Disseminating Your Action Research [1 ed.] 1032345098, 9781032345093

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Disseminating Your Action Research

This practical and easy-to-use book offers professional educators of any academic level, subject area, or position the tools, techniques, and strategies to disseminate, share, publish, and promote the results of their action research projects and studies. Acclaimed author Craig A. Mertler offers a clear-cut guide for practitionerresearchers, covering the following: ■ ■ ■

A robust overview of action research/practitioner research, including its characteristics, processes, and professional benefits; Discussion of the main products for disseminating practitioner research, including written reports, presentations, and visual formats; Delivery strategies for disseminating practitioner research, including refereed publications (both practitioner and scholarly), face-to-face and virtual presentations (conferences, local presentations, and elsewhere), as well as social media and electronic media, from blogs and podcasts to Twitter and LinkedIn.

Written for any educational practitioner in any role—from in-service and preservice teachers in PK-12 or higher education settings to scholars, administrators, policymakers, staff, graduate students, and other researchers—this book offers a pragmatic and motivational guide useful for any field of education in which practitioner research is component. Craig A. Mertler is a Professor of Action Research and Quantitative Methods at Barry University, Miami, Florida, USA. He is the author of 28 other books.

Disseminating Your Action Research A Practical Guide to Sharing the Results of Practitioner Research Craig A. Mertler

Designed cover image: © Getty Images First published 2024 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Craig A. Mertler The right of Craig A. Mertler to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mertler, Craig A., author. Title: Disseminating your action research : a practical guide to sharing the results of practitioner research / Craig A. Mertler. Description: New York : Routledge, 2024. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023026029 (print) | LCCN 2023026030 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032345093 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032345055 (pbk) | ISBN 9781003322498 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Action research in education. Classification: LCC LB1028.24 .M476 2024 (print) | LCC LB1028.24 (ebook) | DDC 370.72--dc23/eng/20230809 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023026029 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023026030 ISBN: 978-1-032-34509-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-34505-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-32249-8 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003322498 Typeset in Sabon by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

Contents

Introduction: Why should you Concern yourself with Disseminating the Results of Practitioner Research?

1

Section I: An Overview of Action Research

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1 What Is Action Research?

7

Description of Action Research 7 Action Research versus Traditional Educational Research 10 What Action Research Is and Is Not 15 Professional Benefits of Action Research 16 Focus on Self 17 Connection of Theory to Practice 17 Improvement of Educational Practice 18 Social Justice Advocacy 19 Educator Empowerment, Intellectual Engagement, and Voice 19 Professional Growth and Learning 21 Similarities and Differences Between “Disseminating” and “Sharing” Research 22 The Importance of Both Approaches 22 Takeaways from this Chapter 23 References 24

2 A Primer on Conducting Action Research

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The Process of Conducting Action Research 26 Practitioner Research in Action—A Brief Example 33 Takeaways from this Chapter 35 References 36

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Contents Section II: Products for Disseminating and Sharing Practitioner Research

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3 Written Reports of Research

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A Primer on Academic Writing 39 Conventions of Style 41 Bias-Free Writing 41 Plagiarism and Self-Plagiarism 42 Titles and Abstracts 42 Person and Voice 45 Tense 46 Tentative and Definitive Statements 47 Clarity and Consistency 47 Simplicity of Language 48 Conventions of Format and Organization 49 Report Structure 49 Ethics in Writing Reports of Practitioner Research 51 Practical Guidelines for Writing a Practitioner Research Report 52 Takeaways from this Chapter 54 References 55

4 Presentations of Research

56

A Primer on Research Presentations 56 Types of Presentations 57 Paper Presentations 58 Symposium Presentations 60 Poster Presentations 62 Invited Presentations 63 Workplace Collegial Presentations 65 A Quick Note About Virtual Presentations 66 Ethics in Presenting Practitioner Research 67 Practical Guidelines for Developing a Practitioner Research Presentation 68 Takeaways from this Chapter 70 References 71

5 Posters, Infographics, and Video Formats Posters 72 Infographics 75 Video Formats 81 Ethics in Visual Portrayals of Practitioner Research 82 Practical Guidelines for Visually Sharing Practitioner Research 82 Takeaways from this Chapter 84 References 85

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Contents Section III: Strategies for Disseminating and Sharing Practitioner Research 87

6 Refereed Publications

89

Why Publish in a Refereed Journal? 89 Print versus Electronic Journals 91 Scholarly versus Practitioner Journals 93 The Refereed Publication Process 96 Best Practices in Publishing Practitioner Research 103 Takeaways from this Chapter 106 References 107

7 Face-to-Face (and Virtual) Presentations

108

Why Present Your Research to Others? 108 Site-based Conferences 109 Virtual Conferences 111 Invited Presentations 112 The Conference Presentation Process 113 Non-conference Presentations 117 Local Presentations 117 Practitioner Inquiry Communities 119 Best Practices in Presenting Practitioner Research 119 Takeaways from this Chapter 122 References 123

8 Social Media

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Twitter 125 Facebook 128 Instagram 131 Linkedin 133 Best Practices in Sharing Practitioner Research via Social Media 137 Takeaways from this Chapter 141 References 142

9 Even More Options

144

Personal Websites 144 Alternative Written Forms of Sharing Research 147 Blogs 148 Zines 149 Editorials 150 Alternative Non-written Forms of Sharing Research 151 Vlogs 151 Podcasts 151 YouTube and Vimeo 152

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CONTENTS Best Practices in Sharing Practitioner Research via Alternative Strategies 154 Takeaways from this Chapter 156 References 157

Section IV: You Can Do This! (And Please Do!)

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10 Motivating Yourself to Share Your Practitioner Research

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Revisiting the Original Question: Why Should You Be Concerned with Disseminating Your Research? 161 Importance of Sharing Results of Your Research 162 Realistic Expectations 164 A Final Word … Following Through and Following Up 166 Takeaways from this Chapter 169 References 170 Index

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173

Introduction Why should you Concern yourself with Disseminating the Results of Practitioner Research?

What do you think of when you hear the word “research”? For many people, the word “research” evokes negative connotations for a variety of reasons. Some people have an innate aversion to the concept of research. The word itself tends to elicit feelings and thoughts of an esoteric process—one that many people, unless they were trained specifically in how to conduct research, find extremely foreign. Still others find it far removed from their work as professionals in virtually any industry or setting. They write it off as something that is engaged in and conducted only by scientists or perhaps university professors. From my experiences as a professor of education—specifically as a professor of educational research methods—over the course of three decades, I know firsthand that many graduate students in education tend to identify research methods courses as their least favorite aspect of their graduate programs. Admittedly, some graduate students are excited and look forward to any research methods course that they are required to take; however, a majority oftentimes save it as the last course that they have to take before completing their programs of study, due largely to feelings of apprehension and dread. In contrast, I love research. I love the research process. I love jumping into the unknown, so to speak. I love the process of brainstorming and designing research, and collecting and analyzing data. I especially love when I reach conclusions near the end of a research study and then have to conjecture what that means for me, personally, and for the phenomenon that I am studying as we move forward. Research is how we learn

DOI: 10.4324/9781003322498-1

1

INTRODUCTION

new things. Research is how we advance knowledge for the benefit of other people or conditions in our local and larger communities. Without research, and those individuals who conduct it, I shudder to think where we would be as a society. Please understand that my goal with this book in front of you is not to dissuade the reader from engaging in research. Actually, it is quite the opposite. As I have done throughout my career, I want to encourage educational practitioners everywhere to engage with the research process, to embrace its beneficial aspects, and to realize the professional growth, learning, and improvement that can be realized through its applications. That being said, we also want to be sure not to exclude the critical component of sharing the results of that research. The purpose of this book is to provide educational practitioners (e.g., teachers, administrators, and other school personnel—at all grade levels, subject areas, positions, and responsibilities) with strategies and other ideas for effective ways to disseminate, or otherwise share, the results of their action research projects and studies. The impetus for this idea stems from the fact that many practitioner-researchers fail to take advantage of opportunities to inform local, as well as not-so-local, colleagues of their creative and innovative problem-solving action research work. This likely occurs because of either not knowing how to share results of action research or being uncomfortable doing so … or, perhaps, a combination of the two. This book is designed to assist educational practitioners at all levels (i.e., PK-16 and beyond), instructional content areas, institutional roles (e.g., faculty, administrators, and staff), and levels of experience who implement innovative approaches and conduct action research in those roles in formally disseminating and informally sharing the results of their strategic and systematic problem-solving initiatives. It is important to note that this book is not a presentation of theoretical or philosophical perspectives on disseminating the results of research. While this is important, it is not the focus of this book. This text consists of very practical and applied approaches, suggestions, and best practices for disseminating and sharing the results of practitioner research. While the primary target audience for this book consists of practicing educators, it could also prove to be a valuable tool for university faculty. I say this for two very distinct reasons. First, this book can assist faculty in guiding graduate students to disseminate their graduate program research. This is particularly important for doctoral students in practitioner-based programs who do research that is designed to inform practice in their current context. University faculty could use this book as a

