Beyond knowledge: An insight into the practice of a ... · Ruth Cynthia Burnett BEcon Uni Qld, Dip....
Transcript of Beyond knowledge: An insight into the practice of a ... · Ruth Cynthia Burnett BEcon Uni Qld, Dip....
Beyond knowledge: An insight into the practice of a learning support teacher
Thesis submitted by
Ruth Cynthia Burnett
BEcon Uni Qld, Dip. Teach Christchurch, MEd, QUT
June 2004
For the degree of Doctor of Education
in the Centre for Innovation in Education
Queensland University of Technology
288 credit points
FACUL TV OF EDUCATION
ADMISSION TO THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
CANDIDATE'S NAME: Ms Ruth Burnett
CENTRE/RESEARCH CONCENTRATION: Centre for Innovation in Education
PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR:
ASSOCIATE SUPERVISOR:
THESIS TITLE:
Dr Tania Asp land
Dr lan Macpherson
Beyond Knowledge: An Insight into the Practice of a Learning Support Teacher
The above-named candidate has fulfilled the requirements of the rules for the Doctor of Education degree; the standard of the candidate's work is satisfactory to the Faculty Academic Board (after considering the results in all units and the reports of all examiners); the candidate has otherwise complied with the provisions of all statutes and other applicable rules and is, therefore, eligible to be admitted to the degree of Doctor of Education.
Course Coordinator .. J�� . .............................. Date . . -:J . • . • . • . . . . .
Chair, Higher Degrees Research Committee ....
Chair, Faculty Academic Board . . A.
g:research/thesis processing/ed11/admcert
Statement of Access
I, the undersigned, the author of this thesis, understand that Queensland University
of Technology will make it available for use within the University Library and, by
microfilm or other means, allow access to users in other approved libraries. All
users consulting this thesis will have to sign the following statement:
In consulting this thesis I agree not to copy or closely paraphrase it in whole or in
part without written consent of the author; and to make proper public written
acknowledgement for any assistance which I have o btained from it.
Beyond this, I do not wish to place any restriction on access to this thesis.
QUT Verified Signature
ii
Abstract
Increasingly, schools are being asked to meet the challenges of providing inclusive
classrooms for all children. Inclusion is no longer about special education for a
special group of students. lt is about school improvement in order to bring about
the changes that are needed to classroom practices to ensure the improvement of
student learning outcomes. Inclusion is no longer a policy initiative. Rather it has
been transformed to become a process that moves a school towards inclusive
practices that will result in school improvement, heightened student learning
outcomes and greater opportunities for all students to gain equal access to
education.
This study focuses on the challenge of diversity as it translates into implementing
inclusive practices across two secondary school contexts. I have undertaken this
research in my role as a Learning Support Teacher over a period of five years.
Central to my research is a constructivist ontology and a practice epistemology that
aligns with a practitioner research methodology of action research.
Seven generalisable propositions have emerged from this research that inform the
strategies I am using to more easily accommodate legislated inclusivitiy.
These propositions include:
1. School communities need to share a common understanding of equity.
2. The school principal must provide overt leadership in moving towards an
inclusive school culture.
3. A whole-school approach is needed to narrow the gap between inclusion
rhetoric and classroom practice.
4. Pedagogical reform is the most effective strategy for catering for diverse
student learning needs.
5. Differentiating curriculum is achieved when collaborative planning teams
develop appropriate units of work.
6. School communities need to make a commitment to gather, share and
manage relevant information concerning students.
iii
7. The Learning Support Teacher needs to be repositioned within a curriculum
planning team.
Statement of Sources Declaration
I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted in any form
for another degree or diploma at any university or other institution of tertiary
education. Information derived from the published or unpublished work of others
has been acknowledged in the text and a list of references is given.
iv
Acknowledgements
I wish to express my gratitude to my supervisors, Or Tania Aspland and Or I an
Macpherson for their support and encouragement in completing this study.
I would like to acknowledge my family for their support and encouragement
throughout this doctoral journey. To my husband Dick, my son Nicholas and
daughter Zoe, your patience and understanding has always been appreciated.
To my son Nicholas, Nick Ford, Mathew lmhoff and Jill Lisserman-Berrell, I am
indebted to you for your generous technical assistance.
I would like to also acknowledge the range of critical friends, in particular Or Geof
Hill, who have given their time so generously in supporting me throughout this
study.
V
vi
Table of Contents
Statement of Access .......................................................................... i
At>stretct ............................................................................................. ii
Stettement of Sources Decletrettion ................................................... iv
Acknowledgements ............................................................................ v
Tettlle of Contents .............................................................................. vi
L.ist of F=igures ................................................................................... i){
L.ist of Tettlles ..................................................................................... ilC
Chetpter 1: Introduction ...................................................................... 1
Context of the Research Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The context of the research: A web of complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Justification for the research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Findings from the research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Structure of the research dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Presentation of the research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 0
Presentation of the research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 0
Using the CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Overview of Chapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Chetpter 2: L.iteretture Review ......................... .................................. 14
The Debate surrounding the Definition of Special Needs and Related Terms . . . . . . . 18
Implications of this debate for the practice of Learning Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Questions arising for Learning Support Practice from this Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Multiple discourses within special needs informing Learning Support practice . . . . . . 23
Implications of Multiple Constructions of Disability for Learning Support
Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Questions arising for Learning Support Practice due to the Multiple
Constructions of disability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
vii
The divergence of School Policy and Teaching Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Implications for Learning Support Practice when there is a gap between
inclusion rhetoric and school and classroom practice . . . . .. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Questions identified when there is a gap between inclusion rhetoric and
classroom practice: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chapter 3: Methodology .................................................................. 43
Teacher as Practitioner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Teacher as Researcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 45
Teacher as Doctoral Researcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Positioning as Practitioner Researcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Articulating the Inquiry Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Choosing Action Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 53
Models representing Action Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5?
Early Phases: Orientation - What we do is determined by what we see . . . . . . . . 57
Phase Two: Moving on - Action research is an iterative process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Phase Three: The messy real world of practice . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
The action research model adopted for this study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
My story of developing action research . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
An explanation of the four action research cycles that represent my
practitioner research within this study follow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Cycle 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Cycle 2 ........................................................................................................... 67
Cycle 3 ........................................................................................................... 70
Cycle 4 ........................................................................................................... 71
A model may need to be multi-faceted . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . 73
Data Collection and Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4
Data collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Data Reduction . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Processing field notes to journal entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . 78
Critical reflection in the light of multiple bodies of literature and practice . . . . . . . 80
The process of writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Data Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Cross-Referencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
viii
Conclusions: DrawingNerification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Conclusions: DrawingNerification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Identifying prepositional judgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Writing Vignettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Conclusions: DrawingNerification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Presentation: Medium/Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Chapter 4: Data Analysis ................................................................. 95
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Using the CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
VIGNETTE 1: Analytic Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
VIGNETTE 2: Analytic Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
VIGNETTE 3: Analytic Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
VIGNETTE 4: Analytic Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
VIGNETTE 5: Analytic Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
VIGNETTE 6: Analytic Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
VIGNETTE 7: Analytic Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Chapter 5: A Concluding Chapter ................................................. 143
A Contribution of Knowledge in the building of inclusive schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Contribution of knowledge to practitioner research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 7
Iterative cycles of practitioner action research- "and the beat goes on . . . . . . . " ....... 149
References . . .. . .. . .. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . .. . .. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . 11 • • •• 152
A CD with Journal Entries and Artefacts is presented with this document.
List of Figures
Figure 1:
Figure 2:
Figure 3:
Figure 4:
Figure 5:
Figure 6:
Figure 7:
Figure 8:
Figure 9:
Figure 10:
Figure 11:
Figure 12:
Figure 13:
Figure 14:
Figure 15:
Figure 16:
Figure 17:
Figure 18:
Figure 19:
Figure 20
Discourses informing my practice . . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 3
Complexity of my research practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Thesis Structure .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 9
CD Table of Contents............................................ 10
Approaches to Inquiry .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 52
A single-loop model of a learning system: Bawd en 58
(1991) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Iterative cycles of Action Research (Kemmis & 59
McTaggart, 1986) ................................................ .
An Action Research Spiral (Griffiths, 1990) .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . . 60
McNiff (1988) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. . ... . 61
Burnett (200 1) .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 62
Cycle 1 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. 65
Cycle 2 ... ... ... ... ...... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. 67
Cycle 3 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 70
Cycle 4 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. 71
Components of Data Analysis .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 76
JE20020205 LessonModelling ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. 79
Journal Entry Template......................................... 83
Vignette Structure .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 89
Vignettes: A conceptual framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
CD Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
List of Tables
Table 1: Criteria Identifying Action Research (Griffiths, 1990) 55
ix
Chapter 1: Introduction
The role of the Learning Support Teacher is an undertheorised area in the
dynamic field of special education. This dissertation draws on my own journey
working as a Learning Support Teacher in two secondary girls’ schools to
address this deficiency. As a result of the long-term interrogation within an
action research framework, a set of propositional judgements is developed as
the findings of this study that inform the practices of Learning Support
Teachers.
Context of the Research Study Undertaking a professional doctorate means simultaneously engaging in
workplace practice and research-orientated practice (Brennan, 1998). This
has been referred to as practitioner research. My practitioner research has
involved concurrent studies of two secondary girls’ schools governed by
religious orders. These schools were selected for the study for the principle
reason that I was employed as a Learning Support Teacher in these schools.
My position as a Learning Support Teacher in the two school contexts gave
me the opportunity of accessing real-world data (Gummesson, 2000).
My Learning Support Teacher position in School A spanned from the
beginning of 1997 to the end of 1998. At the beginning of 1999, I took up a
Learning Support position at School B where I am currently teaching. Prior to
my appointment, School B had not previously employed a Learning Support
Teacher. My practice as a Learning Support Teacher in both school contexts
involved issues within the discourses of education for students with special
needs, in particular, issues relating to inclusion and inclusive classroom
practices.
My practices as a Learning Support Teacher have been undertaken in
response to a world-wide acceptance of, and commitment to the philosophy of
inclusion evidenced by UNESCO’s (1994) Salamanca World statement on
special needs education, that demands:
• Every child has a fundamental right to education, and must be given
the opportunity to achieve and maintain an acceptable level of learning.
• Every child has unique characteristics, interests, abilities and learning
needs.
• Educational systems should be designed and educational programmes
implemented to take into account the wide diversity of these
characteristics and needs.
• Those with special educational needs must have the access to regular
schools who should accommodate them within a child-centred
pedagogy capable of meeting those needs.
• Regular schools with this inclusive orientation are the most effective
means of combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming
communities, building an inclusive society, and achieving education for
all; moreover, they provide an effective education to the majority of
children and improve the efficiency and ultimately the cost-
effectiveness of the entire educational system (UNESCO, 1994,
Salamanca Statement, paragraph 2).
My research investigation has drawn from discourses1 of special needs
education as well as change management, media, litigation and accountability
and technology literature (see Figure 1, Discourses informing my research
practice). These discourses have informed my understanding of the situations
in which I have been working. I have also included an experiential discourse
of being a practitioner researcher in the field of special needs education.
My choice of title, Beyond special needs knowledge: An insight into the
practice of a learning support teacher, reflects my concerns as a practitioner,
1 Discourse is a disputed term. In this inquiry I have drawn from Knight’s (1996) explanation of discourse:‘a discourse constructs reality in a particular way, and those that work within its framework draw on its assumptions, pose questions which it deems significant, and employ its criteria for evaluating evidence and arguments’ (p.148). There are multiple discourses evident within special needs education (Carrington, 1995; Lewis, 1987) that have developed from particular constructions of disability (Fulcher, 1989; Oliver, 1987). These constructions have influenced policies and practices within special needs education which in turn have become recognisable discourses identifying particular constructions of disability (Ballard, 1995).
that knowledge relating to special needs education is available and continually
emerging as is evidence to support effective teaching practice. In order to
change school and classroom practice to cater for students with diverse
learning needs, a Learning Support Teacher needs to be informed by other
bodies of knowledge that sit outside one professional discourse. It is argued
here, that it is the coming together of the following named discourses that
provide a rich data base to inform the notion of the Learning Support Teacher.
Although Figure 1, Discourses informing my research practice, suggests that
the informing discourses that I have accessed have been sequential and fall
into neat sections, in reality there has been a lot of overlap, retracing of steps,
review, reduction and refocusing. As I have researched my practice I have not
tried to solve problems but rather I have tried to uncover some of the web of
complexity of my teaching practice (Winter, Griffiths & Green, 2000, p.30).
Figure 2, Complexity of my research practice, depicts the complexity and
interrelatedness of my research context.
Figure 1. Discourses informing my Figure 2. Complexity of my research research practice practice
My practice and research into practice have also been initiated and guided by
understandings gained through my “insider status” (Anderson & Herr, 1999,
p.12) as a researcher. I also include my tacit knowledge and understanding of
my school contexts as part of my initial research process. Cole and Knowles
School contexts A.B
My Praxis
Special Needs
Change Management
Media
Litigation Accountability
Technology
Research
?
(2000, p.6) state research acknowledges that “much of what teachers know
and express in their practice is tacit-personally held and not easily explained”.
Another aspect of my practice development and my research development
was my ongoing meetings with a mentor. Calderhead and Gates (1993, p.9)
describe the role of a mentor as “the person who acts as facilitator in the
development of reflection”. Anderson and Herr (1999) refer to this role as a
“critical friend”. In this study, my critical friend was central to my interrogation
of my own practice and the consequential theorising of that practice. His role
included reflective responding, scholarly reframing, investigative reframing,
encouraging documentation, encouraging collection of data and scholarly
reading (Hill, 2001).
The context of the research: A web of complexity
A social justice paradigm based on a human rights perspective of equal
opportunities for all children within the same classroom has underpinned the
move towards greater inclusion of students with disabilities in regular
classrooms. Inclusive education has come to signify more than what was
once described as the integration of students with disabilities in regular
schools and classrooms (Carrington & Elkins, 2002a) that may have
supported the presence of students with disabilities in regular classrooms.
Inclusion is no longer about special education for a special group of students.
Inclusive education is about school improvement in order to bring about the
changes that are needed to classroom practices to ensure the improvement of
all student learning outcomes.
More traditional models of support for students with diverse learning needs
are characterized by a withdrawal system or pullout programs (Carrington &
Elkins, 2002b) guided by special education teachers. Subsequent to the
inclusion movement, teachers involved in such programs were referred to as
remedial teachers. In the context of inclusive educational practices, the
support role of the specialist teacher has broadened to include not only the
support of students but also of class teachers. This shift has invited a
renaming of the position from one of resourcing to learning support. My
position in both school contexts has been referred to as, Learning Support
Teacher. This position may not be referred to in this way in other schools or
education systems within Australia.
The domain specific literature and my practice as a Learning Support Teacher
reveal the nature of the education of students with special needs as both
complex and contextual. The complex and contextual nature of the area of
research are outlined below with a view to portraying the context in which the
study is embedded.
The nature of special needs is complex
The practices of a teacher working within the context that includes students
with special needs is complex because of the multiple bodies of literature that
inform those practices. The primary discourses informing practices include the
literature underpinning the provision for students with diverse learning needs
as well as other discourses such as litigation, media and change management
literature. In the context of my practitioner research, these discourses are not
discrete but interrelated and have been accessed at different stages in my
research process.
The nature of special needs is contextual The definitions and criteria used for identifying and categorising students with
special needs is contextual. The problematic nature of definition is based on
the existence of possible multiple models or constructions of disability within a
particular school context. Booth and Ainscow (1998) suggest that whether an
inclusive policy is “implemented successfully or enthusiastically within a
school depends, to a very large extent, on the local school” (p.174). The
debate surrounding the definition of special needs and related terms and the
possible multiple models or constructions of disability are elaborated in the
Literature Review.
A particular school’s working model of inclusion is guided not only by policy
but also by that school’s particular mix of teacher knowledge, skills and
attitude toward students with special needs. Legal mandate and government
financial support do not necessarily result in effective practice and innovative
programming for all types of students with disabilities (Clark, Dyson, Millward
& Robson, 1999). Clark (1999) suggest that “whatever the official policy may
be, it will be interpreted, subverted and replaced by policy formulated in a
whole succession of sites through the interplay of all the actors involved in
turning policy into practice “ (p.10). This study presents evidence of this
phenomena.
As my tacit understandings and knowledge about my contexts became more
informed, I realised that my positioning within the field of special needs was at
odds with the hegemonic practices I observed in two school contexts. An
initial focus of What’s going on here? and Why? in each school context
became, How can I change things? Implicit in the methodology of action
research adopted for this study is a call for “doing something about it” (McNiff,
Lomax & Whitehead, 1996). By working this way, I was taking on an
additional role as a researcher. After enrolling in the Education Doctoral
program, I realised my way of working had been in line with Anderson and
Herr’s (1999, p.20) description of a practitioner researcher legitimating
knowledge produced out of my “own lived reality” as a professional teacher. I
was looking for links between the literature and my school context and my
own practice as a Learning Support Teacher and researcher. This study
reports on the intricacies of such a process.
Justification for the research
A school may adopt a policy of inclusion that promotes working towards the
recognition and acknowledgement of difference and eliminating barriers that
might hinder catering for the diverse educational needs of students. Whether
the policy is implemented “successfully or enthusiastically” within schools
depends on the particular school (Bailey, 1998, p.174). The complex and
contextual factors outlined point to the contentious nature of inclusion
(Vlachou, 1997, p.7). For a Learning Support Teacher, knowing and
understanding the situation in which she/he teaches is an integral part of
successfully supporting students with special needs. Within this context the
goals of Learning Support Teachers may involve changing teacher attitudes
and instructional strategies towards students with special needs. This is a
demanding task, one that is lived out differently in every context. Slee (1996,
p.12) concludes in the article, Inclusive schooling in Australia? Not yet!, that
there might well be a future for inclusive schools, but “they aren’t the schools
we presently know and subscribe to”. The challenge of creating a more
effective process of schooling for students with diverse learning needs
through the interrogation of the role of the Learning Support Teacher is central
to this research.
The practitioner research reported here has used an action research
methodology to understand two school contexts that claim to adopt a policy of
inclusion. Further, action research involved me to critically reflect as a
practitioner researcher on my practices as a Learning Support Teacher. The
rationale supporting this process is summarized by Lincoln2 (1997) who
explained:
if we can change unproductive constructions, or incomplete or misinformed constructions, or maladaptive constructions especially if we can change the meaning-making core of these constructions into something more positive, then positive change occurs in individual or group behaviour. (p.7)
This rationale would seem appropriate where there is evidence to suggest a
gap between inclusion rhetoric based on principles of social justice and the
reality of school and classroom practice in a particular context or contexts as
is the case here.
Findings from the research
My research focuses on the management of change towards the adoption of an
inclusive curriculum in two school contexts. By engaging in research that focuses
beyond the principle of inclusion to the process of managing the change towards
2 Although Lincoln (1997) was not specifically referring to special needs education, the essence of what she is saying concerning how teachers ‘construct’ their classrooms is applicable to the education of students with diverse learning needs.
inclusive schooling, I have generated a set of propositions based on the theorising of
my practice across two secondary school contexts during the last five years.
The generation of propositional knowledge at the close of the study, will
contribute to the ongoing debate and theorising of the role of the Learning
Support Teacher as central to building inclusive school commitments. In
addition, the critique of my practice as a researcher using an action research
methodology in the context of higher degree research will contribute to the
ongoing practitioner research debate, thus moving the understanding of
practitioner research forward.
Structure of the research dissertation
An overview of the structure of my research dissertation is illustrated in Figure
3 (see p.9). This introductory Chapter is followed by Chapter 2, a Literature
review; Chapter 3, an explanation of my research methodology; Chapter 4,
the analysis of the research data and a concluding Chapter 5, that draws
together conclusions I have drawn from my practitioner research, including a
contribution to new knowledge in the field.
The results of my practitioner research are represented as a series of seven
vignettes (see Figure 3, p.9). Each of the seven vignettes is prefaced by an
analytic narrative that is a reconstruction of key aspects of my research
practice that supports a particular propositional judgement.
A series of Journal Entries give support to each propositional judgement.
Journal Entries are supported by official published texts that I have called
artefacts. In this inquiry, artefacts have also included PowerPoint
presentations, Workshops and a published paper. These artefacts can be
accessed by the reader from the accompanying CD. Samples of artefacts are
included in the Appendix.
Chapter 2: Literature Review The following Literature review is presented as a series of subsections with
the following headings:
1. The debate surrounding the definition of special needs and related
terms.
2. Multiple discourses within special needs informing learning support
practice.
3. The divergence of school policy and teaching practice.
These subsections represent the issues that I have found to be at the
foreground of my learning support practice. They have emerged from my
review of literature, my tacit knowledge and the knowledge that I have gained
as a practitioner and an insider in two school contexts.
Within each subsection I have looked at the implications of the nominated
debate for the practice of learning support and I have listed the questions that
arose in my own learning support practice in response to the nominated
debate; an initial six questions arose. With consideration for overlap, the initial
six questions reduced to three questions that have shaped my research
practices for this study.
• How does a Learning Support Teacher enlist the cooperation and
collaboration from staff?
• How does a Learning Support Teacher efficiently share information that
concerns the diverse learning needs of students with staff?
• How can a Learning Support Teacher influence a whole-school
approach to incorporate inclusive practices within a secondary school
context?
The education of students with special educational needs have been
recognised as a national priority by Governments worldwide. Recent
legislation in the United Kingdom1, United States of America2 and Australia3
reflect this. One of the debates arising out of this legislation is whether
students with particular special needs should be educated in regular
classrooms. This debate is not new as the integration movement of the 1970s
and 1980s demonstrates (Clark, Dyson, Millward & Skidmore, 1997). In 1994,
representatives of 92 governments, including Australia, met in Salamanca for
the UNESCO Conference to develop an agreed statement on the education of
children with disabilities. The Conference called for the inclusion of all children
in mainstream schools, regardless of their physical, intellectual, social,
emotional or other conditions. This statement was instrumental in generating
a complex concept of inclusive education, which refined existing notions of
integration. Inclusive schooling is more than the integration of the 1970s and
1980s when students, who had been segregated for special education, were
placed in regular classes (Schulz & Carpenter, 1995, p.13).
The Salamanca Statement sets out the rationale for inclusive education,
• Every child has a fundamental right to education, and must be given
the opportunity to achieve and maintain an acceptable level of learning.
• Every child has unique characteristics, interests, abilities and learning
needs.
• Educational systems should be designed and educational programmes
implemented to take into account the wide diversity of these
characteristics and needs.
1 In the United Kingdom, The Warnock Report, Special Educational Needs (1978), culminated in the Education Act (1981). It is this report’s perspective that education should be viewed as a matter of right and not charity and a ‘continuum of educational needs’ should be provided (Barton & Landman, 1993). 2 In the United States of America, Public Law 94 142 (1975), The Education of All Handicapped Children Act, which became reauthorised in 1997 as The Individual’s Disability Services Act or IDEA, offers a similar approach to educating children with disabilities. 3 In Australia, the principal objective of the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act, (DDA, Section 3, 1992) and States’ and Territories’ anti-discrimination legislation, are to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities in education, work, accommodation, access to premises, clubs and sport. The DDA does not allow direct and indirect forms of discrimination. In relation to education, direct discrimination has implications for denying a student with a disability the opportunity to enrol at a school. The DDA also includes provision for providing disabled students with adjustments as long as these adujustments do not ‘impose unjustifiable hardship’ for the school (DDA, Section 4, 1992).
• Those with special educational needs must have the access to regular
schools who should accommodate them within a child-centred
pedagogy capable of meeting those needs.
• Regular schools with this inclusive orientation are the most effective
means of combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming
communities, building an inclusive society, and achieving education for
all; moreover, they provide an effective education to the majority of
children and improve the efficiency and ultimately the cost-
effectiveness of the entire educational system (UNESCO, 1994,
Salamanca Statement, paragraph 2).
Inclusion is no longer about special education for a special group of students.
It is about school improvement in order to bring about the changes that are
needed to classroom practices to ensure the improvement of student learning
outcomes. More recent educational research in the Queensland context
endorses this (Queensland Literacy Review, 2000; QSRLS, 2001). Inclusion
is no longer a policy initiative. Rather it has been transformed to become a
process that moves a school towards inclusive practices that will result in
such school improvement, heightened students learning outcomes and
greater opportunities for all students to gain equal access to education.
Even though schools in Australia are moving more toward a system of
inclusive education (Westwood, 2001, p.5), translating this into everyday
classroom practice is problematic (Perry, 1993). As Westwood (2001)
suggests, the reality for classroom teachers to achieve inclusive classroom
practices such as “adapting curriculum, modifying resources and adjusting
teaching methods is very difficult” (p.6). In order to effectively include students
with special needs into mainstream classes, the adaptation of the mainstream
curriculum needs to take place (Westwood, 2001).
The educational agenda of special education4 proposed by Salamanca and
taken up variously by Western education systems, is commonly addressed by
4 The definition of special needs is problematic for the practice of Learning Support Teachers and reference will be made to this later in this chapter.
a specialist teacher5. In recent years, teachers in this position have been seen
to be an important part of an inclusion process within their school context. The
expectation of this position in the context called Learning Support Teacher,
articulated in role statements in the two schools in my study was to provide
teachers with relevant information concerning their students and to suggest
more appropriate teaching strategies for students with diverse or specific
learning needs. This was designed to enable teachers to adopt an inclusive
curriculum (see CD, A19981127)6.
The dilemma for many Learning Support Teachers is the resistance of class
teachers to modify their teaching practice to be responsive to classroom
diversity. Maglen (1995) suggests that some teachers believe the handling of
certain differences and disabilities requires specialist training and therefore is
outside their area of responsibility and expertise. Although it is suggested that
both special education and general education teachers should have the
teaching skills “inherent in the concept of quality education” (Lipsky & Gartner,
1987, p.71), the reality for many classroom teachers is a “low level of
understanding and skills dealing with the everyday challenges presented by
students with learning problems” (Giorcelli, 1995, p.15). Thus, the role of the
Learning Support Teacher complements a school’s mission to offer a quality
education to all students including those with special educational needs.
It is common to see advertisements7 for the position of a Learning Support
Teacher that have the following role description:
• Support of students in areas of literacy and numeracy
• Contribution to resource team
5 Literature refers to teachers in support/specialist roles of children with special needs in a variety of terms. In both school contexts involved with this research project, my position has been referred to as a Learning Support Teacher. Other titles can include Special Education Teacher, Special Education Resource Teacher, Support Teacher. 6 This is a reference for the reader to access an artefact from the accompanying CD. The artefact can be found by using the Search button from the Table of Contents of the CD and scrolling to find the relevant reference number. 7 This was the advertisement for the position of Learning Support Teacher at a medium sized secondary school that I applied for, offered the position and started the school year, 1999.
• Testing of students
• Development and supervision of learning programs
• Working cooperatively with staff
• Able to develop and extend gifted students
The role description depicted in the advertisement highlights a number of
issues that are problematic for the practice of a Learning Support Teacher.
The issues I have found to be at the foreground of learning support practice
are8:-
4. There is debate surrounding the definition of students with special
needs and related terms.
5. There are multiple discourses within special needs that can inform
Learning support practice.
6. There can be divergence between the stated school policy within a
particular discourse of special needs and teaching practice.
Each of these issues will be discussed more fully below.
The Debate surrounding the Definition of Special Needs and Related Terms
One place for a Learning Support Teacher to start their practice is to
determine how many students with special needs are enrolled at their
particular school. This initiation of practice raises questions of definition and
criteria for identifying particular categories of special needs. The term, special
needs is itself problematic. The definition of special needs has been, and still
is, undergoing change (Chan & Dally, 2001; Kraayenoord & Elkins, 1994;
Slee, 1995).
Learning support practice has been associated traditionally with students
categorised as those with physical disabilities, learning difficulties, learning
8 Professor Mel Ainscow (2001) authenticates these issues when he described three dimensions that comprise an Index for Inclusion to develop learning and participation in schools; creating inclusive cultures, producing inclusive policies and evolving inclusive practices. He emphasisesd the need for ‘clarity of definition of inclusion to enable us to move forward’ (p.1).
disabilities, behaviour and emotional problems (Westwood, 1993). In more
recent times, learning support has come to include those students who are;
• gifted and talented
• from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
• at risk for school failure for reasons related to the use or abuse of
alcohol or other drugs
• victims of child abuse or neglect
• suffering from eating disorders (Lewis & Doorlag, 1995).
Reasoner (1992, p.103) adds that schools are being overwhelmed by the high
percentage of students coming from home situations experiencing poverty,
dysfunctional behaviour, violence and abuse, the trauma of family separation
and divorce, transfers from schools to school, lack of nurturing time with
parents or adjustments to a new culture. This suggests that the field of special
needs is continually being required to expand and to be redefined in response
to the changing nature of the practicalities of special needs and the changing
nature of families, society and the expectations of schools.
Definition of the terms within the domain of special needs is also problematic.
There is a lack of universally accepted definitions and criteria for identifying
students with learning disabilities, difficulties or special needs (Casey, 1994;
Epps, Ysseldyke & Algozzine, 1983; Gosden & Hampton, 2001; Kirby &
Williams, 1991; Mercer, 1997; Williams, 1991). Kavale & Forness (2000)
affirm the difficulties in providing operational definitions of learning disability
(LD) that are meaningful and significant. Keogh (cited in Kavale & Forness,
2000, p. 2) suggests the response to “what is LD? has been a long-standing
source of controversy, conflict and crisis”. Such controversy is certainly
central to the day to day responsibilities of my work as a Learning Support
Teacher.
A similar dilemma exists for the definition and criteria for identifying those
students who are gifted and talented (Lewis & Doorlag, 1995, p.447). The
definitions and criteria for categories of disability and difficulty (Bailey, 1997,
p.148) and gifted and talented (Gagne, 1993; Gardner, 1987) have changed
over time influencing the presence, prevalence or absence of a particular
special need. Most problems of definition arise in the areas of learning
difficulties and learning disabilities9, socio-emotional and behavioural
problems. Physical disabilities are more easily identified, allowing more
accurate figures to be obtained (Westwood & Graham, 2000, p.24). The lack
of a universally accepted definition in some categories has impacted on how
students with special needs have been, or have not been identified and
categorised. This has had implications for the official prevalence10 of special
needs students within schools.
The involvement of Government through funding initiatives has added to the
complexity of many of the definitional issues surrounding special needs. In the
Queensland context, in order to attract funding from both State and Federal
sources, students are required to be part of an Ascertainment Process. Strict
guidelines are in place outlining criteria for the assessment and identification
of students experiencing educational needs in stipulated
categories11(Brisbane Catholic Education, 2000). These guidelines apply to
my particular schools and similar guidelines are in place for other
denominational schools as well as the state education system. Funding is
available only within these categories and only at particular levels within each
category. The desire of schools to access funding has invited labelling and the
prioritising of needs of particular students to attract limited school resources
and limited external funding that has legal qualifications (Young, 1995). This
has had a positive impact on the identification of special needs students but
not necessarily the support that should accompany identification and changes
in teacher behaviour. 9 Lipsky and Gartner (1987, p. 70) suggest there is an ever increasing number of students labelled ‘learning disabled’. They suggest under one or another definition over half a school’s population could be included. 10 In Australia it is estimated that between 12% and 20% of students have special educational needs of some type (Ashman & Elkins, 1998; Chan & Dally, 2001, p.13). 11 In Queensland, State and Federal funding is only available to students who are experiencing educational needs in the categories of Hearing Impairment, Physical Impairment, Vision Impairment, Intellectual Impairment, Speech & Language disorders and Socio-Emotional disorders. Specific Learning disabilities (Westwood, 1993, p.11) such as dyslexia (reading problem) dysgraphia (problems with writing), dysorthographia (problems with spelling), and dyscalculia (problems with arithmetical calculation) do not attract funding.
Implications of this debate for the practice of Learning Support.
