Starfendarannsókn til starfsþróunar leikskólakennara: Ávinningur og áskoranir

Action research is an umbrella term used for research conducted with and by practitioners. The aim of action research is to improve practice and therefore the methodology has been effective for teachers’ professional development. Professional development deepens and widens teachers’ competences, knowledge, perspective, motivation
and independence. This can happen both through formal and informal education and
promotes teachers’ performance, satisfaction and reduces the likelihood of burnout or
elimination from the profession. The study reported in this article was a collaborative
action research project where two communities with different aims and demands meet:
a scientific community and a practice community. Such research can be understood to
involve two joint learning cycles that together create a process of change. In collaborative action research, in a school–university partnership, both parties benefit from the
collaboration. It is suggested that from the collaboration of researchers and practitioners,
a third space can emerge when a successful partnership is achieved. In this study, the
collaboration was between seven preschool teachers in one Icelandic preschool and one
university teacher. The research lasted over two years. The preschool teachers focused
on their own professional development in relation to values education, which was the
focus of Nordic research project this study was part of. The researcher’s role was to support and encourage the preschool teachers throughout the whole process and to collect
the bulk of the data. In this article, the focus will be on the advantages and challenges the
participating preschool teachers experienced during the research process, as well as how
they experienced the collaboration with their colleagues and the university teacher. The
focus here is not on findings related to values education, which was the research topic
since these have been presented elsewhere.
The data for this study was collected as follows: Firstly, three interviews were conducted at the end of the research process, two focus group interviews with the preschool teachers working with the children and one individual interview with the preschool
principal. Secondly, recordings from all meetings during the action research process were
used as data for this study. Thirdly, journal writings from four preschool teachers were
part of the dataset, three participants did not hand in their journals as data. Finally, notes
from the final project meeting The findings show that when the preschool teachers looked back at the end of the process, they agreed that the action research had been a successful journey. The principal
mentioned that this was because all participating preschool teachers were interested and
ready to make changes in their practice. However, the participants experienced ups and
downs during the research process where the advantages and their own development
stages were not always clear until they looked back. The main advantages the preschool teachers experienced during the process related to professional development, improvement of practice and children’s learning and well-being. The main challenges the
preschool teachers faced were associated with finding time for the action research, uncertainty concerning the process of action research and values education, and how to
influence the whole preschool. Finally, the preschool teachers reported that collaboration with the external researcher and with colleagues was a crucial factor in making the
project successful.
The study contributes important knowledge about how the methodology of action
research can be used for teachers’ professional development and simultaneously supports findings from previous studies. Furthermore, the findings from this study shed light
on the main challenges teachers might face during the action research process, which
gives future action researchers opportunities to reduce the likelihood of these common
challenges hindering the process. Finally, the findings highlight the importance of good
collaboration when conducting action research, both with insiders and outsiders.
were used as data, where the participating preschool teachers evaluated the research process. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.