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INTRODUCTION

means of directing their students to find appropriate—and perhaps additional—outlets for sharing their practitioner research. Second, university faculty just might find this book helpful in terms of disseminating their own research, as well. While there is typically a focus in higher education for faculty to disseminate their research using traditional outlets (i.e., peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations), there exists alternative outlets for disseminating research work. While peer-reviewed publications and presentations are still highly important in the promotion and tenure-earning process, I believe that it is important to keep one simple fact in mind—the goal of disseminating research is to get your work in front of the eyes of as many people as possible. I would argue that we should not limit ourselves to only traditional forms of dissemination when there are other opportunities for extending the reach of our work. Over my career, I have written, published, and presented extensively on the topic of action research and practitioner research and continue to do so to this day. Regardless of an individual’s preference among the terms “action research,” “practitioner inquiry,” or “practitioner research,” I am a firm believer in its capability to empower educators—in addition to practitioners in other fields—to seek small-scale, as well as large-scale, change and improvement. Further, I believe that an often-neglected component of the action research process is that of sharing the results of said practitioner research endeavors with local—and, sometimes, larger—communities of practice. This is an important aspect of practitioner research and should not be overlooked. But why is sharing the results of your practitioner research important? This is a very good question to pose, especially in light of the fact that many would argue that a main goal of action research is for the practitioner—as the researcher as well as the end-user of the research results— to benefit directly from that inquiry, for purposes of improving practice. I find this to be a legitimate, albeit limited, perspective on practitioner research. A primary goal of any research is to change the world—however someone’s “world” might be defined. In the case of action research, the “world” we all hope to change is our local “world”—that is, our local communities. Educational practitioners who engage in the action research process are collectively trying to improve their practice, which ultimately results in better conditions and circumstances for their schools, their colleagues, their students, their families, and their local community as a whole— that is, their immediate world … the world around them. By not disseminating or otherwise sharing the results of action research, practitioners are, in essence, limiting the scope and potential reach of the impact that

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INTRODUCTION

their research might have. Conversely, doing so provides opportunities for the results of that research to extend beyond the local community and positively impact more individuals. While we admittedly conduct action research for our own individual and immediate benefits, overlooking the opportunity to influence others by sharing with them what we have learned essentially does an injustice to the process of conducting action research—or any form of research—in educational settings. The goal of this book and the strategies that lie within are to help facilitate just this sort of extension of experiential learning to other educational practitioners. Of equal importance is another byproduct of not only engaging in practitioner research but also sharing the results as widely as possible. Typically, teachers and other educational personnel often have very limited influence over decisions made in schools and school districts. By engaging in practitioner research, and then sharing the results of that research, teachers and other professional educators are given the opportunity to share their voice. Individuals who often possess the authority to make decisions in educational institutions are those who have access to data and research findings. By engaging in and sharing practitioner research, practicing educators at all levels possess a degree of this authority due to the fact that they have conducted research and are in possession of data that can be shared and can help to influence decisions. The concept of providing educators their due voice in decision-making should not be taken lightly, and the dissemination of practitioner research holds a great deal of power and promise with respect to providing practicing educators their appropriate voice. Section I provides a thorough description of action research/practitioner research—including its characteristics, process, and professional benefits, along with an overview (and example) of the process of conducting action research in educational settings. Section II offers a discussion of the main types or forms of products for disseminating practitioner research—written reports, presentations, and various visual formats. Section III presents numerous strategies for delivering the products of practitioner research— refereed publications, face-to-face (or virtual) presentations, social media, and other electronic media. Finally, Section IV provides arguably necessary “motivators” for practitioner-researchers to engage in various dissemination activities.

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Section I

An Overview of Action Research

Section I of the book introduces—or provides a review for readers who are familiar with—action research. In this chapter, you will learn about action research and how it is compared to other traditional forms of educational research. In addition, you will learn about several primary characteristics and qualities of action research to understand what action research is and what is not. Numerous benefits of action research are presented, along with a discussion of the differences between disseminating and sharing the results of research. In Chapter 2, the cyclical process of conducting action research in applied educational settings is presented, along with a concrete example of contextualized, practitioner research.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003322498-2

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Chapter One

What Is Action Research?

DESCRIPTION OF ACTION RESEARCH Arguably, the word “research” tends not to conjure up feelings of happiness and contentment in most people. From my experience and in my opinion, professional educators are no exception to this fact. A majority of professional educators likely believe that research is best left to professional researchers and university professors—those people who conduct research for a living or are required to do so as part of their professional responsibilities. There is, of course, some degree of truthfulness and accuracy in this observation. However, I am a firm believer in the fact that research should be viewed as an ally to all of us in the teaching and learning process (Mertler, 2018). My main reason for that belief is due to the fact that research provides us with systematic mechanisms for collecting meaningful data (e.g., student data, teacher data, administrative data, program-level data, schoollevel data, etc.) and then using those data to provide us with a basis for a well-informed educational decision. The broad field of education has become one that is focused on data-informed decision-making. It matters little what role or responsibilities you hold in an educational institution or context—decision-making in educational contexts is no longer reliant solely upon “gut instinct and reaction.” Its basis and foundation lie in hard data, which should be most appropriately gathered from those who are on the front lines of the teaching and learning process (Mertler, 2018). Research of any kind has its basis in the scientific method. Regardless of the field of study where research is being conducted, the scientific method is the foundation for the process we use to conduct research. In 1938, American philosopher and educator John Dewey described the scientific

DOI: 10.4324/9781003322498-3

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AN OVERVIEW OF ACTION RESEARCH

method as a systematic process for thinking more objectively (Mertler, 2020). He delineated the process as a series of the following steps: 1. Clarify the main question inherent in the problem. 2. State a hypothesis, as a possible answer to the question. 3. Collect, analyze, and interpret information related to the question, so that it permits you to answer the question. 4. Form conclusions derived from the analysis of your data. 5. Use the conclusions to verify or reject your stated hypothesis (p. 7). It is inappropriate to assume that all research studies follow these steps exactly, or in this exact order. As an example, some research studies do not formally state hypotheses, yet the other steps in Dewey’s process are still appropriate and applicable. Research studies of any kind will always share one important aspect of the process—collecting, analyzing, and interpreting information in the form of data. The result of this step consists of the information necessary to allow us to be able to address an initial question that we stated at the outset of the study. Most of us have probably been introduced to the scientific method. Many of us may have had the opportunity to interact directly with it perhaps during our middle school years, when we were tasked with designing and conducting a science fair project (Mertler, 2018). We began that process by identifying a topic, then stating a question that we wanted to answer or a prediction (i.e., a hypothesis) that we wanted to test. We then designed some sort of “experiment” and collected our own empirical and original data. We somehow—likely, informally—analyzed our data, and then used those results as the evidence necessary to answer our original question or pass judgment on the prediction that we stated when we began our study. Ah … our initial foray into conducting our own research! While there are numerous similarities between traditional educational research and action research that we will examine momentarily, there is one crucial difference. Rest assured that action research is educational research; however, it is the research that is conducted by educators for themselves (Mertler, 2020). Individuals who are—to some degree— removed from the situation and context that they are investigating often conduct traditional educational research. For example, university professors or graduate research assistants may conduct more traditional forms of research in education, often with an affiliation to a grant-funded project or graduate-level research. In contrast, action research is conducted by the individual or individuals who not only play an active role and who have a vested interest in the particular setting, but also in most instances

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WHAT IS ACTION RESEARCH?

are responsible for identifying the problem being studied. Johnson (2013) has described action research as being a true systematic inquiry into one’s own practice [emphasis added]. In addition and more specifically, Mills (2018) defines action research as any systematic inquiry conducted by teachers, administrators, counselors, or others with a vested interest in the teaching and learning process or environment for the purposes of gathering information about how their particular operate, how they teach, and how their students learn. For example, action research allows teachers to study their own classrooms—e.g., their own instructional methods, their own students, or their own assessments—in order to better understand them and to be able to improve their quality or effectiveness (Mertler, 2020). It focuses specifically on the unique characteristics of the population with whom a practice is employed or with whom some action must be taken. This, in turn, results in the increased utility and effectiveness of research for the practitioner (Parsons & Brown, 2002). One of the things that is crucial to the potential success of educational practitioners conducting action research in their local contexts is support from administrators at both the building and district levels. When professional educators decide to study their own practice for the purpose of seeking improvement, they are making a commitment to being courageous—in terms of striving to better themselves, stepping outside of their comfort zones, and perhaps even dealing with a few failures along the way (Mertler, 2019). As fantastic as it is to see these courageous educators in action, simply being courageous is not enough to ensure success. There needs to be support from administrators who value continuous improvement and place a premium on professional learning and growth. They need to support their teachers in trying new and innovative things to see if they can improve student learning, or teacher effectiveness. It should go without saying that they support training in the conduct of action research as a professional development activity (Mertler, 2013). In addition, they must be provided with the ample time necessary to implement this kind of professional work. Finally, moral and collegial support can also carry a great deal of weight and influence as a supportive administrative strategy. It would logically follow, then, that administrative support of the act of disseminating or sharing the results of action research would be of equal importance. There are numerous ways in which this support can occur— many of which we will talk about later in the book. At this point, suffice to say that administrative support throughout the process of conducting contextualized action research is both necessary and critical. At this point, I would be remiss if I did not discuss terminology and nomenclature. The term “action research” is often considered by many to

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be synonymous with other terms, including classroom research, teacher research, teacher inquiry, practitioner inquiry, practitioner research … and there may be others. In my opinion, I believe that all of these terms are truly synonymous with each other. However, it is important to recognize that there may be others around the world who might disagree with me due to the fact that there are subtle differences between these various applied research concepts. However, when we utilize them in educational settings—and where we are focusing on solving problems and improving practice—I truly believe them to be synonymous. As a compromise, and in an attempt to be respectful to those whose opinions might differ from mine, let us agree to call these terms “metonyms”—meaning that each is a very close substitute for the others. Therefore, I will use the terms “action research” and “practitioner research” interchangeably throughout this book. Please know that I am referring to the identical practice of educational practitioners designing and conducting their own research on self-identified problems for the purposes of seeking improvement and change with respect to the phenomenon being investigated.