As a consequence of the Education Act (1989)12, learning support potentially
includes students with a diverse range of special needs. The reality for
practitioners of learning support is that, within any school context, there are
usually only a small number of teachers to cater for an increasing number of
special needs students13. The increase in numbers of students requiring
support has the potential to impact on the case loads of Learning Support
Teachers and can be attributed to a number of related factors: a move
towards a broader definition of special needs; improved identification and
reporting techniques and a momentum towards greater inclusion of students
in regular classes who have a disability or difficulty in learning (Ainscow,
1991; Forlin, Douglas & Hattie, 1996; Lipsky & Gartner, 1997; Villa &
Thousand, 1995). Other factors include parent expectation and the addition of
new categories, such as Autistic Spectrum Disorder, within special needs.
Therefore, within any school context, those students who may be identified as
having special needs, may vary depending on that particular school’s
definition of special needs access to funding and resources.
An understanding of the definitions, criteria and assessment practices is
integral to the practice of a Learning Support Teacher because these impact
on the way in which students receive support, both from Government and
within the school context. The increasing numbers of special need students
has impacted on the caseloads of Learning Support Teachers, assessment
responsibilities, consultation with parents and classroom teachers,
management of information and professional development for the school.
Providing in-class support for the numbers of students who require support is
difficult, even with the help of teacher aides. It is clear that the task of
achieving effective inclusion is more than one person can handle. The 12 Education Act (1989) GENERAL PROVISIONS ‘providing every student with a program of instruction and duration that has regard to the age, ability, aptitude and development of the student concerned’. 13 I suggested in a presentation (An Information System to support both teacher and learner) to the National AREA Conference, Learning Disabilities: Advocacy and Action, 1999, that increasing numbers of special needs students may have been due to improved identification techniques rather than a true increase in the incidence of certain disabilities and difficulties. Literature published since then supports this observation (Westwood & Graham, 2000, p.25).
Learning Support Teacher must work co-operatively with staff towards a
common goal (Forlin, Douglas & Hattie, 1996, p.122).
In practice, there are barriers to the success of this form of teamwork.
Because classroom teachers may feel their previous training and experience
may not have prepared them for students with special needs (Gibbons, 1998),
they have difficulty adapting curriculum and resources for varying student
ability levels, even though they may acknowledge that changes are needed
(Giorcelli, 1995; Schumm & Vaughn, 1995; Wang, 1992; Westwood, 2001).
The time for Learning Support Teachers to meet and preplan with classroom
teachers is limited. Some teachers are also uncomfortable with the presence
of another teacher in their class and may resent the intrusion. The skills for
collaboration may not be present by either the Learning Support Teacher or
the classroom teacher (Westwood, 1993). As I stated in my professional
Journal:
14In my practice as a Learning Support Teacher, I have found this role to be a complex mix of understanding students with special needs and managing limited resources of time, resources and funding in the support of students with special needs, providing professional development for teachers and changing teacher attitudes and beliefs in providing for students in their classes who have diverse needs.
Questions arising for Learning Support Practice from this Debate
The debate surrounding the definition of special needs and related terms has
brought to the fore questions that must be addressed within Learning Support
practice.
If a Learning Support Teacher is to improve inclusive teaching practices in the
regular classroom:
• How does a Learning Support Teacher enlist the cooperation and
collaboration from staff?
• How does a Learning Support Teacher efficiently share information
with staff? 14 This paragraph is presented in italics as a way of highlighting that I have drawn on my experiential knowledge in line with practitioner research.
Multiple discourses within special needs informing Learning Support practice.
Disability is a social construct (Barton & Oliver, 1992; Carrington, 1999;
Clapton & Fitzgerald, 1997; Oliver, 1987, 1990). Oliver (1990, p.11) argues
that the kind of society in which one lives will have a crucial effect on the way
the experience of disability is structured. Carrington (1999, p.258) further
argues that disability is just one form of socially constructed difference. In the
same way, learning disabilities and difficulties (Banks & McGee Banks, 1997,
p.19; Cohen & Cohen, 1986, p.xiv), giftedness and intellectual impairment
(Carrington, 1999) can be seen as socially constructed categories.
In contemporary literature two common models or constructions of disability
are referred to as the medical model and the rights-based model15. Clapton
and Fitzgerald (1997) suggested models, or constructions of disabilities have
set “the parameters”16 for responding to people with disability or in this case
students with special needs. These “parameters” can be identified in school
policies and the practices of classroom and Learning Support Teachers.
A Medical Model
The development of special education policies and practices during the last
hundred years has traditionally focused on handicap and needs and their
attendant medical and psychological assessments (Oliver, 1987, 1990). With
the development of a psychological discourse, classification techniques
developed and so too did categories of children with special needs (Lewis,
1987).
The focus of special education from this particular construction of disability
has been the identification of the handicap and the need of the individual 15 Clapton and Fitzgerald (1997)also refer to a religious model of disability but suggest a medical model and a rights-based model are now evident in contemporary society. 16 Clapton and Fitzgerald (1997) refer to ‘parameters’ that have set our response to people with disability. In this chapter, I will refer to the characteristics of social constructions that become the indicators or hallmarks that distinguish a particular social construction of disability.
(Fulcher, 1989) which has invited the labelling of students in particular ways
primarily deficit in nature. Student needs were seen as “treatable” through
programs that would attempt to change the individual to fit the demands of
education (Sleeter, 1995, p.156). Such an interpretation has seen the growth
in securing resources and expertise to provide for students with special
educational needs. This construction of disability has led to a medical model
(Sarason & Doris, 1979 cited in Jordan, Kircaali-iftar, Diamond, 1993) where
disability is regarded as a personal quality or attribute unrelated to other
causal factors that may lie in a larger social context (Biklen, 1985; Carrington,
1995; Skrtic, 1991).
The construction of disability that reflects the medical model is characterised
by a “personal tragedy theory of disability” (Oliver, 1990, p.1). People with
disability are seen as victims of a tragic happening or circumstance and, as
such, disability becomes an individual’s problem. This personal tragedy
response to disability has led to a needs based, deficit model of education for
students with disabilities. It is assumed that individuals have to adapt
themselves to society, physically and psychologically, and, educational
interventions are aimed at providing the appropriate skills to cope (Oliver,
1987). It has been deemed by historical practices that schools are the
appropriate places for such interventions.
Traditionally, schools have responded to students experiencing learning
difficulties and disabilities with the understanding that the problem lay within
the student (Ainscow, 1989, p.69). Tomlinson (1986) refers to students of this
type as “the social construction of the ESN (M)17 child” where intelligence was
considered a fixed, innate and measurable quality. Identification was aimed at
finding out what was wrong with the student and providing a “functional
account” of what the child is unable to perform due to the disability. It became
the school’s responsibility to develop remedial strategies that were
implemented to improve the student’s performance.
17 ESN(M) referred to educational subnormality, mild or moderate.
The medical model has also been a prevalent theory in the construction of
gifted and talented students (Sapon-Shevin cited in Banks & McGee Banks,
1997, p.20). Traditional paradigms have identified students by one type of test
which then became their intellectual profile, an IQ score. This narrow
definition of ability was used to identify students as gifted or not gifted.
Programs were defined for those identified and grouped as gifted students
(Renzulli & Purcell, 1995, p.173), programs designed to intervene and
address specific qualities of each individual.
The medical model has been adopted in some contexts with students from
non-English speaking backgrounds. The student’s special need arising from
the underlying assumption that the student’s cultural disadvantage would be
remedied so that academic achievement would improve after such
“compensation” (Bullivant, 1981, p.12). Explanations for this particular group
not experiencing the same levels of educational success have focussed on
the students’ lack of linguistic, cultural and experiential resources. Students
from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds are expected to accept a
school’s existing cultural hegemony. Programs were designed to “top up”
what was assumed lacking in their culture or home background (Burke, 1993,
p.31).
Although inclusion is a concept more usually applied to students with physical
and intellectual disabilities, a social construction of disability based on equity
and justice has enabled a translation of education policies to reflect an
overriding notion of inclusion where inclusion invites educational
responsiveness to students with diverse needs, interests and talents. The
social construction of special needs within a rights-based model has
translated into specific policies and practices relevant to particular areas of
special needs. For example, Sternberg (1986), Gardner (1983) and Renzulli
(1978) were among those who proposed alternative constructions to the
medical model in the area of gifted and talented.
These researchers proposed an expanded theory of intelligence18. This
construction views giftedness as not necessarily “an inborn and enduring trait”
but one “that emerges in some people, in some areas and under certain
circumstances” (Renzulli & Purcell, 1995, p.174). Gagne (1993) proposed a
differentiated model of giftedness and talent that identified giftedness as
“aptitude domains” (intellectual, creative, socioaffective, sensorimotor and
others such as extrasensory perception). From these aptitudes,“raw material”,
he suggests talents emerge through a process that is facilitated or inhibited by
a variety of socially constructed catalysts (motivation, environment,
temperament and personality). This emerging construction has had
implications for expanding the view of abilities and talents and in the provision
of an educationally differentiated curriculum for students with special needs.
A Rights-Based Model
In more recent times, the construction of disability has moved away from a
model that constructs disability as a medical, individual problem.
Governments world-wide have embraced a rights-based discourse that seeks
to address issues of social justice and discrimination (Clapton & Fitzgerald,
1997).
In the United Kingdom, The Warnock Report, Special Educational Needs
(1978) culminated in the Education Act (1981) where the language of social
justice was seen to apply to children with special needs. “Warnock should be
seen in context, as the first large body of work to challenge the 'otherness' of
special education provision” (Gold, Bowe & Ball, 1993, p.53). Language
changed from viewing children in a deficit mode to language that had
expectations of “educational opportunities of quality”. From the Warnock
Report’s perspective, education should be viewed as a matter of right and not
charity and that a “continuum of educational needs” should be provided
(Barton & Landman, 1993).
18 Gardner, Kernhaber & Wake (1996) proposes seven different intelligences; linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal.
In the United States of America, Public Law 94 142 (1975), The Education for
All Handicapped Children Act, which became reauthorized in 1997 as The
Individuals with Disabilities Act or IDEA, also offered an enlightened
approach to educating children with disabilities. IDEA stemmed from the Bill
of Human Rights.
In Australia the Commonwealth Disability Services Act (1986) and the
Disability Discrimination Act (1992) and States and Territories anti-
discrimination legislation protect the legal rights of students. In Australia, we
do not have a Bill of Rights that defines basic human rights. Fitzgerald (1994,
p.11) suggests that this can result in a “gap between human rights and legal
rights”. In Queensland, even though everybody has a basic human right to
receive an education, our legal rights do not guarantee that every child will
receive an education. Legislation19 exists to support and promote the
achievement of a full and inclusive education for a child but there is no
guaranteed “unequivocal right” to inclusion (Fitzgerald, 1994).
A rights-based model acknowledges community membership and
participation and access to employment, education and recreation. The shift
from seeing disability as a medical, individual problem to one of community
membership, access and participation (Clapton & Fitzgerald, 1997) is a shift
from the notion of disability as personal tragedy to one of disability as an
instance of social oppression (Abberley, 1987; Oliver, 1987, 1990). In this
context, the term “oppression” is not used with the meaning of abuse.
Abberley (1987) describes the term in relation to disabled people as follows:
To claim that disabled people are oppressed involves arguing a number of points. At an empirical level, it is to argue that on significant dimensions disabled people can be regarded as a group whose members are in an inferior position to other members of society because they are disabled. It is also to argue that these disadvantages are dialectically related to an ideology or group of ideologies which
19 In Australia, the Commonwealth Disability Act 1992 declared protection for all Australians on the grounds of perceived or existing disability. This was consistent with previous legislation to counter discrimination on the grounds of race, gender and ethnicity. Other laws include, Disability Services Act 1992 (Qld), Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 (Qld), Freedom of Information Act 1992 (Qld), Judicial Review Act 1991 (Qld).
justify and perpetuate this situation. Beyond this is to make the claim that such disadvantages and their supporting ideologies are neither natural nor inevitable. (p.7)
In keeping with this logic, Oliver (1990) defines disability as “the
disadvantages or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social
organisation which takes no or little account of people who have physical
impairments and thus excludes them from the mainstream of social activities”
(p.11). This definition takes up the issue of causation and constructs disability
as a social phenomenon. Therefore, a rights-based model of disability
translates very differently into social policies, where alleviating oppression of a
collective group becomes the focus, not the compensation of the individual.
This social construction of disability based on equity and justice has translated
into education policies that value what is commonly referred to as inclusion,
implying inclusion of students within class, not withdrawn from class as the
medical model promotes.
Inclusion suggests a system that brings programs to students rather than
bringing students to programs (Will, 1986, cited in Self, Benning, Marston &
Magnusson, 1991, p.26). Inclusive practices do not include separate provision
or separate structures for different types of educational need. Achieving
inclusive practices requires a service delivery model based on collaboration
and team work with regular classroom teachers and learning support. It
requires the Learning Support Teacher to work alongside the regular
classroom teacher (Graden & Bauer, 1992; Self, Benning, Marston &
Magnusson, 1991; Vaughn & Schumm, 1995; West & Idol, 1987). Giorcelli
(1995) argues “the rhetoric of inclusion must be matched with the reality of
collaborative practice, with special educators working as equal partners in
classrooms with regular teachers” (p.14). This has many implications for the
reshaping role of Learning Support Teacher’s in school settings.
Implications of Multiple Constructions of Disability for Learning Support Practice.
As a consequence of the changing construction of disability, there has been a
shift of emphasis from a medical or psychological criteria of assessment and
placement, to taking into account other factors which may have a bearing on
educational progress (Montgomery, 1990; Westwood, 1993; Young, 1995).
Such an approach replaces the categories of handicap with a more flexible
definition of special needs. By moving to a human rights-based model,
learning support practice can more readily embrace the multiple differences
within special needs.
The ideological shift towards a model that is underpinned by principles of
social justice and equity has had implications for policy and practice in both
special and mainstream education. Mainstream schools have been drawn into
the provision for special needs students and the consideration that curriculum,
teaching strategies and materials and school organisation can exacerbate
learning difficulties experienced by students. Fulcher (1989, p.25) suggests
that this “alternative politics” locates “deficits in school practices, particularly in
curriculum and pedagogical practices”. These deficits must be addressed
collaboratively by teams of class teachers, Learning Support Teacher’s and
school administrators.
Further, a human rights-based model of disability has implications for the
language associated with policy and practices that is now associated with
learning support practice. The role has shifted the conceptualisation of a
Learning Support Teacher from one of remedial teacher reflecting the medical
model’s “treatable” belief of the individual, to that of resource teacher who
teaches special needs students in the resource room or contexts of
withdrawal within a mainstream setting. Stainback, Stainback and Jackson
(1992, p.4) argue that integration of special needs students into regular
classes, or mainstreaming, implies a need to fit students previously excluded
to special learning settings, into an existing mainstream.
More recent conceptualisations of support teachers20 include: Learning
Support Teacher, Enrichment teacher, Learning outcomes teacher and
Facilitator learning support. These titles illustrate a move away from the
individual and deficit as the focus of specific teaching and imply an inclusive
response to students who may have special needs that can be addressed
through responsive teaching. It also implies that learning support practice has
the responsibility of encouraging a mainstream that accommodates the needs
of all students and, that students with disabilities can be educated
predominantly in general education classrooms (Stainback & Stainback,1984;
Thousand & Villa, 1990). The notion of the resource room21 or withdrawal
room does not exist and the role of special educator is one of a collaborative
partner in consultation with the class teacher. Further, there is a recognition of
a shared responsibility between special and general teachers (West & Idol,
1987) to facilitate learning processes that invite all students to access quality
learning outcomes.
Others propose that inclusion should be one placement within a continuum of
services required to cater for the needs of all students (Casey, 1994;
Kauffman & Trent, 1991; Kauffman & Hallahan, 1995). Hallahan (1998)
suggests there has been “a seeming obsession with where instruction takes
place”. Although Hallahan (1998) acknowledge that the resource room model
often meant that the special education teacher and student had no idea what
was happening in the general classroom, they argue against “the total
annihilation of special education by the full inclusionists’ (p.1). Hallahan’s
argument rests on the difficulties of successfully creating collaborative
partnerships22 between general classroom teacher and those in the role of
20 This taxonomy of titles has been developed and continues to develop as I note the various title badges worn by my colleagues and peers. 21 The rise of the ‘resource room’ model was seen as a means of including students in more general classroom activities. In the 1990s, the resource room was seen as segregationist by advocates of full inclusion who favoured a model of collaborative consultation between general and special educators (Kauffman & Hallahan, 1995, p.4). 22 A study focusing on collaborative teaching, conducted by Budah, Schumaker and Deshler (1997) in a secondary setting, found both general education and special education teacher spent over half their time engaged in non-instructional behaviours. It was also found that they spent less than 10% of their time presenting content and that the outcome measures for students with learning disabilities were disappointing.
learning support/special educator. Barriers exist that hinder the success of
collaborative teaching. Kauffman and Hallahan (1995, p.15) argue that
collaborative consultation may be an excellent service delivery model, but “its
success depends on two individuals having a chemistry and good
transactions- a chemistry that is difficult to define and that occurs relatively
rarely and transactions with uncertain results on students”. Graden and Bauer
(1992) concur that “without this collaboration, inclusive education cannot be
successful since inclusion is predicated on professionals working together for
the purpose of enhancing the education of all students in the school” (p.85).
The concept of new partnerships are central to the reconstituting role of
Learning Support Teacher’s in inclusive contexts.
The literature outlined here and current legislation seem to suggest a
mandate23 for a particular construct of learning support practice; a construct of
learning support practice that is based on human rights and informed by
social justice principles. This is commonly referred to as inclusion. As a
practitioner in two school contexts, it is pertinent to note that there was not an
inclusion policy as such. In School A there was a Special Needs Policy and in
School B there was not a Policy that specifically mentioned students with
special needs. In both school contexts I have utilised the characteristics
outlined by the Salamanca Statement (see p.36) as the hallmarks of a human
rights-based construction of disability that supports the inclusion of students
with diverse learning needs.
The literature suggests that opinions vary as to the implementation of
inclusion. For example, Bailey (1998) refers to the Queensland context and
“whether the policy is implemented successfully or enthusiastically within
schools depends, to a very large extent, on the local school” (p.174). This has
implications for the practitioner of learning support. The literature suggests a
rhetorical construction of inclusion but in reality there may not be a clear
understanding of the school’s positioning within practices of inclusion. Within
23 The mandatory nature has in recent years been reinforced by litigation, involving the Queensland Education Department (1996, 2001), Hills Grammar School, Sydney (1999) and literature (Lawyers, 1998) tabling the increase in litigation cases for ‘negligence’.
any single school, there may be evidence of practices that suggest elements
of both a medical model of disability and a human rights-based model. This
too, has implications for the Learning Support Teacher.
Since the principle of inclusion is a move away from an individualised, deficit
approach of the medical model of support for special needs learners, it would
be expected that there would be a similar move away from the practices of
categorising or labelling students with special needs. Debate surrounding this
issue creates a tension for the practices of Learning Support Teachers who
are striving to implement the principle of inclusion based on a human rights-
based model. Minow (1985) recognised this problem and referred to it as the
dilemma of difference. He states that “to recognise that some children are
different, carries the risk of labelling and stigmatising them. However, to
ignore the differences runs the risk of neglecting student’s instructional needs”
(cited in Hallahan, 1998, p.3).
Kauffman and Hallahan (1995, p.64) argue that the notion of disability as a
social construction fails to identify any part of the problem as residing within
the child. These authors suggest however, that such a social discourse does
not explain the fact that students with disability do have something inherently
different about them. They make the point that labels may help explain
behaviour that is out of the ordinary and lead to a better understanding and
sensitivity toward the person. They also promote programs and
communication among those concerned; parents, teachers, specialists
(Heward & Orlansky, 1996) as central to addressing what is problematic
within this field. Labels may help also to explain the persons themselves, their
own behaviour. Opponents of labelling would suggest that we should “label
jars, not people” (Young, 1995, p.26). The negative effects of labelling have
been identified as causing “lowered student self-concept, loss of acceptability
and popularity among peers” (Dunn, 1992). Conversely, it has been argued
elsewhere (Ashman & Elkins, 1994; Schulz & Carpenter, 1995, p. 397), that
this process of labelling also may affect teacher expectations and introduce
preconceived characteristics and behaviour before meeting the student, an
aspect that reminds us of the dangers of labelling student behaviour.
The dilemma for the practice of Learning Support Teachers is to position
themselves within these conceptual tensions and provide a service delivery
model of support that suits both the diversity of student need and skills and
attitudes of teachers within a particular school context. If, as some schools
suggest, the choice is to move towards the ideal of inclusion for all students,
then general class teachers need the skills and repertoire of teaching
strategies that will enable them to adequately reach the learning needs of a
diversity of student needs. Vaughn and Schumm (1995, p.268) describe
“responsible inclusion” as acknowledging the need for a continuum of services
to meet the unique needs of students within a particular school context. Such
a continuum of services would include part-time pull-out services, tutoring,
ongoing consultation and collaboration, co-teaching between general and
special education, self-contained placement in special education classrooms.
This view challenges the reconceptualisation of special education to the
notion of full inclusion and aligns it with “keeping place in perspective”
(Kauffman, 1993, p.4). Kauffman and Hallahan (1995, p.203) reiterate this
sentiment when they explain “diversity among students is often described as
something to be celebrated” and “if diversity of students is to be celebrated,
then perhaps the diversity of services, programs and environments providing
appropriate education and habilitation should also prompt celebration”.
Because of the complexity of meeting the individual needs of all students,
Carrington (2002b, p.3) also argues that “there is no one accepted model for
organising support for students with different needs in secondary schools”.
Questions arising for Learning Support Practice due to the Multiple Constructions of disability. Implications of multiple constructions of disability for learning support
practices have emerged due to a move from an individual special needs focus
of learning disability that has been described as “reductionist” in its approach,
to the “embedded nature of an individual’s actions within social contexts”
(Chan & Dally, 2001, p.13). Clark, Dyson, Millward and Robson (1999)
describe this shift in paradigm as acknowledging the impact that the
organizational characteristics of schools have on the diversity of learners in
the classroom. Inclusion then must permeate all aspects of a school and not
be seen as a “separate task, coordinated by a particular person or group”
(Ainscow, 2001, p.4).
This view of inclusion has been referred to as a whole of school focus. Moving
special educational needs towards a whole school approach is supported by
such authors as Ainscow and Florek (1989), Giorcelli (1995), Hill and Crevola
(1999), Skrtic (1991) and Villa and Townsend (1995). This approach also
signals the changing role of a Learning Support Teacher to include not only
an advocacy role but also a role in school processes and change
management. This approach has invited questions and challenges for
Learning Support practices that include:
• How does a school develop a model that is convergent with their
school mission statement/vision and mandated legislation?
• What are the consequences if schools do not respond to mandated
legislation24?
• What are the implications for a school choosing a broader definition of
inclusion because their school mission statement/vision is aligned to
social justice issues?
The divergence of School Policy and Teaching Practice
The Warnock Report (1978) in the United Kingdom, The Individuals Disability
Services Act or IDEA (1990) in the United States, the Commonwealth
24 One of the elements that contributes to the complexity of the field of special needs is the issue of litigation. Both Commonwealth and State Legislation in Australia cover Disability discrimination. In addition, courts in America and England have been asked to decide whether principles of negligence law can be applied to teaching where students with learning disabilities have been misdiagnosed or inappropriately catered for while at school (Williams, 1996). Similarly in Australia, the Victorian Law Foundation has found it necessary to publish ‘The guide, Teachers, Students and the Law’, the first plain English guide for teachers. The guide warns liability for professional negligence could arise if a school is careless in identifying learning difficulties. The issue of accountability is heightened within the community with media titles such as, ‘Poor teachers could be sued’, The Australian, 2000; ‘Legal fear over poor education’, The Courier Mail, 2000.
Disability Discrimination Act (1992) in Australia and The UNESCO Salamanca
Statement (1994) all reflect an ideological change in the construction of
disability. The Warnock Report was the first to draw on the language of social
justice. This report was seen to apply to children with special needs and
“should be seen as the first large body of work to challenge the otherness of
special education provision” (Bowe, Ball & Gold, 1992, p.53). Language
changed from portraying children in a deficit mode to language that had
expectations of “educational opportunities of quality”.
Policies that are shaped from these Acts and Reports may reflect an
ideological shift but, as Daws (1994, p.129) argues, “policy is constructed
anew at each different site within the educational system from the level of
government through to individual schools”. Enacted policy may not support
that a shift in beliefs has actually occurred. Hogwood and Gunn (1984, p.64)
explain that a lack of paradigmatic shift can result “where the underlying
perceptions, assumptions and values of analyst and consumer are at odds or,
worse simply do not relate to one another, then very little is likely to be
exerted”. The gap between inclusion rhetoric based on social justice principles
and the reality of school and classroom practice is demonstrated by such
authors as Clark et al. (1999), Slee (1996) and Vlachou (1997). These authors
explain that resistance is endemic even in schools that have undergone
“extensive periods of evolution and consensus-building” (Clark, 1999, p.10).
As previously argued, there are multiple discourses25 within special needs
that can inform learning support practice. By establishing the characteristics of
particular social constructions of disability, they then become the hallmarks by
which a particular construction may be recognised. The ideology, the
definition and the policies and practices then become the identifying
characteristics of a particular construction of disability.
25 In my Introduction, a discourse has been defined as constructing ‘reality in a particular way. Those working within the framework of a particular discourse draw on its assumptions, pose questions which it deems significant, and employ its criteria for evaluating evidence and arguments’ (Knight, 1996, p.148).
In this study, I have sought to identify the particular social constructions of
disability that have previously been defined as the medical model and human
rights-based model. The characteristics I used as hallmarks to identify a
construction of disability that is based on a medical model reflect those
suggested by Kauffman (in Kauffman & Hallahan, 1995: 126-127).
• Some students are very different from most in ways that are specific
regarding education and special education is required to meet their
needs.
• Not all teachers are equipped to teach all students. Most teachers are
neither equipped by training nor able in the context of their usual class
size to ensure an equal educational opportunity for handicapped
students.
• Students who need special education, as well as the corresponding
funds and personnel that are required, must be clearly identified to
ensure that they receive appropriate services.
• Education outside the regular classroom is sometimes required for
some part of the school day to meet some student’s needs.
• The most important equity issue is the quality of instruction, not the
place of instruction. Equal educational opportunity must include the
option of special education outside the regular classroom and special
provisions within the regular classroom.
Slee (1995) and Stainback and Stainback (1992) would suggest that
characteristics of these type have been reconstructed to represent an
ideological shift from the traditional view of special needs that operates on an
individual needs basis of the medical model to a set that more closely reflects
a human rights-based model. These are reflected in The Salamanca
Statement,
• Every child has a fundamental right to education, and must be given
the opportunity to achieve and maintain an acceptable level of learning.
• Every child has unique characteristics, interests, abilities and learning
needs.
• Educational systems should be designed and educational programmes
implemented to take into account the wide diversity of these
characteristics and needs.
• Those with special educational needs must have the access to regular
schools who should accommodate them within a child-centred
pedagogy capable of meeting those needs.
• Regular schools with this inclusive orientation are the most effective
means of combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming
communities, building an inclusive society, and achieving education for
all; moreover, they provide an effective education to the majority of
children and improve the efficiency and ultimately the cost-
effectiveness of the entire educational system (UNESCO, 1994,
Salamanca Statement, paragraph 2).
These characteristics have been utilised in this study as the hallmarks to
identify a construction of disability that is based on a human rights-based
construction of disability.
Implications for Learning Support Practice when there is a gap between inclusion rhetoric and school and classroom practice.
Central to this study is my practice as a Learning Support Teacher. It has
been undertaken in response to a world-wide acceptance of, and commitment
to the philosophy of inclusion based on a rights-based construction of
disability that has encouraged the move towards greater inclusion of students
with disabilities in regular classrooms (Westwood, 2001). What I have
experienced could be described as a dissonance between inclusion policy
and inclusive practices. Research and literature suggests there are a number
of reasons why there is a dissonance between policy that supports an
inclusion model in a school and observed practices.
The movement towards greater inclusion of students with disabilities in
regular classrooms is not necessarily reflected by a more positive attitude and
greater acceptance by educators (Forlin, Douglas & Hattie, 1996, p.124). This
suggests a tension or a discrepancy between a person’s underlying beliefs
and the acceptance of the philosophical underpinnings of inclusive practices.
Sergiovanni and Starratt (1988) explain this discrepancy as a result of a
teacher’s educational platform existing on two levels:
(1) what teachers say they assume, believe and intend (their espoused
theory) and
(2) the assumptions and the beliefs and intents inferred from their behaviour
(their theory in use).
When one’s espoused theory of action matches one’s theory in use, they
could be considered congruent. Espoused theories are generally known to the
teacher. Theories in use are generally not known to the teacher. This has
implications for the Learning Support Teacher as these theories in use must
be constructed from observation of teacher behaviour. Therefore, a
collaborative classroom relationship between a classroom teacher and
Learning Support Teacher is required.
Teachers’ attitudes toward students with disabilities are a strong force in
determining the nature of the interaction between teachers and students and
students’ achievement (Carrington & Elkins, 2002a; Carrington & Elkins,
2002b; Forlin, Douglas & Hattie, 1996; Schulz &Carpenter, 1995; Scruggs &
Mastropieri, 1996). Many teachers and other adults may believe that less able
does mean less worthy (Schulz & Carpenter, 1995). Bender, Vail and Scott
(1995) report, “teachers with less positive attitudes utilise effective
instructional procedures with less frequency than do other teachers” (p.94).
Indifferent teacher attitudes become problematic considering the skills and
attitudes of the general education teacher toward making classroom
modifications are considered “the key” to effective mainstreaming (Chalmers,
1991). Therefore, it would be realistic to bear in mind that some students
cannot make progress in classrooms in which some teachers are neither
willing or able to accommodate the diverse nature of individual students
(Whinnery, King, Evans & Gable, 1995, p. 9). This becomes problematic not
only at the classroom level, but at the level of school policy and government
legislation. This too is highly problematic for Learning Support Teacher’s.
Some classroom teachers also hold the belief that it is not their role to
educate students with learning difficulties or disabilities. Carrington (1997,
p.101) suggests that “this stems from the historical segregation of special
education and special education training from mainstream schools”. This
belief could also stem from the fact that teachers may have the knowledge
concerning the current commitment to inclusion but their assumptions and
values relating to inclusion do not coincide with current thinking (Bender, Vail
& Scott, 1995; Wilczenski, 1992). There are also teachers who may be aware
of the commitment to inclusion but feel they do not have the appropriate skills
to deal effectively with students with special needs in the classroom (Dovey &
Graham, 1987; Munson, 1987; Schumm, Vaughn, Gordon, & Rothlein, 1994).
The implications for the practices of the Learning Support Teacher who is to
support and develop a teacher’s ability to work effectively with the diverse
needs and abilities in their classrooms (Pugach & Lilly, 1984) are immense.
The importance of this aspect of a Learning Support Teacher’s role is
highlighted by Montgomery (1990, p.238) who cites the classroom teacher as
the most important classroom resource and “the teacher’s attitude and style of
teaching can promote or deny pupils’ learning opportunities”.
Questions identified when there is a gap between inclusion rhetoric and classroom practice:
Implications for learning support practices have emerged due to a gap
between inclusion rhetoric and classroom practices. This dissonance has
invited questions and challenges for learning support practices that include:
• How does a Learning Support Teacher work in order to change the
attitudes and beliefs of teachers towards a philosophy of inclusion?
• How can a Learning Support Teacher influence a whole-school
approach to incorporate inclusive practices within a secondary school
context?
Chapter 1 informed the reader that there has been multiple discourses
informing my research practice (this document p.3). Literature concerning the
conceptualisation of special needs has been of particular relevance to the
understanding of my practice and the emergence of research questions
generated here. In order to tackle these questions I sought further special
needs literature as well as literature involving change management, media,
litigation and accountability and technology as the study progressed. Bruce
(1994) suggested that the purpose of a literature review in framing a research
study is “to provide the background to and justification for the research
undertaken” and “where the style of the thesis permits, sections of the
literature review may appear in different chapters” (p.218). This chapter has
attempted to provide such a background and justification. At the outset it must
be noted that the ways in which I have used the literature throughout the
study varies from this initial purpose. Literature appears in the writings of my
Journal Entries where it more clearly shows the relevance to my research
practice. Thus this style of dissertation utilises a literature review both at the
outset and throughout the research study to inform ongoing research
practices.
