RETENCIONES EN LA FUENTE

The teacher participants for this research were chosen in the following manner. I approached two principals I knew to see if any of their 5th/6th class teachers would be interested in volunteering to participate in the research as a way of developing their classroom practice through the use of constructivist-compatible approaches. I was

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also hoping to learn more about such approaches. I did not enter this research with a set agenda in mind. However, in line with Jaworski’s (2012) model of the expanded didactic triangle, as shown in section 2.3, I hoped that my experience as a teacher, principal and lecturer would be of some help to the participants in devising engaging and challenging activities for the pupils. Jaworski (2012) writes about the developmental processes which occur when teachers and didacticians inquire into classroom relationships. I certainly hoped that such development would be reflexive between me and the teachers. One danger is that the teachers would see me as some sort of expert willing to impart all they wished to know. This would be anti- constructivist and counterproductive for the generation of data on the developmental nature of the intended relationship. I wanted teachers to lay their own pathways to constructivist-compatible pedagogies.

As regards the principals involved, one was in charge of a designated disadvantaged school and the other was in charge of a school in a higher socio-economic area. I stressed to the principals that teachers’ participation was to be entirely voluntary and

that teachers could withdraw at any time. Thankfully, four teachers decided to participate in the project. One teacher withdrew from the project as she obtained a position in another school. However, I was fortunate that another teacher opted to take her place. Although I am a principal myself I did not choose teachers from my own school as it is possible that they would have felt obliged to take part in the research due to the power dynamic that exists between principal and staff. Gender was not an issue for me in choosing the participants as I was entirely dependent on who was teaching 5th/6th class at the time. As it transpired, all four teacher participants were female.

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Any classroom research, which involves children as co-participants, needs to consider ethical issues such as informed consent. All parental and children’s consent forms, which appear as appendices in this thesis, had to be vetted by the Social Research Ethics Committee (SERC) in University College, Cork (UCC) and hence they appear in their amended and final format. In my case the SERC made some very useful suggestions, which might also be helpful for other proposed researchers in the same area. For instance, the SERC suggested that the consent section for the pupils should not appear on the same form as that for the parents, as this would make it difficult for a child to refuse if their parents seemed happy to consent. The committee also advised that the right to withdraw from the research, without repercussions, should appear on all consent forms. The final version of the children’s permission slip appears as Appendix 5 and the parent’s consent form appears as

Appendix 6. The letter of invitation to the teachers is called Appendix 7 and their consent letter is called Appendix 8. The protection of anonymity was another issue raised and all names in this thesis have been changed to avoid participants being identified. Obviously, this applies not only to the written thesis but also to original data transcripts. The committee suggested redrafting consent forms to give a more comprehensive view of the project, so that children would realise that samples of their work could be requested and that they could be asked to participate in an open group interview. As I proposed to use video technology to record lessons the committee again raised the issue of anonymity. I gave assurances that my supervisor, Dr. Paul Conway, and I would be the only people looking at the tapes, apart from the participants themselves, and that they would be destroyed within a three year period when analysis had been completed. I also redrafted and resubmitted my parental and children’s consent forms. Having addressed all ethical concerns, I am pleased to

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this research. This approval is enclosed as Appendix 9. Teachers were interviewed individually via similar type questionnaires at the beginning (see Appendix 23) and end of the project (see Appendix 24). Also at the end of the project both teachers and pupils were asked for their views on the project via group interviews. The transcript of these interviews appears as Appendices 25 and 28 respectively. I chose this format as I believed participants would give their views more freely in a group, as opposed to an individual interview. The teachers were also interviewed via questionnaire (See Appendix 26) almost a year after the research finished in an attempt to ascertain if the project had had a long term impact on their views of practice. The transcript of their views appears as Appendix 27. I note that I was not evaluating the teacher participants’ performance in the manner of a Department of

Education and Skills inspector. Indeed, I was learning from the teachers about constructivist-compatible approaches just as they were learning from me. In that way, we were co-constructors of the report of this research and I am extremely grateful for their participation.