ACTION RESEARCH VERSUS TRADITIONAL EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH As mentioned previously, traditional educational research is routinely conducted by individuals who are somewhat removed from the environment or setting that they are studying. This certainly does not mean that those individuals are not committed to the topics and phenomena that they are studying; they are very interested in the ultimate results related to those studies, and work very diligently to study them as completely as possible. What I am implying is that they typically study students and teachers, schools, and educational programs with which they seldom have any specific personal involvement. At this point, let us review some of the basics of traditional research conducted in the broad field of education. Please note that this is not meant to be an exhaustive review of traditional educational research; in contrast, it is meant to provide a broad overview or brief refresher of various research methodologies and approaches. There are three basic categories of or approaches to conducting traditional educational research: quantitative research, qualitative research, and mixed-methods research. These three approaches to conducting educational research are primarily distinguished by the nature in which data are collected and analyzed. In addition, these research methodologies are based on different assumptions about how to best understand the world or a particular phenomenon of interest, or what comprises

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the realities or perceptions held by different individuals. Although they should not necessarily be treated as mutually exclusive, let us initially examine each one individually. Generally speaking, quantitative research requires the collection and analysis of numerical data (e.g., test scores, ratings of perceptions or opinions, or frequency counts—i.e., numbers); qualitative research methodologies involve the collection and analysis of narrative data (e.g., observation notes, interview transcripts, or journal entries—i.e., words). Mixed-methods research includes approaches to research where both numerical and narrative data are collected and analyzed within the same study. Quantitative research tends to work from broader ideas and ends with results that are more specific to a particular setting or situation. Researchers begin by stating research questions they wish to answer or hypotheses they wish to test, then collect data by measuring variables—typically small in number. For example, a quantitative research study might require the collection of data on elementary school discipline referrals and absenteeism (numerical variables) in order to answer the following research question: Are there differences in the rates and types of disciplinary problems and absenteeism in schools with a K–8 grade span versus those with other grade span configurations (e.g., K–6, 6–8)? (Mertler, 2020). Researchers must also specify a research design—the plan that will be used to carry out the study. Research designs may be described as being either nonexperimental or experimental. In nonexperimental research studies, researchers have no direct control over any variable in the study, either because the variables—or measurements of those variables—have already occurred or because it is not possible or ethical for any of the variables to be controlled or manipulated. Examples of nonexperimental studies include descriptive, comparative, correlational, and causal-comparative research. Descriptive studies simply report information about the frequency or amount of something that has occurred. Comparative studies build on descriptive studies by not only reporting the frequency of something, but then also comparing two or more groups on the variable(s) that have been measured. Correlational studies measure the degree to which two or more variables are related. Finally, causal-comparative studies (also sometimes referred to as ex post facto studies) compare groups—where group membership has been determined by something that occurred in the past (e.g., gender or class membership)—on subsequent data collected on another variable. In experimental research studies, the researcher actually has some degree of control over one or more of the variables included in the study; this variable may serve as an influence or cause of participants’ behavior. The variable over which the researcher has control is known as the

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independent variable. Independent variables are those that are manipulated by the researcher—meaning that the researcher determines which participants in the study will receive which (of two or more) conditions. In the simplest experimental designs, there are two groups: the treatment group and the comparison group. For example, the treatment group would receive a condition that is seen as being new, innovative, or simply different; whereas, the comparison group would receive the condition that has typically been utilized in the past. The ultimate variable of interest—the behavior or performance, for example—is referred to as the dependent variable and is measured for both groups. The scores on the dependent variable (for each of the two or more conditions or groups) are then compared. Data collected during quantitative research studies are numerical and, therefore, analyzed statistically. The analyses of quantitative data may include descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, or both. Descriptive statistics allow researchers to summarize, organize, and simplify large amounts of data. Specific techniques include the calculation of such statistics as the mean, median, mode, range, standard deviation, correlations, and standardized scores. The use of inferential statistics involves more complex mathematical procedures and enables researchers to test the statistical significance of the difference between two groups or the degree of relationship between two or more variables. Commonly used inferential statistical techniques include t-tests, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and regression. As mentioned, inferential statistics enable the researcher to test the size of the difference between groups or strength of the relationship between variables for statistical significance. Statistical significance refers to the extent to which the results of the statistical analysis (e.g., the treatment group scored higher than the comparison group) will enable researchers to conclude that the findings of a given study are large enough in the sample studied in order to represent a meaningful difference or relationship in the population from which the sample was selected. In opposition to quantitative studies, qualitative research begins with observations that are much more specific, with the goal of making much broader conclusions at the end of the study. The focus of qualitative research is typically broader and much more holistic, focusing on a large number of potential variables. There is no attempt to control variables in a qualitative research study; researchers study the “world” as it exists. The research questions that guide qualitative research studies tend to be more broad and open-ended when compared to their quantitative counterparts. This, therefore, encourages the use of multiple types of measures and observations, such as observations with recorded notes, interviews with

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WHAT IS ACTION RESEARCH?

recorded transcripts, and journals—all of which result in the collection of narrative data. This collection of a wide variety of data for the purposes of getting a more holistic picture of the topic or phenomenon that serves as the focus of the study also permits the researcher to engage in a process known as triangulation. Triangulation is the process of relating multiple sources and types of data in order to verify the accuracy and consistency of the observations made in a qualitative research study. Often, people will interpret “triangulation” as meaning that there must be three (as in tri-)—no more, no less—sources of data. This really is not accurate, as the specific number of sources or types of data should be dictated by the research situation at hand. It is for this reason that I sometimes prefer the use of the term “polyangulation” (since the prefix poly- is defined as “more than one or many”) (Mertler, 2020). Similar to quantitative research, there are a variety of designs that can be used in a qualitative research study. These designs include phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory, and case studies, among others. Phenomenological studies require that the researchers engage in a lengthy process of individual interviews in an attempt to fully and completely understand a particular research topic. Ethnographic studies attempt to describe social interactions between people in intact group settings. Grounded theory research studies try to discover a theory that somehow relates to a particular environment, situation, or setting. Finally, case studies are in-depth investigations of individual and specific programs, activities, people, or groups. Although all data will be narrative in form, the data collected during a qualitative research study may be quite diverse. These data are then analyzed by means of a process known as logicoinductive analysis, which is a thought process that makes use of logic in order to uncover patterns, trends, and themes across all the various types of data collected. It is probably very obvious that quantitative and qualitative approaches to conducting educational research are quite different on a variety of levels. Decades ago, researchers in education treated the two approaches to research as if they were entirely independent of one another. Realistically, however, it makes some degree of sense that educational research studies could (and should) employ both types of designs and data. These types of studies are referred to as mixed-methods research studies. The distinct benefit of mixed-methods studies is that the combination of both types of data tends to provide a better and more thorough understanding of the research problem, as opposed to simply using one type of data in isolation. In other words, these types of studies essentially capitalize on the strengths of both quantitative and qualitative data. Mixed-methods

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AN OVERVIEW OF ACTION RESEARCH

Figure 1.1 Summary of Various Research Designs Used in Education Research Studies.

research studies have become widely accepted as an approach to investigating educational problems. There are three basic mixed-methods designs: explanatory sequential mixed-methods, exploratory sequential mixed-methods, and convergent parallel mixed-methods. All of these diverse quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods designs are summarized in Figure 1.1, which also depicts how action research studies can consist of any of these various designs. So, how does action research relate to educational research? Simply put—and to reiterate an earlier point—action research is educational research. Action research studies can use any of the designs—quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods—that have been discussed previously. I believe mixed-methods designs and action research studies to be very similar to one another, since they both often utilize quantitative and qualitative data, but that does not mean that action research studies must rely on a combination of types of data. The only real difference between action research and any of the approaches to conducting more traditional forms of educational research has little—if anything—to do with a specific approach, research design, or type of data, but rather rests solely in

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WHAT IS ACTION RESEARCH?

the underlying purpose for the research. The main goal of quantitative research is to describe and explain a research problem; that for qualitative research is to develop a holistic description of a research situation, often for the purposes of developing theory. The purpose of mixed-methods studies is similar to traditional quantitative research (i.e., to better understand and explain a research problem). However, the main goal of action research is to address local-level problems with the anticipation of finding immediate answers to questions or solutions to problems. A final distinction between action research and more traditional forms of educational research resides in the fact that action research is largely about examining one’s own professional practice. Because this is the case, reflection is an integral part of the action research process—one that is not often or necessarily seen in more traditional forms of research. Reflection can be defined as the act of critically exploring what you are doing, why you decided to do it, and what its effects have been (Mertler, 2020). When professional educators engage in action research, they must become reflective with respect to the situation or circumstance they are studying and trying to improve.

WHAT ACTION RESEARCH IS AND IS NOT There are numerous aspects of the process of engaging in the action research process that characterize its uniqueness as an approach to conducting educational research. It is important for educators—at all levels and professional positions—to have a sound, foundational understanding of exactly what action research is and is not. The following list is an attempt to describe what action research is (Mertler, 2020, p. 18). Action research is … ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

a process that improves education, in general, by incorporating change. a process involving educators working together to improve their own practices. persuasive and authoritative, since it is done by educators for educators. collaborative; that is, it is composed of educators talking and working with other educators in empowering relationships. participative, since educators are integral members—not disinterested outsiders—of the research process. practical and relevant to educational practitioners, since it allows them direct access to research findings.

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developing critical reflection about one’s teaching. a planned, systematic approach to understanding the learning process. a cyclical process of planning, acting, developing, and reflecting.

In order to truly understand what action research is, educators must also understand what it is not (Mertler, 2020, p. 19). Action research is not … ■■ ■■

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the usual thing that teachers do when thinking about teaching; it is more systematic and more collaborative. simply problem-solving; it involves the specification of a problem, the development of something new (in most cases), and critical reflection on its effectiveness. done “to” or “by” other people; it is research done by particular educators, on their own work, with students and colleagues. the simple implementation of predetermined answers to educational questions; it explores, discovers, and works to find creative solutions to educational problems. conclusive; the results of action research are neither right nor wrong but rather tentative solutions that are based on observations and other data collection and that require monitoring and evaluation in order to identify strengths and limitations. A fad; good teaching has always involved the systematic examination of the instructional process and its effects on student learning. Teachers are always looking for ways to improve instructional practice, and although teachers seldom have referred to this process of observation, revision, and reflection as “research,” that is precisely what it is.

PROFESSIONAL BENEFITS OF ACTION RESEARCH There are numerous professional benefits that can be realized through engagement with the action research process. These benefits include: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

a focus on self; the connection of theory to practice; improvement of educational practice; social justice advocacy; educator empowerment, intellectual engagement, and voice; and professional growth and learning.