My engagement with literature was not predetermined, it emerged in response
to my putting my research into practice. Winter, Griffiths and Green (2000)
support this way of working when they described good quality action research
as showing “the way in which the writer has engaged with the literature and
how the literature, whatever its source, has challenged the writer’s view”
(p.30). The literature I have engaged in throughout my research practice has
been accessed in order to guide, confirm or challenge my practice and it is in
this light I include literature as part of my data. In particular, I have accessed
change management literature throughout the course of this study in order to
inform and guide my practices as a Learning Support Teacher in
understanding and implementing inclusive practices in two secondary school
contexts. Brown (1994) supports this use of literature as data when he argues
that students need “to understand that they can treat published literature like
any other data” (p.43). The literature may not have been generated by me, but
it has been actively sought by me throughout the study in order to gain fresh
insights that would advise and improve my practice.
The issues challenging my professional practice as a Learning Support
Teacher have focussed on the gap between inclusion rhetoric based on
principles of social justice and the reality of school and classroom practice in
two secondary school contexts (Carrington & Elkins, 2002a; Clark, Dyson,
Milward & Robson, 1999; Slee, 1996;Vlachou, 1997). Even though there has
been world-wide acceptance of the philosophy of inclusion (UNESCO, 1994),
there remains debate as to how to move towards an inclusive school. This
challenge is clearly undertheorised. My research into practice has involved
taking on the responsibility of the how to move each school context towards
inclusive practices which has necessarily attracted responsibilities for change
as well as for research (Dick26, 1993). This dissertation reports on my
research practice as it relates to implementing inclusive practices across two
secondary school contexts. A subsequent set of questions has emerged that
has continually reshaped my research practices over the past three
years.These include:
• How does a Learning Support Teacher enlist the cooperation and
collaboration from staff?
• How does a Learning Support Teacher efficiently share information that
concerns the diverse learning needs of students with staff?
• How does a school develop a model that is convergent with their
school mission statement/vision and mandated legislation?
• What are the consequences if schools do not respond to mandated
legislation?
• What are the implications for a school choosing a broader definition of
inclusion because their school mission statement/vision is aligned to
social justice issues? 26 Dick (1993) was not specifically referring to special needs education but of general change in any organisation.
• How does a Learning Support Teacher work in order to change the
attitudes and beliefs of teachers towards a philosophy of inclusion?
In the next chapter, the use of an action research framework is argued as the
most appropriate methodological approach to adopt in addressing these
questions as central to my practitioner research as a Learning Support
Teacher across two contexts during a period of five years.
It will be argued that a practitioner researcher can choose a range of
methodologies and must be guided by the nature of the questions that are
being investigated. The context specific nature of this study and my need to
simultaneously understand these contexts and the opportunities for change in
practice has led to the adoption of a methodological approach of action
research.
It is also argued that action research promotes a process of iteration which
has allowed me to be responsive to the situation thus satisfying a “fitness” for
the “function” of research in a particular context (Swepson, 1998, p.3). Such
an iterative process has allowed the elicting of three questions from the above
set that have become the focus of this study (Dick, 1993). These questions
are:-
• How does a Learning Support Teacher enlist the cooperation and
collaboration from staff?
• How does a Learning Support Teacher efficiently share information that
concerns the diverse learning needs of students with staff?
• How can a Learning Support Teacher influence a whole-school
approach to incorporate inclusive practices within a secondary school
context?
Chapter 3: Methodology
The previous chapter has argued the complex, contextual and contentious
nature of Learning Support practices. It has argued that special needs can be
conceptualised as socially constructed categories (Cohen & Cohen, 1986,
p.xiv).
The medical model historically has been central to this field. It locates a
concept of individuality and deficit as the key determinants of special needs. A
more recent model is that characterised by a human rights perspective based
on social justice which promotes a philosophy of inclusion. Such a model
promotes an understanding of inclusive education as defined by Ballard
(1997) who suggests that education needs to be non-discriminatory in terms
of disability, culture and gender. From this perspective, there should be an
emphasis on diversity where students have equal rights to access the
curriculum. This latter orientation presents inclusion as school improvement to
better meet the needs of all students rather than special education for a
special group of students.
Even though there has been world-wide acceptance of the philosophy of
inclusion (UNESCO, 1994), at the level of policy and classroom practices,
many questions can be identified concerning how to implement an inclusion
model in schools in contemporary contexts. Clark et al. (1999, p.13) argues,
“however pure and universal the principle of inclusion may be, its reality will
always be partial and compromised”.
The issues challenging my professional practice as an Learning Support
Teacher focus on the gap between the rhetoric of inclusion based on
principles of social justice and the reality of schools and classroom practices
in two secondary school contexts moving towards inclusive practice
(Carrington & Elkins, 2002a; Clark, Dyson, Millward & Robson, 1999; Slee,
1996; Vlachou, 1997). In addressing the issues that challenged my
professional practice I engaged in not only reflective practice but also on
critical interpretations of my reflections. This has necessarily involved the
recognition and articulation of my underlying value and beliefs that align with
principles of social justice. In addition to this, I have articulated an inquiry
paradigm that has underpinned my practitioner research and informed my
research practice methodology involving action research in two school
contexts.
This study has been undertaken while I have simultaneously been engaged in
my professional workplace practice and research-orientated practice
(Brennan, 1998, p.78). This is in line with Anderson and Herr’s (1999, p.20)
description of a practitioner researcher legitimating knowledge produced out
of my “own live realities” as a professional teacher. The knowledge that has
emerged from my “own lived realities” is presented in the final chapter as
seven propositional judgements. This final documentation makes a significant
contribution to knowledge in this field.
In order to legitimate this knowledge, I will argue that I went beyond than what
Humphreys, Penny, Nielsen and Loeve (1996) describe as the natural
practice of teachers to engage in reflection of everyday classroom events. I
engaged in a much deeper process that required me to critically reflect and
analyse my data in the light of specific bodies of knowledge and literature and
an articulated inquiry paradigm. My critical reflections and an analysis of the
research data in this study are reported in the form of seven Vignettes1. Each
Vignette is comprised of a series of Journal Entries, an analytic narrative, and
a critique of the Journal Entries. Such critique generates the final set of seven
propositional judgements.
1 I have drawn on the concept of a ‘vignette’ used by Connelly & Clandinin (1999), Luke and Freebody (2000), Stenhouse, (1988) and Miles and Huberman (1994) as one element of my conceptual framework and will elaborate further on this aspect later in this chapter. Luke and Freebody (2000) referred to ‘effective practice vignettes’ in relation to a Literacy Review for Queensland State Schools (2000) where each vignette was a focus on a ‘slice in time of the work of teachers’ in classrooms. Each vignette reported here is simply a snapshot across two contexts at a particular moment.
Teacher as Practitioner
When entering new teaching contexts, teachers use a number of approaches
to understand and construct meaning from the context at a particular historical
moment. Chapter 1 reviews literature that I have engaged in as a practitioner
in two school contexts. This engagement with literature has been continuous
and is in response to a need to better understand and respond to the
complexities of these contexts.
In a new context, teachers often engage in “situational analysis” (Skilbeck,
1975) which requires a full interrogation of the internal and external variables
that impact on their ideologies and practices. They also draw on their
experience and practices as teachers, calling on research and relevant
professional literature to enhance tacit and insider knowledge. Teachers are
informed by “multiple forms of knowledge” that are “representative of a variety
of ways of personal, professional, and contextual knowledge” (Cole &
Knowles, 2000, p.7). These are all aspects that demonstrate good teaching
practice and may enhance the understanding of a particular context in which a
range of professional questions may emerge. In this study, I have called on
these multiple resources to inform my teaching practices and the interrogation
of my practices. Further, I have engaged in a systematic process of
practitioner research with a view to more fully understanding my practices as
a Learning Support Teacher across two contexts.
Whilst many teachers are reflective practitioners, it would be “going too far” to
suggest that they are all operating as teacher researchers (Humphreys et al.,
1996, p. 39). In order for a reflective practitioner to be regarded as a teacher
researcher, there needs to be an alliance with “the stricter guidance of the
research paradigm” (Humphreys et al., 1996, p.39-40). With this in mind, the
following section clearly outlines the principles of practitioner research, the
research paradigm that underpins a study of this kind- one of practitioner
research.
Teacher as Researcher
To be considered research, there needs to be something more than a
constructed meaning of a problematic situation. To be considered research
there needs to be more than reflective practice. The practitioner needs to
engage in critical reflection which involves recognising the bodies of
knowledge and the paradigms that underpin the practitioner’s positioning with
regard to a given situation.
Humphreys et al. (1996, p.39) suggest that the emphasis for reflective
practitioners seems to be concerned with improving the technical aspects of
their existing practices so as to improve student outcomes. This does not
necessarily involve the recognition of underlying value and belief systems2.
There is, therefore, a need to distinguish between technical and more critical
interpretative approaches to reflective practice (Louden, 1992). Those
reflective practitioners who do engage in a “more critical interpretative
approach” within a research paradigm are engaging in practitioner research.
This view of practitioner research which forms the platform for this study
acknowledges that not only is practice viewed and reviewed, “it is changed by
the very process of the enquiry” Groundwater-Smith, 1991, p.53). McNiff,
Lomax and Whitehead (1996) refer to this as praxis, ”informed, committed
action that gives rise to knowledge rather than successful action” (p.8). In this
study I have articulated a distinction between my teaching practice and my
research practice in order to better understand “what research on practice
might look like” (Brennan, 1998) and how it has emerged within this doctoral
study as central to my practitioner research.
Teacher as Doctoral Researcher
2 Sergiovanni and Starratt (1988, p. 104) place the belief system as the central element of culture. From these beliefs emanate values, norms, standards and patterns of behaviour.
Not all research practice involves doctoral study. Some teachers undertake
research using a systematic approach addressing classroom questions and
use results of their own research to “assess, develop or improve their own
practice” (Gilbert & Smith, 2003). Teachers also have the choice of
undertaking their research in the context of higher degree research. This
means completing a masters or a doctoral program that involves research that
fulfils the requirements of a university qualification.
The Doctorate of Education to which this study is aligned, is described as
being:-
1. A doctorate with a differenc with the practitioner/researcher (my
emphasis) having an explicit aim to improve the conditions of
educational practice through their research projects.
2. A course of study that values and challenges the knowledge of those
who enter the course (my emphasis).
3. A course that is highly responsive to real world contexts and has two
demanding audiences – academics and professional practitioners. (my
emphasis)
4. A higher degree designed to focus on applied investigation and
problem solving (my emphasis) rather than on a contribution to pure
research or to theoretical knowledge
5. The practitioner/researcher will have the challenge of conducting
rigorous research. (my emphasis) (The QUT, Education 2000
Postgraduate Prospectus and the Doctor of Education Information for
Supervisors and Students).
Two challenges implicit in this definition of doctoral studies are particularly
relevant to the methodology of my research inquiry in two school contexts.
These include my positioning as practitioner research and the necessity for an
articulation of an inquiry paradigm in order to undertake rigorous research.
Each of these challenges is more fully investigated below.
Positioning as Practitioner Researcher
My role as a practitioner researcher in these “real world” contexts has
involved problem solving in the pursuit of improved pedagogy. I have
simultaneously engaged in workplace practice and research-orientated
practice (Brennan, 1998, p.78). My immediate goal as an Learning Support
Teacher was to “assess, develop and improve my own practices”. These were
positioned within specific bodies of knowledge based on empirical studies,
professional experiences and personal perspectives that have been socially,
culturally and politically constructed throughout my personal life and
professional career.
Anderson and Herr (1999) describe practitioner research as involving school
professionals legitimating knowledge “produced out of their own lived realities
as professionals” (p.20). This includes an articulation of “an epistemology of
practice that includes experiences with reflective practice, action research,
teacher study groups, and teacher narratives” (p.20). An articulation of an
epistemological position necessarily invites the articulation of a parallel or
complementary ontological position. This extends Anderson and Herr’s (1999)
position to one which would suggest that it is the inquiry paradigm that is
articulated as the basis of practitioner research. I argue further that to
articulate an inquiry paradigm requires the articulation of a researcher’s
ontological, epistemological and methodological positioning (Guba &
Lincoln,1990), as central to a study of this type.
Articulating the Inquiry Paradigm Undertaking research of any type requires the articulation of an inquiry
paradigm. As Humphreys et al. (1996, p.39-40) reminds us, the articulation of
a research paradigm is a hallmark of good practitioner research. It is my
conviction that an articulation of this type constructs the research action in
ways that enhance the accountability and rigor of research work.
With the wisdom of hindsight I can see that I did not set out on my doctoral
journey with a clearly articulated inquiry paradigm. It was only after I was
exposed to research literature during my doctoral program that I was able to
position my research more authentically with the broader field. That is not to
say that my research was therefore less rigorous. It is simply to note that the
articulation of the inquiry paradigm came after the formal coursework. Prior to
this time, my inquiry approach was guided by a body of literature3 and
intuition, more inkeeping with professional reflection rather than rigorous
research.
The term, inquiry paradigm, is disputed. I believe articulating an inquiry
paradigm is necessary to understand my positioning. Guba and Lincoln
(1990) defined and broadened the term, paradigm, coined by Kuhn (1962), to
involve three interrelated belief systems. They proposed that a research
paradigm could be identified and understood by its ontology, epistemology
and methodological positioning. Ontological beliefs answers the question,
“What is there that can be known?” (Guba & Lincoln, 1990, p. 132). Ontology
is “that branch of philosophy which deals with the order and structure of reality
in the broadest sense possible” (Knight, 1996, p. 162). Related to this realist
ontological belief is the epistemological question, “What is the relationship
between the knower and the known”. Knight (1996, p. 162) defines
epistemology as “that branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of
knowledge”. These beliefs are recognized as the starting points that
determine what this inquiry is, how it should be practised (Guba & Lincoln,
1990, p.132) and describes how it unfolded. It also provides a rationale for the
way in which I engaged with my research and my practice.
In the late nineteenth century, research practice was dominated by a
philosophy of positivism (Candy, 1989). This is evidenced by Auguste
Comte’s first of three principal doctrines of Positivism that empirical science
was the only source of positive knowledge of the world (Schon, 1983, p.32).
Such an ontological position deems that the only reliable knowledge comes
from the “heart of scientific inquiry” that answers “How can we go about
finding out?” with a methodology of empirical observations, observable facts,
3 Subsequent to enrolling in the professional Doctorate, I had completed a Masters in Education which included the Unit EDN602 Action Research and Critical Social Practice and a 24 research Project (Burnett, 1997) that adopted a methodology that had similarities with action research.
hypothesis testing, experiments and generalisations (Lewins, 1992, p.18).
This assumption comes under challenge in this study.
Practitioner research of the type reported here, acknowledges that there are
many different ways of seeing and understanding social reality and that there
can be a “changing context of knowledge production” (Seddon, 1999, p.3). An
ontological belief more suitable to human inquiry of this sort is that there are
multiple interpretations, understandings or constructions that may exist for any
one situation (Guba & Lincoln, 1990). There is no one universal truth. The
central value underpinning this study is that knowledge is constructed, an
epistemological position which is valuing knowledge being defined in terms of
human constructions (Guba & Lincoln, 1990, p.148).
In this study my ontological position, in keeping with the contemporary way in
which ontology is portrayed in special needs education, is constructivist as
outlined earlier in Chapter 2. I concur with Oliver’s (1990, p.11) argument that,
disability only can be properly understood as a social construction. He
suggests that the kind of society in which one lives will have a crucial effect on
the way the experience of disability is structured. As argued earlier, changing
values within our society towards social justice and equity principles have
shifted our perceptions of people with learning difficulties and disabilities.
Further, an opposing view to the reductionist-behavourist theory of learning
(Kroll, 1999) has emerged, arguing that individuals are ontological constructs
of the interactions they participate in within their culture. Thus, this study set
out to look at the complex interactions4 that take place in school to better
understand student development (Counsin, Diaz, Flores & Hernandez, 1995,
p.657). The constructivist position adopted for the purposes of this study
aligns with an ontological view that there is no one truth, but multiple
constructions of reality and forms the research platform on which the research
questions are posed, data is collected and analysed and the findings are
presented.
4 These ‘complex interactions’ within schools would include social, cultural and political aspects.
Practitioner knowledge of this sort emerges through a process of critical
reflection on practice. As Michael Bassey (cited in McNiff et al., 1996) noted:
Knowledge means understandings about events and things and processes; it includes descriptions, explanations, interpretations, value orientations, as well as knowledge of how these can be arrived at; in other words it includes knowledge that something is the case and knowledge how to do something; it includes theory-in-the-literature as well as the personal theory of individuals which has not been articulated in writing. (p10)
My epistemological belief is that knowledge5 arises from reflection on practice
and, as such, I undertake research about my practice in the form of
practitioner research.
Guba and Lincoln (1990, p.130) argue that to make sense of a particular
context at a particular historical moment, there is a need to understand and
“know” the unique “human qualities” of a particular situation. Because of the
uniqueness of human qualities implicit in this study, the situation under
investigation presents as a complex mix of factors. Schon (1983)
characterises real world practice of this type where:
problems do not present themselves to practitioners as givens. They must be constructed from the materials of the problematic situations which are puzzling, troubling and uncertain. In order to convert a problematic situation to a problem a practitioner must do a certain kind of work. He/she must make sense of an uncertain situation that initially makes no sense. (p.40)
This is more recently supported by Groundwater-Smith (1991, p.53) as she
engages with evidence based research in Australian schools and is clearly
central to my own practitioner research.
My practitioner research practice is positioned within a constructivist ontology
and an epistemological belief that knowledge arises from the critical reflection
on practice. According to Candy (1989) and Guba and Lincoln (1990) this
would place my paradigm of research outside the realms of traditional
5 Winter, Griffiths and Green (2000, p.27) acknowledge that there has been widespread discussion, debate and division as what should count as ‘knowledge’ in practice-based doctorates. They conclude that a claim to practice-based knowledge is “a claim to knowledge that is context bound” (p.28).
positivist research and closer to what Candy (1989) identifies as either an
interpretative (Carr & Kemmis, 1983, p.129 ) or critical (Cohen & Manion,
1985) paradigm of research (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. Approaches to Inquiry
Candy (1989) uses a triangle to depict three proposed paradigms of
educational research. Each paradigm can exhibit characteristics in common
with the others and can be represented as a point on a plane. Candy (1989)
posits that few pieces of research are ever “pure” examples of any one
paradigm and researchers can position themselves on this plane. It would
seem that on the triangle, my inquiry approach in this study is positioned
along the axis of “interpretive” and “critical” inquiry approaches. Candy (1989)
and Bassey (1999) describe the interpretive research paradigm as reflecting
the ontological belief of constructivism but it has been argued that the
interpretivist approach to research has not gone “far enough” (Candy, 1989)
and that research is “designed not just to explain or understand social reality
but to change it” (Smith, 1993, p.77). Candy (1989) suggests that a critical
inquiry paradigm involves social change and therefore change in practice.
This captures the essence of the approach adopted for this study.
My research practice methodology of action research has emerged from my
articulation of a critical inquiry paradigm. This paradigm can be identified and
understood by a constructivist ontology, an epistemological belief that
Positivistic
Critical Interpretative
knowledge arises from the critical reflection on practice and a methodology
that aligns with not only the critical reflection on practice but also action that
brings about change in practice. A practitioner researcher can choose a range
of methodologies. Action research is a methodology that I have adopted in
this study in order to achieve a methodical, iterative approach to problem
identification, action planning, implementation, evaluation and reflection
(Riding, Fowell & Levy, 1998). The rationale for doing so is outlined in the
following section.
Choosing Action Research
Action research has been described as a “family” of methodologies that can
take a wide variety of forms (Carr & Kemmis, 1986; Dick, 1999b; Kemmis,
1994; Somekh, 1995). Different definitions can emphasise different aspects
that particular authors think are important (McNiff et al., 1996, p.9). Alternative
definitions can reflect differing opinions and seem to be “at odds” with each
other (McNiff, Lomax & Whitehead,1996, p.10). Zuber-Skerritt (1993, p.45)
claims there are no ”unequivocal” definitions of action research that would be
“universally acceptable”. What binds them together is a commonality of
approach that adopts a methodical, iterative approach to problem
identification, action planning, implementation, evaluation and reflection
(Riding, Fowell & Levy, 1998).
Action research of this type is a methodology that satisfies a “fitness” for the
“function” of research in a particular context (Swepson, 1998, p.3). It also
allows both action and research in a context where I, as practitioner
researcher, need to be responsive to the changing demands of the situation.
Action research provides the flexibility and responsiveness that is needed
where a precise research question is not possible because of the contextual
and complex nature of the situation under study. This is supported by
McKernan (1988) who describes action research as a systematic inquiry
carried out by practitioners experiencing difficulties in understanding and/or
solving problems in their settings. This clearly captures the challenges of my
work as a Learning Support Teacher across two settings.
Action Research has been used in many areas where an understanding of
complex social situations, like the two school contexts under investigation
here, has been sought. In particular, Zuber-Skerritt (1992, p.15) states the
main benefits of action research are “the improvement of practice, the
improvement of the understanding of practice by its practitioners and the
improvement of the situation in which the practice takes place. It aims to
integrate research into the educational context so that research can play a
direct and immediate role in improving practice”. In this case, because action
research is pragmatic and goal orientated it encourages a mix of theory and
practice, praxis, facilitating a better understanding of the issues of concern
and offers a research orientation to interrogate the research questions. The
aim of this research is to improve the quality of human action in these
settings. “Doing something about it” is a feature the action research model
adopted for this study (McNiff et al., 1996, p.12).
This integrated approach of research and practice recognises the
appropriateness of the research being context responsive and carried out by
the people directly concerned. This is central to this study. Action research
used here “bridges the divide between research and practice” (Somekh, 1995,
p.340). The need for a “bridge” has evolved from the challenge to the
dominant scientific model of knowledge gathering and knowledge using.
Action research that is central to this study draws on an epistemological
position that Lincoln (1997, p.9) refers to as verstehen, “forms of knowledge
which are deep, structural, historical, socially located, context-specific and
accountable to and inseparable from, issues of race, gender and class”. I
have articulated an epistemology of practice that has included experiences
with reflective practice and praxis and as such, I have argued for a framework
of action research as the methodology in this research study (Anderson &
Herr, 1999, p.20).
A definition of action research that my inquiry resonates with is that of Lomax
(1990):
Action research is an intervention in our own practice intended to bring about improvements. The intervention is research based because it involves disciplined enquiry. The improvement encompasses our
current practice, our understanding of it and the contexts in which it happens. (p.11)
In my research study an action research methodology of this type has
enhanced my making connections between specific bodies of knowledge and
integrating these bodies of knowledge with my educational practices in two
school contexts. This has assisted me as a practitioner to become a
practitioner researcher, integrating research into my school contexts in order
to bring about improvements in teaching practices within the socio-cultural
and socio-political constructs of these contexts.
As previously asserted, there are a number of descriptions and definitions that
define the parameters for action research. These definitions become
problematic when judging whether a particular research study is action
research. In this study, I have drawn on Griffiths’ (1990, p.42-43) explicit
detailing of nine criterion that identify my research as action research. These
criterion are summarised in Table 1 below.
I have used Griffiths’ (1990) set of criteria as constructs to capture the
qualities of action research that are central to this research study. A summary
follows this table connecting aspects of my action research study to these
criterion.
Table 1: Criterion Identifying Action Research (Griffiths, 1990)
Criterion 1 The intention is to improve a situation rather than
to discover universal truths about it.
Criterion2 People reflect on, and improve, their own work
and their own situations.
Criterion 3 Reflection and action are tightly interlinked,
including both reflection-in-action and reflection-
on-action
Criterion 4 The participants contribute to formulating the
research questions.
Criterion 5 The participants gather the data-either
themselves or with the help of others.
Criterion 6 Reflection includes a wide understanding of
relevant theories.
Criterion 7 The research is made public.
Criterion 8 Going public means that the participants work
with others: questions and methodologies are
formulated in a “critical community”.
Criterion 9 The “critical community” is a community of equals
in respect to power: autonomous, responsible
persons.
The primary purpose of my practitioner action research was to work towards
changing and improving inclusive practices in two school contexts (Criterion
1& 2). As an “insider”, I was challenging practices and the problematic nature
of the teaching situation School A and B (Criterion 2). This focus meant I
engaged in both reflection and action. I also reflected back to experiences
during later cycles of reflection and action enabling me to refine not only my
understanding of my practice, but also my researching of such practice
(Criterion 2 & 3). Issues of concern emerged that prompted questions and my
subsequent action (Criterion 5). Data was gathered and evaluated in the light
of multiple discourses (see p.3) (Criterion 5 & 6). My research was made
public at various conferences. These included the 9th State Conference of the
Queensland Association for Gifted and Talented Children, 1999; AREA
(Australian Resource Educators Association) National Conference, 1999;
AREA National Conference 2000; SPELD (Specific Learning Disabilities) Qld,
2000; Combined Associations’ Conference RSTAQ (Remedial Support
Teachers Association of Queensland), SPELD, 2000; Marist Youth Care and
the Marist Brothers Education Conference, 2002. These conferences
engaged a “critical community” in the field of education providing for students
with diverse learning needs (Criterion 7, 8 & 9).
Because I am at the centre of my research process, any account I produce
must necessarily show the way in which I have come to understand my
practice and some of the lenses through which I view my practice. The search
for these understandings are reflected in the research questions that I, as the
practitioner researcher, have formulated. As such, criterion 4 is not
necessarily applicable to this study.
The iterative nature of action research has been diagrammed in a variety of
ways. I have adopted several of these diagrammatic descriptions to articulate
the way in which my action research emerged. The graphics are presented
below but are represented more dynamically in electronic form.
Models representing Action Research Representing the complex, whole process of action research is difficult.
Researchers have described the processes of action research in different
ways, producing diagrams and models to represent them (Bawden, 1991;
Griffiths, 1990; Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988; McNiff et al., 1996; Zuber-
Skerritt, 1996). McNiff (1996, p.51) warn that this may give the impression
that doing action research is neat and tidy. In reality, the research does not
fall into neat sections. There is “a lot of overlap, retracing of steps, review,
redirection and refocusing” (McNiff et al., 1996, p.51). This has been the case
in my research journey.
I have found several models useful in representing and understanding visually
the construction of my practice. These models have included those generated
by Bawden (1991) (see Figure 6), Kemmis and McTaggart (1988) (see Figure
7); Griffiths (1990) (see Figure 8) and McNiff (1988) (see Figure 9). I have
given titles to these models that reflect my growing understanding of action
research. This growing understanding of methodology is central to the nature
of evolving practitioner research. Understanding these models helps to
understand the way in which my own model (Burnett, 2001) (see Figure 10)
for action research has been constructed and reconstructed over time,
throughout the years of this study.
I am aware that I am accepting these models on face value without attempting
to critique them. My reasoning behind this choice is that models are not
presenting themselves as truth but are visual explanations of quite complex
processes. Rather than labour the point on critiquing these models, I have
focused my critique on the model I have developed in the section (See Figure
10, p.62).
Early Phases: Orientation - What we do is determined by what we see.
A practitioner researcher has a particular perspective or positioning when
starting an enquiry. Meaning is constructed from an understanding of the
situation through the researcher’s particular frames of reference, “windows”, in
relation to particular values. The understanding and sense making of social
phenomena, Bawden (1991, p.12) suggests, is “observer-dependent” From
the perspective adopted by a practitioner researcher, meaning is constructed
in relation to a particular context (see Figure 6). This has been described as a
“first order loop” in a cycle of learning (Bawden, 1991, p.22) and captures my
earliest engagement with action research.
Figure 6. A single-loop model of a learning system: Bawden (1991)
Bawden (1991) uses the image of a “window” to describe how we make sense
of our world. The particular window we use to view our world reflects our
positioning within particular bodies of knowledge. Therefore, in order to turn
descriptions of educational practice into explanations (theories) and
knowledge, a positioning within that knowledge is required (McNiff, 1996,
p.128). When a teacher positions themself in their educational values this
allows them to recognise those values and to thus understand their approach
to the investigation more fully. This, by definition, is an act of critical reflection.
In the field of education, Bawden’s model (1991) has relevance in that the
researcher needs to position themselves within their educational values.
McNiff (1996, p.9) describe action researchers as “working intentionally
towards the implementation of ideas that come from deep-seated values that
motivate them to intervene”. At the early stages of my research, this
necessitated my thorough investigation of my own values as a practitioner
and a researcher.
There have been multiple “windows” that I have been using in my practitioner
research in two school contexts. These “windows” have been informed by
bodies of literature that have informed and continue to inform the positioning
of my professional practice. The bodies of literature have included special
needs, change management, litigation, accountability, media, research and
technology. The accessing of this literature has not been sequential as the list
might suggest. There has been “a lot of overlap, retracing of steps, review,
redirection and refocusing” (McNiff et al., 1996, p.51). The unfolding of the
study challenges the tidiness and systematic interpretations of action research
that are implied in all of the models detailed.
Phase Two: Moving on - Action research is an iterative process
Unlike Bawden’s single loop model of learning, more current orientations to
action research have been described as a series of cycles (Carr & Kemmis,
1986; Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988; Dick,1999a, 1999b; Elliott,1991; Griffiths,
1990; Kemmis & Wilkinson,1998; Zuber-Skerritt,1993).
Figure 7. Iterative cycles of Action Research (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988)
The iterative cycles illustrated in Figure 7 show the spiralling movement of
planning, acting, collecting evidence and reflecting. The cyclical nature of
action research that is depicted in this model emphasises the non-linear, yet
systematic, process of action research.
Phase Three: The messy real world of practice.
Planning, acting, collecting and reflecting are not necessarily neat, discreet
events within a cycle as the Kemmis and McTaggart’s (1988) model suggests.
Even as we begin to act, the practitioner researcher will already be reflecting.
Griffiths (1990) suggested that from this reflection, feedback is going on in
many ways at once and that “this is recognisable as the messy real world
practice” (p.43). This captured my own living reality. Griffiths’ (1990) model
(see Figure 8), adds an inner loop of reflection in action and an outer loop
associated with long-term reflection that was not evident in earlier models.
The model depicted below captured the constructs of this study more
accurately and the experience I had in the field.
Figure 8. An Action Research Spiral (Griffiths, 1990)
The work implicit in this study was messy as indicated, but it also had a
dynamic and involved change. I had to be receptive and responsive to this
dynamic throughout the study. McNiff’s (1988) model of action research
allows for the possibility that research may change its focus over time and
involve an expansion in the research area. This is depicted in Figure 9, McNiff
(1988, p. 57), where the central focus is the central spiral and side spirals are
used to acknowledge other non central foci. The research from this orientation
can be seen as a series of spirals, as cycles transform into new cycles. It is
possible that larger cycles may span whole phases of a research study and
cycles within cycles within cycles can be identified (Dick, 1999b). I connected
with this model of action research as the study unfolded. This model
acknowledges the issues and themes that emerged during the study
doing
monitoring
systematic observation evaluating
long term reflection
planning
(Eizenberg 1991, p.181) and mirrors more closely the complexity and
messiness of real life research for teaching practice. It enhances the earlier
work of Bawden (1991), Kemmis and McTaggart (1988) and Griffiths (1990)
and provided a scaffold for me to acknowledge, that while my practitioner
research was messy and dynamic, it was also rigorous and complex.
Figure 9. McNiff (1988)
From the evolution of my thinking about and conceptualising my research
based on the reported models of Bawden, Kemmis and McTaggart, Griffiths
and McNiff, I realised that several other dimensions were missing. It was at
this point I was positioned in a way that invited me to more accurately develop
my own orientation to action research for the purpose of this study.
The action research model adopted for this study The model I have developed to describe my practitioner research draws from
the models presented and is represented as Figure 10, Burnett (2001) (p. 62).
