Viviane M. J. Robinson

The Origins and Status of Action Research

Diverse claims have been made for and about action research in a variety of contexts. In this article, we first trace the origins of this approach to Kurt Lewin and provide a synopsis of his views. We then compare Lewins views on action research with those of contemporary exponents. In the third section, we review and systematize the claims of 11 action researchers to determine the extent to which their claims constitute a shared conception. While most authors characterize action research as a methodology, a few also attempt to link action research to a particular interpretation or theory of social science. We build on this distinction in the final section and distinguish a weak from a strong version of action research, concluding that, at this time, neither version enjoys the status of a paradigm.

Methodology and the Research-Practice Gap:

A much neglected reason for the limited contribution of research to the understanding and improvement of educational practice is the mismatch between educational research methodologies and the generic features of practice. Increasing the match requires an account of practice that clarifies its methodological implications. I propose a problem-based methodology (PBM) in which practices are treated as solutions to practical problems and explained by inquiry into the problem-solving processes that gave rise to them. Such inquiry is guided in PBM by a constraint inclusion account of a problem and a set of criteria for debating solution adequacy. The implications of this account for the conduct and contribution of educational research are developed through a detailed discussion of recent research on school tracking.

From Instructional Leadership to Leadership Capabilities: Empirical Findings and Methodological Challenges

While there is considerable evidence about the impact of instructional leadership on student outcomes, there is far less known about the leadership capabilities that are required to confidently engage in the practices involved. This article uses the limited available evidence, combined with relevant theoretical analyses, to propose a tentative model of the leadership capabilities required to engage in effective instructional leadership. Research is suggestive of the importance of three interrelated capabilities: (a) using deep leadership content knowledge to (b) solve complex school-based problems, while (c) building relational trust with staff, parents, and students. It is argued that there is considerable interdependence between these three capabilities, and fine-grained specification of each is less important than developing leadership frameworks, standards, and curricula that develop their skilful integration.

Forging the links between distributed leadership and educational outcomes

Purpose – Several arguments have been put forward about why distributed leadership in schools should contribute to the improvement of teaching and learning. This paper aims to investigate the extent to which conceptual and empirical research in the field is aligned to this goal.Design/methodology/approach – The discussion of alignment was structured around two differing and overlapping conceptions of distributed leadership. The first conception examines the distribution of the leadership of those tasks designated by researchers as leadership tasks. The second conception examines the distribution of influence processes.Findings – The paper finds that the first conception has the advantage of giving leadership educational content by embedding it in the tasks and interactions that constitute educational work. The selected leadership tasks are typically not specified, however, in ways that discriminate the qualities required to make a positive difference to student outcomes. The knowledge base needed to make ...

Workload and the Professional Culture of Teachers.

An increase in teacher workload and stress has been identified as an undesirable consequence of sitebased school management. We argue that this increase can be attributed, in part, to the ways in which teachers organize themselves. Organizing principles developed to meet the challenges of managing single-cell classrooms, such as autonomy, collegiality and strong subject department identity, may impede the systemic thinking required for developing coherent school-wide initiatives. We illustrate this argument with a school-based case study in which a group of teachers undertook an initiative to improve the achievement of a minority student group. This group of busy teachers unintentionally created workload pressures by developing parallel structures to solve similar problems, by relying on volunteers with high workloads to undertake key tasks and by uncritically accepting all suggestions for how the students might be assisted. Engagement in systemic reform in ways that do not unreasonably increase workloads may require teachers to adopt different organizing principles from those developed for managing their single-cell classrooms.

Descriptive and normative research on organizational learning: locating the contribution of Argyris and Schön

The dual purpose of this paper is to locate the contribution of Argyris and Schon to the field of organisational learning, and to discuss aspects of their work which are particularly distinctive or controversial. There are two distinct strands of research on organisational learning. The descriptive strand, with its roots in social and cognitive psychology, seeks to understand the processes by which organisations learn and adapt. The normative strand, which is sometimes referred to as research on the “learning organization”, is concerned more with how organisations can direct their learning in ways that bring them closer to an ideal. While Argyris and Schon, with their emphasis on intervention and improvement, belong to the latter normative strand, they have also contributed greatly to the descriptive strand because their normative theorising is grounded in detailed empirical study of organisational processes. The article contrasts Argyris and Schon’s account of learning as the manipulation of symbolic representations of organisational life, with the non‐symbolic, feedback‐driven account of learning offered by many descriptive researchers. It suggests how these two accounts could be integrated by recognising that differing tasks or problems require different learning processes and different types of expertise. This more differentiated approach casts doubt on the notion of a generically capable “learning organisation”. The paper concludes with a call for more researchers to bridge the divide between the descriptive and normative strands of research on organisational learning.

External Mandates and Instructional Leadership: School Leaders as Mediating Agents.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how US school leaders make sense of external mandates, and the way in which their understanding of state and district accountability policies affects their work. It is posited that school leaders’ responses to external accountability are likely to reflect a complex interaction between their perception of the accountability policies, the state and district contexts in which those policies are situated and their own leadership beliefs and practices.Design/methodology/approach – The authors use both principal and teacher survey data to explore the question of how perceptions of external policy are associated with instructional leadership behaviors. Cases of seven principals are employed to flesh out the findings from the survey analysis.Findings – It is concluded that external accountability policy may have a positive impact on instructional leadership – where they see those policies as aligned with their own values and preferences, and where they see their d...

Effects of Cognitive Training on Academic and On-Task Behavior of Hyperactive Children.

A cognitive training program that taught both self-instructional and self-management skills was used with three 7-to 8-year-old hyperactive children. A multiple baseline across individuals design was used to evaluate the effects of training on on- task behavior and math accuracy. There were significant changes in math accuracy for all subjects, and two subjects showed significant improvements in on- task behavior. Evidence suggesting generalization to untrained behaviors was shown by an increase in self-correction of oral reading for all subjects. The results suggest that cognitive training specifically designed to promote generalization to classroom tasks can improve the classroom behavior and academic achievement of hyperactive children.

Collegiality in Schools: Its Nature and Implications for Problem-Solving.

Greater collegiality among teachers is frequently suggested in the research literature as one way of improving decision making and problem solving in schools. In this article, we argue that this claim cannot be sustained without more sophisticated theorizing about the attributes of collegiality that promote quality decision making and problem solving. In the first part of our argument, we use a constraint inclusion theory of a problem to argue that the attributes of collegiality most frequently discussed in the literature are as likely to generate poor as high quality problem-solving processes and solutions. In the second part of the article, we illustrate this argument in a case study of collegial problem solving by identifying the precise processes that contributed to the quality of the problem solutions.

The Practical Promise of Critical Research in Educational Administration.

This article asks why critical approaches to educational administration, and critical research in general, have so rarely moved beyond critique to the Tran formative process that is supposed to be central to a critical theory. It suggests that there are important methodological reasons for this failure, in that much critical research is incompatible with what we knew about motivating and sustaining a complex change process. The argument is developed by briefly reviewing two phases of critical research in education, describing what is meant by the effectiveness of critical research and then drawing on social psychological research to identify those features of research which enhance its probability of effectiveness. The implications of a critical researchers treatment of agency, motivation, and resistance are discussed4 and suggestions made throughout the article for how the effectiveness of critical research can be increased.