Each of these will be briefly discussed next.

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Focus on Self I am often asked by educators why they should become involved with action research. The best answer that I can give has several components that often begin with the fact that action research deals with your problems and not someone else’s. In addition, action research is very timely; it can start whenever you are ready and can provide immediate results. Further, action research provides educators with opportunities to better understand—and, therefore, improve—their educational practice. When multiple educators within the same context engage in action research, it can help promote the building of stronger relationships among colleagues with whom we work. Finally, in contrast to a traditional trial-and-error methodology, action research provides educators with alternative ways of viewing and approaching educational questions and problems, and with new ways of examining our own educational practices (Mertler, 2020).

Connection of Theory to Practice Generally speaking, research is often used to develop theories, and those theories eventually help to determine best practices in the broader field of education. These best practices are then used to help teachers become more effective at providing learning experiences for their students. However, there is a fundamental breakdown and gap in this process. Most research and the resulting theories are not written for practicing educators. They are written for other researchers. It could be argued that in professions where practice is heavily evidence-based, the people who do the research are also the people who use the research (Davies, 2016). However, this is not the case in the education profession. To reiterate an earlier point, most research in education is conducted by researchers or university professors, with the ultimate expectation that the results of those studies be used by practitioners in classrooms. As Davies (2016) explains, in the education profession, there is a fundamental breakdown in this process. He cites four major reasons for this: 1. Education research is not written for teachers. Arguably, the vast majority of educational research is written by researchers for other researchers. In addition, rewards in academia tend to be based on publishing lots of papers, getting lots of citations of those papers, and publishing in high-tier journals. None of these three things fosters the reading of a research article by a practitioner.

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2. Many people experience difficulties with access to research. Unless educational practitioners have some sort of connection to a university, they oftentimes cannot get access to research articles that are only accessible through an institution’s library system. More and more, articles are being published online which, in theory, makes them more accessible to everyone worldwide. However, as is typically the case, when we find research articles online, we are forced to pay a fee that could be anywhere from $20 to $60 USD in order to download the article. I am not sure about you, but I do not know a lot of people—in any profession—who are willing to pay that much money to read a research article. 3. Education articles are too long and poorly written. I wholeheartedly agree that most education articles are entirely too long and tend to ramble on. I do take exception with the fact that Davies says that they are poorly written. I actually think that they are well written…. They are simply written for the wrong audience. Again, they are written for other researchers, and not for practitioners. 4. Educators suffer from a lack of expertise. Most published research is the result of empirical data collection and analysis. This often results in the use of advanced analytical strategies, whether they be quantitative or qualitative. Unfortunately, a majority of practicing educators do not possess the kind of expertise necessary to understand or comprehend these articles. In a similar vein, they often cannot tell if the research designs or methodologies that were employed were incorrectly done and full of flaws or were just altogether inappropriate. This is certainly not a criticism of practitioners; it is a simple observation. Therefore, if and when they encounter such research, they likely are getting lost in reading the article and abandon the effort altogether. Honestly, who can blame them. As you have read earlier in this chapter, action research—where practitioners research their own problems and arrive at immediate solutions—is an incredibly viable and practical approach to bridging this gap.

Improvement of Educational Practice As you have previously read, a main focus of action research is the improvement of educational practice. When educators are reflective about their practice, they are able to use the information that they collect to evaluate their current practices and make informed and valuable improvements. It is critical to realize that this often necessitates a shift in mindset.

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Successful educators often believe that they have mastered their profession, and as long as they keep doing what has made them successful in the past, they will continue to be successful in the future. As we all know, this is not necessarily the case, as all sorts of things—including curriculum, pedagogies and instructional strategies, cultures, students, families, district or statewide initiatives, etc.—can and will change over time. By default, this necessitates that successful practitioners reflect on and change their own practice in order to meet head-on the changes that are outside of their control.

Social Justice Advocacy In today’s educational climate, all of us are more focused on providing equal and fair educational opportunities to all students, regardless of their upbringing, social class, gender identification, race, ethnicity, and so on. We desperately need equal and fair opportunities so that all students with whom we interact have the potential to become the best members of society that they can be. Action research can serve as a wonderful mechanism for challenging injustices and valuing diversity (Mertler, 2020). Although this is considered a slightly different application of action research—commonly referred to as critical action research—that is beyond the immediate scope of this book, it is still worth mentioning as an important benefit of conducting action research in educational settings.

Educator Empowerment, Intellectual Engagement, and Voice I know that I should not reveal any sort of preferential treatment, but these last two benefits are my favorites! In and of themselves, they make action research well worth the investment of time and effort by educational practitioners. I believe that action research is highly effective at cultivating and advancing the notion of educator empowerment. It seems that with each passing year, the educational climate in the US, as well as in other countries around the world, becomes more and more data-driven in the approach to education and decision-making. When educators collect data, analyze those data, and systematically reflect on their own teaching and their students’ learning—followed by the use of all of this acquired information to help guide better-informed educational decisions—they truly become empowered. This empowerment fosters the use of their own unique sets of expertise, talents, and creativity so that they can implement instructional programs that will best meet the needs of their students. The educators themselves become the appropriate judges to determine when

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and where risk-taking and instructional change may be appropriate and beneficial. This constitutes a substantial shift in mindset, which I do not believe would be feasible were it not for the integration of action research into the profession. As an extension of the notion of empowerment, when educators engage in this kind of work, they begin to assume different roles within their schools—for example, the roles of facilitator, supporter, coach, and mentor. While the skills and abilities of building- and district-level administrators will always be necessary and needed, the “locus of control” is essentially and fundamentally returned to the classroom level when teachers begin to assume these different roles. When a greater level of “control” is returned to the classroom teacher, the effectiveness of schools is enhanced and school improvement is promoted (Johnson, 2013). All of these things are widely important in terms of providing educators with a “voice at the table,” so to speak—representing an increase in power and influence in the process of data-informed decision-making. After engagement in the action research process and utilizing what educators have learned through this process, they become better informed, with the knowledge gained being immediately reflective of engagement in the research process. This effectively enables teachers and other educators to build capacity, regain a substantial degree of lost autonomy, and lend voice to their professional work (Vaughan & Mertler, 2020). An additional benefit that accompanies an increased level of empowerment is a greater level of intellectual engagement with respect to all that goes on within classrooms, as well as within the school as a whole. The experiences and skills that educators gain through engagement in a process of reflective action research are beneficial not only within the parameters of that which they are critically examining, but are also transferable to other professional activities, including those daily activities associated with running an effective and efficient classroom. When there is a shift in school culture to a focus on improving practice through research, teachers are permitted—dare I say, even encouraged—to take risks and make changes to their instructional practice, whenever and wherever they believe it to be appropriate. In essence, the broader result of this process is that teachers and other educators have the capacity to become what Dana and Yendol-Hoppey (2019) refer to as “knowledge generators.” Teachers have been historically seen as “dispensers of knowledge,” as opposed to “generators of knowledge.” The professional knowledge that can be generated by considering and valuing the perspectives of educational practitioners through the application of action research has the potential to alter that landscape (Mertler, 2021).

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Professional Growth and Learning Since the early 1980s, action research has been promoted as a significant alternative to more “typical” in-service training and professional development for educators. More than 40 years ago, Oliver (1980) argued that the major benefit of action research as in-service training is that it promotes a continuing process of professional development in a climate where teachers (and other school personnel) not only pose the research questions, but also test their own solutions, as well. McNiff (2002) has been a strong advocate for the use of action research to foster substantial professional development. She has stated that action research can be utilized both formally and informally, and should begin with the question, “How do I improve my [emphasis added] work?” This approach is very different from more traditional views of professional development, which typically takes the form of training (where an expert on some topic is brought in to offer advice to educational professionals). In this model, the emphasis typically falls more on the “training” (by the expert) rather than on the “learning” (by the educators) (Mertler, 2013). In addition, the traditional model of “one-size-fits-all” professional development is typified by everyone in a school, for example, receiving training on the same topic, whether they need it or not … whether they are already an expert or not … whether that particular set of skills is even part of their job responsibilities or not. Action research is customizable and meaningful professional learning for educators (Mertler, 2013, 2018). In today’s schools, we need to operate under the assumption that our educators already possess a great deal of professional knowledge and are highly capable of extending their own learning (McNiff, 2002). We must do so because teachers have proven that they are proficient at extending their own individualized professional learning. The challenge for these educators—as well as those who lead them—is that they typically have not been provided the opportunity to do so. However, at the same time, this requires that educators act as courageous professionals—always striving to better themselves, as well as their individual and collective practices. This means that there will sometimes be challenges—and, perhaps, even failures—but courageous educators see these happenings as opportunities for further growth and learning. Action research—the act of systematically and reflectively investigating one’s own professional practice for the overarching goal of improving that practice—is the epitome of customizable and meaningful professional development for educators (Mertler, 2013, 2020).

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A teacher with whom we recently worked (Mertler & Hartley, 2017) expressed this likely better than I could ever do, when she stated, “There is a sense of ownership, a sense of completion that we do not get from other professional development opportunities. No one can argue that this does not pertain to my classroom—this is [emphasis added] my classroom.”

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN “DISSEMINATING” AND “SHARING” RESEARCH As we begin to shift our focus in this book from an overview of action research to finding ways to communicate the results of our research to others, I think it is worth noting the subtle but meaningful differences between the ways that I will reference “disseminating” research versus “sharing” research. One could argue that these two terms mean exactly the same thing, but I intend to use them slightly differently. For purposes of this book, when I refer to “disseminating” research, I am essentially talking about formal, traditional methods of communicating the results of research studies. More specifically, I am referring to peer-reviewed journal articles—whether they be in a print or an electronic medium—as well as peer-reviewed presentations at formal conferences. In contrast, when I refer to “sharing” research, I am talking about any other sort of alternative mechanism for communicating the results of research. Many of these would be considered to be less formal and, in many cases, less thorough (although that may not necessarily be a negative concept, as you will see later in the book). For reasons that are likely very apparent, the similarities between these two strategies are that both categories of communicating the results of research do just that—they communicate the results of the research studies to audiences or other individuals. The fundamental difference between these two sets of strategies has mostly to do with the level of formality that each one entails.

