ABSTRACT
The most significant discovery I made was that I had inadvertently subverted the catalytic possibilities of action research by the way I had located the process within an assessed course. Participants on our courses are frequently the only members of their department who can be spared at one time. Therefore, when action researchers were required, at the end of the first three-day block, to designate a research question and decide how they would proceed to research that, they came up with questions that mattered to them but that were not necessarily attractive to colleagues within their departments. Accordingly, they had difficulty gaining collaborators for their work when they returned to their department, and most had to carry out their work as solitary action research. I discussed the difficulties of this – both theoretically and practically – in the thesis (Bruce Ferguson, 1999). I had chosen to introduce the action research process via an assessed and certificated course quite deliberately. Staff are required, as part of their employment contract, to undertake teacher training. Given the resistance many expressed to research, it seemed appropriate and strategic to introduce action research skills through courses that fulfil employment contract requirements, rather than just to offer action research courses and hope there will be some ‘takers’. Unfortunately this perspective was faulty.
