School Research Projects And Context Intricacies
David Williams, Phil Cormack, Bruce Johnson and Judy Peters
University of South Australia
Introduction
This paper is one of several emanating from a collaborative project involving four university-based teacher educators (referred to _as "researchers" throughout this paper) and a number of teachers in six Australian schools. The Authentic Assessment Research Circle was conducted during 1997 as part of the National Middle Schooling Project. As the descriptor indicates, the focus for the work of this team was authentic assessment, and this topic is dealt with in more explicit detail both in the report Authentic Assessment: Implications for Teaching and Learning and other associated papers (Cormack, P., Johnson, B., Peters, J. & Williams, D., 1997: Johnson, B., Peters, J., Cormack, P. & Williams, D., 1997). This paper reflects anecdotally and reflectively on some of the insights gained during the project about the importance and intricacies of the contexts in which the venture was framed. Throughout the project lifecycle the researchers, teachers and other participants were continually reminded that the interplay between contextual factors renders it impossible to view project processes and outcomes in isolation from their contexts.
Some of the findings reported here are not necessarily new nor are they claimed to be comprehensive. They represent recorded affirmation of some of the experiences of researchers in this project that typically might be encountered by other researchers in their interactions with schools. Although the theme of this conference is "Researching Education in New Times", this paper suggests that although the times might be new, some of the challenges faced in school-based research are enduring and persistent. There is a concern underpinning the paper that much research in schools continues to be astigmatic insofar as it concentrates on methodological matters without sufficient consideration of the contextual influences.
Throughout the paper, "context" is used in a wider sense than geographical location and structural-organisational description. It also includes conceptual and cultural constructs of the schools, researchers, teachers, students, school community, professional community, systems and the wider context of the teaching profession.
In The Beginning
The first major dilemma was that posed by the process of selecting schools for involvement in the project. There was a limit to the number of schools to be involved and while we attempted to ensure as equitable as possible a process, we were conscious that the timeline and other project constraints might have restricted the distribution of information and affected both the number and quality of applications received. Furthermore, we recognised that there were pragmatic considerations about the politics of state and sector representation to be factored into our deliberations during the selection process. Ideally, we sought schools that provided state and sector representation and had in place well-developed middle schooling practices and supportive school cultures and leadership. We believed that these would provide the most fertile contexts for developing and trialing authentic assessment approaches and materials.
We were cognisant of the fact that some schools have leadership that is familiar with and successful in applying for project involvement. They possess the cultural capital to position themselves advantageously in the tendering process. They have established track records. They "walk the walk and talk the talk". Many schools and school leaders are acutely conscious of the need to be seen to be actively involved in reform and, for these, there is a _drive to be successful in gaining project funding and the recognition that accompanies it. Others have a very different profile with limited experience in applying for funding or project involvement. One of the intricacies we faced at this stage was the coding and decoding of information supplied and the language used in the initial applications. Our own conceptualisations of middle schooling, school reform, authentic assessment and equity were challenged and shaped during the selection
process. We had to confront our own assumptions, suspicions, preferences and doubts. We needed to make trust-based judgements about the rhetoric and reality presented to us in the applications. Ultimately, we were to find that the relatives of school readiness for involvement in the project affected the extent of the achievement of some of the outcomes anticipated at the selection stage. These usually resulted from differences in interpretation between what we had expected the schools could offer from the information supplied and the actualities of the situations. In each case invaluable progress and development did eventuate and, while some of the end points might not have been what had been hoped for, they must be viewed against the relativity of each school’s starting point and operational setting. They must also be balanced against the fact that outcomes in other areas exceeded reasonable expectations. The challenge for the researchers was that the rhetoric-reality gap demanded the use of sophisticated negotiation and diplomatic skills in developing and progressing the projects. It occasionally involved rethinking and reconstructing features of the project to better address the contextual circumstances.
