The Accelerated Schools inquiry process: teacher empowerment through action research.

McCarthy, Jane; Riner, Phillip

Education v117, n2 (Winter, 1996):223

(7 pages).

Introduction

Parents and teachers reached an easy consensus: school discipline

needed improvement. The school's teachers and parents had formed

several sub-groups, or cadres, to examine this and other identified areas

of concern. The "discipline cadre" agreed that discipline problems

were rampant in the school and that some drastic action needed to be

taken. The facilitator of the group had to remind the participants of

their charge: to gather information about existing conditions, not to

throw solutions at perceived problems. The group went about this task

reluctantly. "We already know what the problems are. Why can't we

just work on solutions?" However, they divided up the fact-finding tasks

and agreed to meet back the following week.

At this meeting, two teachers reported that they had looked at

discipline referral records in the office and that there were over three

hundred referrals to the office for first semester alone. All agreed

that this information validated the initial impression that things

were out of control. Others reported on a survey they had administered

to all teachers. Results showed that while teachers thought that other

teachers had problems with discipline, they themselves felt that

their classrooms were well managed. Still another survey administered to

parents reported that parents thought discipline was satisfactory at

the school and that their children and they knew and supported the

school rules. The data pieces didn't fit. After much discussion,

someone suggested that the teachers go back to the school records and find

out how many students had actually been referred to the office first

semester and how often they had been referred.

The following week, the new information was reported - slightly over

thirty children accounted for more than 80% of all discipline

referrals. This information created quite a stir. Someone suggested, "Why

don't we go back and look at which teachers are referring students to

the office? Maybe we will see a pattern emerging here as well."

The teachers and parents in this school were participants in the

Accelerated Schools Project and were engaging in an inquiry process

called "taking stock," a form of action research designed to empower

members of the school community to gather data about the school and use

it to make collaborative decisions for change. This article will

describe the inquiry process and how it is being implemented in one

Accelerated Schools Satellite Center at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

Overview of the Accelerated Schools Project

The Accelerated Schools Project is a comprehensive approach to

school change designed to improve schooling for students in at-risk

situations so that they may enter the educational mainstream. Accelerated

schools are designed to structure schools which build on the strengths

of all children and to accelerate their learning by making changes

in curriculum, instruction and organization which will facilitate

academic and social progress. (For a more complete description of the

Accelerated Schools Process, see Levin, 1986, 1987, 1988 a, b & c, and

Hopfenberg, Levin, Meister, & Rogers, 1990, Hopfenberg, Levin, &

Associates, 1993.)

Collaborative Action Research

Collaborative action research has come to be viewed as a tool for

staff development and an opportunity for teachers and university

researchers to work together to investigate and solve school and classroom

challenges (Lieberman, 1986). Finnan (1992) states that interventions

can succeed if they axe designed to help members of the school

community (culture) make the changes they have identified as important.

Sirotnik & Clark (1988) also believe that schools must become centers

of inquiry where the personal nature of knowledge is recognized and

practitioners are actively engaged in the process. Oakes, Hare &

Sirotnik (1986) discuss the nature of collaboration between university and

school as a vehicle which has the power to change the nature of

research and development based on the input of the practitioner. (For a

current review of the research on collaborative research efforts, see

Henson, 1996.)

University and school collaborative action research within the

Accelerated Schools Project is an exciting partnership which enables

members of school communities to build on their strengths as they gather

data designed to help them make informed decisions about school

change. Action plans, facilitated by university coaches, but developed by

the school sites form the interventions designed to enhance school

functioning. Following a model similar to that developed by Oja and

Smulyan (1989), participants work together on commonly defined goals and

utilize research findings to move schools closer to these goals by

improving practice. Time is taken to develop relationships of trust and

norms of working together as colleagues.

The Accelerated Schools Process attempts to develop a culture of

inquiry, which impacts the way all issues are framed and treated.

Schools become centers of inquiry in which practice is constantly being

evaluated and a professional learning culture is developed in which

reflection is the norm.

Taking Stock As Collaborative Action Research

The Accelerated Schools Process deliberately involves teachers

actively in research and decision making processes early on by allocating

time and resources to teachers for reflection on current practice and

its effects.

