This chapter focuses on the initial phase of practitioner research – the decision to engage in formal and structured research, as distinct from the everyday work of educators. This decision, which can be challenging for educators who are beginning researchers, is usually underpinned by an interest or issue related to an aspect of their practice, such as school or classroom-based priorities, issues, problems or observations. Although this impetus may be powerful and the educator highly motivated to pursue research, it is reasonable to have concerns about taking the step to conduct research. The chapter begins by focusing on common reasons that inform practitioners’ decisions to research, and we describe scenarios that would motivate educators and provide them with an impetus to engage in a study. This discussion includes examples of real-life practitioner researchers’ experiences. The chapter also examines some of the common concerns of beginning researchers and responds to each, giving authentic examples of practitioners’ apprehensions and the ways they were addressed. The final part of the chapter is devoted to planning and writing the research proposal.

This chapter provides an initial broad overview of education research – what it is and the ways in which it is conducted. It also focuses on the role of practitioner research within this field. The chapter begins by outlining diverse theoretical perspectives on education research and emphasises the importance of research in teaching. Practitioner research is becoming increasingly acknowledged by education authorities across the world as a higly effective means of strengthening educators’ professional development. In this chapter, a rationale is presented for educators to engage both with (as critical consumers of research) and in practitioner research (through research on their own practice) as a means of growing as a professional. Later in the chapter, the ways in which different countries emphasise the need for educators to engage in and with research are described. We consider the different approaches to practitioner research that are commonly used, describe research paradigms and present a case for pragmatic approaches that are suited to the work of practitioners.

This final chapter focuses on professionalism and the contribution of research engagement to educators’ professional knowledge and identities. It briefly revisits the systemic positioning of practitioner research in other countries before elaborating on the current vision of professional standards for educators in Australia. While the standards relate to the broad and diverse aspects of professional practice for teachers, there are explicit references to research engagement in some standards and there is also scope for research to help educators to ensure they are addressing the others. Throughout this chapter we ask the reader to consider the potential of engagement with and in research for supporting educators’ professional growth, and promoting school improvement and collective leadership. The chapter also focuses on the attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of pre-service and in-service teachers in relation to practitioner research as they seek to develop their own professional identities.

This chapter focuses primarily on: making connections among the research questions, creating a manageable research design and deciding on data collection methods. The aim is to assist you with designing a study to answer the research question or questions within the constraints of your context. The chapter begins with a focus on different research paradigms and presents a case for a pragmatic research approach that aligns with the goals of the research. Our intention is not to present a narrow view of possible research approaches, but to make a case for a diverse range of approaches, including those commonly used by practitioners such as evaluation research, action research, and self-study.

This chapter builds on Chapter 5 by considering data collection methods in more detail as it focuses on the design of data collection instruments. There are many useful and detailed texts available that describe the intricacies of data collection instrument design, and this chapter presents important considerations when designing instruments that are commonly used in practitioner research. As with all chapters in this book, this chapter includes examples from real-life case studies to illustrate the ideas presented and to allow discussion of their application. The chapter begins with a discussion about the selection of participants before moving on to consider selection of data and data collection methods. We will consider ways to ensure that research is robust and defendable, especially in the case of qualitative methods, which we believe have great value for practitioners.

This chapter deals with the organisation, analysis and presentation of data. It begins with suggestions about how to arrange your data during and after collection. Examples of commonly used qualitative and quantitative data analyses for practitioner research are described, along with ideas for collating and presenting both quantitative and qualitative data once you have completed your analyses. Bear in mind that if your study used mixed methods, you will find both the quantitative and qualitative sections relevant to you.

Engaging with research can be a focus in itself for practitioners, and it is an informative and essential step for engaging in research. The main ways that educators can engage with research include attending professional learning opportunities presented by researchers or experts in a field, attending conferences and reading professional journals or research-based literature. This chapter looks at the importance of engagement with research literature as a critical consumer. In this chapter, we will focus first on strategies for locating and accessing current research literature, reading and summarising literature, and analysing and evaluating research literature – key considerations when reading research as a critical consumer. The chapter also focuses on how to construct a literature review. We consider the use of literature to identify and narrow a broad field of interest to a more refined topic, and return to the discussion about research questions, with a focus on their refinement as a result of reading research literature and writing the literature review. Finally, the chapter introduces the academic writing style and provides guidelines for citations and referencing.