We also experienced relatives of readiness in our own expectations and professional profiles and the extent to which these fitted the schools in which we were to work. The history of middle schooling in Australia necessarily limited researcher experience in direct work in middle schooling settings and in familiarity with the relevant literature. Authentic assessment’s strong North American base and its comparative scarceness in Australia was also a factor. There were considerable variations between and within schools in conceptual, cultural and structural aspects. One school had its raison d’etre in middle schooling and had been specifically constructed, configured and staffed to fulfil this. Another school was moving from a traditional culture of connection (Hargreaves, 1994) with strong faculty and subject separateness in all aspects of the teaching and learning process. We used the available information to attempt to best match researcher profiles with school profiles. Such relatives of readiness immediately and continuously influenced expectations and actual outcomes. There was a process of continual adjustment as the journey of each school progressed.
The Project-School Context
The initial Sydney conference in February 1997 involved all key project and school personnel. Planning guide questions used at that conference asked teachers to identify significant features of the school-community context that would impact on the project both positively and as constraints. Retrospective analysis of the responses and the events that unfolded during the project emphasises the latency of school cultures and the invisibility of their influences on the work of teachers. During the implementation of this project a number of examples emerged that graphically illustrated aspects of school culture by revealing previously _hidden but powerful features.
One of the first procedural steps was that of gaining clearance to work with schools and students. Despite appearing at face value to be straightforward, this presented project members with an early experience of some of the intricacies to be faced. The project intended to produce and trial curriculum materials developed in the schools. This was significant as it necessitated the schools and participants having their case studies and materials made open to professional and public scrutiny. Accordingly, the approval process was regarded as a serious procedure. We found that although there were technical variations between different states and sectors, the approval process followed a similar pattern of informing the school community of the project purpose and intentions and seeking formal agreement for involvement.
It was agreed that each project report would refer to school-based circumstances and include student work samples as exemplars to enrich the value of the documentation. The project team had constructed ethical guidelines for such procedures and relied upon the teachers and schools to ensure that appropriate consultation and clearance was observed. We had expectations of ethical principles and practices underpinning approval processes but it was evident that the nature of existing relationships between schools and their communities influenced such process. In some cases, gaining agreement appeared to be virtually automatic or a foregone conclusion while in others detailed negotiations were to be undertaken and
assurances given. Such variation in the ease of access to data-gathering is one of the intricacies researchers need to be aware of in planning research projects. There are obvious time-line implications but also less-evident but potentially powerful affective dimensions such as researchers’ feelings of comfort that due process has been observed. Such procedural variations highlighted the delicacy of quickly establishing professional trust as a basis for successful school-based research projects.
Procedural negotiations were not restricted to the teacher-researchers, school administration, students and parents. In most cases the professional community within the school was consulted prior to the application being lodged. However, in other cases the professional community was informed after the application had been accepted. It was then faced with having to cater for the implications of project involvement. In either scenario, for those who either disagreed with involvement in the project or disapproved of the process, there were grounds for discontentment. Where consultation had occurred, some of those who had disagreed, although consulted, still felt aggrieved. Consequently, some of the school situations were not entirely neutral let alone positive. There was evidence of a charged political context simply because of school involvement in the project. In such circumstances, researchers were identified with the project’s existence in the school and were inescapably locked into managing the influences of the political undercurrents while supporting the integrity of the project.
The working relationship between the researchers and the teachers was complicated by project constraints including limitations of time and numbers of visits. Distance was also a factor. Although, theoretically, physical distance betwee_n researchers and host schools could be bridged technologically, this proved to be inconsistent in reliability and immediacy and could in no way provide the richness experienced through direct contact. Consequently, researcher roles and frequency of contact varied considerably. Schools closer to the researcher base benefited from ease of access and relative immediacy while those that were more distant were required to be more self-sufficient. Although this could be regarded positively as increased ownership and independence, it raised equity issues and affected the satisfaction experienced by the researchers and the teachers. Both for teachers and researchers sporadic, intense visits punctuated by long periods of reduced contact in terms of quality and quantity, proved to be a source of some frustration and reduced role-satisfaction. Researchers felt like, and were occasionally perceived as, paradoxically, part-time but key team members The limitations of the project design were such that there was frustration for researchers and teachers in knowing that so much more could have been achieved under different circumstances. We were reminded of the fact that real educational change is complex and requires continuity and time (c.f. Fullan, 1982: Fullan and Miles, 1992: Hargreaves, 1994).