During the "taking-stock" process teachers avoid "jumping to

solutions" but instead decide what kind of information they need to have

about the entire school community and its operation before they make

decisions about what needs to be changed. They brainstorm ideas and then

categorize them. Task forces are formed to gather data about each

area. As a result, teachers become partners in inquiry and reflection.

They begin to work together collaboratively and share

responsibilities. Teachers must gain a clear picture of the school and all its

facets during this process. Concurrently, they must build a precarious

consensus composed of a shared vision and mission statement for the

school.

Resolving the inevitable "rhetoric-reality' gap comprises the next

stage of development. Areas of discrepancy are identified and

priorities for action are selected. Teachers examine data and draw tentative

inferences. University facilitators may help with the statistical

analyses, but the conclusions drawn belong to the school community. This

process is tedious and is often cathartic as teachers either confirm

or disconfirm their previous perceptions.

The taking stock process is designed to accomplish several goals:

* building unity of purpose

* empowering members of the school community

* building on the strengths of the members of the school community

* collecting meaningful baseline data.

Building unity of purpose is accomplished by a second round of

action research by involving all school participants in the data gathering

and analysis process in specific investigators. Teachers,

administrators, staff, and parents join together for the purpose of creating a

rich picture of the existing school and community situation.

The Inquiry Process

Collaborative inquiry provides accelerated schools with a systematic

process for decision-making. This process is data-driven and ongoing

and utilizes an inquiry process where school community members:

* attempt to understand the nature of their challenge area by

exploring it fully and in all its aspects

* search for possible solutions inside and outside the school

* synthesize potential solutions

* pilot test selected solutions

* evaluate the effectiveness of these solutions.

In this process, the school community identifies and explores all

challenges to the school vision and then implements strategies for

potentially effective solutions. Critical inquiry guides all decisions

made in the school.

Inquiry in Action

Once school communities have undergone staff development in inquiry

and the Accelerated Schools philosophy and process, they begin their

quest for school improvement by engaging in the "taking stock"

process. Every aspect of the school community is analyzed and evaluated.

Findings are compared to the school's vision and priorities for action

are developed. This stage is designed to empower all members of the

school by engaging them in reflection and data collection. The

following sections describe this process as it occurred in seven schools in

the Accelerated Schools Project at the University of Nevada-Las

Vegas. The challenges which emerged as new roles were created and role

definitions changed are also detailed.

Teachers' Initial Entry Behaviors

As might be expected, teachers enter the taking stock process

displaying a variety of attitudes and concerns. Teacher directed action

research is designed to be empowering and most leachers responded

positively. While participation was voluntary and teachers have "bought

into" the process, some can interpret their participation as an indirect

requirement for maintaining good standing with the principal and

colleagues in the school. Still others may enter the action research

activity with the hidden agenda of documenting the accuracy of long held

or strongly held beliefs and assumptions. The issue of time was a

concern for many participants. Some parent members could only meet

early in the morning and late in the afternoon, when teachers are not on

contract time, and some teachers were not willing to give their time

without compensation. Obviously, these behaviors are not the entering

behaviors that support a dedicated research effort. However, it is

important to recognize and acknowledge the fact that these attitudes

do exist and can be dealt with in an effective way by using the

process.

Organizing for Action and First Attempts

Following the Accelerated Schools model, the school communities

identified areas for investigation and members self selected into cadres

with a particular focus. These areas varied greatly among the

different sites as each community identified unique areas of concern. The

school communities then prioritized and/or combined these areas and

developed a more comprehensive strategy for systematic analysis leading

to actual data gathering. Given that the areas themselves were a

result of group inquiry the data gathering and analysis strategies

actually selected were quite varied, congruent, incongruent, overlapping,

and disjointed. Since the external research facilitators had a

systematic and rational point of view, the inclusion of teacher exuberance,

holistic thinking, and quick decision-making pace was challenging.

The facilitators attempted to recognize that teachers are frequently

required to make big decisions based on limited data in a staccato,

rapid-fire classroom environment. Asking them to delay decision-making

to collect more data was a luxury they rarely experienced. Further

complicating the attempt to conduct as objective an inquiry as possible

were the type of data the group members initially proposed for

collection.

Questionnaires have systematically taken the forefront in all the

initial inquires experienced by the authors thus far. These

questionnaires are typically ridded with reliability and validity threats. This

is not to demean the efforts and skills of the parents and teachers

developing the instruments. It is of importance to realize that the

first efforts in doing almost anything new are at first done at the

novice level. Teacher action research is no exception. To expect

generalizable findings of data to support grounded theory from the first

round of inquiry is unrealistic and will ultimately frustrate everyone

involved.