I have taken the notion of a window from Bawden’s (1991) model; the iterative
cycles which are common place to action research are succinctly expressed
in the Kemmis and McTaggart’s (1988) model and Griffiths’ model (1990); I
have used McNiff’s (1988) side spiral to similarly indicate the side spirals of
my research. Bringing together these models represents the complexity of
research in the context of human inquiry. However, what appears neat in the
form of a model, was in reality, messy.
The model facilitates a deconstruction of my research journey and
demonstrates the methodology I have used in order to gain knowledge and
address the key research questions of this study. It is an attempt to reiterate
Bassey’s (cited in McNiff et al., 1996, p.10) all encompassing description of
practitioner knowledge- knowledge that was the key to my practitioner
investigation in this study:
Knowledge means understandings about events and things and processes; it includes descriptions, explanations, interpretations, value orientations, as well as knowledge of how these can be arrived at; in other words it includes knowledge that something is the case and knowledge how to do something; it includes theory-in-the-literature as well as the personal theory of individuals which has not been articulated in writing. (p10)
Figure 10. The model of action research adopted for this study (Burnett, 2001)
The Burnett model (2001) (Figure 10) portrays four action research cycles that
represent my practitioner research within this study. Dick (1997a) suggested
that there are many ways of describing the cycles but their essential features
include planning, acting, observing and reflecting. I identified my cycles of
Cycle 1 Cycle 2 Cycle 2 Cycle 4
action research by identifying moments within the research process where
questions emerged from the planning, acting, observing and reflecting
process, calling on the research literature, my own practitioner knowledge and
tacit knowledge to do action research.
The cyclic process allowed later cycles to challenge the information and
interpretation from earlier cycles. These cycles are not discrete and in reality
the research did not fall into neat sections. There was “a lot of overlap,
retracing of steps, review, redirection and refocusing” (McNiff et al., 1996,
p.51). My research became a process of iteration that gradually refined my
understanding of implementing inclusive practices in two school contexts. This
is in line with how Winter (2002) described action research as a methodology
that “attempts to achieve understanding and to improve practice, by shifting
from action to critical reflection and back again in a spiral process of
refinement. As the research progresses, a better understanding emerges”
(p.13). In this study, uncertainty, retrospective thinking and emergent
theorising of practice are characteristics of the research that challenged me to
continually review, redirect and refocus as McNiff et al. (1996) suggests. This
resulted in the Burnett model which more clearly articulates the complex and
multi-faceted nature of the research that is central to this study. My story of
how these dynamics unfolded is discussed below.
My story of developing action research
In 2000 I enrolled in a doctoral program. Prior to enrolling in the program, I
had been investigating my professional practice as a Learning Support
Teacher in response to the issues created in School A in implementing
inclusive practices. My teaching practice had focussed on how to implement a
model of inclusive educational practices in the context of the secondary
school in which I had been employed.
Action research is typified by iterative cycles of study. This theoretical position
is messier in practice. I was working as a Learning Support Teacher in a girl’s
secondary school. I reflected on my practice and my reflection on my practice
went further than the acquisition of knowledge concerning this particular
context. It also involved critical reflection on my practice and research
practice. My articulation of these elements in my teaching was initiated by
comments made by my critical friend, who described my practice in terms of
practitioner research.
When I began asking questions about my professional practice it was not my
intent to undertake a professional doctorate. I sought to better understand my
teaching situation within these contexts at a particular time and to formulate
questions that informed the way I went about my professional practice of
learning support within each particular school context. Humphreys, Penny,
Nielsen and Loeve (1996) suggested that “all teachers reflect upon their
everyday classroom events as a natural practice” (p.39). McNiff et al. (1996,
p.8) include professional discussions with other teachers as a part of their
definition of reflective practice. This captures the stage that I was at on entry
to the study.
This reflection on my practice as a Learning Support Teacher in two contexts
has been extensively documented and is portrayed in my Journal Entries
across two school contexts. These Journal Entries can be viewed on the
accompanying CD by selecting the Search Window from the Table of
Contents on the CD. The reader can browse the Journal Entries in
chronological order or by School A or School B. For the benefit of those
readers who are unable to access the CD, a copy of all Journal Entries are
presented as a separate document, Beyond knowledge: An insight into the
practice of a learning support teacher, Journal Entries School A and School B
(1996-2002) and Artefact Samples.
An explanation of the four action research cycles that represent my
practitioner research within this study follow.
Cycle 1
(Refer to Figure 10, p.62)
In School Context A, I became concerned that the
ideology informing my construction of disability was
different to the one I felt was operating in the School.
This concern was prompted through a process of
critical reflection. Critical reflection is reflection
undertaken consciously and involves drawing
together of bodies of knowledge and positioning the
practitioner within these bodies of knowledge. I
constructed meaning of this context through a
particular frame of reference, a “window” (Bawden,
1991), that was underpinned by literature from my
Masters in Education (1997), my practitioner
knowledge, my tacit knowledge and knowledge as
an “insider”6 (see Figure 11, Cycle 1).
My initial response to these concerns was to ask myself “How does this
system work?” (Dick, 1997b) In response to this question I engaged in a
situational analysis (Skilbeck, 1975) in order to understand special needs in
School A. At this stage of my inquiry there was not a problem or hypothesis
that was clearly directing my inquiry, although the problematic nature of my
work as an Learning Support Teacher was informing my thinking. Inherently, I
knew that practice was incongruent with the espoused school policy.
In the context of a Masters in Education 24 credit point study, I undertook a
situational analysis (Skilbeck, 1975) to understand my construction of
disability that was operating in my teaching context at that particular time. I
initiated the investigation because I intuitively felt that a gap existed between
the rhetoric of inclusive education and the practices of inclusive education 6 Anderson and Herr (1999) distinguish between “insider” research that involves school professionals engaging in their own research in school contexts contributing “insider” knowledge as opposed to “outsider” university-based research. Using my “insider” knowledge in this study is in keeping with my previously argued epistemology of practice.
Figure 11. Cycle 1
operating at the school. The situational analysis aimed at clarifying my
understanding of this particular context and making my tacit knowledge
explicit. The situational analysis did not involve change but formed the initial
stages of my practitioner research journey, providing “insider” knowledge and
a platform (Wheeler, 1986) for further deliberative action.
One of the conclusions that emerged from the situational analysis was that
the discourse in this context surrounding the practices of special needs was
primarily an individualistic construction of disability and reflected a medical
model. This was incongruent with my perspective of special needs education
and the world-wide acceptance of the philosophy of inclusion (Knight, 2001,
p.16; UNESCO, 1994) as well as the school’s espoused policy of special
needs.
I used this conclusion that the discourse surrounding the practices of special
needs in this context reflected an individualistic construction of disability as “a
formative evaluation process” (Dick, 1999a) that highlighted several issues of
concern that were present at School A at that particular time:
• There was a belief that it was not a classroom teacher’s role to educate
students with learning difficulties/disabilities because of a lack of
training and knowledge.
• Teachers lacked confidence in their skills to plan for students with
disabilities and have influence over a student’s chance in learning.
• Teachers may not be aware their classroom decisions and behaviours
contradicted their espoused platform.
I was now working from the premise that most staff had a core belief system
that aligned them with an individualistic, medical construction of disability.
These concerns then guided my practice. Dick (1999a) has suggested “you
don’t need a research question or hypothesis at the start of the study beyond
a wish to know how to improve the situation”. This sentiment is central to a
study of this type. My research purpose was to focus on how I would bring
about a change situation that aligned with not only my value position
concerning inclusive education but also a value position supported by
legislation.
The issues of concern progressed my initial question of “How does this
system work?” into further questions. This way of working is supported by
Dick (1993) who advised, “at each step, use the information so far available to
determine the next step”. The questions that now guided my actions were:
• How does a Learning Support Teacher enlist the cooperation and
collaboration from staff?
• How does a Learning Support Teacher efficiently share information with
staff?
• How can a Learning Support Teacher influence a whole-school approach
to incorporate inclusive practices within a secondary school context?7
I observed my practice, engaged in critical reflection which resulted in action
and in a methodological sense, this was a complete cycle of action research.
Cycle 2
My research progressed by doing and by making
modifications in a self-reflective spiral of planning, acting,
observing, reflecting, planning. The self correction was
informed by both the literature and my intuitive knowledge. In
this cycle I explored more deeply special needs literature
(see Figure 12, Cycle 2). This literature included a
perspective that adopted a whole school approach to
inclusion (Ainscow, 1989, 1991; Giorcelli, 1995).
Issues of concern
There were several issues of concern that continued from
Cycle 1 and in addition several new issues of concern
7 These questions are the same as those established in my discussions of literature in Chapter 2.
Figure 12. Cycle 2
emerged. Each of these issues generated new questions and subsequent
actions.
Issue of concern: Not the classroom teacher’s problem There was a belief that it was not a classroom teacher’s role to educate
students with learning difficulties/disabilities because of a lack of training and
knowledge. This belief became evident from conversations I had with
individual teachers and working in-class with teachers while I was supporting
students with diverse learning needs. These concerns translated into
questions that my practices as a Learning Support Teacher tried to address.
Questions
How does a Learning Support Teacher enlist the cooperation and
collaboration from staff who do not have the same belief system? (see p.42)
Actions
My initial actions focused on enhancing the knowledge of teachers
concerning current trends influencing the field of special needs education.
These actions included whole-staff presentations introducing legislation
that guides education and antidiscrimination, the culture on which the
school was based, the School’s Policy of Special Needs, the current
numbers of students with diverse learning needs and how these students
were identified within the school.
Other actions included finding like-minded teachers who were interested in
working collaboratively with me in creating differentiated units of work.
Issue of concern: Teachers lacking knowledge and confidence Teachers lacked confidence in their skills to plan for students with diverse
learning needs. This lack of confidence then influenced a teacher’s ability to
improve student learning outcomes. In some cases, a lack of confidence was
generated by a teacher being unaware of the diverse learning needs of the
students in the class. For some teachers, knowledge of their students did not
extend to relevant teaching strategies that were available to meet student
needs or where to access these strategies. This lack of knowledge of
accessing information included teachers not being aware of the role of the
Learning Support Teacher.
Questions
How does the Learning Support Teacher efficiently share information that
concerns the diverse learning needs of students with staff? (p.42)
Actions
In order to share information with teachers I initially sought teachers out
who were like minded in catering for students with diverse learning needs.
Teaching strategies were implemented to improve student learning
outcomes and results shared with other teachers. I accessed literature on
change management in order to understand resistance when changes in
existing practices were suggested. I engaged in conversations with the
Principal to gain support for Unit planning and staff professional
development.
Issue of concern: Dissonance between teacher rhetoric and teacher practice Teachers may not be aware their classroom decisions and behaviours
contradicted their espoused platform. Although teachers supported the values
and belief systems on which the school was founded, their classroom
practices did not reflect these values and beliefs.
Actions
In order to influence changes in teaching practices in the classroom I
modelled teaching practices and shared relevant resources. I also
encouraged teachers to engage in particular professional development.
Although the Burnett (2001) model, (see Figure 10), depicts three discreet
cycles of action research in School A, in reality the cycles were interrelated.
They overlapped and smaller cycles operated within them (Dick, 1997a).
Cycle 3
As the research proceeded there was a need to access
an additional body of knowledge involving change
management. I needed to access literature involving
change management within organizations (Fullan, 1991,
1993, 2001; Goleman, 2000; Guskey, 1986; Havelock,
1973). The literature was generic rather than special
needs specific.
The title, “Beyond knowledge: An insight into the practice
of a Learning Support Teacher”, reflects the need for a
Learning Support Teacher to move beyond the bodies of
knowledge traditionally accessed in order to improve
learning outcomes for a diverse range of students.
Issue of concern: Introducing a whole school approach A whole school approach is needed in order to move from an individual,
medical approach to the support of students with diverse learning needs. This
requires teachers to have a belief that it is also their responsibility to improve
the learning outcomes of all students within their class. Changing attitudes,
beliefs and practices of teachers within a whole school requires structures that
involve more than the role of the Learning Support Teacher.
Question
How can a Learning Support Teacher influence a whole-school approach to
incorporate inclusive practices within a secondary school context? (see, p.42)
Actions
Finding like-minded teachers to work with continued to be a way of
introducing a more collaborative approach between learning support and
Figure 13. Cycle 3
classroom teachers. In order to influence attitudes and beliefs of teachers I
continually sought the support of the Principal. Part of this support was to
encourage her to overtly talk of inclusive issues at full staff meetings. I also
gained her support for the introduction of a whole school approach to the
identification and support of students with difficulties in literacy. Part of this
support included my suggestions for professional development.
Cycle 4
I have identified Cycle 4 as representing that part of
my research that has been informed by literature
concerning practitioner research. This literature has
been accessed as part of my professional doctorate
and brought another “window” or body of knowledge
to my research. My practitioner research became the
primary focus of Cycle 4.
As already argued, planning, acting, collecting and
reflecting are not necessarily neat, discreet events
within particular cycles. As I entered School B, similar
planning, acting, collecting and reflecting took place
in response to similar issues of concern that were
present in School A, which reflects the “outer loop” of
long term reflection to which Griffiths (1990) refers.
Figure 14 also depicts a departure from a central, spiralling action research
process. McNiff (1988, p. 45) uses a variation of Kemmis and McTagart’s
(1988) action research cycle that allows for other issues to be investigated as
side spirals (see Figure 9). My inquiry did not necessarily change focus, the
area of the study expanded (Eizenberg 1991, p.181). Although I have
separated the side spirals as Cycle 4a and 4b, they are clearly interrelated.
Cycle 4a involved making the results of my practitioner research public, in
particular my development of an Information System for supporting both
Figure 14. Cycle 4
teachers and learners (Burnett, 1997). I developed an Information System on
a web authoring program, Frontpage, that was published on School A’s
intranet. This development enabled classroom teachers to access relevant
information concerning students and appropriate teaching strategies. It
enabled classroom teachers to be not only aware of students with special
needs who may be in their class but also explanations of their special need
and appropriate teaching strategies. The various features I designed and
incorporated in this Information System were supported by literature within the
field of special education.
Making my practitioner research public has included presenting at various
conferences and professional network meetings. These conferences have
included Gifted and Talented, SPELD (Specific Learning Disabilities) and
AREA8 (Australian Resource Educators Association). This has been an
exciting part of my research as it has confirmed that many of my colleagues
practicing in the Learning Support field share similar concerns that the
Information System was endeavouring to address. Questions from these
presentations were valuable in “strengthening my convictions” (McNiff et al.,
1996, p.26) in going forward with this information system.
I also recognised I was part of an action research community as well as part
of a practitioner research community (EdD cohort). I also presented my work
at the Action Learning Action Research Process Management (ALARPM)
conference (2002). This provided me with an audience of fellow action
researchers to provide methodological critique. Cycle 4a also involved an
expansion of the study to include the commercial production of a CD version
of the Information System, InfoEd (Burnett, 2000) (A2000InfoEd) that was
made possible by a small Sate Government Grant. In conjunction with the CD,
was the development of a supporting website ,www.infoed.com.au (A2000website)
8 In 2002, AREA (Australian Resource Educators Association) changed to LDA (Learning Difficulties Australia0.
Cycle 4b emerges from my continuing research into practice as a Learning
Support Teacher in a new setting, School B. These practices arise from Cycle
3 and will continue to emerge as I plan, act, collect and reflect on my practice
after the writing of the dissertation for this study is complete. This is already
evident in the final pages of this volume where iterative cycles of practitioner
action research are seen to be ongoing.
A model may need to be multi-faceted
The Burnett Model (2001) is one way of articulating my research journey
across two secondary school contexts. The model is multi-faceted, drawing on
other models and diagrams to represent the whole, complex process of my
research into practice using action research. No one model can explore the
interrelatedness of the various aspects that impact on my practices as a
Learning Support Teacher. The Burnett Model (2001) is a visual device to
conceptualise the messy, reality of my research into practice. The model
forms a frame for enacting and critiquing the study, and, in doing so, makes a
further contribution to the epistemological and ontological conceptual
framework on which this study is built.
Undertaking research requires a researcher to position themselves within
three interrelated belief systems; ontology, epistemology and methodology
(Guba & Lincoln, 1990). I have argued that my practitioner research is
positioned by a constructivist ontology and an epistemological belief that
knowledge arises from the reflection on practice. I have also argued my
positioning within the field of special education as one that is aligned with the
acceptance of the philosophy of inclusion based on principles of social justice.
My ontological and epistemological positions influenced the way I constructed
meaning and came to understand the contexts of my practitioner research.
These positions therefore influenced the methodology of my research
process; what data I collected and how I analysed the data in order to
“assess, develop and improve my own practices” (Brennan, 1998, p.78). As I
am at the centre of my research process, the study reflects my truth, not
necessarily “the” truth in line with a constructivist ontology.
Data Collection and Analysis
Because of the iterative nature of action research, the action generates data
in a continuous process that requires the practitioner researcher to collect
data over a period of time. Data collection and data analysis are therefore not
necessarily sequential, but interrelated. The interrelated nature of data
collection and analysis will be elaborated further, later in this section.
Data have traditionally been viewed as numbers or text that are collected and
analysed to symbolically describe the real world for participants in a study.
Practitioner research involves professionals legitimating knowledge “produced
out of their own lived realities” (Anderson & Herr, 1999). Practitioner research
acknowledges that there are many different ways of seeing and
understanding social reality. The data for this study has been drawn from
direct observations of teacher practice, conversations with teachers and
students. The data collected in this study also includes digital representations
that include photographs, graphic displays, a website and a CD.
Published literature has also been used as data (Brown, 1994). A literature
review normally predetermines and locates the boundaries of the field in
which the literature of the study is to be located. The iterative nature of action
research invites the review of and revisiting the literature as a study
progresses (Bruce, 1994). I have engaged with literature as my research into
practice progressed to affirm and/or critically reflect on the assumptions I was
making about my particular situation. Such reflections offered, not only clarity
but also a way of moving forward with my interrogation. As such, literature can
also be seen as data which affirmed or disconfirmed my study (Winter et al.,
2000, p.28).
The data I have collected, over a period of five years, is supported by a set of
official published texts that I have called artefacts. In this inquiry, artefacts
have included PowerPoint presentations I have given at Staff meetings in the
contexts of School A and B, a range of Conferences (9th State Conference of
the Queensland Association for Gifted and Talented Children, 1999; AREA
National Conference, 1999; AREA National Conference 2000; SPELD Qld,
2000; Combined Associations’ Conference RSTAQ, SPELD, 2000; Marist
Youth Care and the Marist Brothers Education Conference, 2002), Workshops
and presented in a published paper (Burnett, 2004). Participant feedback and
their reflections have been documented from these events. This
documentation has been in the form of recording of their questions,
recommendations, critique of my work from peers and stakeholders in both
School contexts. This documentation appears in my reflective Journal Entries
as artefacts.
Documents are also included as artefacts. School documents, such as policy
documents have been used as data as they are public records and represent
an official position. Other documents such as school magazines have also
been used to reflect historical climates of opinions and contextual matters
within the two school contexts. The use of this documentation has been
central to embedding the data and its analysis in specific contexts.
Words form the focus of the data (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p.9) collected
from these observations, conversations and artefacts. This data has been
captured from an “insider’s” perspective so as to “legitimate” knowledge from
my “own lived reality” (Anderson & Herr, 1999, p.20). This data were recorded
as field notes that were later represented, through a process of analysis and
filtering, called data reduction into a reflective Journal Entry. Anderson and
Herr (1999, p.16) stress the importance of practitioner researchers keeping a
research journal in order to “monitor their own change process and
consequent changes in the dynamics of the setting”. The process I used to
write reflective journals is elaborated upon in the section, Processing field
notes to a Journal Entry (see p. 78).
I have argued that the iterative nature of action research can require the
practitioner researcher to collect data over a period of time, thus requiring the
practitioner researcher to make sense of a large quantity of data. This has
been the case in my study where my practitioner research in two school
contexts has spanned five years. Over the five years that this research report
covers, a large quantity of data was amassed. In order to analyse the data,
the management of the data became problematic.
In order to manage the analysis of the data and communicate the analysis, I
have adopted Miles and Huberman’s (1994, p.10) framework (see Figure 15).
This framework reflects the iterative nature of my practitioner action research
where there has been “a lot of overlap, retracing of steps, review, redirection
and refocusing” (McNiff et al., 1996, p.51) and more closely replicates my
research in action.
Miles and Huberman (1994, p.10) define analysis as consisting of three
concurrent flows of activity: data reduction, data display, and conclusion
drawing/verification. They describe data collection and the analysis activity as
an “interactive, cyclical process” (see Figure 15), not a sequential process.
This “interactive, cyclical process” has been evident in this study where I, as a
practitioner researcher, have moved between the four flows of activity
throughout the study. However, through my practice as a researcher, I have
come to believe that analysis involves a fifth component which has not been
identified by Miles and Huberman (1994). I have called the fifth component,
data presentation which involves both the audience and the medium of
presentation of the research. It is this projection of the data into the public
arena of peer assessment that enhances the scholarship of this type of
research (Schulman, 1993).
Figure 15. Components of Data Analysis
Data collection
Data reduction
Data Conclusion: Drawing/
Verification
Data display
Presentation: medium/audience
This framework of data collection, data reduction, data display, conclusion
drawing/verification and presentation mirrors the multiple levels of data
analysis that have occurred throughout my research study. Figure 15
illustrates that the levels of my data analysis have not necessarily been
sequential but are interactive and cyclical. Each level of the analysis is
described by way of simple explanation below.
Data collection
The data for this study was initially recorded in field notes. The field notes are
a mixture of both records of the event and my reflections of events. Field
notes were used to interpret and reconstruct events and these field notes
appear,
”processed”, as a reflective Journal Entry for a particular event (Miles &
Huberman, 1994, p.9).
Data Reduction
The initial layer of my data analysis has involved data reduction. Data
reduction in my study involved processing field notes into Journal Entries,
reflecting critically in the light of multiple bodies of literature and practice and
engaging in the process of writing. Data reduction is a process that transforms
field notes by “selecting, focusing, simplifying, abstracting” the data (Miles &
Huberman, 1994, p.10). Data reduction is described as “not something
separate from analysis” but as “part of analysis”.
Processing field notes to journal entry
A key question that is often asked of the practitioner researcher: Why did I
choose to keep a research journal? Anderson and Herr (1999) reinforce the
importance of practitioner researchers keeping a research journal. They
suggest that for a practitioner researcher, a research journal “can monitor
their own change process and consequent changes in the dynamics of the
setting” (p.16).
My field notes represented aspects of my experiences as a practitioner. As
Connelly and Clandinin (1999) describe, my field notes were “close to
experience, tend to be descriptive, and are shaped around particular events”
(p.138) such as my reflections involving conversations with teachers,
conversations with the Principal and staff presentations.
My field notes were processed from a record of events and my reflections of
these events into a Journal Entry for that particular event. The initial process I
used to transform the data into a Journal Entry was to select and categorise
the data into the categories: Event, Reflection, Critique (Critical Reflection).
As I revisited Journal Entries during the research study, further data reduction
occurred as connections were made between Journal Entries and literature.
In a journal Holly (1997) suggests a writer can reflect on various dimensions
of experience:
What happened? What are the facts? What was my role? What feelings and senses surrounded events? What did I do? What did I feel about what I did? Why? What was the setting? The flow of events? And later, what were the important elements of the event? What preceded it? Followed it? What might I be aware of if the situation recurs? (p.7)
For the purposes of this study, my Journal Entries are constructions of those
dimensions of experiences outlined by Holly (1997). My Journal Entries also
include added reflections and critique that add meaning and understandings
to those constructions and provide a rigorous dimension to the analysis of the
data.
I used the following questions to help manage and provide a consistent
framework to select, focus, simplify and transform the data from the original
field notes that reflected these dimensions of my experiences. When the
vignettes are consulted, three distinct journal levels appear as illustrated (see
Figure 16). These are:
1.1.1 Journal (Description of Event)
• What did I do?
• What happened?
1.1.2 Reflection
• Why did I do it?
• What do the results
mean in theory?
• What do the results
mean in practice?
1.1.3 Critique (Critical Reflection)
• What remains unresolved?
• What literature/practice
affirms or disconfirms
my research practice?
The questions I used in each section of the Journal Entry acted as a tool of
analysis that helped sharpen, sort, focus, discard and organise the data. This
analytic process of data reduction was necessary in order to better
understand my teaching contexts that I found “puzzling, troubling and
uncertain” (Schon,1983, p.40).
Figure 16. JE20020205 LessonModelling
I chose this format of data reduction to satisfy two demanding audiences. As
previously argued, a Doctorate of Education must satisfy University readers
and professional peers.
My professional peers, as readers of my dissertation, need to be given the
opportunity to move beyond my reality of what I did and what happened in two
particular school contexts. In order for my professional peers to relate these
Journal Entries to their reality and practice, they need to know why it was
done and what it is good for in practice.
A University audience of examiners is concerned that a Doctoral dissertation
reports a research study in a way that is more than a “collection of reflective
exercises” (Winter et al., 2000, p.25). Rather, it must present a thesis. The
Journal Entry structure used in this research illustrates a progression from a
description of an event in the first section Journal, to the second section
Reflections, to the third section Critique. It is the Critique section that
progresses the Journal Entry to a critically reflective tool where there are
reflections of what remains unresolved, what literature/practice affirms,
disconfirms my research practice. My Journal Entry illustrates how my
research practice went further than reflection. It involved critical interpretations
of my reflections in the light of literature and professional development that is
a requirement for satisfying a university audience. In this way I have
developed a rigorous manner of analysing the data through reflection, critique
and theory that successfully contributes to the building of a thesis and new
and innovative knowledge in this field. This new knowledge is captured in the
final chapter of the dissertation.
Critical reflection in the light of multiple bodies of literature and practice
The construction of the Journal Entry reflects an iterative, interpretive process
of the data. Part of the evolving nature of each Journal Entry was my critical
reflection of the event in the light of multiple bodies of literature that included
Special Needs, Change management, Technology, Research in Education
and Practitioner research and my positioning within these bodies of literature
(see p.3). There was also critical reflection of the event from the positioning of
my knowledge as a practitioner, my knowledge as an insider and my
knowledge gained from past experience. The critical reflection that occurred
for each event allowed further episodes of data reduction to occur which
enabled a further level of analysis to evolve. This cyclical process of review,
critique and reconstruction was central to my practitioner research and the
building of the journals.
I was continually making analytic choices of which aspects of the event I was
focusing on. These analytic choices sharpened the writing of each Journal
Entry so that each Journal Entry could stand alone as an Event. Miles and
Huberman (1994, p.11) describe data reduction as a “form of analysis that
sharpens, sorts, focuses, discards and organises data in such a way that
“final” conclusions can be drawn and verified”.
The process of writing
The nature of practitioner research locates my voice as central to my writing.
The data and method of data collection using field notes and a reflective
journal embraces Richardson’s (1994) view that:
I write because I want to find something out. (Writing is) a way of finding out about yourself and your topic. Although we usually think about writing as a mode of “telling” about the social world, writing is not just a mopping-up activity at the end of a research project. Writing is also a way of “knowing”- a method of discovery and analysis. (p.516-517)
I found that the act of writing in this study furthered the analysis by forcing me
to think beyond what happened and reflecting why it may have happened and
possible implications. Writing prompted new ideas, new connections and also
helped me to remember material I may have forgotten (Lofland & Lofland,
1984, p.142-143). Holly (1997, p.9) suggests that although writing soon after
an experience can be preferable, it may not always be possible which then
invites “a combination of writing as close to the time as possible and some
time later so that multiple views can emerge”. This has been the case for my
study as I moved from field notes that were written soon after each event to
Journal Entries that may have been revisited a number of times during the
course of the research study. This is in keeping with Griffiths’ (1990) outer
loop of reflection that is associated with long-term reflection, a concept that is
central to this investigation and a key to moving towards the final stage of
drawing conclusions for this study.
Data Display
Data display has been described as the “second major flow of analysis
activity” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 15). Data display, as Figure 15 suggests
interacts with data collection, data reduction in order to move towards drawing
conclusions.
In this study, the processing of field notes to Journal Entries and the
communication of data are closely linked. In order to process the field notes
into a reflective Journal Entry I designed a template that would provide a
consistent structure to present, communicate, and analyse the data. Miles and
Huberman (1994, p.10-11) refer to this as data display. They describe data
display as a “flow of analysis activity” which is “an organised, compressed
assembly of information that permits conclusion drawing and action”. They
suggest that displays help to either analyse further or take action and that the
use of displays “is not separate from analysis, it is part of analysis”. This study
actively adopted this conceptualisation as central to the research process.
The template I designed allowed each Journal Entry to follow a consistent
structure (see Figure 17). This structure guides the reader through an account
of an event, my reflections and critique (critical reflections).
Figure 17. Journal Entry Template
I have managed the data using this structure for a number of reasons. The
Journal Entry structure of Journal, Reflections, Critique created a consistent
way of sorting field notes that were at times a stream of consciousness that
included a mixture of describing what had happened, what I did, why, what it
reminded me of and so on. The consistent look of the Journal Entry adds
clarity which enhances the reader’s understanding of each Journal Entry. The
data was collected in a continuous process. I needed to access the different
sections of the Journal as I proceeded with the analysis to add new
information and reflections as the research study progressed. This is in line
with Griffiths’ (1990) outer loop of reflection associated with long-term
reflection (see Figure 8).
The Journal Entry structure highlights my writing as more than a collection of
descriptions. By using this structure, my professional practice and my analysis
process becomes transparent to readers. The need for transparency in a
What did I do? What happened?
Why did I do it? What do the results mean for my professional practice? What do the results mean for my research practice?
What remains unresolved? What literature/practice affirms my research practice?
research study such as this flows from my articulation of my positioning within
a particular research paradigm. My ontological position is constructivist where
there is no one truth but multiple constructions of reality. This study cannot be
replicated as in a positivist research paradigm. Because my study cannot be
replicated as it is particular to two school contexts, it is important that my
analysis process is transparent so that this study can have relevance to other
Learning Support Teachers in other contexts. Further, the data gains
credibility as being site specific and, as such, is not generalisable. This is not
of concern, for it is my intent that data of this type is generative not
generalisable (Macpherson, Aspland & Brooker, 2001) and is useful in
providing insights for others (Simmons, 1996) as opposed to definitive
conclusions that can be applied across contexts.
Cross-Referencing
I have also used cross-referencing within Journal Entries and between
Journal Entries to make explicit the connections within the data. Part of
making my analysis transparent has involved using the cross-referencing
facility that Microsoft Word allows. I have used cross-referencing within a
particular Journal Entry and between Journal Entries. Cross-referencing within
a Journal Entry allows the reader to recreate the analysis of my research as I
moved from an explanation of an aspect of an event that appears in the
Journal section of the Journal Entry, to the associated reflection of that aspect
and finally the critique. For example the cross-reference 1.3.2. in Figure 16
would be referring to
1.1.1 Refers to the first Journal Entry that has contributed to a particular
Vignette, in the Journal section, paragraph 1.
1.2.1 Refers to the Reflection section in this Journal Entry, paragraph 1.
1.3.1 Refers to the Critique section in this Journal Entry, paragraph 1.
As I retraced my steps writing the Journals, I found additional connections and
cross referencing, as I matched literature and its relevance, as I recalled past
experiences and cross referenced. This tracking is reflected in the cross
referencing within each Journal Entry as well as references to Journal Entries
in the same Vignette or other Vignettes.
This did not happen as a sequential series of steps. There has been “a lot of
overlap, retracing of steps, review, redirection and refocusing” (McNiff et al.,
1996, p.51).
Conclusions: Drawing/Verification
The conclusions for this study are presented in two parts, the drawing of
conclusions and the verification of these conclusions. This is consistent with
the Miles and Huberman (1994) model that refers to these two parts as a
“Gemini configuration”. I have reflected this “Gemini configuration” in the
heading below by fading out the part that is not currently under discussion.
Conclusions: Drawing/Verification
Identifying propositional judgements.
The analysis of the data in this study has been an “interactive, cyclical
process” that has involved moving between the four “flows” of data collection,
reduction, display and conclusion drawing/verification. Because of the
interactive and cyclical nature of the analysis process I began to formulate
understandings of the research contexts. I was noting regularities, patterns,
possible explanations (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p.11) which resulted in my
making tentative assertions based on the data. This analysis process is
evident in the critique section of the Journal Entry.