The nature of the direct researcher contact with schools also prompted questions of commitment and credibility in some professional communities where researchers, as academics, were viewed with some initial suspicion and scepticism as visiting "experts" in an inspectorial or judgemental capacity. The researchers had to "present their credentials" to establish credibility and demonstrate that they were in touch with the "real world" of teaching. Recurrent, subtle credibility tests and checks made the servicing of some links extended rites of passage into the heart of the school culture. Being accepted at the heart of school culture on the basis of short and irregular visits also demanded skilful interactions on the part of the researchers to ensure the rapid establishment and on-going maintenance of high levels of trust. From an action research and project development perspective, the critical friend role proved difficult to maintain in such a pattern of infrequency
Other pragmatic factors proved to be restrictive including dissynchronous timetables and the demands of university work on the researchers and other aspects of school work on the teachers. It became evident that, just as there is a danger of "cloistered academics" losing contact with the professional community of teaching, so too are misconceptions legion among teachers about the actualities of the working life and conditions of academics in contemporary Australian universities. In some cases, teachers and school professional communities had formulated their views of academics and university life on prior experiences with other staff from different organisations. The revision of some historical legacies had to be managed at various levels within some host schools by the researchers. The researchers also shared the view that there is much room for re-consideration by universities of the management of conflicting expectations of academics in a climate of reducing resources and increasing demands. Balancing university and project commitments occasionally proved to be extremely challenging in the dynamic and sometimes unpredictable work environments of contemporary education. If Universities are sincere about a commitment to _partnerships in school-based research, then they must accept the responsibility of configuring their operations in such a way that university staff have conditions that facilitate and support involvement in such projects in ways that are equitable and quality-centred.
As is frequently reported of collaborative projects between schools and universities (c.f. Williams, Tunney and Grealy, 1996) one of the dissonances in this project concerned expectations about the documentation associated with the project. Researchers often comment on what appears to be a reluctance on the part of teachers to present in-depth, academic portrayals of their work despite the importance of "teacher voice". There are many reasons for this and a number of these were presented to the researchers during the life of this project in discussions about documentation. Project constraints such as timeline and funding and the everyday demands made of teachers involved in the project, effectively combined to restrict the formalities of academic writing and minimise the recording of the intended action research spiral. Understandably, teachers’ preferences and perceived priorities lay in the teaching and learning practicalities of the project and associated professional activities. Ultimately, a division of labour compromise was engineered to meet the formal written requirements of the project with the researchers assuming overall responsibility for formal documentation. Positive aspects of this arrangement included the richness of the consultation process that occurred during the writing stage and the fact that trust relationships had been secured to the degree that teachers welcomed academic input from the researchers as the school stories were translated. However, the researchers experienced some lingering unease about the formal documentation of the project, particularly about the degree to which the final products captured and portrayed accurately the authentic ‘teacher voice’.
Another aspect that was reinforced for the researchers and teachers during the project implementation and recording stages is that we lack a precise shared language for talking about teaching. Not only are there differences in terminology for various features of the work of schools, but there are also different perceptions of the meanings and purpose of key terms and concepts. For example, one school used the term "training and development" when it clearly was referring to a training practicalities and skills development, while another school used the term "professional development" with the emphasis on balanced interflow between theory and practice with each informing and reflecting the other. Initially, both schools perceived this difference as only a minor variation in terminology but, through discussion, realised that their interpretations were founded on significantly different approaches. This exemplifies a growing concern of researchers about the criticality of developing a shared language for talking about teaching and learning, particularly since the value of school reform ultimately impacts in the classroom. Stigler(1997) claims that unless such a language is used to describe teachers’ work, there are grave dangers of misconceptualisation and real progress is fettered. He cites recent Californian research that showed the State’s reputation for being at the cutting edge of school reform was not vindicated in the outcomes for its students. Investigators found that changes had not been implemented even though schools and teachers claimed and believed that they had. The teachers had changed superficial actions, _but the absence of a shared, concept-based language had prevented their embracing the essence of significant change even though they believed that they had.
A further supporting example from this project concerned a teaching methodology that the project teachers claimed and genuinely believed to be authentic, but which the associated researcher viewed as being a commonplace inquiry approach to learning rather than characteristically authentic. The teachers and the researcher had different perceptions of authentic pedagogy because the teaching language was not common to both parties nor was it concept-specific. Relative to the previous methodology being used in the school, the different approach might well have been regarded by the teachers as being radically different, but in the context of the researcher’s experience it fell short of being authentic.
