John O’Toole (2006) illustrates four main motives for undertaking research, which can be specifically connected to research in drama:
a) To create new knowledge for its own sake.
As a drama practitioner, my desire for doing research may be driven by curiosity and I might test or seek verification of what has come to be accepted as knowledge in the discipline.
b) To create knowledge in context.
In this motive, as a drama practitioner, I might test a hypothesis and investigate a specific phenomenon or on-going problem in a specific classroom or community context.
c) To create knowledge for a particular context.
Here I might attempt to analyze or critically reflect on an immediate contextual demand or problem, such as the gap between theory or practice, and try to improve it.
d) To create knowledge for social reform.
Here I might explore with students what our society should be through drama, which can be seen as one of the ‘best and safest ways of investigating society and speculating on possible new societies’ (p. 5).
According to this categorization, the motive for research should be to critically create professional knowledge for different purposes or contexts rather than to prove how in- telligent our professional knowledge is, as I have seen evidenced in China. For exam- ple, John Somers (1994) undertook a large-scale case study research to provide statis- tical data and documentary evidence to show how drama can affect children’s social
and moral attitudes. He provided these data through including the perspectives and ob- servations of a large number of students and their teachers. Joe Winston (1997) under- took his case study research to explore how drama with fairy tales as a pre-text can engage children in moral processes and encourage them to explore and articulate ethical concepts (p.87). His attempt was not to prove but to explore what he encountered and analyse how he reacted to these problems. Philip Taylor (2000) worked with an ele- mentary school teacher to jointly design a series of classroom drama experiences which explored the impact of chemicals on the environment. In his research design, he em- ployed an interpretive-based paradigm and used a range of research methods such as journal, logbooks, and interviews to develop multiple perspectives on the event being examined.
Influenced by such exploratory approaches to research, I have employed a reflective practitioner case study as my methodology to see how I might bring theory and practice together to benefit kindergarten children’s language development and moral thinking in the Chinese education system. I have taken as among my starting points a number of hypotheses about what constitutes good practice in drama teaching, namely: the im- portance of structure in a drama scheme; the importance of being able to ask good ques- tions; the importance of building emotional engagement among pupils; and the im- portance of encouraging open moral debate to enable the development of language and moral thinking. I have chosen to focus on my own teaching to explore these issues. My research motive is not to prove my drama curriculum is better than others, but to ex- plore, as a drama practitioner, what problems might arise during my teaching and to analyse and reflect upon my practice. In the next section I will critically expand upon the methodology I applied in my research.
2.2 Reflective Practitioner
2.2.1 The problems of a traditional research contract
Schön (1987) pointed out two main problems with traditional research. The first was an ignorance of the actual problems that need to be solved in real world contexts. He argued that, by misreading or manipulating situations, lead practitioners tended to prove what they wanted to prove, with the research serving the practitioner’s own interests rather than the social demands it was supposed to serve. He argued that problems are not given in a determinate zone of practice, but are constructed ‘from the materials of
a situation’ (Dewey, 1938). By taking this view, he suggested that problem setting should be part of the research, being part of an ‘ontological process’ (Goodman, 1990). According to my teaching experience, I do notice the gap between professional knowledge and real-world practice, and one of my research motives was to explore the causes of such a gap. The second problem Schön saw was misplacing the position of the practitioner in research practice. In the positivist paradigm, professional knowledge is viewed as the centre of research by application of instrumental problem solving, the position of the individual practitioner being seen as less important. However, Schön (1987) argued that we should invert this, and place the individual practitioner at the centre of the research process, because professional growth depends on reflection on practice, with individuals possibly transforming themselves through a deliberate critical self-examination (Greene, 1978). In China, even though drama education is not a new concept, there are still many misunderstandings and confusions in applying it in our educational context, especially given that professional research in early years drama education is practically still non-existent. As a drama practitioner, my concern was how I should learn from my own practice by taking Dewey’s (1966) term of ‘learning by doing’. As Taylor (2000) asserts, the emphasis of the reflective practitioner is the ‘indi- vidual’s capacity to remind oneself to reconsider, to stop, pause, meditate, and contem- plate an issue or phenomenon in a different way and thereby provoke an enlightened perspective’ ( p.83.) This is also one meaningful purpose of doing research.
2.2.2 The concept of reflective and reflexive practitioner
Schön (1987) summarized three dynamic concepts of reflective practice:
a) Knowing-in-action - framing the appropriate problem of a specific situation and understanding the complex phenomenon through professional, spontaneous and
rational strategies. This takes place ‘in action’ while we are doing something. Knowing-in-action is similar to Dewey’s concept of ‘learning by doing’ and Polanyi’s ‘tacit knowledge’ by which people apprehend throughout tacit sensa- tions. This kind of knowing is spontaneous and skillful, but we may not be able to make it verbally explicit (p.25).
b) Reflection-in-action - this is an on-the-spot moment of critical thinking, taking place during the research rather than after it. This leads to our restructuring of strat- egies of ‘action, understanding of phenomena, or ways of framing a problem’ (p.
28). The key element is surprise, which we might ignore during research. Reflec- tion-in-action helps us reshape what we are doing while we are doing it and is con- nected to present action. This crucial feature is also shared in drama education, which requires co-operative, improvised indeterminate and interactive endeavour, impossible to predict but necessary to manage effectively (Neelands, 2006; O’Neill, 1995; O’Toole, 1992; Taylor, 2000).
c) Reflection-on-action---refers to critical thinking on the whole research process and is distinct from present action. Reflection-on-action enables us to rethink what we have done and to think about how to make our practice better in the future. Schön viewed reflective practice as ‘artistry’ - the art of problem solving, implementa- tion and improvisation (p.13). This artistry demands ‘divergent thinking skills’ and de- sign ability. To Taylor’s (2000) point of view, this concept of the reflective practitioner, like the artist, is similar to Brecht’s concept of distancing, to make the audience criti- cally think of specific phenomena. He summarized nine characteristics of the reflective practitioner (p.84-86) as: • Critical thinker • Producer of knowledge • Risk taker • Theory generator • Prepared to fail
• Open-mind and flexible • Collaborative
• Revising teaching and learning procedures • Story-maker and story listener
To my point of view, being willing to step into a problematic situation is a crucial aspect of our research practice. Meanwhile, coping with surprise and reflecting on its conse- quences afterwards are essential to the process. The question of how we remain open and honest during our research needs to be carefully considered. To help here, I also employ Neelands’ (2000) concept of reflexivity, which refers to ‘partnership-based’ and
‘dialogic pedagogic practice’. In this critical model of reflective and reflexive practi- tioner, the emphasis is on the ‘transparency of the processes of selection, reflection and modification that underpin it’ (p.19). The dialogue and relationship between teacher, children and any others who may be involved needs to be critically reflected upon and analysed. Neelands defines this as follows:
‘critical reflective practice seeks to model its social democratic values in the classroom so that learning and teaching are based on open dialogue, negotiation and the fostering of critical thinking and action amongst the community of learners and teachers who have recognized and vocalized rights and responsibilities’. (p. 37)
Informed by this concept, I asked the school teacher as my co-researcher to observe my teaching from outside and evaluate the children’s participation and emotional engage- ment. Children’s interviews, the school’s attitude to my teaching and video recording were also used to help me reflect upon my research. In the case of this study, I, as researcher and drama practitioner, was the main instrument of data collection and in- terpretation what I intended to look upon was not only my research motives, but also to reflect on the actual reciprocity between my practice and my understanding in the places where any problems were located.