DIMENSIONADO DE LOS COLECTORES SOLARES

AR is a reflective practice. It evolved as a method for practitioners to take responsibility for their own situations, e.g. in workplaces or social environments, by systematically and iteratively striving for improvements. Hence, AR is subjective. According to Kromrey (2009), it aims not at creating universal theories, but at using its subjective dimension to influence the research subject for specific changes. Regarding the educational context, AR has been discussed and used for the professional development of teaching skills (Altrichter, Posch, and Somekh 2005). Thereby, awareness and reflection play an important role. Berg (2001a) states that “ […] action research is one of the few research approaches that embrace principles of participation and reflection, and empowerment and emancipation of people and groups interested in improving their social situation or condition.” (p. 178).

While AR is seen as an important method in the international context, it has been the topic of controversial debates in German-speaking countries, as discussed by Altrichter and Gstettner (1993). Nevertheless, afresh interest in educational action research (EAR) with regard to learning designs of TEL or similar approaches is observable (e.g., Mor and Mogilevsky (2013)).

Many different terms refer to concepts similar to AR. It does not have one but many widely accepted definitions (Altrichter et al. 2002), as the next section explains.

4.2.1 Related Terms and Theories

Generalizations of results from traditional educational research have their limitations and do often fail at telling individual teachers what will work best in a particular situation with a specific group of students (Hinchey 2008). AR can be a solution here because it seeks local, rather than universal solutions (p.29). There are diverse views on this method, which led to a variety of different terms that more or less relate to AR. Some of these will shortly be discussed in the following to give an impression about the ‘action research family’2.

• Participatory AR in the context of education refers to AR activities that involve several different stakeholders. The main goal is to change schools, but also society at large.

• Teacher research or teacher inquiry refers to similar projects, but highlights the role of the teacher, who is responsible for enhancing the quality of action. It is focused on developing reflection on professional action in the context of practice itself. An advantage of teacher research is that the teachers have a sense of control of the research because they choose to examine their teaching practice for their own and their students’ benefit. A limitation is that teachers, who already have lots of responsibilities, might view the research activity as an additional burden because they need to find time for collecting and analyzing data.

• Collaborative action research is supposed to involve several persons (researchers) working together for the trustworthiness of their research results. There are still some variations of collaborative effort within projects. E.g., a collaborative AR group might concentrate on answering several questions concerning one individual classroom. Alternatively, they could explore the same question in multiple classrooms.

• Practical action research focuses on local, practical problems. The purpose is to help teachers to find ways to affect change and systematically generate individual ‘craft knowledge’, instead of relying only on instincts. Hence, practical AR supports professional development. • Emancipatory action research has more ambitious goals, seeking to

change society at a whole. A main perspective is to show and overcome habits that have been unconsciously accepted. Therefore, everything should be questioned.

As written by Hinchey (2008), the main differences in these terms are based on slightly varying answers to the core questions of ‘who?’ is doing AR ‘for what

purpose?’. This works understanding of AR is close to the definition of ‘teacher research/inquiry’, whereby an individual teacher or a group of teachers strives to improve his, her, or their course regarding particular issues. Altrichter et al. (2002) provide a working definition, which describes aspects of a situation in which AR is occurring (see Table 3).

Table 3. Working definition of AR. Source, Altrichter et al. (2002).

If yours is a situation of action research

• people reflect on and improve (or develop) their own work and their own situations

• by tightly inter-linking their reflection and action; and

• also making their experience public not only to other participants but also to other persons interested in and concerned about the work and the situation, i.e. their (public) theories and practices of the work and the situation;

and if yours is a situation in which there is increasingly

• data-gathering by participants themselves (or with the help of others) in relation to their own questions;

• participation (in problem-posing and in answering questions) in decision- making;

• power-sharing and the relative suspension of hierarchical ways of working towards industrial democracy;

• collaboration among members of the group as a ”critical community”; • self-reflection, self-evaluation and self-management by autonomous and

responsible persons and groups;

• learning progressively (and publicly) by doing and by making mistakes in a “self-reflective spiral” of planning, acting, observing, reflecting, replanning, etc.;

• reflection which supports the idea of the “(self-)reflective practitioner”; then

yours is a situation in which action research is occurring

The next section highlights the key characteristics, which are inherent in most AR approaches.

4.2.2 Key Characteristics

AR is a method for reflective teaching practice that enables and guides teachers to investigate and evaluate their work (Altrichter, Posch, and Somekh 2005). Hinchey defines AR as "a process of systematic inquiry, usually cyclical, conducted by those inside a community rather than outside experts; its goal is to identify action that will generate improvement the researchers believe important" (Hinchey 2008). A key property of AR is that „[a]ction research starts from practical questions arising from everyday educational work“ (Altrichter, Posch, and Somekh 2005, p. 5). This is supposed to further develop existing situations and gain knowledge about everyday activities. AR aims to be compatible with institutional values, working conditions, and it aims to contribute to its further development and improvement. Thereby, simple methods and strategies, which balance costs and benefit, are used.

Table 4. An example of a non-linear AR process. Source, Hinchey (2008).

“For example, a teacher researcher might plan to analyze one marking period of a student’s writing. However, after collecting that data and beginning analysis, the teacher might sense a pattern but want more data to substantiate it. At that point, he might interrupt analyzing to collect more data, modifying the original plan by adding work from a second marking period.” (Hinchey, 2008, p. 52)

There are a few key characteristics that are true for most AR projects. Regardless of how they are named (see p. 38), they all involve some core activities, which appear repeatedly – not necessarily chronologically (as demonstrated in Table 4) – in a flexible, cyclic process (Hinchey 2008):

• Developing a question • Formulating a research plan • Systematically collecting data • Analyzing the data

• Developing and implementing an action plan • Recording the project in writing

Additionally, several models suggest to share the results of action research with others (Hinchey 2008).

The AR steps ‘systematically collecting data’ and ‘analyzing the data’, are most relevant in the context of this work because LA can automate parts of these tasks and make them more efficient (see section 4.5). Action researchers can collect data form a variety of different sources. E.g., Hinchey lists:

• Documents and artifacts • Journals

• Field notes

• Interviews and focus groups • Surveys

• Audiotapes, videotapes, photos

It is notable that these data sources are mostly qualitative, beside surveys, which can be quantitative, qualitative, or both. Collecting and comparing multiple types of data (called ‘data triangulation’) over a sufficient length of time is supposed to minimize ambiguity in findings. Credibility is increased, if the same information appears in all sources (Hinchey 2008).

TEL scenarios offer additional possibilities for collecting data; e.g., teachers can also base their analysis on automatically collected logging data or meta-data, which can be extracted from VLEs. These kinds of data are also an important source for LA. The combination of all data promises to deliver a more holistic picture about learning processes.