The School Culture Context
In retrospect, one intricacy that was not readily visible at the outset was the cultural interface between project completion and school change. Project management theory assumes that projects have finite life cycles at the end of which the project theme will become incorporated and subsequently maintained in the culture of the host organisation. However, experience dictates that educational projects frequently have finite and discrete lifecycles that expire without any change to the host context.
It became clear to us that the school projects had been conceived along a spectrum of anticipated or desired impacts upon the host culture. One school was quite forcefully but subtly using the opportunity presented by the project to challenge the whole cultural structure of the school, thus ensuring that the authentic assessment project and those connected with it were ascribed a heightened political position. The project was being used to dynamise the school culture by being a catalyst of change reaching far beyond the intended project parameters. At the same time, some other schools regarded their projects as separate initiatives not necessarily intended to provide any lasting impact on the school culture. In some schools there was even a danger that the project would be almost regarded as a check-list item to be completed and discarded ["What will we do after we’ve done authentic assessment?"].
In one school with a strongly balkanised structure (Hargreaves, 1994), self-protective polarisation strategies were applied ruthlessly by the staff of one subject area to a colleague who had volunteered to work in the project. Relentless "us or them" pressures were exerted along with warnings of dire consequences for immediate subject discipline relationships and longer-term career development. The parent community, which had a particularly high value for this subject area, was also mobilised. Ultimately, the school leadership was faced with the decision to quarantine the subject area from any further inclusion in the project. This was done to maintain some balance in the harmony of the school culture and to safeguard the individual staff member and the project. The power of school politics and the need to observe delicacy in change were strongly reinforced.
This incident illustrates a contemporary focus in educational management theory - dilemmas and problems in school leadership (c.f. Walker and Dimmock, 1997). Problems simply involve the application of _administrative decision-making processes and managerial technicalities. On the other hand, dilemmas involve finely balancing aspects of organisations where tightly-held values are at play. Perhaps in other circumstances the school leadership could have used the dilemma to confront and remove any vestiges of balkanisation, but in this case the traditional power of the subject area and its influence in the school community forced an interim diplomatic solution. However, the decision also created further dilemmas about influence, the balance of power and control in the school culture.
An unexpected and divisive factor emerged where student membership of the project group was restricted. Regardless of the selection basis for involvement, there were reports of the project group students and teachers being regarded as elitist, separatist and exclusive by other students and teachers. This occurred even when the composition of groups had been decided on an open and voluntary basis or where measures had been implemented to ensure representivity in the project group composition. There was the possibility of sub-cultural divisions being generated with consequent negative effects on the total school culture. One school reported experiencing this at teacher, student and school community levels. Considerable energy was subsequently diverted from project development to repair and maintain the wider school culture.
The School-Community Context
The school case studies are consistent in reporting the need for community awareness and support. There is no suitable way of describing any community in generalised terms, particularly as regards beliefs about schooling. In any given community there is extensive and sometimes conflicting diversity in perception and opinion. Consequently, the need to move beyond an informational level through the sequence of acceptance, approval, active support and involvement presents as a complex and time-demanding contextual challenge. It also involves the strategic management dimensions of envisioning and empowering along with all the intricacies they entail.
All schools reported the need to inform and persuade school communities about the project. The project focus of authentic assessment was the main agendum but, inevitably, beliefs surfaced about the purposes and organisation of schools, the needs of students and parents, and the concept of the middle years of schooling. The focal study could not be viewed in isolation from such other contextual perspectives. One school considered the challenge of persuasion at the levels of self, student, colleagues and parent/community and raised confronting and richly revealing questions such as:
The depth and dimensions of these questions illustrate teachers actively coming to terms with grounding project issues in the actualities of the school context and the power of the project to promote more complex analytical and reflective questioning by teachers. The components are such that similar questions can be asked of any school, but the responses must be generated in situationally-specific terms.
