the best thing to do even though they thought I caused it.” The lawyer's clarification statement was: “So, you wanted to be certain the police got your side of the story. Is that it?” This seemed straightforward enough in Ms. Drake's mind. In the seminar at least, the technique did encourage the client to provide more details.

Ms. Drake's research practitioner group decides against the live observer idea as too distracting for the client, but concurs that an audio-recording would be part of normal events. Ms. Drake's colleagues also suggest the addition of a short questionnaire for completion by the client as a verification of what is observed on the tape recording. The questionnaire would ask the client if there was any information about the case not covered in the interview and would seek an overall reaction.

Ms. Drake meets with her first client who will be part of this practitioner research study (acting), explaining that she is taping to be able to catch all of the information covered. Ms. Drake does her best to selectively rephrase the client's statements without sounding like a parrot (a great fear she had at the training seminar and going into this client interview session). Ms. Drake also makes certain the client completes the questionnaire before leaving the office, but has it administered by one of her practitioner research team members.

When she can find the time, Ms. Drake listens to the tape, observing her restatement strategy in action. She finds that in some instances the technique is having the desired effect, with the client pursuing thoughts further and producing more examples as a direct result of Ms. Drake's rephrasing. At other times, though, the lawyer's restatements sound almost absurd to her—she is the parrot she feared she would be. Ms. Drake will wait for her colleagues to observe the taped interview to see what they think. For further data, the questionnaire results show that the client thought his story was fully expressed, but was distracted on occasion by the lawyer's “just repeating what I said sometimes. That just didn't sound right.”

Ms. Drake and her practitioner researcher colleagues discuss the findings (reflecting). Each member offers Ms. Drake suggestions about refining her clarifying statements to avoid the “parrot phenomenon.” They also remark on when she might have used the technique and other times when she might have been better off not doing so.

While her colleagues are offering more examples of clarifying without repeating along with suggestions for the judicious use of the strategy, Ms. Drake is already thinking about how she might attempt this again with another client she will see in a few days (revising and refocusing). She is more enthusiastic about the process than she expected, but did not anticipate how complicated this seemingly simple restatement idea would become in practice. At the same time, the overall significance of examining this part of her professional practice has taken on heightened importance. Meanwhile, the other group members begin discussing their own projects—one decides to also study the clarification strategy in early interviews, whereas others have quite different areas of interest.

Scenario Analysis

In both of the examples the practitioner researchers followed the adapted Kemmis and McTaggart (1982) steps, and in both cases produced a pattern that Kemmis and McTaggart describe as a spiral or spiraled cycle—rather than just repeated cycles—whereby each subsequent practitioner research event conveys growth, change, and potential improvement in subsequent practice. The term cycle communicates a kind of redundancy or starting over in the same way that seasons of the year repeat themselves. It is a reasonable prospect, however, that a practitioner may engage in the study of a given topic during only one cycle, either resolving the issue or deciding that a different one is a more productive focus. The spiral or improvement idea would still result if professional growth and perhaps new insights were attained.

It should be an acceptable option that a lone individual could effectively conduct practitioner research, as Mr. Crane was able to do. However, the added advantages of a collegial effort evident in Ms. Drake's scenario included group support and multiple contributions from the team members. Conducting practitioner research in group settings usually offers discoveries that individuals reflecting by themselves will not see.