The development of inquiry instrument provides a rich illustration

of the facilitating/teaching, consulting duplication. Some of the

questionnaire difficulties were quite fundamental (and therefore quite

simple to put right.) Questionnaires were often used to collect

information that was available from other sources. For example, one group

asked parents in a questionnaire if they attended PTA meetings.

However, they already knew that few parents attended PTA meetings from the

head-count included in the meeting minutes, thus making the question

redundant. (Researchers must understand that collecting demographic

data so that responses can be disaggregated is valid, but is not

envisioned by the fundamental research perspectives of the teachers at this

time.) Items were often written in biased terms and lacked

direction. The question, "Does your chid understand and obey school rules?" Is

best asked of students who are the object of interest. A more

appropriate question would be, "As parents, do you know the school rules

and operating procedures? This points to two other typical difficulties

in initial teacher research: a lack of understanding of what to do

with the responses and a naivete in data collection.

Overcoming the Barriers

By reading the preceding description of entering teacher behaviors,

it would appear that action research was a hopeless cause. Nothing

could have been farther from the truth. While there existed an

overdependence on questionnaires, data collection fraught with multiple

threats to reliability and validity, and a certain lack of direction,

there nevertheless appeared to be several very promising strengths from

these early efforts. The obvious strength of action research was that

it created an environment where assumptions were opened for

questioning. Any systematic attempt to derive data to illuminate and guide

decision making, regardless of the number of flaws, is infinitely

superior to a process utilizing inherent bias, covert assumptions, and

fragmented perceptions. While unsystematic, opinion-based models

currently dominate school decision-making, simply changing from a consensus

of bias to a systematic attempt to test assumptions is the most

fundamental improvement in school governance that can be made.

Additionally, the breadth of information teachers desired to acquire

to assist them in decision-making was surprising. Teachers desired

information that ranged from whether the child had crayons at home to

whether parents would like introductory computer courses taught in

the school so that they can "catch up" with their children. The most

advantageous characteristic teachers have demonstrated is the sheer

speed with which their research sophistication grows. Part of this,

naturally, can be attributed to the relatively high level of intellect in

a profession where college degrees are required for entry level

occupation. Part can be attributed to a pervasive under utilization of

teachers as inquirers and managers. Since these skills are developed

within the classroom work setting but are not utilized at the school

site, teachers transfer the inquiry and questioning patterns used to

manage the classroom to the school setting. Accelerated Schools

training in the inquiry process, provided by research consultants, harnessed

these skills and facilitated the implementation of them at the

school site level.

The Role of the Consultant on Inquiry Methodology

The Accelerated Schools process created a framework for organization

and the establishment of common principles to guide school

development in all sites. The high success rate for actually completing the

taking stock process was due, in large part, to the utilization of

consultants or coaches who worked to guide the process of inquiry. The

Las Vegas Satellite Center experimented with the use of an additional

consultant who worked only to facilitate the modes of inquiry that the

school community used. As a research specialist, the consultant,

however, had curriculum and instruction as the primary areas of

expertise.

The role of the research consultant in teacher inquiry methodologies

was and remains an emerging one. As practiced, the chief role of the

consultant was to provide reassurance to teachers that the process

of inquiry is manageable and then practice "goodfinding," that is,

finding exemplars within the methodology currently practiced by

teachers. From the "goodfinding" exemplars, teachers have displayed a great

deal of expertise in generalizing the principles for good data

collection and contrasting them with less able items and processes. Teachers

began to discover the need for more sophisticated approaches in data

collection and analysis, although they did not process either the

vocabulary or the research methodology. A recurring example of this

need is when teachers began to consider if the attitudes of boys and

girls differed on a particular attribute. This required the

disaggregation of data and simple comparison tools to test the hypothesis that

the attitudes were the same. But teachers in the study did not have the

skill to conduct these procedures. At this point, the consultant

extended the role of facilitator and became teacher.

In most instances, both the instruments and the methods of analysis

were sequentially modified and became increasingly sophisticated.

Methods extended from simple descriptive percentages to inferential

tests. While the data were usually coded and computerized analysis was

performed by the consultant, teacher interpretations and presentations

reflected a deeper understanding of research procedures and their

appropriate use. Most recently, teachers themselves have begun to use

the standard spreadsheets available in the classroom computer to

analyze and graph data.