The Curriculum Context
An interesting aspect of the research was that project schools used authentic assessment as the explicit commencing point for the development of associated teaching and learning. The rational, linear, plan-teach-assess-evaluate approach was modified to give greater focus to a preliminary consideration of assessment. The teachers recognised that authentic assessment was inextricably linked to authentic teaching and learning, providing an impetus for reconceptualisation of the core process. Early reports from the schools indicated that focused deliberation about authentic assessment had resulted in it being used to construct syllabus content and determine pedagogy, to reconsider school-wide reporting and even to examine the organisational structure and core processes of the school.
A question faced by the teachers was whether existing curricular frameworks could accommodate the project focus. Some schools found that the project focus had to be constructed as a separate curricular entity, particularly when it was cross-disciplinary in nature and sited in a curricular context based on learning area separateness. An immediate consequence of this was ascertaining the project focus as core curricular, co-curricular, or extra- curricular with all of the titular and status implications for influence on the wider school. In one case, the professional community in the school indicated clearly from the outset that the project focus could be accommodated as either co-curricular or extra-curricular, but would not be accepted as part of the core curriculum. Similarly, in another school, some parents were unconvinced about the relative value of the project focus, regarding it more as extra-curricular or co-curricular. They revealed that they regarded the core curriculum very much in traditional terms and were very determined in their insistence that specific subject areas should be quarantined from the project. It was clear that a value hierarchy of subjects existed in the parent body. Understandably, perhaps, this was mirrored in the initial reactions of some students at that school who regarded the project theme as less-demanding, less-rigorous and more "fun _project work" as opposed to the "real" learning of the traditional curriculum. Although most quickly realised that this was a misconception, their attitude reminded teachers and researchers of the values biases inherent in school communities towards what really counts and what is really worth knowing in the school curriculum. In such circumstances the challenge becomes one of ensuring that aspects of school reform which present as alternatives to established practices and beliefs are recognised for their real value. The same challenge exists in the professional communities in schools where teachers also have personal values hierarchies. We were reminded of this by one senior teacher - an influential figure in the school - who dismissed that school’s project as "the youth club thing".
Some teachers found that their project focus could be used to fit directly with more general frameworks and guides such as Key Competencies and Statements and Profiles. However, the intermediary school curriculum interpretation of these general frameworks was such that the project focus could not be accommodated in its configuration. In other words, the school-based curriculum development framework, although providing a structure for teaching and learning, actually determined content, sequencing, methodological and assessment features in such a way as to exclude authentic assessment and marginalise the project focus.
The Assessment and Reporting Context
Teachers who involved school communities and wider community representation were generally encouraged by responses to the linking of curriculum to life beyond the school. There was an acknowledgment of the relevance and meaning of such learning, particularly for vocational preparation, but there was still concern about whether school and wider systems would recognise and ascribe value. There were several instances of community members pursuing or explicitly enquiring whether the "alternative" approaches used in the project were confined to disinclined or academically less able students. The teachers and researchers were reminded in no uncertain terms that school reform is embedded in a societal context and that there is an enduring need for community education about what schooling should be, could be and is. The novelty tag of reform approaches must be replaced with a quality tag.
Of course, this may be more difficult to ensure if the schooling system itself, and in this project’s case the assessment framework in particular, is not flexible and mitigates against any deviations from orthodoxy. Although we knew in advance from the work of the Coalition of Essential Schools of the problematic interface between established assessment and reporting systems and school reform, we were continually reminded of related intricacies during the project. At one school, students were concerned greatly about the move from graded reporting to parents [A,B+,C-,D.etc] towards descriptive measures. Ultimately they found a compromise in using both side by side.
In another school, a subject employed a modular curriculum approach with summative tests on conclusion of each module providing the assessment and reporting basis. The professional community that taught that subject to students not involved in the authentic assessment groups, exerted great pressure in attempts to insist that the same module tests should be a_pplied to project group students, despite the fact that the project group had not followed a module approach. There was a claim that this would provide an objective comparison of the effectiveness of the differing methodologies! There was clearly a need in this school not only for a wider consideration of the meaning of assessment, but also for an examination of the possibility of more deeply-seated professional concerns about and antagonism towards the project, and the possible consequences of this tension for school harmony.