As part of my application for the position of Learning Support Teacher at
School B I was prompted to write a position statement (see CD,
A19981125aPositionPaper or Artefact Samples, p.130) outlining my position
within the field of special needs. I was also prompted to write four possible
scenarios (see CD, A19981125bScenarios of Learning Support or Artefact
Samples, p.133) of how a Learning Support Teacher can practice in a
secondary school setting. I made my positioning clear as to which scenario of
practice I would adhere to if I was the successful applicant. The position paper
and the four scenarios emerged from the critique of my professional practice
that I had already undertaken through my Journal work in School A. At this
point I was aware that there were seven propositional judgements emerging
from the data. Although the wording of the Propositional Judgements has
changed, my Position Statement and Scenarios of learning support clearly
show the emergence of the seven Propositional Judgements. I have identified
the earlier versions of the Propositional Judgements in the Artefact
documents, A19981125aPositionPaper and A19981125bScenarios of
Learning Support presented in the Journal Entries and Artefact Summary
document.
Subsequently, in response to an invitation to present at Marist Youth Care
and the Marist Brothers Education Conference, 2002, I formalised these
propositional judgements through the presentation of a conference paper
(Burnett, 2002) that has subsequently been published (Burnett, 2004).
The act of writing a paper for the Conference was “a method of discovery and
analysis” (Richardson, 1994, p.517). Miles and Huberman (1994, p.75)
acknowledged that as a research study progresses there is a need to
”formalise and systematise the researcher’s thinking into a coherent set of
explanations to generate propositions, or connected sets of statements”. The
initial wording of the seven Propositional Judgements became a more
“coherent set of explanations” as evidenced by the slide
(A20020716Propositional Judgements) presented at this particular
Conference (see Artefact Summaries, p.144).
The Conference (2002) title, Schools as Just Places: Finding Strategies that
Work, echoed two aspects of my work; my positioning within a rights-based
philosophy of inclusion based on principles of social justice which translates
into just and equtiable polices and practices within schools and that schools
need to be more than “just a place to be” for students for whom the curriculum
is not suitable.
The paper I wrote was accepted for presentation at the Conference and has
subsequently been published (Burnett, 2004). In this paper I referred to the
“emergent propositional judgements” from my study. At the time of writing the
paper, the propositional judgements were referred to as emergent because
the analysis of the data was still incomplete. I used the term propositional
because the data was drawn from two particular school contexts (Winter,
2002). I am not suggesting they are predictive for all school contexts. They
are judgements because these statements reflected current end points in my
practitioner research and not an accumulation of facts that can be drawn on
for the implementation of inclusive education in all school contexts. In this
sense they are generative and do not seek to create generalisations
(Groundwater-Smith, 2003).
It was the emergence of propositional judgements that influenced the way in
which the Journal Entries from School B have been finally structured. Each
propositional judgement is supported by Journal Entries that have led to the
articulation of these judgements. Until the propositions had been articulated it
had been difficult to manage and organise the Journal Entries. The
propositional judgements became an organising framework for the Journal
Entries. As new Journal Entries were written and older ones revisited, they
were mapped onto the relevant propositional judgement. Mapping the Journal
Entries onto each Propositional Judgement was refining the wording of each
Propositional Judgement thus formalising and systemising my thinking further.
The analytic process of mapping Journal Entries under emergent judgements
was also developing and testing the relevancy of using the propositions as a
conceptual framework. Positioning each Journal Entry within a propositional
judgement was a cross-checking mechanism for the relevancy of each
propositional judgement. The propositional judgements, informed by Journal
Entries, a way of making
sense of the two complex situations that were the research study.
Writing Vignettes
In order to make sense of my practitioner research in two school contexts, I
needed to deconstruct my practitioner research across contexts into a
manageable conceptual framework without losing the coherence of the
research study. To do this, I have drawn on the concept of a vignette used by
Connelly & Clandinin (1999), Erickson, (1990), Luke and Freebody (2000),
Stenhouse, (1988) and Miles and Huberman (1994) as the conceptual
framework. Luke and Freebody (2000) referred to “effective practice
vignettes” in relation to a Literacy Review for Queensland State Schools
(2000) where each vignette was a focus on a “slice in time of the work of
teachers” in classrooms.
Each vignette reported here is simply a snapshot across two contexts at a
particular moment in the history of the study. Each vignette provides a
“sketch” rather than a “fully worked picture” of two school contexts
(Stenhouse, 1988, p.52) and as such, has been a useful framework in
formualting the core judgements and addressing the key research questions
of my research study.
The structure I have used for reporting the vignettes is in keeping with Miles
and Huberman (1994) who described a vignette as “a focused description of a
series of events taken to be representative, typical, or emblematic in the case
you are doing. It has a narrative, storylike structure that preserves
chronological flow and that normally is limited to brief time span, to one or a
few key actors, to a bounded space, or to all three” (p.89). Figure 18 captures
an overview of the structure I have used for each vignette. The “narrative,
storylike structure” that Miles and Huberman (1994) refer to is what I have
called the analytic narrative.
Figure 18. Vignette structure
In my research study, each vignette follows a consistent structure (see Figure
18). Each vignette is comprised of a series of Journal Entries (JE) from
School B in chronological order. The Journal Entries chosen to be a part of
each vignette reflect and give support to the propositional judgement of that
vignette. Each vignette can be read as a single, stand alone document but in
reality, the seven propostional judgements each vignette represents, are
interrelated. A single Journal Entry may be referred to in more than one
vignette which reflects the complextiy and interrelatedness of the vignettes.
Artefacts (A), which I have referred to as the set of my official published texts
(p.74) relevant to a Journal Entry are also included within a vignette. Each
vignette is prefaced with an analytic narrative which Erickson (1990, p.162)
suggested is “the foundation of an effective report of fieldwork research”.
The analytic narrative of each vignette is a reconstruction of key aspects of
my research practice that has led to each propositional judgement. Each
analytic narrative is more than simply a description of my reseach practice
that has led to a propositional judgement. The analytic narrative elaborates on
issues arising from School A and new ones in School B. The analytic narrative
crystalises key aspects of my research practice and these key aspects are
Vignette
Propositional Judgement
Analytic Narrative
JE
JE
JE
JE
JE
A A
Propositional Judgement
School A
JE extracts
School B
JE extracts
Summary section
evidenced by Journal Entries and artefacts from School B. Extensive sections
from the critique section of Journal Entries are included in the analytic
narrative. In order to make a more fluid narrative I have changed some of the
arrangement of the text while endeavouring to maintain the intended reading.
Each vignette concludes with a summary of my positioning within each
propositional judgement.
Therefore, each of the seven propositional Judgements is supported by the
research data and is integrated into one conceptual framework:
As such, the seven vignettes present the analyisis of my practitioner research,
focusing on a “slice of time” across two school contexts. They are my
research texts that are shaped “by the underlying narrative threads and
themes that constitute the driving force of the inquiry” (Connelly & Clandinin,
1999, p.138).
Figure 19 is a visual representation of what the collection of seven vignettes
looks like in this research study.
Figure 19. Vignettes: A conceptual framework
Vignette 7
Journal Entry Journal Entry Contents
Vignette
Journal Entry
Journal Entry Contents
Vignette 1 Propositional Judgement
Both the conceptual framework of the vignette and the analytic narrative style
of writing is in keeping with satisfying “two demanding audiences” of
practitioner research that is positioned in a professional doctorate program-
“academics and professional practitioners” (QUT, 2000). The conceptual
framework of the vignette allows the reader to access an abstract of my
practitioner research by reading the analytic narrative or to move further into
my research process and make connections with individual Journal entries
that provide “evidentiary warrant” (Erickson, 1990, p.162) for a particular
propositional judgement. This should satisfy the academic audience. Denzin
and Lincoln (1998, p.501-2) described this process of “moving from field to
text to the reader” as a “complex, reflexive process” and elaborated on how
writing one’s story is a form of analysis that is captured here through the
vignettes.
The seven propositional judgements that have emerged from my practitioner
research in two contexts, do not have clear cut boundaries but are inextricably
interrelated. The conceptual framework of the seven vignettes represents,
tidily, what was messy in reality. The vignettes are interwoven in a complex
tapestry of practice, that can be read holistically in a comprehensive manner,
if that is what is required by the reader, or they may be interogated partially.
Conclusions: Drawing/Verification
The seven vignettes present the analysis of my practitioner research. There
may be other readings of my research data that would construct alternative
understandings of the research contexts. This is congruent with my
ontological belief that there can be multiple understandings or constructions
for any one situation and an epistemological position that there is no one
universal truth. Therefore, there is a need to verify the credibility of my
particular practitioner research conclusions involving the research contexts,
School A and School B. Miles and Huberman (1994, p.11) state, drawing
conclusions is “only half of a Gemini configuration”.
As my research study progressed there were a number of opportunities to
verify my emerging propositional judgements. These included presentations at
Conferences, conversations with a range of professional colleagues and a
critical friend (Anderson & Herr, 1999) and the publication of my propositional
judgements (Burnett, 2004). These opportunities were ways of monitoring my
propositional judgements through peer review. In particular, my paper, Burnett
(2004) was required to pass through a process of review in order to be
published. As such, there was no attempt to gather perspectives from other
stakeholders as the focus of my practitioner research has been the positioning
of my learning support practice.
Presentation: Medium/Audience
As previously defined (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p.10), analysis consists of
three concurrent flows of activity: data reduction, data display and conclusion:
drawing/verification. Through my practice as a researcher, I have come to
believe that analysis can also include data presentation: medium/audience.
By choosing to present my thesis electronically, I would argue I have
accessed another aspect of data analysis that has involved making choices
between a traditional structure of thesis writing and a structure that is
consistent with my epistemological positioning. Miles and Huberman (1994,
p.11) suggest that the choices the researcher makes to display data is not
separate from analysis but is a part of analysis. I would suggest the choice the
researcher makes regarding the presentation of a dissertation is also a part of
analysis. This choice of presentation will also be influenced by the audience to
whom it is presented.
The traditional structure of thesis writing and presentation of a dissertation is
generally a linear sequence of literature review, methodology, findings and
conclusion (Winter, 1996, p.25) which operates out of an empiricist
epistemology consistent with a positivist paradigm of research (Smyth,
Hattam & Shacklock, 1997). Text is also typically presented in a linear form
which limits a single way to progress through the text, starting at the
beginning and reading to the end (Foltz, 2000). The process of my inquiry
would suggest that this traditional writing framework is incongruent (Hill, 2002)
with my articulated inquiry paradigm that argues that an ontological belief
suitable to human inquiry is one where there is not one truth, but many.
The central value underpinning this study is that knowledge is constructed, an
epistemological position which is valuing knowledge being defined in terms of
human constructions (Guba & Lincoln, 1990, p.148). This epistemological
positioning is suggestive of the possibility that there is more than one way of
“structuring and transforming experiences to bring out its significance”
(Winter, 1996, p.25). I have attempted to meet such a challenge in this
context.
I have chosen an electronic medium to present my thesis because it allows a
non-linear reading of my practitioner research that remains faithful to my
nominated epistemology. Winter (1995) suggested that:
In general, the history of writing shows a continuing process of experimentation, in an attempt to do justice to the always frustrating relationship between the linear sequence of words on a page, the infinite complexities of experience, and the desire to elucidate a wider significance from particular events. (p.25)
A non-linear reading of my dissertation can also satisfy an audience other
than the traditional academic reader of higher degree research. The Doctorate
of Education, to which this research is aligned, is a course that “has two
demanding audiences-academics and professional practitioners” (QUT,
2000).
An electronic medium allows the use of hypertext. Hypertext is a term that
describes non-linear writing in which the reader can follow associative paths
through textual documents. Instead of reading a document in the order
predetermined by the author, readers of hypertext can follow their own path
thus creating their own order and meaning from the material presented.
Hypertext is accomplished by creating links between information that allows
the reader to jump to further information about a specific topic. The most
common use of hypertext these days is found in the links on World Wide Web
pages.
In the writing of my electronic dissertation I was initially able to use, Microsoft
Word, a general-purpose word processing program that offers features of
hyperlinking which allowed me to navigate more readily a large document.
This enhanced the management of the large quantity of data involved in this
study.
The facilities of Microsoft Word were sufficient in managing the writing task of
my dissertation on my personal computer. As the quantity of data and the size
of documents increased and the number of navigable pathways I was needing
to present my work increased, a loss of clarity in the linking process became
evident. This required the formulation of a specific program to present my
thesis as an electronic dissertation. The use of hypertext has allowed my
dissertation to be represented in a way that connects different sections of the
document to each other and provide connections within the sections. This
allows different pathways to be followed through the work by different readers;
readers can choose, among the links provided, those associations that are
most relevant to them. Thus satisfying the needs of different audiences.
The presentation of my thesis, as an electronic dissertation, is a part of the
interactive, iterative process of analysis of my practitioner action research.
The data and the analysis of this data is presented as Chapter 4 on the CD.
Chapter 4: Data Analysis
Introduction
The previous chapter has argued that the iterative nature of action research
satisfied a “fitness” for the “function” of my practitioner research (Swepson,
1998, p.3) in two school contexts. Action research provided the flexibility and
responsiveness to the situation that was needed as there was not an initial,
precise research question (Dick, 1993). Data collection was ongoing
throughout the study as my research into practice progressed. This
necessitated ongoing analysis of the data. The iterative nature of action
research supported an interactive, cyclical process of the data analysis that
involved data reduction, data display, conclusion drawing/verification and
Presentation medium/audience (Miles & Huberman, 1994). These aspects of
my analysis process were not sequential and have been explained in the
previous Chapter (p.74-94).
Seven propositional judgements have emerged from this interactive, cyclical
process of the data analysis. These prepositional judgements represent
current end points of my practitioner research. I have used an analytic
narrative to link my practitioner research to each propositional judgement. The
analytic narrative has allowed me to make sense of the research act itself
(Groundwater-Smith, 2003).
I have used the conceptual framework of a vignette to represent the analytic
process of my practitioner research. The vignette structure includes an
analytic narrative that uses the data, Journal Entries, artefacts and literature
to support the propositional judgement of each vignette (see Figure 18). Each
vignette is therefore representative of a propositional judgement that has
emerged from my practitioner research in two school contexts.
There are multiple pathways for the reader to access my research analysis.
The CD allows the reader the facility of hyperlinking to data which includes
Journal Entries and artifacts that support the analytic narrative in its argument
towards a prepositional judgement. However, I recognise other readers might
prefer to read the Journal Entries in chronological order. This option is
available on the CD and from the accompanying Document, “Journal Entries
1996-2002, School A and School B”. Artefacts can only be accessed from the
CD version.
The presentation of the analysis of my practitioner research satisfies the
demands of two different audiences. The analytic narrative provides a
professional practitioner with the essence of my practitioner research while
still connecting an academic audience to the data that supports the analysis.
The seven prepositional judgements represent tidily, what was messy in
reality. They are presented as separate entities but on reading it becomes
evident that they overlap each other and do not have clear cut boundaries.
The presentation of these vignettes on the CD allows the use of hypertext
which provides the reader with links within a Journal Entry, between Journal
Entries and between vignettes thus reflecting the complexity and
interrelatedness of the various aspects of my practitioner research.
Based on the data analysis presented in each analytic narrative, the following
propositional judgements have emerged from my practitioner research as a
Learning Support Teacher in two secondary school contexts over a period of
five years. These propositional judgements are not mutually exclusive but
rather complement and support each other in addressing the research
questions that have been the focus of this study:
• How does a Learning Support Teacher enlist the cooperation and
collaboration from staff?
• How does a Learning Support Teacher efficiently share information that
concerns the diverse learning needs of students with staff?
• How can a Learning Support Teacher influence a whole-school
approach to incorporate inclusive practices within a secondary school
context?
Vignette 1 For a Learning Support Teacher to support teachers and
students with diverse learning needs, school communities
need to share a common understanding of equity.
Vignette 2 A Principal must provide overt leadership.
Vignette 3 A whole-school approach is needed to narrow the gap
between inclusion rhetoric and classroom practice.
Vignette 4 Pedagogical reform is the most effective strategy for
accommodating students with diverse learning needs.
Vignette 5 Differentiating the curriculum is achieved when
collaborative planning teams develop appropriate units of
work.
Vignette 6 School communities need to make a commitment to gather,
share and manage relevant information concerning
students.
Vignette 7 The Learning Support Teacher needs to be repositioned
within a curriculum planning team.
The reader can access each vignette by following the appropriate vignette link
from the Table of Contents on the CD. (see Figure 20)
Figure 20. CD Table of Contents
Using the CD
By default the CD should run the program immediately once inserted into a
computer. However, if this does not happen (as it may be due to differing
configurations on computer systems) or you encounter errors while running
the program, install the application onto the system. The following are
instructions for doing so.
Step 1: Ensure the CD is in the drive, and navigate to your CD drive folder (in
most cases, D:\) via My Computer or Explorer.
Step 2: Locate the “setup.exe” program file and run it. This initiates the
installation process. Follow the prompts on the screen to install the program
correctly.
Step 3: Once installation is completed run the “ThesisApp.exe” file located (by
default) in the”C:\Program Files\Digital Thesis\” folder.
VIGNETTE 1: Analytic Narrative
Propositional Judgement: For a Learning Support Teacher to support teachers and students with
diverse learning needs, school communities need to share a common
understanding of equity.
From the beginning of my teaching practice at School A I was aware of the
social justice principles that guided current thinking in the provision of learning
support for students with diverse learning needs. At the end of my teaching
practice at School A I was aware that contemporary models of learning
support were not necessarily understood by teachers at the school. This was
despite a special needs policy that reflected an inclusive philosophy
underpinned by principles of social justice and equity.
In School B I was given a statement of responsibility (see CD, A19981127) for
the Learning Support Teacher which was written from a current perspective of
implementing inclusive practices in classroom teaching. Given that the
position description was written from a current perspective of inclusion, I
assumed that inclusive practices were embedded in the school culture. My
practitioner research revealed that not all teachers had a contemporary
understanding of models of learning support.
Contemporary models of learning support reflect a shift away from viewing
students with diverse learning needs as having deficits intrinsic to the
individual that required them to adapt to a curriculum rather than the
curriculum adapt to them. Such a shift requires an understanding of equity
that acknowledges difference and the catering for the individual needs of
students. These shifts distinguish a contemporary understanding of inclusion
as catering for the diverse learning needs of all students.
That these understandings were not present was evidenced by the resistance
I received when trying to implement special considerations for students with
special needs.
Teachers believed that equity meant that everybody got the same. This
belief was inaccurate and unachievable.
The explanation of this resistance was coming from three possible sources.
Firstly, teachers did not have an understanding of how legislation reflects a
changing construction of disability and difference.
Secondly, teachers may have been aware of current constructions but
believed they did not have the appropriate skills to deal effectively with
students with special needs in the classroom.
Rizvi and Lingard (1992) explain: “the idea of ‘simple equality’ as access, as involving everyone getting the same thing in the same form is neither achievable nor desirable. It is not achievable because people do not have the same means, and it is not desirable because people do not have the same needs”. (p.25) (JE20011108) Although a number of teachers were accepting and implementing special considerations, there were a number who were resisting this change in belief, that equity is synomonous with ‘the same’. My concern was how to ‘move’ the belief systems of some teachers to accept more inclusive beliefs. (JE20020304) In one instance, I assumed that a shift in attitude had taken place but in fact the supposed success was merely a function of “superficial compliance” (Fullan, 2001). (JE20020805)
A traditional medical paradigm of disability was operating which has led to a deficit model of education for students with learning difficulties/disabilities. These deficits are considered intrinsic to the student and are remediated through IEP’s (Ainscow, 1989; Slee, 1997).The school had experienced little contact with current learning support issues and as Carrier (1989) argues teachers probably had not been asked to articulate their educational understandings or beliefs. (JE19990308).
Thirdly, teachers may have had the knowledge of current social justice
principles but their assumptions and values did not coincide with current
thinking and practices.
This reflection on my practice generated a number of strategies that I used to
implement changes in the classroom teaching practice of teachers. A strategy
I used to address the problem of teacher’s lack of knowledge concerning
students with diverse learning needs was to deliver presentations at staff
meetings.
I provided teachers with a variety of powerpoint presentations that discussed
current understandings of providing for students with diverse learning needs
(see CD, A19990510; A19990816; A20000221; A20011008). This strategy
revealed that some teachers needed to be advised of the legislation guiding
education and that some teachers, although aware of these aspects needed
to change their belief system. Pope and Denicolo (1991, p.99) support this
recognition that “if practices are to change, the teachers need to examine
some of their fundamental beliefs”.
My concern was that even if teachers had positive beliefs about inclusive schooling, they may not have the knowledge or skills to differentiate curriculum. Hargreaves (1994) suggests that “the teacher is the ultimate key to educational change and school improvement” therefore professional development is needed to support the diverse learning needs of the teachers. Larcombe (1987) reiterates that the needs of teachers need to be considered as well as students. (JE20020530)
Conversations with teachers in 2002 revealed that although they had listened to presentations concerning contemporary trends in providing learning support and recognising individual learning needs, their assumptions and values did not coincide with current thinking. (JE20020412)
I recognised that in order to influence beliefs and attitudes of some teachers
there needed to be overt leadership from the Administration team. I therefore
used the strategy of presenting a powerpoint presentation for the
Administration team that explicitly linked curriculum change to a change in
beliefs and attitudes of teachers towards the meaning of equity (see CD,
A20020412). By informing the Administration team I was hoping to indirectly
influence the attitudes of some teachers.
I also worked with teachers who already had beliefs and attitudes that were
congruent with current thinking but who lacked the skills to adjust teaching
and assessment practices.
A teacher had sought my help because of her previous experience of students finding a particular assessment task difficult. She had identified a need to change her existing teaching skills in order to accommodate a more diverse range of student ability levels. She was acknowledging that tasks may need to change, teaching strategies may need to change in order provide for individual student needs and she was seeking the skills from me to do this. This teacher had similar principles of equity to mine which did not align with a ‘one size fits all ‘ curriculum. For adolescent learners, scaffolded and focused pedagogical strategies have been recognised as making a difference in the literacy performance of specific groups of students (Education Queensland, 2000). Supporting learning requires the support of scaffolding strategies (Kiddey and Robson, 2001). Providing scaffolding strategies to those students who would benefit, acknowledges a move away from delivering the curriculum in a uniform way (Clark et al, 2000). My role of learning support was providing a positive contribution to pedagogical reform in this particular department. (JE20020131)
By using the strategy of starting small with like-minded teachers I felt that I had built a mutual trust between this teacher and myself. Wallace and Hall (1994) suggest that mutual trust can only be developed through ‘repeated positive experience’. This particular teacher has returned several times during 2002 for feedback and advice on restructuring assignments. She has asked me to repeat the lesson next year. (JE20020205) A teacher recognised her own obligation to find ways to teach students that recognised their particular needs (Aber, Bachman, Campbell & O’Malley, 1994). Her beliefs concerning meeting the needs of students were reflected in the skills and strategies she was prepared to try in order to respond to individual learning styles. Her beliefs and attitudes about my role and her responsibilities as a teacher will influence the way students would be taught in her class. (JE20021101)
Although this particular teacher was open to reviewing her teaching practice
in the light of student diversity, not all teachers are likely to change and
according to Havelock (1973), there will be some “laggards”.
I also approached the Principal on a number of occasions concerning what I
perceived to be resistant attitudes of some teachers towards acknowledging
the diverse learning needs of particular students.
I
also suggested to the Principal that this resistance reflected an attitude and
belief system that was out of step with current understandings of Equity.
Information concerning students was available to teachers in several different forms. Recent conversations with teachers revealed that although they had listened to presentations concerning contemporary trends in providing learning support (see CD, A19990308; A20000221; A20011008, JE19991207) and recognising individual learning needs, their assumptions and values did not coincide with current thinking. (JE20020412) The non compliance of teachers in providing special considerations led me to encourage the Principal to give overt support to my efforts to encourage teachers to provide special considerations. The support in this instance became a directive to teachers to comply with these requests in the light of accountability issues. (JE20021030)
Equity for teachers seemed to mean students having access to the same
material and assessment which then reflected fairness. These disturbing
attitudes hindered the movement towards modifying curriculum to meet
particular student needs and resulted in a one size fits all curriculum. There
was a need for teachers to be explicitly shown how units of work can be
differentiated so as to cater for diverse learning needs. The differentiated
curriculum is learner-focused and is increasingly being seen as a necessary
condition for effective learning.
Following the conversations with the Principal and the presentation to the
Administration team, the Principal took various actions. These actions
included the Principal addressing special considerations at a Staff meeting
and issuing a memo to staff regarding special considerations (JE20020428).
Professional development was also agreed to that linked differentiating the
curriculum and issues of equity (JE20020812). A member of the
Fullan (2001, p.44) describes transforming a culture of an organisation as ‘reculturing’ which involves changing the ways things are done. The culture of a school affects the way in which a school operates and goes about the business of implementing inclusive practices (Carrington 2002, Sebba and Ainscow 1996). If a culture exists in a school that does not reflect inclusive beliefs, then it is unlikely that appropriate curriculum and pedagogical practices will be incorporated in curriculum planning.
0 (JE20020402)
The Principal had acknowledged to staff the importance of differentiating the curriculum and there was an expectation that Units of work currently being developed in Years 9 and 10 would be developed with differentiation in mind. My concern was that even if teachers had positive beliefs about inclusive schooling they may not have the knowledge or skills to differentiate curriculum. Hargreaves (1994) suggests that “the teacher is the ultimate key to educational change and school improvement” therefore professional development is needed to support the diverse learning needs of the teachers. Larcombe (1987) reiterates that the needs of teachers need to be considered as well as students. (JE20020530)
Administration team accompanied me to a professional development day
regarding special considerations (JE20020918). Subsequent professional
development has reinforced the values and traditions on which the School has
been established (JE20021202).
Presentations at staff meetings and to the Administration team raised the level
of awareness and knowledge concerning legislation guiding education and the
requirements for providing for diverse student needs. This attracted a small
number of teachers who shared a common belief system that individual
progress is central to learning and equity is not based on a one size fits all
curriculum. These teachers shared an understanding of equity that prompted
changes to their teaching practice. In order for inclusive practices to move
beyond a small number of teachers, I needed the principal to echo those
beliefs to all staff in a way that positions the school explicitly in those beliefs.
My practitioner research in School B revealed there was not a common
understanding of equity shared by the staff and in order for inclusive practices
to be implemented a shared understanding of equity needed to be agreed
upon by staff and if not agreed, complied with (JE20020523; JE20030324).
VIGNETTE 2: Analytic Narrative
Propositional Judgement: A Principal must provide overt leadership.
The Principal of School A had provided educational leadership in the area of
special needs with her provision of a school Policy for special needs,
employing a Head of Department (HOD) of special needs and providing a
physical space (Learning support centre) for the department. This educational
leadership continued during my teaching practice at the school as evidenced
by her support for two initiatives that I introduced. These initiatives had the
potential to influence the way teachers delivered the curriculum. The Principal
provided financial support, professional development and technical expertise
to support an Information System I had developed on the school’s intranet.
The Principal also supported my initiative to work collaboratively with two
teachers to plan a Maths Unit. She approved the release of two teachers for a
day to work with me in designing a unit of work that would cater for a diverse
range of student needs.
These initiatives met with only partial success due to a number of possible
reasons. The Policy for special needs had been written by Administration and
did not necessarily reflect a shared sense or understanding among the
teachers about what they were trying to accomplish regarding inclusive
practices. This was evidenced by staff resentment of the time allocation that
was being given to me to develop the information system and to work with
teachers. The Principal ignored this resentment as a significant problem when
it was pointed out to her. The resentment of teachers and the Principal’s
response reflected a lack of awareness of some teachers of the philosophy
behind a whole school approach for the implementation of the school’s special
needs policy that is understood and shared by the school community.
School B did not have a Special Needs Policy and did not have a history of
employing a Learning Support Teacher. This had a number of implications for
my practice as a Learning Support Teacher. To raise staff awareness
concerning students with diverse learning needs, I presented at various staff
meetings (see CD, A19950510, A19990816, A20000221,A20011008,
A20020218). These presentations covered such aspects as why special
considerations are offered to students with a diversity of needs. Teachers
were unaware that particular students were entitled to special considerations
for assessment. These presentations also raised issues of how some
students would benefit from particular teaching strategies and how the
Learning Support Teacher’s role is one of support of both teachers and
students.
Special considerations was not welcomed by staff and there was continuing
resistance from teachers to implement the procedures successfully. I engaged
in various conversations with the Principal regarding the non-compliance by
teachers in order to raise her awareness of the underlying attitudes and
beliefs of some staff that were not aligned with a current understanding of
equity.
There were several reasons why I approached the Principal and not the teacher concerned when a particular student was not given special considerations. I approached the Principal because my position description stated that “the Learning Support Teacher operates directly under the direction of the Principal” (see CD, A19981127). The Principal was my line of reporting which was an advantage because I needed the support of her position of authority. I felt that I needed the direct support of the Principal for this student as it was an important piece of assessment in this subject at the end of her Year 12. I had already presented at several staff meetings the legal background for providing special considerations (see CD, A20011008) and provided staff with lists of students and the reasons why they may need special considerations. Providing special considerations was an issue that had caused negative responses from staff since special considerations had been introduced. I felt that I had exhausted the strategies available to me to explain to teachers why there was a need to provide special considerations for some students. (JE20011108)
The Principal’s initial way of dealing with this resistance was to remind and
reinforce the issue with the Deputy Curriculum in the hope that the Deputy
Curriculum would pass on this information in the context of Curriculum
meetings. Continued resistance by teachers and some members of the
Administration team concerning special considerations prompted me to
present a powerpoint presentation to the Administration team concerning the
meaning of Equity (see CD, A20020412). The Principal took several overt
actions after this presentation. Time was allocated at a staff meeting where
she clearly stated the legal issues involved and directed teachers to the
Because my role statement stipulated that I was responsible to the Principal, I used my conversations with her as a way of having a ‘voice’ on the staff. (JE20021102)
information I had provided on the school’s network or to me personally. She
also wrote a memo to all staff concerning the issue.
The principal also presented information that I had given her concerning
differentiating the curriculum and actively sought professional development for
the whole staff that clearly informed and reminded teachers about the ethos
and culture that underpins the school.
The Principal’s overt leadership concerning issues of special consideration
resulted in an increase in teachers seeking information about students
I felt the PowerPoint presentation (see CD, A20020402) I had given to Administration, which had explicitly outlined the reasons under which special considerations is allocated had prompted this explanation. I felt that the Principal was presenting an overt position that would carry weight and steer teachers to the position of implementing special considerations. Not only was the Principal giving overt support for the need for special considerations for particular students, she was also giving overt support for my role in learning support. The Memo from the Principal was reinforcing the need for teachers to be aware of their professional responsibility to adjust classroom practice for a student who has a learning disability or a learning difficulty. (JE20020428)
(1991) asserted that the “hallmark of any successful organisation is a shared sense among its members about what they are trying to accomplish. Agreed upon goals and ways to attain them enhance the organization’s rationale for planning and action”. (p.12) Even though this professional development was aimed at reminding teachers of the ethos on which the school was built, there seemed to be no real interrogation of values (Pope & Dinlico, 1991). Fundamental beliefs were not being challenged in how social justice principles related to classroom practice. Giorcelli (1999) described teachers as appearing to align with particular accepted beliefs as “puppies on the dashboard syndrome”. (JE20021202)
requiring special considerations and complying with the recommended
considerations. Some teachers did not necessarily agree but they were
complying with the provision of special considerations regarding assessment.
Although teachers may have been complying with special considerations in
terms of extra time and alternative settings, it was my perception that teaching
practice within the classroom had changed little in taking ownership for
providing for diverse student learning needs.
Reflection on my practice generated a number of strategies that I used to
implement changes in classroom teaching practice. These strategies included
seeking the support of the Principal in finding a whole school approach to
improving literacy. It was opportunistic for me to gain support for a whole
school approach as an increase in teacher skills had the potential to improve
literacy learning outcomes for all students. I was looking for support from the
Principal to show support for pedagogical change so that it did not appear to
be solely a Learning Support issue and therefore relevant to only particular
students.