Scaffolding Teacher Inquiry

The consultative process has several guiding principles as utilized

in the Las Vegas center:

* goodfinding;

* testing hypotheses; and

* fitting data to a theory.

Goodfinding is paramount. Initial development of confidence with

both the logic and the math involved was crucial for the participants.

The stress level was kept manageable as participants were involved in

a change process which had the potential to radically alter the roles

and responsibilities of all in the school community. The consultant

supplied reassurance and a genuine interest in the work. Questions

such as, "Why do you want these data? What will you do with the

information? What will you conclude if - ?" displayed interest but also

redirected the thinking of the participants to a reflective and

analytical mode. Through these discussions, the consultant was often asked for

alternatives and guidance on methodology that allowed the assemblage

of data so that it best related to the challenge areas currently on

the minds of the participants.

Second, teachers were encouraged to test their hypotheses by data

collection and analysis. The initial data collection and analysis was

filled with surprises, curiosities, and riddles. Groups often stated

that after the first data collection round they now knew the right

questions to ask and that the answers to some questions lend themselves

to further elaboration and fact finding efforts. Data collected about

the school, teachers, and students generally have resulted in a much

more positive view of the school than was expected by teachers. In

fact, one school was absolutely convinced that the community neither

respected nor supported them. They developed a parent and student

survey with the pessimistic belief that the results would validate their

negative opinions. Yet when the surveys overwhelmingly supported the

view of teachers in the school as caring, fair, helpful, and talented

and the school as a place where children wanted to be and where they

were happy, teachers were faced with the arduous task of making

sense of the data in relation to their previous perceptions.

The third fundamental principle was to have teachers "fit" data to a

theoretical explanation. The process of creating theories which

incorporate wide ranges of information is called "myth debunking" and is

one of the most dominant attributes of the initial data collection

and analysis. Fitting the data to teachers' perceptions of reality

provided fundamental experiences that reinforced the value of systematic

inquiry while at the same time providing important guidance to

teachers and parents for informed decision-making. One of the most

promising results of this process was the scrutiny directed at both the

teachers' perceptions and the data collection process. While looking for

reasonable explanations, teachers tended to view all sources of

information cautiously, and therefore, with more critical eyes.

Refining the Thinking Process

Of the many benefits of taking stock and the inquiry process, the

most prevalent and beneficial was the refining of the thinking

processes of teachers. Teachers are historic recipients of other people's

decisions, whether those decisions are society's, the principal's, the

parents', or the children's. The taking stock and inquiry process

modified the teacher's role as reactive by providing an avenue for

proactive behavior. This, in turn, typically led to a greater internal

locus of control and better self-concept along with effective plans for

action. Some schools have experienced significant academic growth as a

result of utilization of these action research processes. One school

affiliated with the Center implemented an inclusion program for

resource students which resulted in large gains in student achievement

(Levin & McCarthy, 1995). Other schools have also demonstrated similar

gains (McCarthy & Still, 1993).

These tentative and potential results can probably be explained best

by the activities engaged in by the participants as they use the

inquiry process for informed decision making. The first activity, taking

stock, required members of the school community to create meaning

and explanation for the existing phenomena at the school site.

Contrasted to the typical role of reactive recipient and the resulting

rationalization for the status quo found commonly at most schools, the

requirements for active participation gently encourage the development of

hypotheses and theories to explain and alter. The emerging sense of

empowerment renewed motivation by reestablishing the value of the

educational endeavor for both teachers and parents and renewed the

expectations of success.

Conclusion

Any systematic inquiry into school effects will yield clues to

direct school improvement far better than the consensus of bias. Through

the Accelerated Schools process of taking stock, teachers are unified

and supported in their efforts towards systematic inquiry. This

action research approach is not without cost and flaws. However,

educational reforms cannot be judged on absolute criteria. Instead, we must

constantly ask ourselves if the proposed revision is an improvement on

existing practice. Considering the alternatives, action research,

particularly as practiced within the framework of Accelerated Schools,

is certainly an improvement on current practice. One teacher put it as

simply as it really is: "Actually, we are now really researchers. We

ask questions and then figure out how to gather the data to answer

these questions. It really makes being a teacher exciting."

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