Similarly, in one school, staff responsible for the teaching of a particular subject area were sufficiently concerned about potential teaching and assessment implications if the authentic assessment approaches were applied, that they referred their concerns to their industrial body in an effort to prevent introduction of any middle schooling approaches and to oppose any changes to their work practices. Assessment was confirmed as a very loaded aspect of teachers’ work, and the seat of strongly-believed and closely-guarded elements of the power-relationships between teachers and others – possibly the last professional bastion! There was great sensitivity towards any prospective changes to the power-balance such as that posed by authentic assessment’s involvement of students. Researchers were very conscious that at face value assessment was being examined, but that much more fundamental and potentially volatile professional dimensions were just beneath the surface. We were reminded of chaos theory’s "butterfly effect" where the seemingly-innocuous flutter of a butterfly’s wings instigates a chain reaction that culminates in chaotic consequences! Another school had constructed its project more cautiously and had circumvented such controversy by categorically assuring the professional community in the school that the project did not challenge the assessment processes used in other areas of the curriculum. There is clearly more at stake than meets the eye.
We found that there is still a call from parents for an assessment and reporting system that provides them with information to compare their child’s results to others and to "normal" expectations for the age group and year level. This seemed to be more prevalent in the later years of schooling. Even some parents who recognised the importance and advantages of individual developmental assessment and reporting and readily acknowledged the weaknesses in the conventional systems, still felt the need for some comparative "yard-stick" reference.
In several cases parents also voiced doubts about whether an authentic assessment approach would be acceptable to prospective employers. They felt that the world of work needed reports that allowed employers to make expeditious decisions. They acknowledged the lack of accuracy and information in these reports, but they had concerns that time pressures prevented full reading of descriptive assessment. Of more concern was their view that descriptive assessment lacks comparative specificity and results in a "sameness" for the majority in reporting. They believed that prospective employers preferred a simple, clear and comparative reporting system. In one school with a strong representation of small business owners in the parent community, this apparent paradox was very evident. Reporting to a researcher from the perspective of prospective employers, they readily agreed that descriptive assessment provided them with a much fuller profile of applicants, but indicated that what they needed was some comparative _measure to enable them to select the "best" person for the job. Apart from being a time-saving device for them, standardised comparative reporting would allow them to compare leavers from different schools and thus provide an indication of which were the "better" schools. There was a very articulate support for norm-referencing in reporting in this school community but the responses also served to alert researchers that assessment is not entirely an internal school matter. It is also couched in the wider context of other schools and the wider community perceptions of comparability.
The project also revealed some of the hidden agenda in the values of an orthodox assessment system. Beneath surface repudiation of certain aspects of orthodox assessment, there was evidence in one school of a valuing of rigour, sometimes to extremes - gaining through pain, "hard" and demanding measures, working under pressure, coping with anxiety, and the usefulness of fear of failure as a motivator. Subscribers to such views also held that orthodox assessment had benefits that were not offered by the "softer" authentic assessment, including the development of "moral fibre", as a vehicle for behavioural control and as a robust focus on "inadequacies" and "failings" that could be useful in providing a diagnostic basis for remedial work. The success criteria of such an approach appeared to embrace values of competition, resilience and survival.
The Change Context
This project exemplified that reform ventures have the potential to cause a ferment of probing, questioning and deliberative reflection that can far transcend the intended project parameters and impact at the wider school level. In one school with a very public commitment to middle schooling, there was some disquiet amongst staff that a "successful" project would lead to a school-wide adoption of the curriculum model, pedagogy and assessment being used in the project classes. This triggered much wider debates about the school’s vision and purpose, the consequences of implementing practices and procedures which more accurately reflected these and the professional implications for individual teachers. It was evident that the fear of imposed change to relatively unknown approaches was regarded by some teachers as a threat and a professional intrusion. The need to continually inform and maintain dialogue with the school’s professional community was reiterated.