I again used a management strategy of presenting an argument to the Principal who was my line of authority. I was also giving her the ‘words’ to address the problem (see CD, A20020402). It would seem that although I had given the staff similar information in the past, it was when the Principal stated the legal and equity issues, the staff complied with accessing information in order to provide special considerations. Goleman (2000) would classify this style of leadership as coercive. A leadership style that demanded immediate compliance. He described that this style worked best “to kick start a turnaround, or with problem employees”. (p.82) (JE20020428)
Seeking the support of the Principal was a strategy I used because at School
B my role statement made me directly responsible to the Principal. This
positioning of my role allowed me access to the Principal. This access was
important as I was not in a HOD position and I had not been included in the
wider curriculum planning team. (JE20000830). This lack of authority had
problems for my leadership in achieving the responsibilities that my role
statement required, which were to work closely with curriculum coordinators to develop programs and to ensure supportive learning and foster understandings of difference and ensure appropriate attitudes. (see CD, A19981127)
I also needed the support of the Principal for suggested professional
development to occur. I was suggesting professional development in the
areas of accommodating difference and improving the educational outcomes
for all students (JE19991207), improving literacy across the curriculum
(JE20010125, JE20010601, JE20010820) and using frameworks to
differentiate the curriculum (JE20020812). This type of professional
development needed to access a broader school budget for which I did not
have authority.
Research suggests that it is essential that students in the middle years continue to be explicitly taught literacy skills (Cairney, 1994; Hill, Holmes-Smith and Rowe, 1993). For this to occur overtly in secondary schools, teachers across the curriculum need to have the skills and strategies to teach these skills. Research also has found that the most effective use of resources in terms of improving school achievement is to develop the qualifications of teachers (National Research Council, 1999). Ainscow (1989) suggests that for teachers to be effective they also need to know where their students are at in terms of their existing skills and knowledge. Because ELLA tests aspects of literacy across the key curriculum areas, it shifts the responsibility of teaching literacy skills to across the curriculum rather than just English. As such, teaching literacy skills becomes a whole school approach. Hill and Crevola (1999. p.5) suggested that effective teaching and learning in schools starts with “pursuing a whole school approach”. For literacy to be accepted as a whole school approach, there needed to be support from the principal to achieve this. (JE20000717)
Another strategy I used was to suggest to the Principal that I meet with the
Administration team. This by-passed what I perceived to be the problem of my
not being a HOD. I also had conversations with the Principal regarding equity
and special considerations. The nature of these discussions focussed on
issues relating to the underlying belief systems of some staff regarding the
meaning of equity and how those belief systems were impacting on the
learning outcomes of students with diverse learning needs. These
conversations resulted in the Principal speaking to staff directly on issues of
equity and special consideration. The Principal speaking directly to staff
demonstrated a more effective, overt, unquestionable leadership in moving
the school towards an inclusive culture. More recently (2003) the Principal
adopted a more authoritative leadership style (Goleman, 2000) at a staff
meeting arguing the core values of the school as underpinning the responses
our school would take regarding the current demands from education.
Particular mention was made of the vision for the inclusive classroom and the
role of teachers as leaders in achieving this.
My practitioner research in School B revealed that when the Principal was
seen to be engaging teachers in both a coercive and authoritative leadership
style involving direct and frequent communication about the schools’ accepted
beliefs and values and vision for the school, there was a move by teachers to,
if not agree, comply and engage, in more inclusive practices.
VIGNETTE 3: Analytic Narrative Propositional Judgement: A Whole-school approach is needed to narrow the gap between inclusion
rhetoric and classroom practice.
When I entered School A there were a number of features that were moving
the school towards a whole school approach (Ainscow & Florek, 1989)
involving students with special needs. There was a school Policy of Special
Needs. Information was available to teachers concerning particular students
with special needs. A Head of Department (HOD) represented a voice for
students with special needs at HOD meetings and a special needs committee
had been formed that included representatives from the school’s
Administration team and the parent body. These structures appeared to
emphasise the importance of a whole school approach and not one that
suggested that students with special needs were the responsibility of Learning
Support Teachers.
Despite these qualities, from my teaching practice at School A I was aware
that the structures that were in place for the support of students with special
needs did not necessarily reflect an understanding by teachers that inclusion
was a shared responsibility. These reflections of my practice led to strategies
such as finding and working with like-minded teachers, improving the means
by which teachers were exposed to information concerning students and
whole staff presentations.
In School B, although there was not a Policy document for Special Needs, the
school’s mission statement (see CD, A19921024) and a statement of
responsibility (see CD, A 19981127) given to me in my learning support role in
School B was written from a current perspective of implementing inclusive
practices in classroom teaching. These documents stated that a
comprehensive range of educational programs would cater for the needs of
the individual student, suggesting that a whole school approach was in place.
From my position of insider researcher observing practices and discourses,
differentiation of instruction and assessment relevant to student needs was
not evident. There was a gap between the rhetoric of inclusion clearly evident
in the school’s mission statement and the Learning Support Teacher
statement of responsibility and my observations of teaching practices and
discourses. These reflections on practice led to strategies of introducing an
information system that could be accessed by all teaching staff (see CD,
A20020218) on the school’s computer network. There was a need for such a
system to be supported by a whole school structure in order for relevant
information concerning student needs to be transferred to the classroom
teacher. Such a whole school system promotes an understanding of inclusion
as a shared responsibility but needs the support of an Administration team in
order for teachers to access and use the information.
Initiating a whole school approach to literacy was a strategy I used in
response to a problematic aspect of the role of a Learning Support Teacher. If
a school has only one Learning Support Teacher in support of a large number
of students, the Learning Support Teacher can only provide a limited service
to individual students, groups of students or classes. In a secondary context a
student may have as many as eight different teachers across a number of
different subject areas thus providing a number of opportunities for teachers
to address aspects of literacy.
ELLA is an English Language and Literacy Assessment instrument that I had
researched and felt would be a springboard for our school to implement a
whole school approach to literacy. It is a curriculum-based assessment,
testing students’ knowledge and skills in particular aspects of literacy. It is a
criterion-referenced test that shows what students can do. The aspects of
literacy tested across the key curriculum areas of English, Science,
Mathematics, Design & Technology, Physical Education, History, Geography,
LOTE, Visual Arts, Drama, Dance and Music are Writing, Reading and
Language.
The results of the test would provide diagnostic information to teachers and
our school about student literacy achievements. This information would then
inform teaching and learning programmes in order to improve literacy
outcomes, track individual students, identify performance of different sub-
groups across the school, report on strengths and concerns in literacy and
provide parents with a snapshot of their child’s performance against a set of
criteria. (JE20000717)
Relevant professional development for teachers is a corollary for the success
of such a whole school approach.
Improving educational outcomes for all students requires a school to be
“energised” (Giorcelli, 1999). An awareness of social justice issues is a
characteristics that is seen to reflect an “energised” school. This awareness is
fostered by professional development. (JE19991207; JE20010601;
JE20010820)
Whole staff development is considered critical in improving the skills of
teachers (Ainscow & Florek, 1989). (JE200011025)
A whole school approach to improving the skills of teachers can narrow the
gap between inclusion rhetoric and classroom practice.
Research suggests that it is essential that students in the middle years continue to be explicitly taught literacy skills (Cairney, Lowe & Sproats, 1994; Hill, Holmes-Smith and Rowe, 1993). For this to occur overtly in secondary schools, teachers across the curriculum need to have the skills and strategies to teach these skills. Research also has found that the most effective use of resources in term of improving school achievement is to develop the qualifications of teachers (National Research Council, 1999). Ainscow (1989) suggests that for teachers to be effective they also need to know where their students are at in terms of their existing skills and knowledge. (JE20000717)
Professional development can enhance teacher understanding of seeing the connection between differentiating the curriculum, providing for student diversity and classroom practice. The gap between ‘inclusion rhetoric’ based on social justice principles and the reality of school and classroom practice has been demonstrated by such authors as Clark, Dyson, Millard and Robson (1999), Slee (1996) and Vlachou (1997). (JE20020812)
Promoting a collaborative approach to developing a school literacy plan was a
strategy I used to enhance the effective use of funding that was available for
the development of a school literacy plan. Such a collaborative planning
process enhanced the view that learning support requires a whole school
approach.
By asking the Principal and her Deputy to be part of the planning process I
was trying to achieve a more collaborative approach to the planning process
and to encourage the view that this funding can influence the outcomes for all
students if the money is directed at coordinated and managed professional
development as opposed to “quick-fix” solutions (Ainscow & Florek, 1989,
p.109).
The professional development would be seen to be coming from a shared
belief for the need for particular professional development rather than from a
learning support perspective. Hill and Crevola (1999, p.6) state that “beliefs
that enable effective teaching to occur need to be accompanied by expert
knowledge”. Supporting teachers in the acquisition of such expert knowledge
on a whole-school basis would narrow the gap between the rhetoric of
inclusive teaching practices and the reality of classroom practice.
(JE20020607)
The gap between inclusion rhetoric based on social justice principles and the
reality of school and classroom practice is demonstrated by such authors as
Clark, Dyson, Millward and Robson (1999) and my practitioner research in
two school contexts. This discrepancy places a Learning Support Teacher in a
position within a school environment where they have to feel around for
individual teachers who are like-minded in their attitudes and beliefs
concerning students with diverse learning needs.
In order for me to have input and influence teaching practice I needed to have access to the Heads of Departments. I also needed to have the authority to influence teaching practice. Hay (1991, p.) reiterated that if the role of support teachers is to work with the whole school in order to maximise the contact time with as many students with learning difficulties as possible, then “the status of support staff needs to be upgraded”. (JE20020226).
The repositioning of a Learning Support Teacher to a HOD position requires a
Principal and the Administration team to be aware of the ways a Learning
Support Teacher can provide support within a school and the factors that
influence the choices a Learning Support Teacher may make regarding levels
of support. The support of the Principal in repositioning the Learning Support
Teacher within a whole school approach can alter both the efficiency and
effectiveness of the support a Learning Support Teacher can offer. I engaged
both the Principal and her Deputy in conversation as a strategy of raising their
awareness of making the role of Learning Support Teacher more effective.
A Learning Support Teacher can operate in a number of different ways.
Ainscow and Florek (1989, p.100) suggest there are six possible ways a
Learning Support Teacher can provide support. These authors suggest that
one of the most efficient and effective ways is for the support teacher “to take
part in planning the curriculum”. (p.104) (JE20020131)
Restructuring of the Junior curriculum was allowing me the opportunity to
initiate conversations concerning my role in the support of both teachers and
learners. Up until now the models of support I had been able to offer students
included working with individual students, working with small groups of
students and providing in class support to particular students. These models
emphasised separate learning experiences for students with special needs
(Ainscow, 1989). Support for teachers had involved working with individual
teachers across a number of Departments. What was missing was the
opportunity to work with Departments which would promote offering a
curriculum that takes account of individual needs thus avoiding providing an
“ambulance” support model to a one size fits all curriculum (Golby & Gulliver,
1979). (JE20020510)
Presentation at staff meetings and allocated professional development days
allowed me to engage with teachers on a whole-school basis. This style of
support was in some instances more efficient than trying to engage individual
teachers in conversations that were relevant to all staff. This strategy relied on
the Principal allocating me the time for particular presentations. The most
successful of these presentations were when other teachers were involved
either offering particular strategies that were useful for particular students or
general teaching strategies that had been useful for all students.
Hill and Crevola (1999, p.6) suggest that for effective teaching to occur, there
needs to be “accompanying expert knowledge”. I had worked with individual
teachers to impart my knowledge regarding teaching strategies. I was asking
these teachers to play a significant part in a presentation to staff. I used this
strategy in order to influence the beliefs and understandings of other teachers,
particularly concerning explicit teaching strategies.
Teachers learning from the success of other teachers is an effective
professional development experience and change management strategy.
Guskey (1986, p.7) posits that “significant change in beliefs and attitudes of
teachers is contingent on their gaining evidence of change in the learning
outcomes of their students”. Part of the conversations presenting teachers
were having with other teachers at this workshop involved them sharing
information concerning why something was done and the success of it.
(JE20020722)
In order to narrow the gap between inclusion rhetoric and classroom practice
a school needs to be moving towards an understanding and acceptance that
the provision for students with diverse learning needs is a shared, whole
school responsibility. In order for this to be a reality, structures for learning
support need to be in place that are both efficient and effective for the support
of both teachers and students. Teachers need to have attitudes and beliefs
that are congruent with social justice principles and these principles need to
be overtly supported and encouraged by the Principal on a whole school
basis. These attributes of a school will then support the success of
professional development for teachers in the provision of inclusive practices
within the classroom.
VIGNETTE 4: Analytic Narrative
Propositional Judgement: Pedagogical reform is the most effective strategy for accommodating students
with diverse learning needs.
In School A, improving teacher practice proved to be an effective strategy of
improving learning outcomes for some students, particularly those with
learning difficulties. Improving teacher practice included finding and working
with like-minded teachers and guiding these teachers towards professional
development that focused particularly on effective instruction of students with
learning disabilities. In this way I supported several teachers and expanded
their suite of teaching strategies to better cater for individual students and
thus, more adequately manage a strategy of inclusion. For some teachers
who were looking for guidance, the professional development gave them the
training and skill development they felt they needed to prepare for particular
students with special needs. The teachers who had this professional
development appeared to me more confident to work collaboratively with me
and other teachers in planning units of work that involved a learner centred
approach. It could be argued that these teachers were engaging more
professionally with inclusivity.
In School B I used several strategies to encourage teachers to use a more
learner centred approach for students with diverse learning needs. These
strategies included providing teachers with relevant information concerning
their students.
Research concerning effective teaching supports teachers knowing their
pupils well in terms of their existing skills and knowledge (Ainscow, 1989).
Stainback and Stainback (1990, p.31) explain that the process of gathering
information, defining the problem to be addressed and identifying levels of
support is fundamental in organising and implementing support for students.
(JE20000128,
(E20010129; JE20020129)
Further, I engaged in staff presentations that raised teacher awareness
concerning the particular learning needs of some students and teaching
strategies that might enhance those students accessing the curriculum. Many
of the strategies would be beneficial to all students (see CD, A19950510;
A19990816). These presentations emphasised that changes needed to be
made for some students to access the curriculum and that teaching methods
and strategies affect learning outcomes of their students.
I also continued finding and working with like-minded teachers in both
modelling teaching strategies and also providing resources for teachers.
Research in Australia (Westwood, 1995) found that a large majority of teachers (62%) attributed learning problems to factors that were student related. A significant number (14%) of teachers related family background culture as attributing to students’ learning problems. Only 10% of teacher comments reflected that curriculum content and teaching methods can cause students to have learning problems.
(JE20010820)
I had introduced the concept of explicit teaching at previous staff presentations. A teacher had sought my help because of her previous experience of students finding a particular assignment task difficult. She had identified a need to change her existing teaching skills in order to accommodate a more diverse range of student ability levels. She was acknowledging that tasks may need to change, teaching strategies may need to change in order provide for individual student needs and she was seeking the skills from me to do this. This teacher had similar principles of equity to mine which did not align with a ‘one size fits all’ curriculum. For adolescent learners, scaffolded and focused pedagogical strategies have been recognised as making a difference in the literacy performance of specific groups of students (Education Queensland, 2000). Supporting learning requires the support of scaffolding strategies (Kiddey and Robson, 2001;Martin, 2003). Providing scaffolding strategies to those students who would benefit, acknowledges a move away from delivering the curriculum in a uniform way (Clark et al, 2000). My role of learning support was providing a positive contribution to pedagogical reform in this particular department. (JE20020131)
Teachers initially approached me concerning the structuring and writing of
assignments. (JE20020131) This strategy resulted in invitations from teachers
to present lessons to their classes where I modelled teaching methods and
strategies that teachers may not have been using.
Working with like-minded teachers raised awareness of other staff and
attracted interest from teachers other than those who I had found to be
interested in using more effective teaching strategies. There was also a
shifting climate of teachers asking me to check exam papers for language that
may exclude some students from demonstrating what they knew.
By supporting a teacher’s ability to work more effectively with a range of student abilities and needs (Pugach & Lilly, 1984) I was trying to model an inclusive model of learning support that moves away from a traditional model that supports individual students within a withdrawal situation or in a one on one support situation in a lesson (Dyson, 1994). Mercer et al (1996) state that learning will be enhanced when teachers use a range of instructional approaches and provide choice in tasks and activities. (JE20021101)
By using the strategy of starting small with like-minded teachers I felt that I
had built a mutual trust between some teachers and myself. Wallace and Hall
(1994) suggest that mutual trust can only be developed through “repeated
positive experience”. This particular teacher has returned several times
during 2002 for feedback and advice on restructuring assignments. She
asked me to repeat the lesson next year.
(JE20020205).
Teachers learning from the success of other teachers is an effective professional development experience and change management strategy. Guskey (1986, p.7) posits that “significant change in beliefs and attitudes of teachers is contingent on their gaining evidence of change in the learning outcomes of their students”. Part of the conversations teachers were having at a particular workshop I had organised for the whole staff involved sharing information of why a teacher had used a particular teaching strategy and the success of the strategy. (JE20020722)
This was effective as a long term change management strategy.
The School’s focus on literacy across the curriculum exposed all teachers to
strategies that could enhance student literacy. (JE20020722) This whole
school approach also heightened teacher awareness to the consultative role a
Learning Support Teacher can have in suggesting effective teaching
strategies for particular students.
Teacher awareness for pedagogical reform was also heightened as the
school moved towards unitisation of the curriculum. My observations of Unit
planning
were that the emphasis was more on creating Units using the same resource
material without necessarily addressing the importance of teaching strategies.
A strategy I used was to work collaboratively with a teacher to design a Unit of
work in English using existing material but introducing a focus for catering for
students with different learning styles and abilities. The Unit of work modelled,
scaffolded and focussed pedagogical strategies for other teachers teaching
the Unit and were then available for teachers who would teach the Unit in the
future.
Thus it became evident that pedagogical reform invites teachers in their
professional capacity to revisit their teaching strategies in the light of current
educational research and Legislation, and the diverse range of student
learning needs in order to improve student learning outcomes. To enhance
teachers’ capacity to reflect on their teaching strategies I suggested
This teacher specifically chose to plan a Unit of work that would cater for a mixed ability class. She saw the need to vary her teaching strategies and sought the skills from me that would enable her to do this. It was my impression that previously, topics had not been taught with the needs of individual students in mind. This teacher recognised her own obligation to find ways to teach students that recognised their particular needs (Aber, Bachman, Campbell & O’Malley, 1994). Her beliefs concerning meeting the needs of students were reflected in the skills and strategies she was prepared to try in order to respond to individual learning styles and needs. (JE20021101)
professional development that was provided for the whole staff (JE19991207;
JE20010125; JE20020722) and for smaller groups. (JE20010601;
JE20010820; JE20020812)
Not all staff were receptive of the professional development.
Pedagogical reform is the most effective strategy for catering for diverse
student learning needs. The Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study
(QSRLS) (2001) reiterates the findings from my practitioner research that “the
greatest contributors to student outcomes from within the school are
pedagogical and assessment practices “ and that “individual teacher practices
have a greater effect on student outcomes than whole-school effect” (p.5).
The staff resistance to the relevance of the day was indicative of their lack of understanding that literacy was the responsibility of all curriculum areas. This pointed to the fact that there was more work to be done in changing teacher attitudes towards explicitly teaching literacy skills beyond Primary school (Hill, Holmes-Smith and Rowe, 1993) and the need to be aware that there is a significant change in literacy demands from Primary to Secondary school (Cairney et al, 1994). (JE20010125)
VIGNETTE 5: Analytic Narrative Propositional Judgement: Differentiating curriculum is achieved when collaborative planning teams
develop appropriate units of work.
School A had introduced a vertical, unitised curriculum in Years 9 and 10. The
rationale for the development of a vertical, unitised approach to curriculum
delivery was to cater for the needs, interests and abilities of all students and
to provide opportunities for them to develop to their full potential. The school
saw this type of curriculum delivery as enabling students to work at their own
rate, level of ability and maturity. It allowed students to choose courses
appropriate to their needs, interests and abilities thus supporting a positive
action towards an inclusive curriculum.
To present such a learner-focused, as opposed to a one size fits all
curriculum, requires a teacher to differentiate curriculum. This may include
providing students with different ways to take in information, differing amounts
of time to complete work, different levels of thinking, different assignments
and different means to assess what has been learnt. A unitised curriculum
invites a collaborative way of working that involves a sharing of the expertise
and bodies of knowledge of the Learning Support Teacher and teachers
within a particular area of the curriculum to realise differentiation.
When I entered School A, some parents of students with learning
difficulties/disabilities were questioning the rhetoric of student choice a
unitised curriculum supported. Comments of parents were mainly regarding
inequitable assessing and reporting in the area of Year 9 Maths.
Years 9 and 10 Maths classes were streamed according to ability; Core,
Mainstream and Advanced. The students who had elected to study Core
Maths were expected to cover the same content in the same time and sit a
common test paper as the Mainstream class. The students studying Core
were ranked with the total student population of Core and Mainstream and
continually achieved the D’s and E’s of the cohort of Core and Mainstream
students. The Core Maths class had a significant number of students with
learning difficulties and teachers found behaviours within the class difficult to
manage. These issues were highlighting the need for teachers to understand
that in order to be faithful to the adopted curriculum, there needed to be
differentiation of the units that may include the altering of assessment. The
structures for collaborative planning to achieve such differentiation needed the
input of bodies of knowledge that learning support could offer. These
structures were not yet in place
Parents of some students in the Core class were questioning the relevance of
end of unit reports that graded students continually as D’s and E’s even
though the students had selected to study the least demanding Maths unit. My
strategy to encourage a more learner centred approach was to engage
teachers of these classes in conversation to gauge their support for the need
to modify the end of unit tests. Teachers were supportive of these overtures
but the Head of Department (HOD) in Maths was reluctant to alter the
assessment nor consider modifying reports. The HOD supported her position
with a claim that parents wanted the same work. Because School A had a
recognised structure of a HOD in Learning Support, I was able to use this
position to address the continuing requests from some parents supporting
modified assessment and reports. The HOD of Learning Support had the
voice to present a proposal of modified tests and reports for some students at
a meeting of the Heads of Departments. The result was that some students
would receive a modified report and modifications were also allowed in the
tests.
Modifying reports and making modifications to assessment did not address
the broader curriculum issue of differentiation that questions what was being
taught and the how it was being taught to accommodate diverse learning
needs.
Being in class and engaging teachers who had taught the Core Maths class in
conversation, revealed their lack of knowledge concerning the students with
special needs in their classes and the possible adjustments to their teaching
strategies they should be considering to better cater for the particular learning
needs of some students. These reflections of my practice informed
subsequent strategies of my practice.
One strategy I used in School A to address both the curriculum and issues of
pedagogy, was to suggest to teachers appropriate professional development
when it became available and go with them. I also initiated an opportunity for
teachers to collaboratively plan a Unit of work for a Year 9 Core Maths class.
Both strategies were endorsed by the Principal. This was a new initiative for a
Learning Support Teacher to promote a collaborative way of working towards
the differentiation of the curriculum.
These strategies resulted in three teachers coming together voluntarily to pool
their expert knowledge in order to collaboratively design a Unit of work for
Year 9 Maths. While this was a success as an instance of collaboration with
two like-minded teachers and it did improve the behaviour of the class, it was
seen by some members of the maths department as an unnecessary use of
in-school time. I had doubt that the unit of work modelled with the two
teachers would be used by other teachers within the Department.
In School B, from my conversations with a number of English teachers, there
had not been a history of English teachers working collaboratively. The
school’s move towards a unitised curriculum in Year 9 gave me an opportunity
to work collaboratively with a specialist English teacher. My role as a Learning
Support Teacher did not mean that I was necessarily conversant in every
curriculum area. But when there is the opportunity to bring together the expert
knowledge of Special Needs with the expert knowledge of a specified
curriculum area, a collaborative team can be created that has the potential to
develop curricula that recognises and works with student learning differences.
The advantage of this way of working is that when teachers work together,
they bring their dominant bodies of knowledge.
The unit would be used by other members of the English department. We
brought different skills to the planning; her knowledge of the content for the
unit and my knowledge of students who would be enrolled in the unit and my
knowledge of differentiating the curriculum using a framework that involved
Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy and Gardner’s (1983) multiple intelligences. The
unit was not necessarily a success with the other teachers because they did
not have the background knowledge of the frameworks and were not part of
the development process.
The specialist English teacher chose to develop the Unit of work with me and
as such we worked as a voluntary partnership. Our partnership was based on
a mutual trust of each other’s knowledge. We were able to pool our
knowledge to produce a differentiated unit of work for Year 9 English that
would cater for a more diverse range of student learning needs. Using
collaborative planning to successfully differentiate curriculum needs to
recognise that it involves a team approach so that expertise is drawn from
different team members and team members can learn from one another. The
Learning Support Teacher is just one member of a potential team.
Although this was the only instance of my involvement with Unit planning at
School B, there were other successful instances of my collaboration with
By working collaboratively with this teacher, I was providing an alternative model of support for students with diverse learning needs. This was a model based on collaboration of the classroom teacher and learning support (Graden & Bauer, 1992; Self, Benning, Marston & Magnusson, 1991; Vaughn & Schum, 1995; West & Idol, 1987). By supporting a teacher’s ability to work more effectively with a range of student abilities and needs (Pugach & Lilly, 1984) I was trying to model an inclusive model of learning support that moves away from a traditional model that supports individual students within a withdrawal situation or in a one on one support situation in a lesson (Dyson, 1994). Mercer et al (1996) state that learning will be enhanced when teachers use a range of instructional approaches and provide choice in tasks and activities. (JE20021101)
individual teachers to differentiate aspects of their Units of Work or
assessment to cater for a diverse range of learning needs.
My working with this teacher led to an invitation from her to teach her class
particular strategies for summarising. I modelled the lesson for her which then
led to other teachers asking me to repeat the lesson for their class.
This contact I feel was generated because of the exposure to professional
development teachers were experiencing in relation to all curriculum areas
sharing the responsibility of improving student literacy outcomes.
(JE20010125, 20010601; JE20020812) This professional development
coupled with the staff presentations I had given to draw attention to the
contemporary trends influencing learning support (see CD, A20000221;
A20011008) seemed to be drawing some teachers to work collaboratively with
me in differentiating aspects of the curriculum.
I had introduced the concept of explicit teaching at previous staff presentations but this was the first time a teacher had sought my help. This teacher had sought my help because of her previous experience of students finding this task difficult. She had identified a need to change her existing teaching skills in order to accommodate a more diverse range of student ability levels. She was acknowledging that tasks may need to change, teaching strategies may need to change in order provide for individual student needs and she was seeking the skills from me to do this. (JE20020131)
The teacher was complimentary of the lesson and her feedback was that the students had attempted to use the ‘chain’ deconstructing of paragraphs in the following lesson. By the end of the day another teacher from that particular subject area had asked me to teach a similar lesson for her Year 11 class. By using the strategy of starting small with like-minded teachers I felt that I had built a mutual trust between this teacher and myself. Wallace and Hall (1994) suggest that mutual trust can only be developed through ‘repeated positive experience’. This particular teacher has returned several times during 2002 to work collaboratively in the design of aspects of the curriculum. (JE20020205)
Those teachers who were voluntarily meeting with me were acknowledging
the need to cater for the diverse learning needs of their students and the role
of the Learning Support Teacher in providing a body of knowledge and
expertise in the area of curriculum differentiation. Such a collaborative
environment assisted teachers to access and clarify information concerning
students, share skills, expertise and creativity and establish responsibilities for
the ongoing support of both teachers and learners.
My practitioner research has emphasised that the classroom teacher needs
the skills and repertoire of teaching strategies to adequately cater for the
learning needs of a diversity of students. This requires the Learning Support
Teacher to offer a continuum of services that increasingly includes a shift of
emphasis from the Learning Support Teacher working alongside regular
classroom teachers to the Learning Support Teacher influencing the
classroom teacher’s pedagogy without necessarily working alongside them in
the classroom.
VIGNETTE 6: Analytic Narrative Propositional Judgement: School communities need to make a commitment to gather, share and
manage relevant information concerning students.
When I entered School A a system was already in place that allowed teachers
access to information concerning students with special needs. Lists of
students with special needs had been made available to Heads of
Departments (HODs) and a filing system had been created that enabled
teachers to access more information concerning students. Little use was
made of the files and teachers did not always have ready access to the lists of
names held by the HODs.
From my observations of classroom practice and conversations with students,
classroom teachers and the HOD of Learning Support, teachers were not
accessing relevant information concerning students for a number of reasons.
Initially, teachers may have been unaware of the students with diverse
learning needs in their classes and the information that was available. But
some teachers also felt students with particular learning difficulties/disabilities
were the responsibility of the learning support staff and it was not necessarily
their responsibility to be aware of this information.
I believed that teachers required easier access to this data in order to provide
for the diverse learning needs of students. The strategies I used in School A
to promote the need for teachers to access relevant information concerning
students with diverse needs included; whole staff presentations, sharing my
knowledge with like-minded teachers and collaboratively planning units of
work with like-minded teachers that more appropriately matched teaching
strategies and the learning needs of students. I also developed an information
system on the school network that enabled me to more efficiently manage
student information. The development of an information system on the school
network was also in response to the needs of teachers to access information
more efficiently. With a four term unitised curriculum, teachers did not
necessarily keep the one class for the entire year. This was problematic in
terms of time required by learning support trying to track both teachers and
learners.
These strategies combined to enable teachers to access relevant information
concerning a student’s background, ability level, learning
difficulties/disabilities. These strategies also provided an opportunity for
teachers to be exposed to different strategies more appropriate to student
needs.
In order to devise learner centred strategies there needs to be knowledge
about those learners. It was apparent in School A that although relevant
information was accessible and in teacher friendly language there were few
teachers accessing this information. My practitioner research in School A
revealed that there were two main reasons why some teachers did not access
the information system on the school network or learning support staff for
information. There was not a shared understanding amongst staff as to the
value of using such information and some teachers considered that students
with learning difficulties/disabilities were not their responsibility.
Separate to School A and School B. the concept of an information system
was further developed into a commercial CD, InfoEd. Features of this
information management program include:
• User friendly data input forms
• Space for student photographs
• Explanations of special needs and relevant teaching strategies
• Ability to create student reports
• Links to relevant internet sites
• Support from a website
• Ability to support a school’s policy for special needs
• Option to have different levels of security access to the program
• Ability to import student information from other data bases
• Audio facility for recording information
In School B, there did not exist a system for informing teachers about student
needs. Although there was a Year 7 testing day for students prior to entry in
Year 8, the information gathered was not shared with teachers. My practice
included not only changing some of the assessment instruments but also
informing teachers about the results and what implications these results might
have for their teaching.
At the beginning of each year I provided summary information for the relevant
teachers concerning students. In this way I raised teacher awareness to
particular student learning needs. This has been referred to as teachers being
“evidenced based practitioners”. (JE19990121)
Teachers were not only included in the administering of tests on the Year 7
testing day, but also the marking.
On one hand I was reluctant to have the TORCH marked by teachers because they did not want to do it to begin with. On the other hand, it allowed me to introduce the importance of teachers knowing whether a student had a significant difficulty in gaining information from text. Teachers who were marking the TORCH were surprised at some of the responses students gave that indicated the student had no idea of what the text was about. I could see teachers making connections between these results and how well a student might be extracting and engaging in information from texts, handouts or assessment items used in their classes. This proved an opportunity for me to stress the need for teachers to be aware of the readability of the text books or handouts that they were using and that there was a need to develop students’ strategies in constructing meaning from the information that was being presented to them (Hay, 1988). Research suggests (Duffy, 1987) that if explicit teaching strategies are used the more likely low ability readers will retain information. (JE19991018)
I encouraged the Administration to include these information sharing sessions
as part of the schedule of department meetings held at the beginning of each
school year prior to the students starting. (JE20010129; JE20020129)
To provide updated information during the Year concerning students, I
published The Learning Support News (A1999). I kept this to no more than an
A4 size publication so that teachers would not find it too time consuming to
read. This was a more efficient way of updating teachers than continually
trying to catch up with individual teachers.
