The impact of the ‘Teachers as Researchers’ programme on educators’ sense of efficacy, practice, and collaboration at work: Results from implementation in France 2020-21

Abstract

We conducted a mixed-methods observational study of the impact on educators of the ‘Teachers as Researchers’ programme in France in 2020-21. A total of 152 educators signed up and 112 joined at least one of the 118 workshops conducted by 10 communities. We examined changes in educators’ sense of efficacy, practice, and collaboration at work. We found evidence of a positive effect on teachers’ sense of efficacy especially for teachers with high baseline measures, as well as evidence of positive changes in practice among teachers and non-teachers. We also found qualitative evidence that the programme motivated collaboration at work.

Harnessing collective intelligence for the future of learning – a co-constructed research and development agenda

“…Technologies that implement various deliberation methods can help foster decision making steps at scale, such as Decidim (Barandiaran et al, 2018) and Teachers as Researchers (Pagnotta et al, 2022). Moreover, local infrastructures operating as middlegrounds can act as network hubs connecting upper (institutions) and underground and foster smaller scale events connecting stakeholder representatives to promote embodied meetings to foster alignment (Irrmann, 2022).…”

“…At the theoretical level, it tackles questions related to processes of network formation, the development of systemic biases hampering inclusion, processes of deliberation, incentivization, and collective decision making. In parallel, it leverages an agile experimental methodology, prototyping proof-of-concepts within ongoing communities such as Teachers As Researchers (Pagnotta et al, 2022), with the aim to implement solutions at scale to the different layers of the education system. The proposed solution is by design participatory, thus positioning empirical insights as the core source of data and analytical processes.…”