It also revealed the further complication that most of the teachers directly involved in the project and those involved in the schools’ professional communities graduated through a system of teacher-education that reflected and reproduced the dominant primary-secondary paradigm with all of the associated "baggage". Limited access to the concept of middle schooling had been gained by the schools’ learning communities so some aspects of the project were shrouded in ignorance and misconceptions. These proved to be greater obstacles for those teachers who felt comfortable with or accepted the underpinnings of the primary-secondary paradigm, than for those who were more open to alternatives in their pursuit of improvement. Some professional community tensions surfaced as the relative stances interacted and, in some cases, these disrupted the flow of the project. In essence, we observed many illustrations _of the competing forces of conservation and change, but we also were made aware of the system structures that impact upon middle schooling reform. Examples included selection of staff where applicants are usually required to categorise themselves against the educational artificiality of the primary-secondary divide, and concerns about the absence of career structures and promotion mechanisms which act as disincentives to those with interests in middle schooling. The very widest professional structures can impact upon research ventures involving schools particularly if it is perceived that system structures do not accommodate such variations and therefore cannot possibly value them. The structural context relegates such initiatives to a temporary or reduced-value status and is less likely to attract the support required to enhance success.
In the individual professional context, involvement in the project meant that most of the teachers encountered a steep learning curve as they attempted to fast track their conceptualisation and practice of authentic assessment. This was grounded in varied conceptualisations of middle schooling in general and represented significant change in the work of many of the teachers and the schools. The intricacy here was at the personal-professional level and involved individual variations in flexibility, risk-taking, orientation to reflective practice and commitment to reforming teachers’ work. There was also something of a "leap of faith" involved for many teachers. They were prepared to varying degrees to embark upon a professional development journey which confronted them with uncertainties that daunted some of their colleagues. These included doubts about their own knowledge of the project theme; the degree of change required of them; whether the project focus "worked" generally; whether it would be successful in the specific school context; and what would be the consequences of an unsuccessful project. Several teachers expressed trepidation about the fact that the broader "crisis in education" context and the accountability climate in schooling exacerbated the risk factor. The prevailing educational climate and their perceived exposure by virtue of their involvement in the project added further dimensions to considerations of their involvement and commitment.
Another intricacy that emerged from this project and is common to research in schools concerns professional dilemmas in reporting projects to the wider professional community. There is a very real risk factor and often there appears to be more to be lost than gained. Considerable risk management and diplomacy must be employed to ensure that honest but balanced and sensitive project reporting occurs. There is some disquiet in making public some of the delicate matters that were encountered, often in highly-charged circumstances induced by the project. Yet these are so often the matters that lie at the core of a real appreciation of the complexity and demands of school reform, the ones that offer most for professional development and learning, the ones that cut to the quick of school change. A project such as this with limited numbers of participants faces additional complications in examining issues that emerged and in attempting to provide sufficient contextual information for illustration without identifying specific schools or teachers. Guarded reporting presents researchers with challenges to their skills and _affect. The divisive academic-teacher paradigm can be so easily reinforced if academic reports of research are perceived to be critical and disloyal, betraying cautiously-invested trust. However, value cannot be gained through diplomatic blandness, so the challenge for writers becomes one of achieving skilful balance, being protective yet honest, sensitive yet courageous. Perhaps these are reflections of some of the qualities required of educators involved in such projects?
References:
Cormack, P., Johnson, B., Peters, J. & Williams, D. (1997) "Making assessment ‘authentic’: Questions and challenges for middle years research and practice." Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, Brisbane, November 30th – December 4th, 1997.
Fullan, M.G. (1982) The Meaning of Educational Change, New York, Teachers College Press
Fullan, M.G. & Miles, M.B. (1992) "Getting reform Right: What Works and What Doesn’t", Phi Delta Kappan, June, pp.745-752
Hargreaves, A. (1994) Changing Teachers, Changing Times, London, Cassell
Johnson, B., Peters, J., Cormack, P. & Williams, D. (1997) "Academics working with schools: Resolving the tensions." Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, Brisbane, November 30th – December 4th, 1997.
Stigler, J. (1997) "Classroom Mathematics Instruction In Three Cultures: An Introduction To The TIMSS Video Study". Paper presented at the 1997 Educational Research Association Conference Research Across The Disciplines, Singapore, November 1997
Walker, A. and Dimmock, C.(1997) "Hong Kong Principalship Dilemmas: Situations, Sources And Relationships", Paper presented at the 1997 Educational Research Association Conference Research Across The Disciplines, Singapore, November 1997
Williams, D., Tunney, H., and Grealy, T. (eds), (1996) Learning Together: University-School Partnerships For Professional Development, Adelaide, University of South Australia Roundtable