West Partnership (WP) RIC Collaborative Action Research (CAR) and ROC Case Studies
How does collaborative action research (CAR) work in Scottish schools? The Robert Owen Centre Team at the university of Glasgow has supported the West Partnership Regional Improvement Collaborative’s learning system since its beginning.
This has been mainly through the development and progression of CAR and practitioner projects in the West Partnership’s Collaborative Learning Networks (CLN).
This involves educational practitioners:
- collectively researching an aspect of their teaching or arrangements in their establishment/ community to inform changes that bring about improvement
- gathering the appropriate evidence to understand if and why the changes they introduced have made a difference.
The benefits of this approach are that it can:
- enhance professional learning, critical reflection and understanding at both practitioner, school and system levels
- inform changes based on real needs and evidence.
CAR, therefore, can contribute to improved learner outcomes.
Collaboration
How does this work in practice? The Robert Owen Centre team has collaborated on using inquiry-based approaches with many teachers and other professionals from the WP in the early years sector, the primary sector, the secondary sector and with those ‘beyond the classroom’, such as HomeLink staff and community learning and development professionals.
We provided support based on the needs of practitioners and the context of the programme. The practitioners on every programme using CAR received a thorough grounding on what CAR is, how it might be used in schools/establishments, advice and support on developing projects and on the type of research methods that could be used and the data/evidence that might be required.
Our support over the past two years has been mainly online, due to the impact of the pandemic. This has been complemented with a range of online resources and online individual/group ‘drop-in’ sessions.
Some of the recent practitioners who completed the WP’s Primary Curriculum Programme are represented by the following six examples of CAR case studies.
These primary schools in the West Partnership (WP) area undertook inquiry-based approaches to introduce changes to their schools.
Carolside – health and wellbeingDuring the pandemic, Carolside Primary School identified an increased need to engage with parents around health and wellbeing. They used surveys to establish parental understanding of health and wellbeing in schools and set up a group to explore the relationships, sexual health and parenthood curriculum for children and young people and develop new content that could benefit them.
The refreshed content was effectively implemented and there were positive Impacts on parental engagement, with some pupils showing significant increases in wellbeing.
Colquhounpark – skills and developmentTeachers wanted to see if outdoor learning could support skills development for pupils, as these had been hampered during the pandemic.
The children’s views were collected and recorded, and this led to changes to outdoor learning practices and activities, which were co-designed with pupils. Feedback from the pupils showed that they enjoyed their outdoor learning experiences, and many commented on what skills they had developed. The skills passport was used to reflect on pupils’ self-identification of skills.
At the end of the intervention pupils were more likely to identify skills around problem solving, creative thinking, reaching agreements and resilience/perseverance.
Highpark – writing attainmentPractitioners wanted to look at writing attainment among pupils as achievement of curriculum for excellence data identified that as an area for improvement.
The school devised a pre-during-post pedagogy strategy for writing and staff worked together, after training at each stage, to implement this effectively. Staff confidence for teaching writing skills increased, which, as a consequence, led to higher levels of pupil confidence and self-efficacy and improved writing attainment.
Newarthill – school supportivenessNewarthill wanted to increase feelings of school supportiveness among a target group of pupils, aligned to children’s rights policies.
Could engagement in Forest Schools Fundamentals (FSF) sessions improve this sense of school supportiveness? A 10-week intervention with six pupils was put in place, based on FSF. Teachers were trained in FSF, and pupils could personalise and choose parts of the sessions.
As a result, pupils experienced an enhanced sense of school supportiveness, an increased sense of belonging and positive attitudes towards new learning experiences.
St Patrick’s – talking about skillsWhen self-evaluation revealed that pupils were good at talking about their knowledge or personal targets, but not as confident in talking about their skills, practitioners at St Patrick’s wondered if problem-based, interdisciplinary learning could promote pupils’ skills, awareness and development.
Practitioners put in place a problem based, interdisciplinary learning intervention that allowed learners to engage in problem-based scenarios that needed skills to solve. The focus was on developing self and peer awareness of skills.
Increased pupil self-awareness of skills: data gathered demonstrated increases across 6 competencies: 1) collaboration, 2) character, 3) critical thinking, 4) creativity, 5) citizenship and 6) communication.
Townhill – motor skills developmentFine motor skill development amongst a group of pupils was identified as an area to strengthen. The team asked, what would the impact be of a play-based, child centred approach to writing on a target group?
Teachers implemented changes to the learning environment and activities. They engaged in professional learning aimed at enhancing writing in play-based sessions. Activities were devised based on what children had asked for and the staff limited access to desktop computers to specific times of the day.
Observations of what the children were doing during play-based learning found that they spent more time on writing-based activities post intervention. As such, more time was being spent on developing fine motor skills. Assessment of the children’s drawings found that significant improvements in fine motor skills had occurred. Staff also noticed that many of children now enjoyed drawing and writing during play-based learning sessions.
More detailed information about each school’s work can be found on the West Partnership website here.
ROC’s research and impact officer for the West Partnership, Irene Bell, said:
“The ROC Team will continue to provide support for the CLN programmes and are looking forward to meeting and collaborating with new participants on the programmes next year.”