A further strategy I used to inform teachers about students became possible
once the School computer system was updated. The updated system could
accommodate a network that staff could access from the staff computer room
and other computers connected to the network. I published a Learning
Research concerning effective teaching supports teachers knowing their pupils well in terms of their existing skills and knowledge (Ainscow, 1989). Stainback and Stainback (1990, p.31) explain that the process of gathering information, defining the problem to be addressed and identifying levels of support is fundamental in organising and implementing support for students. “The more comprehensive the classroom assessment package is, the more likely it will be to locate the best starting point for intervention” (Young, 1995, p.27). Sharing information with teachers was also identifying with teachers that although I supported students on an individual basis as one model of support, I was offering other types of support that included collaborating with teachers in the classroom (Stainback and Stainback, 1990.) (JE20000128)
One teacher noted as she left that this was the best prepared she had ever been concerning the Year 8 students she was to teach. I was grateful for this public acknowledgement from a staff member who I knew was well respected amongst staff. This was the first time information concerning Yr8 students had been shared with staff. In previous years results from the Year 7 testing had not been made available to classroom teachers. (JE20000128)
Support site that then played the role of updating teachers. This was a more
efficient use of my time in contacting teachers about a number of students
across Year levels.
All these focused strategies were complemented by an annual generic
strategy of making staff aware of their responsibilities regarding students with
diverse learning needs in whole staff presentations (see CD, A19990308;
A19990510, 19990816, A20000221; A200011008). In so doing I was
promoting the need for a commitment from staff to be aware of the diverse
learning needs of students.
Although teachers seemed to becoming more aware of the needs of some of
their students, there still seemed to be a perception that the numbers of
students coming to the school with learning difficulties/disabilities was
increasing. The use of the phrase “dumbing down” had been used to describe
this trend. Teachers appeared to be operating within a paradigm where they
saw the students as having an intrinsic problem that was my responsibility to
remediate.
This attitude seemed out of step with the school’s mission statement that
purported to “provide a comprehensive range of educational programmes catering
for the needs of the individual” (see CD, A99921024) and the current commitment
of catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Brisbane to provide whole-school
From my point of view as Learning Support Teacher, an electronic information system was an efficient way of providing up dated information to teachers concerning their students. This did not necessarily guarantee that teachers would access the site. Teachers of Year 8 were directed at the beginning of each school year to attend the information sharing sessions with me. I will be relying on teachers of other grade levels to access the site to gather summary information concerning their students and hopefully seek further detailed information from me. Gathering and managing the information is not problematic. What is problematic is that teachers have to see the need to know this information and believe that it is there responsibility to use this information to enhance the learning outcomes of all students. (JE20020218)
approaches to teaching and learning in response to student diversity (Catholic
Education, 2002). (JE20020129)
My practitioner research in School B suggested that the strategies I had
employed to gather and manage information concerning students to enable
me to share relevant information with teachers were only successful with
some teachers.
In order for information regarding students to be used to inform curriculum
and teaching practice and to move away from a one size fits all curriculum
there needed to be a commitment by the school community for the need to
gather information relevant to student learning needs.
My practitioner research suggests that not only must school communities
gather, share and manage relevant information concerning students but they
must also make a commitment to the need for such information gathering and
sharing.
It would seem that although I had previously given explanations to staff for the need to be aware of student needs by accessing information concerning these needs, it was when the Principal stated the legal and equity issues, the staff complied with accessing information in order to provide special considerations. Goleman (2000) would classify this style of leadership as coercive. A leadership style that demanded immediate compliance. He described that this style worked best “to kick start a turnaround, or with problem employees”. (p.82) (JE20020428)
Rosenholtz (1991, p.13) asserted that the “hallmark of any successful organisation is a shared sense among its members about what they are trying to accomplish. Agreed upon goals and ways to attain them enhance the organization’s rationale for planning and action”). (JE20021202)
VIGNETTE 7: Analytic Narrative Propositional Judgement: The Learning Support Teacher needs to be repositioned within a curriculum
planning team.
In School A Learning Support was a recognised Department represented by a
Head of Department (HOD) who met regularly with the Principal and other
Heads of curriculum. Having access to these meetings gave the Learning
Support area status within the School. The HOD of Learning Support had a
recognised voice within the curriculum planning team. This voice had several
dimensions. She was able to represent students regarding aspects involving
where support could take place for students. Issues of labelling could be
voiced and the need for change in pedagogy to cater for particular students.
Her voice was also able to represent parents, the classroom teacher and the
role of the Learning Support Teacher regarding these different stakeholders.
In School B there was not a Learning Support Department and as such there
was not a recognised HOD position. This was problematic because, as I was
not a HOD, I did not have representation on the Curriculum committee. The
position of Learning Support Teacher reported directly to the Principal.
The Learning Support Teacher operates in the school community by providing consultancy support to the Principal and Staff. This includes leading and motivating teachers to plan and implement inclusive practices in classroom teaching to provide for students with special educational requirements. (Statement of Responsibility, see CD, A19981127).
This model of organising learning support impacted on the way I practiced as
a Learning Support Teacher and the outcomes I could effectively achieve.
Although I had the responsibility for “leading and motivating teachers to plan
and implement inclusive practices in classroom teaching”, I did not have the
authority or status to achieve this effectively. To counteract this, I used the
reporting status directly to the Principal to make her aware of issues that
might have been raised at curriculum meetings had my position been that of a
HOD. Had the position been a HOD position, it would have allowed me
access to the curriculum team where the issues and tensions of inclusive
practices could have been raised and discussed. I found that my position as a
Learning Support Teacher did not allow me to directly address issues and
tensions such as; What is responsible inclusion?; How can place be kept in
perspective for student, teacher and Learning Support Teacher?; Can
difference and disability be acknowledged without labels?; and Where are the
curriculum and pedagogical deficits within school practices and how can they
be addressed?
In my current position as a Learning Support Teacher, in order to increase the
status of Learning Support I used the following strategies. I regularly engaged
the Principal in conversations concerning the resistance of teachers to
implement special considerations and the beliefs and attitudes of some
teachers concerning students with diverse learning needs.
One conversation with the Principal was in response to my concerns that
teachers were not being encouraged to see the need for accessing
information about their students in order to improve student literacy levels.
Conversations concerning the provision of special considerations with a particular teacher had revealed that she was not in favour of special considerations as she thought it ‘unfair’ to the other students. What remained unresolved with a number of teachers was the issue that teachers seemed to align fairness as everything being ‘the same’. This would result in equity. Rizvi and Lingard (1992) explain:
“the idea of ‘simple equality’ as access, as involving everyone getting the same thing in the same form is neither achievable nor desirable. It is not achievable because people do not have the same means, and it is not desirable because people do not have the same needs”. (p.25)
I approached the Principal with my concerns because my position description stated that “the Learning Support Teacher operates directly under the direction of the Principal” (see CD, A19981127). The Principal was my line of reporting which was an advantage because I needed the support of her position of authority to achieve my stated responsibilities on a whole school basis. (JE20011108)
In order to “lead” and “motivate” teachers to plan and implement inclusive
classroom practices from my current position, I recommended to the Principal
possible professional development for teachers. These recommendations
were made in order for teachers to move towards understanding and
implementing inclusive practices. This professional development was thus
seen as coming from the authority of the Principal.
I was concerned that if the Deputy Curriculum did not show overt support for implementing ELLA it would be likely that the initiative would be seen as coming from learning support and not applicable to them (JE20020131).
The Deputy Curriculum seemed to be sending an impression to the Curriculum coordinators that the introduction of ELLA was not a collaborative initiative. An email to the Principal expressed this concern. Even though the Principal had agreed with everything I had written there did not seem to be her overt support for Learning Support to be present at the Curriculum meetings. After a previous conversation where I had said that I felt I was ‘flapping out there in the wind’, I thought there would be greater recognition and support for the contribution the role could play in wider curricular issues. In order for me to have input and influence teaching practice I needed to have access to the Heads of Departments. I also needed to have the authority to influence teaching practice. Hay (1991) reiterated that if the role of support teachers is to work with the whole school in order to maximise the contact time with as many students with learning difficulties as possible, then ‘the status of support staff needs to be upgraded’ (p.4) (JE20020226)
I formally wrote expressions of concern relating to special considerations that
also included recommendations and Proposals for Learning Support
(A20010501; A20011031). I also advocated directly with the Principal on
behalf of particular students concerning special considerations. Because I
lacked an authority within the staff, I was using her status and authority to
move teachers towards inclusive practices.
Strategies for fostering understanding and concensus building include inservice and professional development (Giorcelli, 1995; Villa and Thousand, 1990). Speaking to other Learning Support Teacher’s from other Secondary schools facing similar needs to develop inclusion policy, I found that it was felt a guest speaker was considered more ‘powerful’ in initially exposing staff to information that provides theoretical and ethical considerations for the philosophy of inclusion. Lippitt and Lippitt (1986) refer to the multiple roles that a consultant can have. In this case, I was bringing Giorcelli to the school as a consultant in an authority position, an advocate for students with diverse learning needs. Lippitt and Lipitt (1986) describe this consultancy role as one that ‘proposes guidelines, persuades, or directs in the problem solving process’ (p.61). I used this strategy of using an ‘expert’ outside consultant because I was new to the school and did not necessarily have the status of an ‘expert’ insider. (JE19991207)
The cost of sending teachers to professional development involving literacy was a significant part of the Commonwealth Targeted Programs and Middle Years funding. Although it had been my recommendation to the Principal for particular teachers to engage in this professional development, there was no overall plan guiding the progress of literacy development within the school. My role of Learning Support Teacher did not include being part of the wider curriculum planning team that included the Heads of Departments. Because I was not part of the Curriculum committee I was unsure of the feedback that teachers gave concerning this professional development. I was also unsure whether those teachers who had attended shared their experiences with others in their Department. (JE20010820)
At my annual appraisal with the Principal, I focused attention on the fact that
in my role as a Learning Support Teacher, there were not sufficient
opportunities to liase with the Deputy Principals and Heads of Departments.
Because my role statement stipulated that I was responsible to the Principal, I
used my conversations with her as a way of having a voice on the staff. This
way of working had produced positive responses in the past where the
Principal had directly talked to the staff as a whole (JE20020428) or issued
memos directing teaching in particular directions (JE20020523)
(JE20021102).
The lack of the Learning Support Teacher’s positioning forced me to look
critically at the power structures within the school and to develop strategies to
work within these structures. An additional strategy to speaking with the
Principal directly involved initiating meetings with the Principal that included
other members of the Administration team to voice my concerns regarding
learning support issues and to suggest professional development or future
directions. I initiated a meeting between the Principal and the Deputy of
Curriculum.
Presenting relevant research, documents and suggested professional development at the meeting was a strategy I used to demonstrate that I had the knowledge and expertise and leadership qualities to be included in curriculum issues. I chose to do this with both the Principal and Deputy Curriculum present. I was looking for the recognition of the contribution I could make at Curriculum meetings. This was not forthcoming. My concern after the meeting was that I should have included my Statement of Responsibility along with the other documents I tabled. The Statement states ‘The Learning Support Teacher operates in the school community by providing consultancy support to the Principal and Staff. This includes leading and motivating teachers to plan and implement inclusive practices in classroom teaching to provide for students with special educational requirements’(Statement of Responsibility, A19981127) (JE20011018).
My concerns for how the beliefs and attitudes of some teachers were
impacting on the development of units of work for the restructured Junior
Curriculum, prompted me to initiate a power-point presentation to the
Administration team. The presentation focused on the belief that in order to
achieve a differentiated curriculum there needed to be a common
understanding of equity. Invoking such a strategy of presenting to the
Principal, Assistant to the Principal, the Deputy Principal of Curriculum and
the Assistant to the Principal Religious Education was recognising the power
structure within school having the potential to influence beliefs and attitudes of
teachers such that pedagogy is influenced (A20020412).
This strategy was also demonstrating that the boundaries have changed in
which a Learning Support Teacher must now operate. Because Learning
Support is a curriculum issue, the Learning Support Teacher needs to function
I initiated a meeting with the new Assistant to the Principal even though I knew Curriculum was not really part of her brief. She did, however, seem to be involved with the planning associated with the Unitisation of the Curriculum. I outlined my concerns regarding the writing of the Units of work, especially in the English Department. Teachers had been voicing their concerns to me that they were not confident in what a Unit of work was meant to look like and in some cases they were not sure how to write one and in what format. I also suggested the appropriate professional development that would address this issue. (JE20020510) I initiated a meeting with the Principal and her Deputy to talk about the CTP funding and Middle Years Funding. The proposed school plans were usually due the first week after the holidays and I did not want to be caught short of time for planning. My approach was to outline where the funding had been used in previous years and to suggest some criteria that were needed for a literacy plan. In previous years I had been asked to propose plans for the allocation of the CTP (Commonwealth Targeted Programs) funding. This year I was initiating a collaborative approach to the planning. There still was not an overarching literacy plan for the College (JE20020607).
within a team which ideally involves the curriculum subject leaders and most
importantly, school administrators. Being part of the curriculum team structure
within a school that deals with issues of pedagogy, would allow the Learning
Support Teacher to have an effective voice in recognising, articulating,
examining and guiding responses to the tensions within which the role
operates.
Chapter 5: A Concluding Chapter
In this study, I have called on multiple resources to inform my teaching
practices and the interrogation of these practices. I have engaged in a
systematic and sustained process of practitioner research with a view to more
fully understanding my practice as a Learning Support Teacher across two
school contexts.
My choice of Chapter heading, “A Concluding Chapter”, as opposed to a more
traditional heading,” Conclusions”, reflects the nature of my practitioner
research as ongoing within my professional workplace. As such, this
concluding chapter does not represent a definitive closure to my practitioner
research; rather, a drawing together of the threads of my practitioner research
that interweave in a complex tapestry of ongoing practices. “A Concluding
Chapter” conveys the underlying ontological belief of my practitioner research
that knowledge is constructed. “A”, not “The”, suggests there is no one single
truth. This is in line with my earlier proposal that this study will be generative
rather than generalisable which gives readers the option for an alternative
conclusion.
This chapter demonstrates how the critique of my practice as a researcher using
action research, has contributed to the knowledge involving the binary of practitioner
research. There has been a contribution of knowledge in the area of inclusive
education by the theorising of the role of the Learning Support Teacher as integral to
building inclusive school communities and the theorising of what research on practice
looks like. My dissertation closes with a description of a scenario that occurred in
School B as I was writing this concluding chapter. The scenario reiterates the
iterative nature of my practitioner research.
In schools today, teachers and principals are surrounded by a plethora of words and
phrases relating to the area more commonly known as special needs. These words
and phrases can include special needs, integration, inclusion, inclusive education,
inclusive practices, diverse student needs, curriculum differentiation. This language
reflects the changing conceptualisation of catering for student difference from a
traditional medical model to one that subscribes to an inclusive model that caters for
the diverse learning needs of all students.
The Salamanca Statement (1994) was instrumental in generating a complex concept
of inclusive education, thereby refining notions of integration. Inclusive education has
come to mean more than the integration or presence of students with disabilities in
the classroom. It implies providing a differentiated curriculum in every classroom in
order to accommodate a diverse range of student needs. The question is no longer
whether inclusion should be accepted practice in schools, but how to implement an
inclusion model.
Even though schools in Australia are moving towards a system of inclusive education
(Westwood, 2001, p.5), it is generally recognised there is no one accepted model of
school organisation that will promote the implementation of inclusive practices
(Carrington, 2002). Translating a complex concept of inclusive education into
everyday classroom practice is problematic (Perry, 1993; Westwood, 2001). My
practitioner research as a Learning Support Teacher has addressed the challenge of
the how, to implement an inclusion model, thereby adding to the body of knowledge
in the field of special education. In addition, the critique of my practice as a
researcher using action research will contribute to the ongoing practitioner research
debate, thus moving the understanding of practitioner research forward.
A Contribution of Knowledge in the building of inclusive schools My practitioner research in School A and B identified aspects of a traditional medical
model for catering for difference that were not in keeping with current accepted
models of inclusive education. As part of my practitioner action research in School A,
a position paper (see CD, A19981125a) and scenario 4 (see CD, A19981125b)
emerged that outlined a number of tentative propositions in how I could practice as a
Learning Support Teacher in order to more adequately move towards a model of
inclusion.
As the reflections on my Journals from School A and B progressed, these tentative
propositions were refined (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Miles &
Huberman, 1994). My research focused on the management of change towards the
adoption of an inclusive curriculum. By engaging in research that focuses beyond the
principles of inclusion to the process of managing the change towards inclusive
schooling, I have moved from a tacit understanding of the propositions to
propositional judgements. They were “propositional” because the data were being
drawn from two particular school contexts. I am not suggesting they are predictive for
all school contexts. They are “judgements” because these statements reflect current
end points in my practitioner research and not an accumulation of facts that can be
drawn on for the implementation of inclusive education in all school contexts. In this
sense they are generative of my insights not generalisable across contexts. It is my
hope that these propositions will generate conversations and discussions within and
between other teachers in other schools and in this sense they are generative.
Readers might reach conclusions that are different to the ones I have raised here.
Hence, my earlier proposition that this set of conclusions is but one set a reader can
construe.
Any school context is a complex mix of factors that influence whether a school takes
on the attributes described by Rosenholtz (1989) as distinguishing a school as a
“moving school”. My research in two secondary school contexts suggests seven
propositional judgements that enhanced the direction these schools adopted towards
being a “moving school” and thus more successfully shifting towards implementing a
whole-school inclusive curriculum. I am not suggesting that a whole school inclusive
curriculum has been achieved in each of the research contexts using these
propositional judgements but they have guided my practice as a Learning Support
Teacher in leading two particular secondary school contexts towards more inclusive
practices. Fullan (2001, p.34) concludes that change cannot be managed and
controlled but it can be understood and possibly led. The purpose of this study was to
determine simultaneously an understanding of a particular school context and the
best opportunity for change. In this study, the iterative process of action research has
allowed me to learn from my experience and apply that learning to bring about
change.
The propositional judgements that have emerged from my practitioner action
research contribute to my practice as Learning Support Teacher in, understanding
both the changes needed for a school to move towards inclusive practices and ways
of implementing these changes. The list of seven propositional judgements is not a
checklist in a journey towards inclusive school practices but a frame of reference a
Learning Support Teacher can adopt to better understand the complexity involved
and what is required for a school to move towards inclusive practices1.
1. School communities need to share a common understanding of equity 2. The School Principal must provide overt leadership in moving towards an
inclusive school culture. 3. A Whole-school Approach is needed to narrow the gap between inclusion
rhetoric and classroom practice. 4. Pedagogical reform is the most effective strategy for catering for diverse
student learning needs. 5. Differentiating curriculum is achieved when collaborative planning
teams develop appropriate units of work. 6. School communities need to make a commitment to gather, share and
manage relevant information concerning students. 7. The Learning Support Teacher needs to be repositioned within a curriculum
planning team.
My practitioner research, as part of my Doctoral work, proposes a set of
generative judgements that should not be considered in isolation, but rather
as a set of interrelated propositions. My practitioner research is not
suggesting that these seven propositional judgements are finite. I have found
these propositions useful as a part of a change process towards an inclusive
school culture in two secondary school contexts.
Contribution of knowledge to practitioner research
My study also contributes to the body of knowledge surrounding practitioner
research. In particular my study contributes to “the undertheorisation and poor
theorisation of practice” to which Brennan (1998, p.7) refers.
1 This set of propositional judgements was published as a chapter in a book in 2004. Throughout 2003, in the dissertation writing process they have been refined and are presented in a substantially different way. The publication of these propositions is also seen as part of the authentication of the research method as an indicator that I actively put my work out to peers for comment. The publication of this work is indicative of the way in which my peers responded to those ideas.
The literature I have accessed for this study suggests that the literature
available on practitioner research is limited. Anderson and Herr (1999)
describe practitioner research as involving school professionals legitimating
knowledge “produced out of their own lived realities” (p.20). Practitioner
research has its own epistemology (practice based epistemology) and works
significantly differently from traditional higher degree research (which is based
on PhD models). Brennan (1998) points to the tensions surrounding the
legitimising of such research which she suggests would lead to the need for
the redefinition of rigor.
A University audience of examiners is concerned that a Doctoral dissertation
reports a research study in a way that is more than a “collection of reflective
exercises” (Winter et al., 2000, p.25). Rather it must present a thesis. The
Journal Entry structure used in this research illustrates a progression from a
description of an event in the first section “Journal”, to the second section
“Reflections”, to the third section “Critique” It is the “Critique” section that
progresses the Journal Entry to a critically reflective tool where there are
reflections of what remains unresolved, what literature/practice affirms,
disconfirms my research practice’ My Journal Entry illustrates how my
research practice went further than reflection. It involved critical interpretations
of my reflections in the light of literature and professional development that is
a requirement for satisfying a university audience. In this way I have
developed a rigorous manner of analysing the data through reflection and
critique that successfully contributes to the building of a thesis and new and
innovative knowledge in this field.
One of the areas in which I believe this study has contributed to this limited
field of literature is my interpretation of the Miles and Huberman (1994) model.
In arguing for my methodology, I use Miles and Huberman’s (1994) model as
a framework for managing the process of analysis. Although the Miles and
Huberman (1994) model was not written as a practitioner research model, I
found it a useful model for conceptualising my study and its methodology.
Miles and Huberman (1994) suggest four concurrent flows of activity when
analysing data. In my application of this model to my practitioner research, I
have found the need for a fifth component to the model. I have called the fifth
component, Presentation, which involves the practitioner researcher making a
choice in the style of presentation of the dissertation in the light of their
intended audience. As this study is aligned with the Doctorate of Education it
has two demanding audiences- academics and professional practitioners. As
such the Professional Doctorate requires that an additional audience is to be
considered that might not have been as important in a traditional PhD.
My choice of an electronic presentation for my dissertation allows a
professional practitioner the choice of reading the essence of my practitioner
research by being able to choose the analytic narrative of each vignette while
still connecting an academic audience to the large quantity of data that
supports the analysis. The electronic presentation allows readers to access
my research analysis via multiple pathways thus reflecting the messiness of
real world practice. The iterative nature of my action research and the length
of the study has generated a large quantity of data. The choice of an
electronic style of presentation of my dissertation was also in response to the
difficulty of both managing and presenting large quantities of data. Managing
and presenting a dissertation that involves action research is generally
believed to involve large quantities of data. The electronic presentation of my
thesis contributes to the “continuing process of experimentation” of writing that
Winter (1995) refers to that attempts “to do justice to the always frustrating
relationship between the linear sequence of words on a page…and the desire
to elucidate a wider significance from particular events” (p.25).
Practitioner research is described as involving school professionals
legitimating knowledge “lived out of their own realities as professionals”
(p.20). As such, to be considered research there needs to be more than a
constructed meaning of a problematic situation and reflective practice. My
practitioner action research documented in this dissertation has been more
than reflective practice. I have been engaged in the critical reflection of my
practice that has necessarily meant the articulation of my positioning within
the field of special needs and the involvement of recognised bodies of
knowledge. I believe that I have demonstrated a set of practices that have led
to a better understanding of what “research on practice” looks like.
Although the writing of the dissertation for this study is complete, my research
into practice is a continuous process. “Practice is never static - it is always
being invented and produced” (Brennan, 1998, p.84). Similarly, my
practitioner research was already in progress when my confirmation
document was submitted in order to begin the Doctorate of Education
research component. This was reflected in the title of that document, “A
proposal for the endorsement of a research methodology already undertaken
in two research settings”. The following scenario attests to the fact that not
only is “practice never static” but also a practitioner’s research on practice is
continually being “invented and produced” and is ongoing.
Iterative cycles of practitioner action research- “and the beat goes on…….”
In School B, Year 7 students attend a testing day at the school prior to entry.
It was my experience that with the current suite of tests, students with specific
literacy needs were not being identified. These students were not being
identified until term 2 of Year 8. Identification of these students relied on the
classroom teacher referring the student to Learning Support if the student
appeared to be experiencing difficulties with the regular curriculum. Although
students sit a literacy test, ELLA, in Term 1 Year 8, the results are not
available until late Term 2. Previous years have shown that there are
significant numbers of students who would benefit from earlier identification
and focused classroom teaching strategies to address aspects of literacy.
This analysis of the current situation prompted me to involve the Principal in
order to gain support for the essence of the project and also the financial
support for the engagement of a Speech Pathologist to help construct an
appropriate diagnostic tool for use on the Year 7 testing day (Propositional
Judgement 2). I sought further support from the Principal and Deputy
Curriculum (Propositional Judgement 7) at a meeting by presenting a Briefing
Paper that had been written in collaboration with the Speech Pathologist.
In consultation with the Speech Pathologist appropriate test instruments were
designed to complement the existing testing instruments in order to gather
information that would be relevant to teachers (Propositional Judgement 6). A
collaborative team was formed that included Year 8 English teachers, the
Learning Support Teacher and the Speech Pathologist who discussed the
differentiation of the Year 8 Semester 1 English curriculum (Propositional
Judgement 5) based on the literacy needs of the Year 7 students who would
be entering Year 8 the following year.
Prior to the Year 7 testing day I invited a Year 8 English teacher to
accompany me to a workshop that covered corrective reading and decoding
and strategies that enhance critical thinking and fluent writing. Starting with a
teacher who shared a concern for catering for students with diverse literacy
needs (Propositional Judgement 1) was a strategy of starting small in building
support for the proposed project. I was also raising the awareness of this
teacher as to the need for different teaching strategies that some students
need in order to achieve improved literacy outcomes (Propositional
Judgement 5). Professional development was also offered to the Year 8
English teachers in preparation for teaching the differentiated curriculum
(Propositional Judgement 4).
It is envisaged that the approach used with the English Department in Year 8
will be reported to the English Department and to all Heads of Departments at
a Curriculum meeting. Teaching strategies will be shared and consideration
be given to how all Departments can share the responsibility of teaching
literacy skills (Propositional Judgement 3 and 7) and thus narrow the gap
between inclusion rhetoric and classroom practice.
The seven prepositional judgements are present in this scenario both
evidencing and guiding my decisions and interventions. I did not as such
check my decisions with the propositions but noticed after the fact that each
proposition was represented. However, had some aspect been overlooked the
propositions would have provided some basis for reviewing my actions.
The Learning Support Teacher’s role is considered to be an important part of
the process of inclusion within their school context. Such a position is a
complicated one. As a practitioner, I have used the results of my own
research to assess, develop and improve my own practices. This study has
given me insight into both the practices that are involved in implementing such
an inclusion process in two school contexts and hopefully will inform the
practices of other Learning Support Teachers.
148
References Abberley, P. (1987). The Concept of Oppression and the Development of a Social Theory of Disability. Disability, Handicap and Society, 2(1), 5-19. Ainscow, M. (1989). How Should We Respond to Individual Needs? In M. Ainscow & A. Florek (Eds.), Special Education Needs: Towards a Whole School Approach. London: David Fulton. Ainscow, M. (Ed.). (1991). Effective Schools for All. London: David Fulton. Ainscow, M. (1999). Understanding the development of inclusive schooling. London: Falmer Press. Ainscow, M. (2001). Developing Learning and Participation in Schools: Inclusion, Gold Coast, QLD. Ainscow, M., & Florek, A. (Eds.). (1989). Special Educational Needs: Towards a Whole-School Approach. London: David Fulton Publishers. Algozzine, B., Ysseldyke, J., & Campbell, P. (1994). strategies and tactics for effective instruction. Teaching Exceptional Children, 26(3). Anderson, G., & Herr, K. (1999). The New Paradigm Wars: Is there room for rigorous practitioner knowledge in schools and universities? Educational Researcher, 28(5), 12-21. Ashman, A., & Elkins, J. (Eds.). (1994). Educating Children with Special Needs. Sydney: Prentice-Hall. Ashman, A., & Elkins, J. (1998). Learning opportunities for all children. In A. Ashman & J. Elkins (Eds.), Educating children with special needs (pp. 5-38). Sydney: Prentice Hall. Aspland, T., Atweh, B., & Macpherson, I. (1997). EDN602 Action Research and Critical Social Practice. Brisbane: QUT. Bailey, J. (1997). Mapping the research and development agenda for AD/HD. In J. Bailey & D. Rice (Eds.), Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: medical, psychologica and educational perspectives (pp. 147-156). Sefton: Australian Association for Special Education. Bailey, J. (1998). Australia: Inclusion through categorisation. In T. Booth & M. Ainscow (Eds.), From Them to Us. An international study fo inclusion in education. London: Routledge.
149
Ballard, K. (1995). Inclusion, paradigms, power and participation. In C. Clark & A. Dyson & A. Milward (Eds.), Towards Inclusive Schools (pp. 1-14). London: David Fulton Publishers. Ballard, K. (1997). Researching disability and inclusive education: participation, construction and interpretation. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1, 243-256. Banks, J., & McGee Banks, C. (Eds.). (1997). Multicultural Education Issues and Perspectives. Needham Heights: Allyn & Bacon. Barton, L., & Landman, M. (1993). The Politics of Integration: Observation on the Warnock Report. In R. Slee (Ed.), Is There a Desk with My Name on it?: The Politics of Integration. (pp. 41-49). London: Palmer. Barton, L., & Oliver, M. (1992). Special Needs: personal trouble or public issue? In M. Arnot & L. Barton (Eds.), Voicing Concerns: Sociological perspectives on contemporary education reforms. Oxfordshire: Cambridge University Press. Bassey, M. (1999). Case Study Research in Educational Settings. Buckingham: Open University Press. Batten, M., Marland, P., & Khamis. (1993). Knowing how to teach well: Teachers reflect on their classroom practice. ACER Research Monograph, 44. Bawden, R. (1991). Towards Action Researching Systems. In O. Zuber-Skerritt (Ed.), Action Research for Change and Development. Brookfield: Gower. Bender, W., Vail, C., & Scott, D. (1995). Teachers' attitudes toward increased mainstreaming: Implementing effective instruction for students with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilites, 28(2), 87-94. Biklen, D. (1985). Achieving the Complete School. New York: Teachers College Press. Blackshaw, J., & Zuber-Skerrit, O. (1996). The Design of a Research Project. In O. Zuber-Skerrit (Ed.), Frameworks for Postgraduate Education (pp. 213-225). Lismore: Southern Cross University Press. Booth, T., & Ainscow, M. (Eds.). (1998). From Them to Us. London: Routledge. Boudah, D., Schumaker, J., & Deshler, D. (1997). Collaborative instruction: Is it an effective option for inclusion in secondary classrooms? Learning Disability Quarterly, 4, 293-316. Bowe, R., Ball, S., & Gold, A. (1992). In Reforming Education and Changing Schools: Case Studies in Policy Sociology. London: Routledge.
150
Brennan, M. (1998). Struggles over the Definition and Practice of the Educational Doctorate in Australia. Australian Educational Researcher, 25(1), 71-89. Brisbane, A. o. (2000). Ascertainment Guidelines for Students with Disabilities. Brisbane: Catholic Education. Brisbane, C. E. A. o. (2002). Literacy & Numeracy: A Framework for Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Brisbane. Brisbane. Brown, R. (1994). The "big picture" about managing writing. In O. Zuber-Skerrit & Y. Ryan (Eds.), Quality in Postgraduate Education (pp. 38-50). London, UK: Kogan Page. Bruce, S. (1994). Research Students' Early Experiences of the Dissertation Literature Review. Studies in Higher Education, 19(2), 217-229. Bulgren, J., & Lenz, B. (1996). Strategic instruction in the content areas. In D. Deshler & E. Ellis & B. Lenz (Eds.), Teaching Adolescents with Learning Disabilities: Strategies and Methods. Denver: Love Publishing. Bullivant, B. (1981). Race, Ethnicity and Curriculum. Melbourne: Macmillan. Burke, D. (1993). Inclusive curriculum and students from non-English speaking backgrounds. In D. Burke & A. Kay & R. Matwiejczyk & D. Rees (Eds.), ESL in the Mainstream Teacher Development Course, Workshop 1. South Australia: Department of Education and Children's Services. Burnett, R. (1999a). An Information system to springboard your school into learner centredness. Paper presented at the Springboard to a New Era: Stories of Past and Present Experiences Shaping the Future of Gifted Education For the New Millemennium, Brisbane. Burnett, R. (1999b). An information System to support both teacher and learner. Paper presented at the Learning Disabilities:Advocacy and Action, Brisbane. Burnett, R. (2000a). Using technology to enhance teacher access to information about special needs. Paper presented at the AREA Conference: Learning disabilities creating a positive future, Melbourne. Burnett, R. (2000b). InfoEd presents a technological information system supporting teaching and learning. Paper presented at the SPELD, Brisbane. Burnett, R. (2002a). The Challenge of Diversity: A practitioner researcher's perspective involving two secondary schools. Paper presented at the Schools as Just Places: Providing strategies that work, Sydney.
