Participatory Action Research (PAR) cum Action Research (AR) in Teacher Professional Development: A Literature Review

Abstract

This paper reviews Participatory Action Research as an approach to teacher professional development. It maps the origins of Participatory Action Research (PAR) and discusses the benefits and challenges that have been identified by other researchers in utilizing PAR approaches in conducting research. It draws ideas of combining the features of Action Research (AR) and Participatory Action Research (PAR) to plot research cell design or teacher network design to enhance research for action, action for research and creation of knowledge and theories while solving problems occurring in classroom settings. The discussion focuses on reflective practice and andragogy as the featured characteristics of AR and PAR. These are noted to develop quality teachers to attain quality learning and quality assurance. The review also provides probable benefits of PAR framework to Philippine education; probable challenges and issues that may arise in the implementation; and future directions of PAR implementation in the Philippines aimed to attain education quality through teacher quality.

Philippine Classroom Teachers as Researchers: Teachers’ Perceptions, Motivations, and Challenges

“…As doing research develops and improves teachers' teaching knowledge and confidence (Borg, 2014), broadens and deepens understanding on their own teaching styles and students learning strategies (Borg, 2014;Hong and Lawrence, 2011;Burns, 2010), and makes them responsible and accountable for the improvement of their teaching practice (Morales, 2016), addressing their needs would uplift the spirit of the teachers to do research in the school. The schools and other education institutions should also consider that doing research is an additional workload for the teachers.…”

“…They have also broadened and deepened their understanding of their students and their own classroom teaching styles and strategies (Borg, 2014;Hong and Lawrence, 2011;Burns, 2010) as they reflect on the result of their research studies. Lastly, teachers become responsible and accountable for and to the improvement and development in their teaching as a result of doing action research (Morales, 2016).…”

“…According to Cain and Milovic (2010), although teachers believed that doing research is a significant tool for professional development which can promote lifelong learning, this did not have to change in their teaching practice. The reason given has been that time constraints make it impossible for teachers to do research as they have so much teaching hours to do and they rarely have time to do research (Morales, 2016;Kutlay, 2012). In the study made by Dehghan and Sahragard (2015), the language teacher-participants revealed that doing research is not their duty as classroom teachers.…”

“…DepEd has been doing significant ways to update and inform the public school teachers about the importance of doing research, but many teachers in both elementary and secondary schools were uninterested and demotivated. Factors like tight teaching timetable and heavy teaching workload (Morales, 2016;Kutlay, 2012) are just few of the reasons why some public school teachers are not motivated and have no interest to do research.…”

Professional Development of Adult Learners through Open and Distance Learning

“…Quality assurance is the most important tool to enable a cycle of equal opportunity, fair competition and just rewards in ODL. For quality programs to take place in ODL, quality assurance must concentrate on the mechanisms, procedures and processes in place to ensure that the anticipated quality is delivered [40]. In making judgements, where there is substantial ambiguity and uncertainty, different outcomes will be achieved by adult learners because they tend to be more reliant on the information provided to them by ODL institutions [3].…”