The Importance of Both Approaches Both disseminating research and sharing research are important. The reason that I say this is that—as you will see later in the book—these two different sets of communication strategies have different goals and oftentimes will target different audiences with different sorts of messages about your research findings. The notion of engaging in multiple approaches to communicating your research is ultimately beneficial to

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practitioner researchers (and, likely beneficial to researchers everywhere and at all levels of competency). In my opinion, you ultimately achieve a much more thorough circulation of your research findings by getting them in front of the eyes of more people—and likely different people, in terms of their own professional work, interests, and level of research capacity. Let us not lose sight of the (arguably) primary goal of communicating the results of research in any and all ways possible—you want to get your research work in front of the eyes of as many people as possible, not just for your benefit, but potentially (and hopefully) for their benefit, as well.

TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CHAPTER ■■ ■■ ■■

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Research of any kind has its basis in the scientific method. Action research is a legitimate form of educational research. A primary distinction between action research and traditional forms of research is that practitioners conduct action research for their own personal and professional benefit. Support from administrators is a key to successful action research. There are many synonymous terms for “action research,” including “practitioner research.” Three basic approaches to conducting educational research include quantitative research, qualitative research, and mixed-methods research, each of which includes various specific research designs. A main goal of action research is to address local-level problems and to provide immediate solutions to those problems, but action research can use any quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods approach and design. Critically reflecting on one’s own professional practice is a key aspect of action research. It is important to be knowledgeable of the numerous professional benefits for practitioners who engage in the action research process. Two of the most important professional benefits of action research include educator empowerment and the provision of a professional voice, as well as unique and customizable opportunities for professional growth and learning. Action research is customizable and meaningful professional learning for educators, counteracting the traditional, ineffective, “onesize-fits-all” model of professional development. “Dissemination” strategies tend to be more formal, whereas “sharing” of research is a less formal process.

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REFERENCES Dana, N. F., & Yendol-Hoppey, D. (2019). The reflective educator’s guide to classroom research: Learning to teach and teaching to learn through practitioner inquiry (3rd ed.). Corwin. Davies, G. (2016, June 5). Why don’t teachers engage with research? Dr. GAZ. https://doctorgaz.wordpress.com/2016/06/05/why-dontteachers-engage-with-research/ Johnson, A. P. (2013). A short guide to action research (4th ed.). Pearson. McNiff, J. (2002). Action research for professional development: Concise advice for new action researchers (3rd ed.). Author. Available at: http://www.jeanmcniff.com/userfiles/file/publications/AR%2 booklet.doc Mertler, C. A. (2013). Classroom-based action research: Revisiting the process as customizable and meaningful professional development for educators. Journal of Pedagogic Development, 3(3), 39–43. Available online: http://www.beds.ac.uk/ Mertler, C. A. (2018). Action research communities: Professional learning, empowerment, and improvement through collaborative action research. Routledge. Mertler, C. A. (2019). Our students, our solutions: Educators can customize their learning through action research. The Learning Professional, 40(2), 54–56, 60. Mertler, C. A. (2020). Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators (6th ed.). Sage. Mertler, C. A. (2021). Action research as teacher inquiry: A viable strategy for resolving problems of practice. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 26, Article 19. Available at: https://scholarworks. umass.edu/pare/vol26/iss1/19 Mertler, C. A., & Hartley, A. J. (2017). Classroom-based, teacher-led action research as a process for enhancing teaching and learning. Journal of Educational Leadership in Action, 4(2), Article 3. Available at: https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/ela/vol4/ iss2/3 Mills, G. E. (2018). Action research: A guide for the teacher researcher (6th ed.). Pearson. Oliver, B. (1980). Action research for inservice training. Educational Leadership, 37(5), 394–395.

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Parsons, R. D., & Brown, K. S. (2002). Teacher as reflective practitioner and action researcher. Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. Vaughan, M., & Mertler, C. A. (2020). Re-orienting our thinking away from “professional development for educators” and toward the “development of professional educators.” Journal of School Leadership, 31(6), 569–584. doi:10.1177/1052684620969926

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Chapter Two

A Primer on Conducting Action Research

THE PROCESS OF CONDUCTING ACTION RESEARCH Action research is typically described as a cyclical process, whereby a complete cycle of research (i.e., one actual research study) builds on and extends any cycles of action research into the same or closely related problem that preceded it. A single cycle, then, consists of four stages of research activities. Those stages are: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

The planning stage, The acting stage, The developing stage, and The reflecting stage.

The four stages of the action research cycle—along with specific research activities to be carried out in each stage—are depicted in Figure 2.1. The first of these stages—the planning stage—consists of preliminary activities related to the development and implementation of an action research study. During this stage, the educational practitioner begins by initially identifying a topic. Oftentimes, the topic must be limited or expanded, depending on the initial scope of the potential problem under investigation. The practitioner also gathers information related to the topic. This related information would obviously include a small-scale review of related literature to discover what existing research work may have already been done on the problem of interest. However, the search for this related information should not be limited to just published research. Since action research is practitioner-focused,

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003322498-4

A PRIMER ON CONDUCTING ACTION RESEARCH

Figure 2.1 The Four Stages and Specific Activities of a Single Cycle of Action Research.

related information that is both practical and experiential can also be extremely important in guiding the development of an action research study. This means that educators can look to colleagues—both internal and external to their own organizations—for guidance and practical suggestions for approaches, interventions, or innovative approaches to solving the problem that they may have tried and with which they may have experienced some degree of success. Both formal and informal sources of information related to the identified problem can be important in terms of helping to guide the development and structure of an action research study. Another aspect of gathering related information that is not associated with formal literature is the process of reconnaissance (Mertler, 2020a). Reconnaissance involves reflecting on your beliefs—as well as the beliefs of your colleagues—in order to gain a better understanding of

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the nature and context of your potential research problem. The process includes reflecting on your own instructional practices, your educational values, and the way in which your work contributes to the larger context of schooling. Practitioners must also consider a complete description of the problem that focuses on the who, what, where, when, how, and why of the problem. Finally, reconnaissance should include both formal and informal discussions with colleagues in order to gauge their perceptions of the problem. In other words, it is important to know if other members of your workplace context view this as a problem … or is it just your problem. If it is just your problem, then it may not be something worthy of an action research investigation. Conversations with colleagues can also provide perspectives on the problem that may differ from yours. Remember, the key goal of reconnaissance is to learn as much as possible about the problem in order to try to resolve it, as you move forward in your practice. Also important during this stage of the action research cycle is the statement of formal research questions that will serve to guide the conduct of the action research as well as the development of a specific research plan for the study. Action research can use any design or approach to implementing an innovative approach, collecting data, and analyzing those data that may be used in more formal qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods research studies. Therefore, it is common to see approaches for data collection including, but not limited to, interviews, observations, focus groups, surveys, questionnaires, assessments, pretest-posttest measures, as well as any combination of those sources of data. The second stage—the acting stage—is where the actual conduct of the study occurs. This is the point in the action research process where the practitioner physically collects and analyzes all data to be used in attempts to provide answers to the guiding research questions. Once again, any (and all) strategies or approaches to data collection and analysis are appropriate at this stage of the action research process. That being said, however, it is probably most typical that practitioners rely on the use of thematic analysis and coding for the examination of any qualitative data and descriptive statistics—and, possibly, t-tests or analysis of variance (if comparisons of groups are important)—for the analysis of quantitative data. As mentioned above, virtually any strategy or approach to data collection and analysis is appropriate in an action research study. The key is alignment between the data (and subsequent analyses) and the guiding research questions. The practitioner-researcher must ensure that the data and associated analyses will provide answers to those questions. In cases where the research questions call for open-ended, non-structured

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narrative data—in the form of perceptions, beliefs, or feelings—then qualitative data would be the most appropriate form of data for answering the research questions. Alternatively, in situations where the research questions might require participants to rate their perceptions on a predetermined response scale, quantitative data and analyses would be the appropriate strategy. However, as has been previously discussed, many researchers tend to see the best alignment with the process and goals of action research to be a mixed-methods approach to inquiry (Creswell, 2005; Mertler, 2020b). The belief here is that the combination of qualitative and quantitative data will enable the practitioner–researcher to answer the guiding research questions in the most comprehensive and thorough manner possible. The third stage of the process—the developing stage—is comprised of the development of an action plan for moving forward in the process of conducting action research. The action plan is the ultimate goal of any action research study—it is the action part of action research (Mertler, 2020a). This typically consists of two different aspects: an action plan for practice and an action plan for future cycles of action research. Since this action research is being conducted by practitioners, it is of utmost importance that the practitioner-researcher use the results and conclusions from a cycle of action research to impact and change current and future practice. After all, this is the main reason that a practicing educator makes a conscious and professional decision to use action research as a means of solving various educational problems. Second, it is important to develop plans for the continuation and exploration of the problem using an action research approach. The logic here is that seldom is a problem solved after a single cycle of action research. Aspects of the problem may experience improvement, but in all likelihood, there is still more improvement and change that could and should occur. The final stage of the action research process—the reflecting stage— provides the opportunity to reflect not only on the context and results of the action research study at hand but also on the action research process as a whole. Since, at its core, action research is about the critical examination of one’s own professional practice, reflection on the process of conducting action research is a critical step in the process. It is important to note that the act of professional reflection often leads directly into the next cycle of action research by providing the foundation for the nature of the next stages of investigating the same problem or, perhaps, the next problem to be investigated. This is the basis for the way in which one cycle of action research logically and practically leads into the next cycle.