151
Burnett, R. (2002b). Action Research: A strategy of inquiry. Doctorate of Education in progress. Paper presented at the Confronting the G aps, Brisbane. Burnett, R. (2004). The challenge of diversity: a practitioner researcher’s perspective involving two secondary school contexts. In B. Knight, W. Scott (Eds.), Learning Disabilities: Multiple Perspectives. Frenchs Forest: Prentice Hall (in print). Burnett, R., & Hill, G. (2000). Dealing with an Immunity to the Technology Bug. Paper presented at the Learning disabilities, the millenium and other bugs: A focus on teaching and learning, Brisbane. Burrello, L., Schrup, M., & Barnett, B. (1992). The principal as the special education leader. Bloomington: University of Indiana. Cairney, T., Lowe, K., & Sproats, E. (1994). Literacy in transition: An evaluation of literacy practices in upper primary and junior secondary schools. Kingswood, NSW: University of Western Sydney. Calderhead, J., & Gates, P. (Eds.). (1993). Conceptualising Reflection in Teaching Development. London: The Falmer Press. Candy, P. (1989). Alternative Paradigms in Educational Research. Australian Educational Researcher, 16(1-11). Carr, W., & Kemmis, S. (1983). Becoming Critical: Knowing Through Action Research. Highton, Victoria: Deakin University Press. Carr, W., & Kemmis, S. (1986). Becoming Critical: Education, Knowledge and Action Research.: Falmer Press. Carrier, J. (1989). Sociological perspectives on special education. New Education, 11, 21-31. Carrington. (1995). The Prevention of Learning Failure in Primary Schools. Special Education Perspectives, 4(1), 29-35. Carrington, S. (1977). Think! Do! The Impact of Teachers' Instructional Beliefs on Their Classroom Behaviour. In D. Greaves & P. Jeffery (Eds.), Learning Difficulties, Disabilities and Resource Teaching Selected papers from the Australian Resource Educators' Association 1996 Conference (pp. 99-112). Victoria: Australian Resource Educator's Association. Carrington, S. (1999). Inclusion needs a different school culture. international Journal of Inclusive Education, 3(3), 257-268. Carrington, S., & Elkins, J. (2002a). Bridging the gap between inclusive policy and inclusive culture in secondary schools. Support for Learning, 17(2), 51-57.
152
Carrington, S., & Elkins, J. (2002b). Comparison of a traditional and an inclusive secondary school culture. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 6(1), 1-16. Casey, K. (1994). Teaching Children with Special Needs. Wentworth Falls,NSW: Social Science Press. Center, Y., & Ward, J. (1987). Teachers'attitude towards the integration of disabled children into regular schools. The Exceptional Child, 34, 41-56. Chalmers, L. (1991). Classroom modification for the mainstreamed student with mild handicaps. Intervention in School and Clinic, 27(1), 40-42. Chan, L., & Dally, K. (2001). Learning Disabilities and Literacy and Numeracy Development. Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities, 6(1), 12-19. Clapton, J., & Fitzgerald, J. (1997). The History of Disability: A History of 'Otherness'., [Web document] [1998, 1998, May 18]. Clark, C., Dyson, A., Millward, A., & Robson, S. (1999). Theories of Inclusion, Theories of Schools: Deconstructing and Reconstructing The 'Inclusive School'. British Educational Journal, 25(2), 157-177. Clark, C., Dyson, A., Millward, A., & Skidmore, D. (1997). New Directions in Special Needs: innovations in mainstream schools. London: Cassell. Cohen, A., & Cohen, C. (1986). Special Educational Needs in the Ordinary School A Source Book for Teachers. London: Paul Chapman. Cohen, L., & Manion, L. (1985). Research Methods in Education ( 2 ed.). London: Croom Helm. Cole, A. (1999). Legal fear over poor education. The Courier Mail. Cole, A., & Knowles, G. (2000). Researching Teaching Exploring Teacher Development through Reflexive Inquiry. Neehham Heights: Allyn & Bacon. Commonwealth of Australia. (1992). Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), Section 22(4), [Web document]. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au//lrgis/cth/consol act/dda199264/s22.html [1996, 1996, August 13]. Commonwealth of Australia. (1992). Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), Section 3, [Web document]. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au//legis/cth/consol act/dda199264/s3html [1996, 1996, August 13]. Connelly, F., & Clandinin, D. (1999). Narritive Inquiry. In J. Keeves & Lakomski, G (Eds.), Issues in Educational Research. New York: Pergamon. Conoley, J., & Conoley, C. (1992). School Consultation: Practice and Training. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
153
Counsin, P., Diaz, E., Floes, B., & Hernandez, J. (1995). Looking Forward: Using a Sociocultural Perspective to Reframe the Study of Learning Disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 28(10), 656-663. Daws, L. (1994). From Chalky Towers to Class 10B Plain Street School Policy: Policy Construction at Different Sites. In B. Limerick & H. Neilsen (Eds.), School and Community Relations: Participation, Policy and Practice (pp. 119-131). Sydney: Harcourt Brace. De Vito, J. (1991). Interpersonal Communication, Human Communication: The Basic Discourse (pp. 14-49). New York: Harper Collins. Dembrowsky, C. (1992). Developing Self Esteem and Internal Motivation in at Risk Youth. In G. Walz & BlererJ (Eds.), Student Self Esteem: A Vitlal Element in Shool Success (pp. 73-83). Ann Arbor: Counselling and Personnell Services. Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. (1998). Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of Qualitative Research (second edition ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Dick, B. (1993). You want to do an action research thesis?- How to report and conduct action research. http://www.scu.edu/schools/gcm/ar/art/arthesis.html [1999. Dick, B. (1997a). Rigour and relevance in action research. http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arp/rigour.html. Dick, B. (1997b). Approaching an action research thesis: an overview. http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arp/phd.html. Dick, B. (1999a). Qualitative Action Research:improving the rigour and economy. on line http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arp/rigour2.html. Dick, B. (1999b). Sources of rigour in action research: addressing the issues of trustworthiness and cridibility. Paper presented at the Issues of rigour in qualitative research., Duxton Hotel, Melbourne. Dougherty, A. (1990). Consultation: Practice and Perspectives. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks. Dovey, K., & Graham, J. (1987). The experience of disability : social construction and imposed limitation. Burwood, Vic: Victoria College Press. Duffy, G., Roehler, L., Sivan, E., Rackliffe, G., Book, C., Meloth, M., Vaurus, L., Wesselman, R., Putnam, J., & Bassiri, D. (1987). The effects of explaining
154
the reasoning associated with using reading strategies. Reading Research Quarterley, 3(22), 347-368. Dunn, C. (1992). Learning Disabled or Disabled Learning? Australian Journal of Remedial Education, 24(2). Dyson, A. (1994). Towards a collaborative, learning model for responding to student diversity. Support for Learning, 9, 53-60. Education Queensland. (2000). Literate Futures Report of the Literacy Review for Queensland State Schools. Education Queensland. (2000). Report of the Literacy Review for Queensland State Schools. Brisbane: Education Queensland. Education Queensland. (2001). The Queensland school reform longitudinal study. Brisbane: Queensland Government. Eizenberg, N. (1991). Action research in medical education: improving teaching via investigative learning. In Zuber-Skerritt (Ed.), Action Research for Change and Development. Brookfield: Gower. Elkins, J. (1994). The School Context. In A. Ashman & J. Elkins (Eds.), Educating children with special needs (2nd ed., pp. 71-103). Sydney: Prentice Hall. Elliott, J. (1991). Action Research for Educational Change. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Epps, S., Ysseldyke, J., & Algozzine, B. (1983). Impact of different definitions of learning disabilities on the number of students identified. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 1, 341-342. Erickson, F. (1990). Qualitative Methods in Research on Teaching. In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Teaching. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Fitgerald, J. (1994). Include Me In. Disability, Rights and the Law in Queensland. Brisbane: Queensland Adocacy Incorporated. Forlin, C., Douglas, G., & Hattie, J. (1996). Inclusive Practices: How Accepting are Teachers? International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 43(2), 119-133. Friend, M., & Cook, L. (1992). Interactions: Collaboration Skills for School Professionals. New York: Longmans. Fulcher, G. (1989). Disabling Policies? A Comparative Approach to Educational Policy and Disability. Lewes: Falmer Press.
155
Fullan, M. (1991). The new meaning of educational change. New York: Teachers College Press. Fullan, M. (1993). Change Forces. London: The Falmer Press. Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a Culture of Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Gagne, F. (1993). Constructs and models pertaining to exceptional human abilities. In K. Heller & F. Monks & A. Passow (Eds.), International Handbook of Research and Development of Giftedness and Talent (pp. 63-85). Oxford: Pergamon Press. Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of Mind. New York: Basic Books. Gardner, H. (1987). Beyond the IQ:Educationand human development. Harvard Educational Review, 57, 187-193. Gardner, H., Kernhaber, M., & Wake, W. (1996). Intelligence: Multiple Perspectives. Fort Worth Texas: Harcourt Brace College. Gibbons, P. (1998). Learning to Learn in Second Language. Newtown: Primary English Teaching Association. Gilbert, S., & Smith, L. (2003). A bumpy road to action research. Kappa Delta Pi, 39(2). Giorcelli, L. (1995). An Impulse to Soar: Sanitisation, Silencing and Special Education. Paper presented at the Australian Association of Special Education Conference, Darwin. Glasser, B., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago: Aldine. Goleman, D. (2000). Leadership that gets results. Harvard Business Review, March-April. Gosden, R., & Hampton, G. (2001). Generic Skills Assessment. A new problem for tertiary students with learning disabilities. Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities, 6(1), 20-27. Graden, J., & Bauer, M. (1992). Using a Collaborative Approach to Support Students and Teachers in Inclusive Classrooms. In S. Stainback & W. Stainback (Eds.), Curriculum Considerations in Inclusive Classrooms, Facilitating Learning for all Students. Baltimore: Paul Brookes. Greene, M. (1994). Epistemology and educational research: The influences of recent approaches to knowledge. In L.Darling-Hammond (Ed.), Review of
156
Research in Education. Washington DC: American Educational Research Association. Griffiths, M. (1990). Action Research: Grass Roots Practice or Management Tool? In P. Lomax (Ed.), Managing Staff Development in Schools: An action Research Approach. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Groundwater-Smith, S. (1991). Point and Counterpoint, Action Research: Issues for the Next Decade. In R.McTaggart (Ed.), Curriculum Perspectives (Vol. 11, pp. 43-65). Groundwater-Smith, S. (2003). Becoming the Vital Professional: Learning from the Workplace. Paper presented at the Paper presented to the Faculty of Education, School of Nursing & School of Human Movement Studies, Queensland University of Technology. Grundy, S. (1995). Action Research as Professional Development. Murdoch University: Innovative Links Project. Guba, E., & Lincoln, Y. (1990). Can there be a Human Science? Constructivism as an Alternative. Person Centered Review, 5(2), 130-154. Guba, E., & Lincoln, Y. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research, Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 105-117). Sage: Thousand Oaks. Gummesson, E. (2000). Qualitative Methods in Management Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Gusky, T. (1986). Staff Development and the Process of Teacher Change. Educational Researcher, 1(5), 5-12. Hallahan, D. (1998). We Need More Intensive Instruction. LD OnLine [1998, 11/10/98]. Hargreaves, A. (1994). Changing teachers, changing times: Teachers' work and culture in the postmodern age. New York: Teachers College Press. Havelock, M. (1973). The Change Agent's Guide to innovation in Education. Englewoods Cliffs: Educational Technology Publications. Hay, I. (1991). Students with Learning Difficulties in Secondary Schools: A Whole School Approach. In A. Ashman (Ed.), Current Themes in Integration. Brisbane: St.Lucia. Healy, G. (2000, March 14). Poor teachers could be sued. The Australian, pp. 3. Heward, W., & Orlansky, M. (1996). Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education. New York: Merrill/Macmillan. Hill, G. (2001). Critical Friendship.: Mottram d'Hill & Associate.
157
Hill, G. (2002). Promoting congruence between the inquiry paradigm and the associated practices of higher degree research. Unpublished Doctoral, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. Hill, P., & Crevola, C. (1997). The Literacy Challenge in Australian Primary Schools. IARTV Seminar Series, 69(November). Hill, P., & Crevola, C. (1999). Key Features of a Whole-School , Design Approach to Literacy Teaching in Schools. Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities, 4(3), 5-11. Hill, P., Holmes-Smith, P., & Rowe, K. (1993). School and teacher effectiveness in Victoria:Key findings from phase 1 of the Victorian Quality Schools Project. Melbourne: Centre for Applied Educational Research, Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne. Hogwood, B., & Gunn, L. (1984). Policy Analysis for the Real World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Holly, M. (1997). Keeping a Professional Journal. Geelong, Vic: Deakin University. Hopkins, D., Ainscow, M., & West, M. (1994). School Improvement in an Era of Change. London: Cassell. Humphreys, K., Penny, F., Nielsen, N., & Loeve, T. (1996). Maintaining teacher integrity: a new role for the teacher researcher in school development. Research in Education(56), 31-47. Idol, L. (1997). Key Questions Related to Building Collaborative and Inclusive Schools. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 30. Jordan, A., Kircaali-iftar, G., & Diamond, P. (1993). Who has a problem, the student or the teacher? Differences in teachers' beliefs about their work with at risk and integrated exceptional students. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 40, 45-62. Kauffman, J. (1993). The Effects of the Sociopolitical Environment on Deveopments in Special Education. Australasian Journal of Special Education, 17(1), 3-13. Kauffman, J., & Hallahan, D. (1995). The Illusion of Full Inclusion. A Comprehensive Critique of a Current Special Education Bandwagon. Texas: Pro-Ed. Kauffman, J., & Trent, S. (1991). Issues in Service Delivery for Students with Learning Disabilities. In B. Wong (Ed.), Learning about Learning Disabilites. New York: Academic Press.
158
Kavale, S., & Forness, S. (2000). What Definitions of Learning Disability say and don't say: A Critical Analysis. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 33(3), 1-20. Keeves, J., & Lakomski, G. (Eds.). (1999). Issues in Educational Research. New York: Pergamon. Kemmis, S. (1994). Action Research. In T. Husen & N. Postlethwaite (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Education. New York: Elsevier. Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. (Eds.). (1988). The Action Research Planner. Victoria: Deakin University. Kemmis, S., & Wilkinson, M. (1998). Participatory Action Research and the Study of Practice. In W.Atweh & S.Kemmis & P.Weeks (Eds.), Action Research in Practice:partnership for social justice in education. London: Routledge. Kiddey, P., & Robson, G. (2001). Success for all: selecting appropriate learning strategies. Calton, Vic: Curriculum Corporation. King, R., & Miller, D. (1999). Discrimination Law Issues for enrolment for Independent Schools. Brisbane: Deacon Graham & James. Kirby, J., & Williams, N. (1991). Learning Problems A Cognitive Approach. Toronto: Kagan & Woo. Knight, B. (2001). Inclusion making it happen in classes. Independent Education, 31(1), 16-18. Knight, N. (1996). Theory and Discourse in Research: Implications for Supervision of Research Students in the Social Sciences. In O.Zuber-Skerrit (Ed.), Frameworks for the Postgraduate Education. Lismore: Southern Cross University Press. Kotter, J. (1996). Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Kraayenoord, C., & Elkins, J. (1994). Learning difficulties in regular classrooms. In A. Ashman & J. Elkins (Eds.), Educating Children with Special Needs. Sydney: Prentice Hall. Kroll, B. (1999). Social constructivist theory and its relationship to effective teaching of students with learning difficulties. In P. Westwood & W. Scott (Eds.), Learning Disabilities Advocacy and Action. Melbourne: AREA. Kuhn, T. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ( 2nd ed.). Chicago, USA: Chicago PRess. Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews: an introduction to qualitative research findings. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
159
Larabee, D. (1998). Educational Researchers: Living with a lesser form of knowledge. Educational Researcher, 27(1), 4-12. Larcombe, T. (1987). Learning Difficulties in the Secondary School. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lawler, E. (1985). Challenging traditional research assumptions. In E. Lawler & A. Mohrman & S. Mohrman & G. Ledford & T. Cummings (Eds.), Doing research that is useful for theory and practice (pp. 1-17). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lawyers, M. (1998). Increase in litigation cases for 'negligence'. The Independent Teacher, September. Lewin, K. (1952). Group decision and social change. In S.Kemmis & R.McTaggart (Eds.), The Action Research Reader (pp. 47-56). Geelong: Deakin University Press. Lewins, F. (1992). Social Science Methodology. South Melbourne: Macmillian. Lewis, J. (1987). So Much Grit in the Hub of the Educational Machine. In B. Bessant (Ed.), Mother State and Her Little Ones. Bundoora: Latrobe University. Lewis, R., & Doorlag, D. (1995). Teaching Special Students in the Mainstream. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Lincoln, Y. (1997). From Understanding to Action: New Imperatives, New Criteria, New Methods for Interpretive Researchers. Paper presented at the Reclaiming Voice, University of Southern California Los Angeles. Lippitt, G., & Lippitt, R. (1986). The Consulting Process in Action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lipsky, D., & Gartner, A. (1987). Capable of Achievement and Worthy of Respect: Education for Handicapped Students as if they were Fully-Fledged Human Beings. Exceptional Children(September), 69-74. Lipsky, D., & Gartner, A. (1996). Inclusive Education and school restructuring. In W. Stainback & S. Staincack (Eds.), Controversial issues confronting special education. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Lipsky, D., & Gartner, A. (1997). Inclusion and School Reform: transforming America's classrooms. Baltimore: Brookes. Lofland, J., & Lofland, L. (1984). Analysing social settings: A guide to qualitative observation and analysis. ( 2 ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Lomax, P. (1990). An action research approach to developing staff in schools. In P. Lomax (Ed.), Managing Staff Development in Schools. Clevedon: Multi-Lingual Matters.
160
Louden, W. (1992). Understanding reflection through collaborative research. In A. Hargreaves & M. Fullan (Eds.), Understanding Teacher Development. New York: Teachers College Press. Macpherson, I., Aspland, T., & Brooker, R. (2001). Traversing a decade of curriculum thinking and practice: A conversational case study of curriculum leadership from down under. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle. Maddux, C. (1996). The World Wide Web and the Television Generation. Computers in Schools, 12. Maglen, F. (1995). Reading Difficulties, Language/Thinking & The Failure Syndrome. Australian Journal of Remedial Education, 27(1), 28-33. Martin, A. (2003). Motivating students to learn. InPsych:The Bulletin of the Australian Psychological Society Ltd, 25(3), 32-35. McKernan, J. (1987). Some Developments in the Methodology of Action Research: Studied Enactment. Paper presented at the The First World Congress on Action Research & Process Management. McKernan, J. (1988). The Countenance of Curriculum Action Research:Traditional, Collaborative and Critical-Emamcipatory Conceptions. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 3(3), 173-200. McNiff, J. (1988). Action Research: Principles and Action. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education. McNiff, J., Lomax, P., & Whitehead, J. (1996). You and your action research project. London: Hyde Publications. Mercer, C. (1997). Students with Learning Disabilites. Upper Saddle River,NJ: Merrill. Miles, M., & Huberman, M. (1984). Qualitative Data Analysis ( first ed.). London: Sage Publications. Miles, M., & Huberman, M. (1994). An Expanded Sourcebook Qualitative Data Analysis ( second ed.). London: Sage Publications. Minow, M. (1985). Learning to live with the dilemma of difference: Bilingual and special education. In K. Bartlett & J. Wegner (Eds.), Children with special needs (pp. 375-429). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Mitroff, I. (1985). Why our old pictures of the world do not work anymore. In E. Lawler & A. Mohrman & S. Mohrman & G. Ledford & T. Cummings (Eds.), Doing research that is useful for theory and practice (pp. 18-44). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
161
Montgomery, D. (1990). Special Needs in Ordinary Schools, Children with Learning Difficulties. London: Cassell. Munson, S. (1987). Regular education teacher modifications for mainstreamed mildly handicapped students. The Journal of Special Education, 20, 489-502. Oliver, M. (1987). The Social and Political Context of Educational Policy: The Case of Special Needs. In L. Barton (Ed.), The Politics of Special Educational Needs. Needs, Lewes: Falmer. Oliver, M. (1990). The Politics of Disablement. London: MacMillan. O'Sullivan, T., Hartley, J., Saunders, D., & Fiske, J. (1983). Key Concepts in Communication. New York: Methuen & Co. Patton, M. (1990). Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. London: Sage. Perry, C. (1998). A structured approach to presenting theses: notes for students and supervisors. on line at http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/art/cperry.html [2001. Perry, J. (1993). A critical perspective on mainstreaming. Australian Journal of Remedial Education, 25(1), 14-21. Pope, M., & Denicolo, P. (1991). Developing constructive action:personal construct psychology, action research and professional development. In O. Zuber-Skerritt (Ed.), Action Research for Change and Development. Brookfield: Gower. Pugach, M., & Stephen Lilly, M. (1984). Reconceptualising support services for classroom teachers: Implications for teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 35(5), 48-55. Putnam, J., Spiegel, A., & Bruininks, R. (1995). Future directions in education and inclusion of students with disabilities. Exceptional Children, 61, 553-576. Ramasut, A., & Reynolds, D. (1993). Developing Effective Whole Shool Approaches to Special Educational Needs: From School Effectiveness Theory to School Development Practice. In R. Slee (Ed.), Is There a Desk with My Name on It? London: Falmer. Reasoner, R. (1992). You Can Bring Hope to Failing Students. In G. Walz & J. Blerer (Eds.), Student Self Esteem: A Vital Element in School Success. Ann Arbor: Counselling and Personnell Services. Renzulli, J. (1978). What makes giftednessa? Re-examining a definition. Phi Delta Kappan, 60(3), 180-184.
162
Renzulli, J., & Purcell, J. (1995). Gifted Education: A Look Around and A Look Ahead. Roeper Review, 18(3), 173-178. Richardson, L. (1994). Writing. A Method of Inquiry., Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Riding, P., Fowell, S., & Levy, P. An Action Research Approach To Curriculum Development. on line http://www.shef.ac.uk~is/publications/infres/paper2.html. Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (1992). Discourses of Social Justice and the Dilemmas of Policy in Special Education. Paper presented at the Social Justice, Equity and the Dilemmas of Disability in Education, Brisbane. Roaf, C. (1989). Developing Whole School Policy: A Secondary Perspective. In C. Roaf & H. Bines (Eds.), Needs, rights and opportunities. Developing Approaches to Special Eduaction. East Sussex: Falmer Press. Rosenholtz, S. (1989). Teachers' Workplace: The social organisation of schools. New York: Longman. Rosenholtz, S. (1991). Teacher's workplace: the social organisation of schools. New York: Teachers College Press. Schaffner, C., & Buswell, B. (1996). Ten critical elements for creating inclusive and effective community schools. In W. Stainback & W. Stainback (Eds.), Inclusion: A guide for educators. Baltimore: Brookes. Schon, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. USA: Basic Books. Schulz, J., & Carpenter, D. (1995). Mainstreaming Exceptional Students. A Guide for Classroom Teachers. Needham Heights: Allyn & Bacon. Schumm, J., & Vaughn, S. (1995). Meaningful professional development in accomodating students with disabilites: lessons learned. Remedial and Special Education, 16(6), 344-353. Schumm, J., Vaughn, s., Gordon, J., & Rothlein, L. (1994). General education teachers' beliefs, skills, and practices in planning for mainstreamed students with learning disabilities. Teacher Education and Special Education, 17(1), 22-37. Scott, D., & Weeks, P. (1998). Action Research as Reflective Collaboration. In B. Atweh & S. Kemmis & P. Weeks (Eds.), Action Research in Practice. London: Routledge. Scruggs, T., & Mastropieri, M. (1996). Teacher perceptions of mainstreaming/inclusion, 1958-1995: A research synthesis. Exceptional Children, 63, 59-74.
163
Sebba, J., & Ainscow, M. (1996). International developmentsin inclusive schooling: mapping the issues. Cambridge Journal of Education, 26, 5-18. Seddon, T. (1999). Research, Recommendations and Realpolitik: Consolidating the ED.D. The Australian Education Researcher, 26(3), 1-14. Self, H., Benning, A., Marston, D., & Magnusson, D. (1991). Cooperative Teaching Project: A Model for Students at Risk. Exceptional Children(September). Sergiovanni, T., & Starratt, R. (1988). Supervision:Human Perspectives. New York: McGrawHill. Simmons, H. (1996). The paradox of case study. Cambridge Journal of Education, April. Skilbeck, M. (1975). School-based Curriculum Development. School-based Curriculum Development and Teacher Education, 90-100. Skrtic, T. (1991). Students with Special Educational Needs: Artifacts of the Traditional Curriculum. In M. Ainscow (Ed.), Effective Schools for All (pp. 20-42). London: Fulton. Slee, R. (1993). The Politics of Integration- New Sites for Old Practices. Disability, Handicap and Society, 8(4), 351-360. Slee, R. (1995). Education for All: Arguing Principles or Pretending Agreement? Australian Disability Review, 2, 3-19. Slee, R. (1996). Inclusive education in Australia? Not yet! Cambridge Journal of Education, 26, 19-32. Slee, R. (1998). The Inclusive School.: Falmer Press. Smith, S. (1993). Potentials for Empowerment in Critical Education Research. Australian Educational Researcher, 20(2), 75-93. Sleeter, C. (1995). Radical Structuralist Perspectives on the Creation and Use of Learning Disabilities. In T. Skrtic (Ed.), Disabilities and democracy: reconstructing (special) education for postmodernity. NewYork: Teachers College Press. Somekh, B. (1995). The Contribution of Action Research to Development in Social Endeavours: a position paper on action research methodology. British Educational Research Journal, 21(3), 339-355. Soodak, L., Podell, D., & Lehman, L. (1998). Teacher, Student, and School Attributes as Predictors of Teachers' Responses to Inclusion. Journal of Special Education(January).
164
Stainback, S., Stainback, W., & Jackson, J. (1992). Toward Inclusive Classrooms. In S. Stainback & W. Stainback (Eds.), Curriculum Considerations in Inclusive Classrooms, Facilitating Learning for all Students. Baltimore: Paul Brookes. Stainback, W., & Stainback, S. (1984). A Rationale for the merger of special and regular education. Exceptional Children, 51, 102-111. Stainback, W., & Stainback, S. (Eds.). (1990). Support networks for inclusive schooling: interdependent integrated education. Baltimore: Paul Brookes. Stenhouse, L. (1988). Case study methods. In J. Keeves (Ed.), Educational research, methodology, and measurement: An international handbook (pp. 49-53). Oxford: Pergamon. Sternberg, R. (1986). A Triarchic theory in intellectual giftedness. In R. Sternberg & J. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swepson, P. (1998). Separating the ideals of research from the methodology of research, either action research or science can lead to better research. http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/p-pswepson98.html. Technology, Q. U. o. (2000). Postgraduate Prospectus. Brisbane: QUT. Thousand, J., & Villa, R. (1990). Strategies for educating learners with severe disabilities within their local home schools and communities. Focus on Exceptional Children, 23(3), 1-24. Tomlinson, S. (1986). The Social Construction of The ESN(M) Child. In A. Cohen & C. Cohen (Eds.), Special Educational Needs in the Ordinary School. London: Harper and Row. Training, N. S. W. D. o. E. a. ELLA: English Language and Literacy Assessment. Tralli, R., Colombo, B., Deshler, D., & Schumaker, J. (1996). The strategies intervention model: A model for supported inclusion at the secondary level. Remedial and Special Education. Trent, S. (1998). False Starts and Other Dilemmas of a Secondary General Education Collaborative Teacher: A Case Study. Journal of Learning Disabilities. UNESCO. (1994). The Salamanca Statement and Framework on Special Needs Education, Paris. Vaidya, S. (1997). Meeting the challenges of an inclusive classroom of improving learning for all students. Education, June. Van Horn, G., Burrello, L., & DeClue, L. (1992). An instructional leadership framwork: The principal's leadership in special education. The Special Education Leadership Review, 1(1), 41-54.
165
Vaughn, S., & Schumm, J. (1995). Responsible Inclusion for Students with Learning Disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 28(5), 264-270. Villa, R., & Thousand, J. (1990). Administrative Supports to Promote Inclusive Schooling. In W. Stainback & S. Stainback (Eds.), Support Networks for Inclusive Schooling. Baltimore: Brookes Publishing. Villa, R., & Thousand, J. (Eds.). (1995). Creating an Inclusive School. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Vlachhou, A. (1997). Struggles for Inclusive Education. Buckingham: Open University Press. Wallace, M., & Hall, V. (1994). Go collaborative! Subvert reform for the sake of the children. Support for Learning, 9(2), 68-72. Wang, M. (1992). Adaptive instruction: building on diversity. Theory into Practice, 14(2), 122-127. Wehlage, G., Smith, G., & Lipman, P. (1992). Restructuring Urban Schools: The New Futures Experience. American Educational Research Journal, 29(1). West, J., & Idol, L. (1987). Consultation in Special Education (Part 2): Training and Practice. Journal of Learning Disabilites, 20(7). Westwood, G., & Graham, L. (2000). How many Children with Special Needs in Regular Classes? Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities, 5(3), 24-34. Westwood, p. (2001). 'Differentiation' as a Strategy for Inclusive Classroom Practice. Some difficulties identified. Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities, 6(1), 5-11. Westwood, P. (1993). Commonsense Methods for Children with Special Needs. New York: Routledge. Westwood, P. (1995). Learner and Teacher: Perhaps the Most Important Partnership of All. Australasian Journal of Special Education, 19(1). Whinnery, K., King, M., Evans, W., & Gable, R. (1995). Perceptions of Students with Learning Disabilities. Inclusion Versus Pull-Out Services. Preventing School Failure, 40(1), 5-9. Wilczenski. (1992). Measuring attitudes toward inclusive education. Psychology in the Schools, 1(1), 21-34. Wilkinson, M. (1995). Action Research for People and Organisational Change. Brisbane: QUT. Williams, P. (1991). The Special Education Handbook. Milton: Open University Press.
166
Williams, P. (1996). The Law and Students with Learning Difficulties. Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities, 1(2), 4-13. Winter, M., Griffiths, M., & Green, K. (2000). The 'Academic' Qualities of Practice: what are the criteria for a practice-based PhD? Studies in Higher Education, 25(1), 25-37. Winter, R. (2002). Action research- including ideas and comments from Professor Richard Winter. Anglia Polytecnic University, 10-17. Winter, R. (2002). Truth or Fiction: Problems of Validity and Authenticity in Narratives of Action Research. Educational Action Research, 10(1), 143-154. Young, L. (1995). Educating Children with Learning Difficulties Putting Issues in Perspective. Australian Journal of Remedial Education, 27(4), 26-30. Zuber-Skerrit, O. (1993). Improving Learning and Teaching Through Action Learning and Action Research. Higher Education Research and Development, 12(1), 45-57. Zuber-Skerritt, O. (1992). Action Research in Higher Education: Examples and Reflections. London: Koga Page. Zuber-Skerritt, O. (1996). Emancipatory Action Research for Organisational Change and Management Development. In O. Zuber-Skerritt (Ed.), New Directions in Action Research. London: Falmer Press.