Literature review on the use of action research in higher education

Abstract

This literature review considers the use of action research in higher education. It specifically looks at two areas of higher education activity. The first concerns academic teaching practice and includes a discussion of research and pedagogy practice, and staff development. The second considers student engagement. In both these core features of higher education, action research has proved to be a central approach to the investigation, reflection and improvement of practice. Each of these main foci includes a discussion of the limitations of the literature. The review illustrates the extent and range of uses to have benefited from an action research approach.Keywords: higher education; action research, literature review; reflective practice 2 Literature Review on the Use of Action Research in Higher EducationThe centrality of students as fee paying customerts, besides based on the value of their fees, has focused UK Government policy in the higher education sector on the importance of the quality of teaching and rates of retention. On 1 July 2015, Jo Johnson, UK Minster for Higher Education, confirmed the second of his party's election pledges concerning teaching in higher education: secondly, delivering a teaching excellence framework that creates incentives for universities to devote as much attention to the quality of teaching as fee-paying students and prospective employers have a right to expect. (Johnson 2015) The justification for such a scheme is as follows:to meet students' high expectations of their university years and to deliver the skills our economy needs, we need a renewed focus on teaching. (ibid.)A process was put in motion that seeks to enact changes to put teaching at the heart of higher education policy. The extrinsic value of teaching, or its value for money, is thus established as a metric of the level of skill, inferred from its calculative value: as a professional activity -as a vocation -higher education is undermined. Whether this exposes the essence of higher education provision is contentious, but the rebalance of emphasis from research to teaching in our mass participation higher education system clearly has intrinsic merit, and certainly possesses political leverage. Amid the development of lecturers' capability to teach and facilitate learning is the enhancement of pedagogical practice through reflection and research into practice (Gibbs, Angelides and Michaelides 2004). In this context, the importance of action research (AR) as a method of revelation, instruction and improvement, and as the realisation of technical skill and facilitation of learning, is hard to overemphasise. Informed practice removes the consumeristic notion of lecturers as emotional labourers, intent on satisfying students' consumerist desires, and balances the edifying mission of higher education institutions. This literature review is undertaken to contribute to this aim. It attempts to reflect AR from a number of perspectives and to consider its implications and limitations in regard to generating the...

Participatory Action Research in Higher Education Training

“…PAR implementation involves, therefore, profound changes in teaching and training (Corpa et al, 2010;Gibbs et al, 2017), namely in the relationship with other stakeholders (Kindon & Elwood, 2009), in a greater emotional involvement (Kindon & Elwood, 2009), and even in the possibility of a potential overload of time tasks (Barbre et al, 2013;Mendonç a et al, 2015;Strode, 2013):…”

“…This results in the need for greater flexibility in the management of the teaching-learning process, which itself generates unpredictability that entails greater difficulty in systematic follow-up. As pointed out by Gibbs et al (2017), it "include[s] a lack of reporting on the AR [action research] stages or cycles in a way that allows others to analyse the study systematically" (p. 13), which may run counter to preconceived ideas and/or expectations of both teachers and students (Kindon & Elwood, 2009).…”

“…All this implies that teachers may be able, on the one hand, to explain and explicit the process and, on the other hand, to motivate students to participate actively, while simultaneously recognising the authority of the teacher, as well as their limitations (Altun & Yücel-Toy, 2015). Although these actions reinforce the role of teachers as instigators of this PAR process (Gibbs et al, 2017), it is also critical that the institutional context provides the necessary conditions and resources (Jacobs, 2016) that allow the path to be corrected during its implementation (Strode, 2013).…”

“…Low academic legitimacy seems to be one of the aspects hindering PAR's choice (Anderson, 2017;Downs, 2017;Gibbs et al, 2017;Lewis, 2004;Riecken, Strong-Wilson, Conibear, Corrine, & Riecken, 2005;Vaughan & Burnaford, 2016;Young, 2017).…”

“…According to Gibbs et al (2017), there is the need to develop a curriculum that incorporates the academic identity itself, and the need for institutional support in staff development, and the role of academic leaders is vital in this whole process (Vikstrom et al, 2016).…”