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It is also crucial to note that, although this final stage of the process is labeled the “reflecting” stage and the expectation is that a teacher would use this opportunity to reflect on the overall process, reflection is an integral part of the action research process. Critical, professional reflection must span the entire action research process. In other words, professional educators who engage in the action research process in the form of practitioner research are engaging in critical reflection during each of the four stages of the process shown in Figure 2.1. For example, to accurately frame the problem of practice during the planning stage, teachers would need to reflect on their past experiences and struggles that they may have had with that specific problem. They would also reflect on approaches that they may have tried in the past to identify aspects of them that may have been beneficial and that they would want to continue. During the acting stage, they might reflect on previous data that they have collected or strategies for analysis with which they are most comfortable. During the developing stage, they would want to reflect on the knowledge that they had gained up to this point in the cyclical process, since that knowledge would be used to develop a plan for their next steps in trying to resolve their identified problem with practice. As previously mentioned, action research is seen and typically implemented as a cyclical process. In other words, the results of one cycle inform the planning and implementation of a subsequent cycle of action research, and so on. The interconnectedness of similar cycles of action research is depicted in Figure 2.2. Educators often wonder if a subsequent cycle of action research is research into the exact same thing as the previous cycle. This is typically not the case. Usually, when we conduct research on a contextualized problem, we rarely, if ever, completely solve it as a result of one cycle of action research. We learn positive things that will help us move forward and change our practice, but we continue to ask questions and look for additional ways to continue to improve our practice. It is this thinking that leads itself to subsequent cycles of action research. Research of any kind involves systematic and scientific investigation, and quality research must meet standards of sound practice (Mertler, 2022). Action research is no exception to this rule of thumb. The basis for establishing the quality of traditional research lies in the concepts of validity and reliability. Action research typically relies on a different set of standards for determining quality and credibility (Stringer, 2013). Because action research adheres to the standards of quality and credibility rather than validity and reliability, it has sometimes been criticized for being an inferior approach to research as well as for being of lesser quality. Rather than being considered lesser or inferior, it is for these reasons

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Figure 2.2  The Cyclical Process of Action Research.

that action research should be viewed as being different from traditional research. Nevertheless, it is critical for action researchers to ensure that their research is sound (Mertler, 2022). The extent to which action research reaches an acceptable standard of quality is directly related to the usefulness of the research findings for the intended audience (Mertler, 2022). This general level of quality in action research is referred to as rigor—the quality, validity, accuracy, and credibility of action research and its findings. Rigor is typically associated with the terms validity and reliability in quantitative studies—referring to the accuracy of instruments, data, and research findings—and with accuracy, credibility, and dependability in qualitative studies (Melrose, 2001). Melrose (2001) has suggested that the term rigor be used in a broader sense, encompassing the entire research process and not just aspects of data collection, analysis, and findings. Rigor in action research is typically based on procedures used to ensure that the procedures and analyses of the action research project are not biased or reflective of only a very limited view from the researcher’s perspective (Stringer, 2013). There are numerous techniques that can be used to help provide evidence of rigor within the parameters of practitioner-led

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action research studies (Melrose, 2001; Stringer, 2013). Among these techniques are: ■■

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Repeating the cycle. Most action researchers tend to believe that one cycle of action research is simply not enough. Rigor can be enhanced by engaging in a number of cycles of action research into the same problem or question, where the earlier cycles help to inform how to conduct later cycles as well as specific sources of data that should be considered. In theory, with each subsequent cycle of action research, more is learned, and greater credibility is added to the findings. Prolonged engagement and persistent observation. For participants to fully understand the outcomes of an action research inquiry and process, the researcher should provide them with extended opportunities to explore and express their experiences within the study (Stringer, 2013) as they relate specifically to the problem under investigation. However, it is important to note that simply spending more time in the setting is not enough. It is not about the quantity of time spent in the setting, but rather it is about the quality of the time spent. Experience with the action research process. As with virtually any type of research, experience with the process is invaluable. Rigor, itself, can be highly dependent on the experiences of the action researcher. If a professional educator has conducted previous action research studies—or even previous cycles within the same study—he or she can perform more confidently and have greater credibility with their respective audiences (Melrose, 2001). Triangulating the data. Rigor can also be enhanced during the action research process by including multiple sources of data and other information. Using multiple sources of data allows the action researcher to verify the accuracy of the overall data and clarify meanings or misconceptions held by those participating in the study (Stringer, 2013). The accuracy of data and the credibility of findings go hand in hand (Mertler, 2022). In addition, this is another good reason for using a mixed-methods approach to data collection an analysis in action research. Member checking. Depending on the purposes of the study, participants should be provided with the opportunity to review raw data, analyses, and final reports resulting from the action research process (Stringer, 2013). This process can be very influential in

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terms of validating the findings resulting from any action research study (although it is important to note that this procedure may not be appropriate in all action research projects). Rigor is enhanced by allowing participants to verify that various aspects of the research process adequately and accurately represent their beliefs and perspectives. It also gives them the opportunity to further explain or expand on information previously provided. Participant debriefing. Similar to member checking, debriefing provides another opportunity for participants to provide insight into the conduct of the action research study. In contrast to member checking, the focus of debriefing is on the emotions and feelings of the study’s participants, as opposed to factual information they may have provided.

PRACTITIONER RESEARCH IN ACTION—A BRIEF EXAMPLE Gabrielle is a sixth-grade teacher who was in the middle of her eighth year of teaching when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. During the 2019– 2020 school year, she had 24 students in her class. In the spring of 2020, when all instruction moved to an online format, things started out okay, but Gabrielle soon found herself struggling to keep all her students actively engaged in their virtual classroom environment. Trying to manage 24 participants in a virtual video meeting proved to be quite challenging. She tried a couple of large-group activities with her entire class, but they still were not working. As she reflected on her own teaching practices, she decided to do a little searching online and came across a handful of journal articles that talked about small group learning and peer feedback in virtual classroom environments. Initially, she liked the idea, so she asked a couple of her colleagues if they had ever tried anything like that. Only one had ever tried it and was currently doing it with her students. She shared with Gabrielle that it was fairly successful in terms of helping with the issue of a lack of student engagement. Even though Gabrielle knew that she would have to hold many more virtual class sessions than she had been since she would not be working with her entire class at a given time, she wanted to try this approach to see if it helped, not only with student engagement but also with student learning. She divided her class of 24 students into four groups of six students each. She knew this meant that she would now have four times as many virtual class meetings as she had been doing previously, but she felt it was something that she needed to try. In addition, she decided to pose

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the following questions that she would attempt to answer with her action research approach to her classroom problem: ■■

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To what extent are my students more engaged in the virtual learning process when I use small-group instruction and peer feedback? To what degree do small-group instruction and peer feedback impact my students’ academic performance?

After trying the small-group approach in her virtual classroom for three weeks, Gabrielle began to notice a difference in how students were behaving and interacting with each other online. However, she knew that this was purely anecdotal information and she needed some additional, formal data to guide where she would go next. She decided to create a small survey for students consisting of eight questions, asking their opinions of the smaller groups and peer feedback process, what they liked and did not like about it, and if they would want to keep doing it. She also took a closer look at the student work that had been submitted to her over the last three weeks. To Gabrielle’s surprise, the student survey data were overwhelmingly positive. The students seemed to like the smaller groups, felt that they had more of an opportunity to speak during class sessions, and liked the fact that they got to work closer with a smaller number of their classmates. They did suggest, however, that in the future they be allowed to pick the members of their small groups. Gabrielle was very happy with her data, but she also knew that she would have to take responsibility for placing students into their smaller groups. She was also very pleased with the student work. They had been doing a unit on plants and the environment and had been required to prepare a short research paper, for which Gabrielle used an analytic rubric to evaluate their work. Over the last few years, she had noticed that students struggled on a couple of the criteria addressed by the rubric. However, student performance in those areas over the last three weeks had improved quite a bit. She attributed this, at least in part, to the peer feedback aspect that she had incorporated into her virtual instruction, along with the fact that students were preparing drafts of their papers using Google Docs and could share them with the other members of their small groups. Gabrielle decided that she would continue to use this approach for the remainder of the school year and then spend some time during the summer break re-evaluating what she had done and deciding what changes she would want to make for next year.

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When the 2020–2021 school year arrived and instruction was continuing to take place virtually, Gabrielle was very excited because she knew that she would have an opportunity to implement her new teaching strategies with a different set of students to continue to assess how well they were working. She decided to make a few minor changes to her peer feedback model, including a more thorough introduction to it for her students, which she believed she had not taken the time to do during the previous school year. Toward the end of the first half of the school year, she collected data similar to those she had collected the previous year. She was not surprised to find that the results were quite similar. After two cycles of implementing her innovative strategy, she was quite happy with the results and planned to continue with these strategies moving forward. In fact, when the late winter of 2021 arrived, and her school’s instruction returned to an in-person format, Gabrielle felt so confident in her new strategies that she continued to use small groups and peer feedback within her physical classroom space and face-to-face instruction. Students had been informally letting her know that they really liked working with their small groups and they liked being able to use the technology to help them with both their work and the feedback they were providing to their classmates. Gabrielle was so pleased with the results of her three cycles of teacher inquiry that she decided to share what she had done with her building principal. Her principal was equally impressed and asked her if she would be willing to share her inquiry process with the other teachers in their school at an upcoming faculty meeting. The principal felt that there was a great deal of potential for other teachers in the school to grow and develop professionally by implementing continuing cycles of teacher inquiry, specifically in the form of practitioner research.

TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CHAPTER ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Action research is seen and practiced as a cyclical process, where one cycle builds on and extends a previous cycle of research. A single cycle of action research consists of four stages: planning, acting, developing, and reflecting. Specific and important research activities occur within each of these four stages. Reconnaissance is a research activity that is unique to action research, where the researcher attempts to learn more about the problem being investigated by examining beliefs, practices, and perceptions of the problem.

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■■ ■■

Critical professional reflection is a key aspect of action research and should be practiced throughout the process of conducting a research study. The quality of action research is determined by establishing its rigor. There are numerous techniques and strategies that practitioners can use to enhance the rigor of action research studies.

REFERENCES Creswell, J. W. (2005). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (2nd ed.). Merrill/ Prentice Hall. Melrose, M. J. (2001). Maximizing the rigor of action research: Why would you want to? How could you? Field Methods, 13(2), 160–180. Mertler, C. A. (2022). Introduction to educational research (3rd ed.). Sage. Mertler, C. A. (2020a). Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators (6th ed.). Sage. Mertler, C. A. (2020b). Action research. In G. J. Burkholder, K. A. Cox, L. M. Crawford, & J. H. Hitchcock (Eds.), Research design and methods: An applied guide for the scholar-practitioner (pp. 275–291). Sage. Stringer, E. (2013). Action research (4th ed.). Sage.

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Section II

Products for Disseminating and Sharing Practitioner Research

Section II of the book presents a variety of products that can be developed for the purposes of disseminating and sharing the results of practitioner research. The focus of this section is on products that can be used in sharing research. In Chapter 3, you will learn about academic writing and the development of written reports of research, including various conventions and guidelines used in writing academic-style reports. Chapter 4 introduces you to formal presentations of research and how to develop and structure those types of presentations. Finally, in Chapter 5, you will learn about a variety of visual formats for disseminating and sharing research, including posters, infographics, and other visual media.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003322498-5

BK-TandF-MERTLER_9781032345093-230513-Chp03.indd 37

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Chapter Three

Written Reports of Research

A PRIMER ON ACADEMIC WRITING Over my career, I have observed that many people—including graduate students and practitioners—seem to have a “love-hate” relationship with the writing process … and with writing, in general. Now, understand that this is not a relationship that is characterized by the fact that sometimes you “love” writing and other times you sometimes “hate” writing. In contrast, what I have observed is that people either entirely love the writing process … or entirely hate the writing process. That type of perspective on writing makes engaging in academic-style writing all that more challenging. Understand further that I am not criticizing those individuals who do not like the writing process—especially, academic-style writing. Academic writing is difficult, even for those of us who have done it for many, many years throughout our careers. I do believe that some people are, in essence, born with some sort of innate affinity for writing. However, that being said, I do not know of anyone who was born with the affinity for or the ability to write in academic style. It takes hard work, focused effort, and patience. At some point in time, most of us had to learn how to write in academic style—it is just not something that comes naturally to virtually anyone. With any given effort into practitioner research, there tends to be both a unique purpose for writing a research report as well as a specific intended audience for that report. In most cases, the purpose of the report is closely tied to whoever serves as the intended audience. Both purpose and audience will be discussed at greater length in Section III, when we look at specific delivery strategies for written reports and particular outlets for those reports. Our purpose here, however, is to focus on general guidelines for writing research reports in academic style. Regardless of the purpose or intended audience, there are typically numerous qualities that are DOI: 10.4324/9781003322498-6

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shared by almost all forms of academic writing (Mertler, 2022a). It is essential to bear in mind that academic writing tends to be factual and interpretive, not flowery and creative. In addition, researchers at any level are expected to follow style guides that are used to somewhat standardize the writing process. A particular style guide may be required by a particular journal or institution, like colleges and universities. Arguably, the most commonly used style guide in the broad field of education is the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, often commonly referred to as “APA style”: ■■

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). American Psychological Association. (Note: This is frequently called “APA style.”)

Other less-commonly used style guides include the following (Mertler, 2022a): ■■

■■

■■

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Campbell, W., Ballou, S., & Slade, C. (1990). Form and style: Theses, reports, term papers (8th ed.). Houghton Mifflin. (Note: This is often referred to as “Campbell.”) Modern Language Association. (2016). MLA handbook for writers of research papers (8th ed.). Modern Language Association of America. (Note: This is frequently called “MLA style.”) Turabian, K. (2018). A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations (9th ed.). University of Chicago Press. (Note: This is often referred to as “Turabian.”) University of Chicago Press. (2017). The Chicago manual of style: The essential guide for authors, editors, and publishers (17th ed.). University of Chicago Press. (Note: This is frequently called “Chicago style.”)

The APA manual (American Psychological Association (APA), 2020) is a complete and extremely thorough resource; it can also be overwhelming to practitioners for whom this style guide is a new resource. The paperback version currently sells for $31.99, and is also available in spiral-bound, hardcover, and e-book versions. If you are not interested in purchasing a copy for yourself, the American Psychological Association also offers an APA style website (https://apastyle.org/), which is an excellent resource for researchers at any level (Mertler, 2022a), largely because it offers a searchable set of webpages that is designed to assist literally anyone with APA

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style-related questions. Another similar resource is Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab—or OWL—website (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/). Not only can you find answers to general writing questions, but also by clicking on the “Research and Citation” drop-down menu near the top of the page, you can search for specific style-related items, not only in APA style but also in several other style guides. A key aspect of style guides is the fact that they provide direction in the development of written research reports in order to promote readability and credibility (Mertler, 2022a). They accomplish this by providing agreed-upon procedures—that we collectively call conventions—to help ensure a level of believability and fidelity in written research. The two categories of conventions that we will examine are conventions of style and conventions of format and organization.

CONVENTIONS OF STYLE A key aspect of academic-style writing is that readers of research reports— whether those reports appear in journals, conference proceedings, or other modes of dissemination—will always read the reports with certain expectations regarding format and style. They are not expecting to read something that resembles an essay or some sort of work of creative writing. While one can argue that this tends to make academic writing somewhat “formulaic,” it simultaneously serves an important purpose—it allows the reader to focus on the contents of the report as opposed to the writing style. As a researcher and author of the report, this is something that you hope a reader would do. That being said, let us now consider several conventions of style.

Bias-Free Writing According to the APA Manual (APA, 2020), academic writing should always be free of implied or irrelevant evaluation of particular groups of people studied. This is important so as to reduce the perpetuation of demeaning or otherwise disparaging and offensive biases (in the form of attitudes and assumptions) about specific populations, including biases against persons on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, race or ethnicity, disability, or age (Mertler, 2022a). The APA Manual (pp. 132–134) offers a couple of very important general guidelines for reducing bias: ■■

Describe people at appropriate levels of specificity—Descriptive words should be accurate, clear, and free from bias. It is appropriate to be more specific than less specific. For example, and for

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■■

obvious reasons, using the word “man” to refer to human beings is not accurate if both “women and men” are participating in a study. Similarly, the use of specific age ranges (i.e., “50–59,” “60–69,” etc.) is more accurate than simply writing “50 and older.” Finally, “gender” is a cultural term and should be used when referring to women and men as social groups. The word “sex” should be used when it is important to clarify a biological distinction. Be sensitive to labels—Researchers should always use great care to avoid insensitively labeling people, which only serves to disrespect the individuality and humanity of those people. They should not lose their individuality based on broad categorizations and classifications. Sometimes, people are categorized as objects through the use of nouns to describe them (e.g., “the gays,” “the elderly,” or “the learning disabled”). One solution is to use the adjective forms of the descriptors along with an appropriate noun (e.g., “gay men,” “older adults,” or “learning disabled children”). Another solution is to use person first language—that is, language where people are first identified, but then followed by a descriptive phrase (e.g., “children diagnosed with learning disabilities” or “older adults with Alzheimer’s”).

Plagiarism and Self-Plagiarism When researchers use the words and/or ideas of another person, they must never claim that those words or ideas are their own; appropriate credit must be given to the original author (APA, 2020). Plagiarism is the term used to describe such a false and inaccurate claim. To extend this notion even further, when communicating information from another author using his or her exact words, quotation marks should always be used. Even in instances when you paraphrase the writings of another—in other words, when a passage is summarized or the order of a sentence is rearranged and some words are changed—you must credit the source within your writing (Mertler, 2022a). Along similar lines, researchers also should not present their own previously published research or work as if it were new scholarship—an act known as self-plagiarism. The most appropriate way to avoid this problematic situation is to cite the duplicated words or ideas. I suggest following this basic rule—when in doubt … cite.

Titles and Abstracts The title of any written work is, at least at the outset, one of the most important aspects of the work from the readers’ perspective (Mertler, 2020). The

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title is the initial screening mechanism for anyone considering the possibility of reading the work—it is the primary means of “advertising” your research report. Developing a title for a research report is an activity that should not be taken lightly. It should serve as an attention-grabber, but must also clearly indicate what the study and the report are about. This is a delicate balance that must be struck by the researcher/author. Over my career, I have seen instances where researchers have been inclined to develop cute, clever titles that might pose riddles or are extremely vague (Mertler, 2020). These types of titles should be avoided, unless they also happen to accurately describe the topic of the research report. Otherwise, they serve only to be counterproductive in terms of inspiring someone to read the report. Titles should include only essential terms that would enhance readers’ ability not only to find your research in an online search (if appropriate) but also to convey the contents and topic of your study in a succinct manner (APA, 2020). Words and phrases such as “methods,” “results,” or “a study of” should be avoided, as these things are assumed since this is a report of research. Below is an example of a title from a study that I recently conducted and the resulting research report (Mertler, 2022b) that I wrote: Online EdD Program Graduates’ Persistence for Engaging in Ongoing Practitioner Research Although there is no real prescribed limit for the length of a title in terms of the number of words, authors are encouraged to keep their titles focused and succinct (APA, 2020). Interestingly, research has shown that there is an association between simple, concise titles and the number of times a research report has been downloaded and cited in other works (APA, 2020). That being said, my general rule of thumb is to limit the length of a title so that it falls in the range of 10–15 words. You will notice that my sample title above contains 11 words. Grant Rankin (2020) suggests the following process. Begin by drafting an extremely thorough and descriptive title. Once you have done that, search for words that you can remove without hurting the title’s meaning. She utilizes the following example (p. 123): A Quantitative Study on How Concentrated Poverty Influences the Field of Education as Examined in Randomized Experiments in Michigan’s Urban Schools She then notes that the methods (i.e., “qualitative study” and “randomized experiments”) and location (i.e., “Michigan’s”) can be efficiently

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communicated in the abstract and introduction to the report and could, therefore, be removed from the title. Further, potential readers who find this paper in a journal or database are likely already working in the broad field of “education” and do not need that reminder in the title. “Concentrated poverty” is not necessary when “poverty” communicates the general idea. Finally, the word “How” in the title is nothing more than clutter. These omissions change the title to: Poverty Influences the Field as Examined in Urban Schools Unfortunately, she admits that this title does not tell us much. It reads as somewhat impersonal and the topic seems unimportant, since we do not really know what “influences the field” means. A more specific change is suggested: Poverty Hinders Urban Students’ Determination to Graduate Notice how much more concise, yet informative, this newly revised title summarizes the study for the reader. A second screening mechanism, if you will, is the report’s abstract. An abstract is a brief but comprehensive summary of the contents of the entire research report (APA, 2020). The abstract allows a reader of your report to quickly skim the contents, since the abstract will highlight the most pertinent aspects of your report. An abstract is typically composed of the following information (Mertler, 2020): ■■ ■■ ■■

■■ ■■

A brief statement of the research problem, or problem of practice. A description of the setting and participants in the study. A summary of the procedures, including any interventions, innovations, or strategies implemented, as well as the data that were collected and how they were collected. A summary of the basic findings or results. A concise description of the conclusions and plans for future actions.

Abstracts are usually no longer than a brief paragraph. Typically, they will consist of anywhere from 100 to 250 words. Below is the abstract from the research report whose title I provided earlier (Mertler, 2022b). Note that it is exactly 100 words in length: Doctoral graduates are expected to use research skills learned during their programs. The literature that speaks to

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this—particularly in EdD programs—is sparse. This study examined attitudes and behaviors of recent graduates of a practitioner-based program regarding their continued engagement with action research. Findings indicated that graduates believe strongly in the value of conducting action research and that many continue to do so. An identified impediment was a lack of institutional support from superiors, which is often overcome via the intrinsic satisfaction realized. Recommendations are offered for this doctoral program, as well as for practitioner-focused doctoral programs in general. The goal of writing an abstract is to provide as much information as possible, but to do so in a very limited space. As you can probably imagine, writing an abstract is not easy when you are focused on condensing so much specific information into so few words.

Person and Voice One of the features of academic writing—and, specifically, of more traditional forms of quantitative research—that distinguishes it from other forms of writing is that it is typically written as objectively as possible (Johnson, 2013). You will seldom see any use of first-person pronouns (Mertler, 2020). Usually, the authors do not refer to themselves as “I,” “we,” or “me.” Authors will make reference to themselves using thirdperson terms, such as “the authors” or “the researchers.” Personal observations, conclusions, and recommendations are reserved for a special section, usually at the very end of the report, and even those are written in third person (Johnson, 2013). Remember that the goal of most quantitative researches is to remove any and all bias and subjectivity from the perspective of the researcher and let only the data communicate to the reader. In contrast, and similar to more qualitative forms of research, practitioner research is written in a much more subjective style. A practitioner-researcher is a central part of a research study; therefore, it is not possible—nor is it desirable—to remove the thoughts and perceptions of the practitioner-researcher (Mertler, 2020); thus, first-person writing is more acceptable. However, as Johnson (2013) stresses, it is important to bear in mind that this is not a license to voice explicit biases or hidden agendas in your research report. In your research report, it is crucial that your descriptions, interpretations, and conclusions are fair, accurate, honest, and trustworthy if your research is to be considered professionally credible.

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Along similar lines, there has been a bit of a discrepancy between the type of voice that is used in traditional research reports versus the type of voice used in practitioner research reports. Typically, more traditional research has relied on the use of the passive voice (Mertler, 2020), which is characterized and exemplified by the phrases below. The following conclusions were reached … It was concluded by the researchers that … Notice that in the first example, the main noun is “conclusions,” and something is being done to them. In contrast, the active voice is more appropriate for action research and practitioner research reports (Mertler, 2020). In the two examples below, the main or primary noun is the person or researcher who is performing an action: The researcher developed the following … I discovered very quickly that … The active voice should be used in reports of practitioner research, as it tends to be more reader-friendly as a form of writing. While both forms of voice are permitted in APA style, the APA Manual (2020) recommends that the active voice be used as much as possible, in order “to create direct, clear, and concise sentences” (p. 118). In the case of practitioner research, this could not be more true.

Tense Research reports are generally written in the past tense (Mertler, 2022a). The main reason for this is that the research has already been conducted and, in some cases, completed. Any review of related literature is almost exclusively written in the past tense (e.g., “Quinn (2020) presented …”), since you are summarizing research that has already occurred and been published or otherwise disseminated, although the present perfect tense (e.g., “Since then, many investigators have used …”) is also acceptable (APA, 2020). The same rule of thumb is used for the methodology section of a research report. The results section is also written in the past tense for the same reason, in that the results have already occurred. However, some sections may be written in the present tense. Discussions of the implications of research results should be written in the present tense, as should the presentation of conclusions, limitations, future directions for research, etc. (Mertler, 2022a).

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Tentative and Definitive Statements When writing a report of research, different sections of the report require varying levels of certainty. In some sections, you can be very definitive, while in others, it is important that you retain some degree of tentativeness. For example, when describing your problem or topic, it would be very important for you to be certain and definitive in your description. The readers of your report will want to know the specifics of the topic that you were studying. Similarly, your description of methodology should be very specific and definitive for a similar reason readers will want to know exactly how you conducted your study. However, greater care must be taken when presenting and reporting the results of the analyses of your data. If you are analyzing quantitative data, you can be more definitive since there are objective strategies for calculating various statistical indices. In contrast, when reporting the results of qualitative analyses, it is important to be more tentative since the analysis of qualitative data inherently contains subjective interpretations (Mertler, 2020). In addition, it is very important to use tentative statements when discussing conclusions or implications resulting from your research. Consider the following two example statements of research implications: There seem to be different contexts, or situations, within the preschool setting where positive reinforcement is more appropriately used. As these results suggest, it may be critical for instruction on this topic to be presented by experts in the field who are also knowledgeable about the reality of K-12 classrooms. In the case of these two sample statements, notice the tentative nature of each as typified by “There seem to be …” and “it may be critical for …” Note that the findings have not been presented as absolutes (Mertler, 2020).

Clarity and Consistency The clarity of any written report of a research is a crucial aspect for a potential audience (Mertler, 2022a). A research report should be written in a clear enough manner for any other person to read it and duplicate the research that you have conducted. One of the aspects that contributes to clarity is brevity—using as few words as possible. Once again, remember that a written report of research should not resemble a novel of other form of creative writing. The use of excessive descriptive words

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is counterproductive. The key approach to use is to say what you want to say and convey those ideas in as few words as possible. Another strategy that can add to the clarity of a report is to write with the assumption that a reader of your report knows nothing about your topic or your procedures, and you must therefore explain everything to them in the simplest terms possible (Mertler, 2022a). Finally, clarity will always be enhanced by using organizational strategies for the report, such as headings and subheadings, in order to allow the reader to follow the flow of your presentation (Johnson, 2013). This will be discussed later in this chapter. Consistency in your writing is also an important feature that adds to a report’s readability. The way that you write, the voice that you use, abbreviations and acronyms, and so forth should remain as consistent as possible throughout your written report (Mertler, 2022a). For example, if you refer to the participants in your study as “third-grade students” early in your paper, you should refer to them as “third-grade students” throughout the remainder of your paper. You should not use other terms, even if you consider them to be synonymous, such as “thirds,” “3s,” “students,” “kiddos,” etc. Similarly, it is important for your formatting to remain consistent. This includes consistency in the use of formatting for indentations, quotes, headings, and spacing. However you choose to format these aspects of your report—hopefully, in APA style—you should continue to use the same formatting conventions throughout the remainder of your report. Failure to do so only makes reading the report more difficult and awkward.

Simplicity of Language I always remind students in my graduate research methods courses that when writing their research reports, they are not trying to create a novel for the best-seller list! Research reports should be written in straightforward and simple (rather than elaborate and flowery) language (Mertler, 2022a). This is sometimes referred to as the “economy of expression.” The APA Manual (2020) stresses using shorter sentences, eliminating redundancy and wordiness, and avoiding the use of overly detailed descriptions (pp. 113–115). Failure to follow these guidelines does not impress your readers; rather, they will just opt not to read the rest of your report. The use of extraneous material, or “fluff,” to make your paper longer serves only to dilute its focus and meaning and will not improve your chances of having the report read … possibly by anyone. Remember that you are trying to get straight to the point without adopting a literary style. A key for this is to avoid the overuse of adjectives and adverbs (Mertler, 2020). Excessive use of these descriptive terms makes your

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report more difficult to read. Believe it or not, people choose to read your report not for entertainment (as they would a novel) but, rather, to become better informed about the topic you investigated—probably because they share your interest in that topic. Do not try to impress your readers with your mastery of a dictionary or the thesaurus tool in your word processor (Mertler, 2022a). You need to explain your research procedures, your results, and your conclusions clearly enough for readers to understand them, but you also need to keep your message short and simple. After all, their time is limited—you do not want them to give up or to avoid your report simply because they find it difficult or cumbersome to read (Mertler, 2020).

CONVENTIONS OF FORMAT AND ORGANIZATION Conventions of format essentially refer to the organization used to provide structure to a written report of research. Regardless of the type of research employed—traditional qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods, or action research or practitioner research—research reports tend to follow a general, written structure or outline. We consider that “generic” outline in the next section.

Report Structure Most written reports of research consist of seven main sections, although some sections may not be necessary (in some reports) and several of them—for example, the literature review section—may include subsections. The outline depicted in Figure 3.1 is a generic, typical outline for a written report of research. This is a typical outline for traditional research studies, including thesis or dissertation research. Many of these components are not entirely appropriate for reports of practitioner research. Those reports tend not to be quite as standard but are also structured to more closely parallel the process of conducting practitioner research, as you read about in Chapter 2. I am a firm believer in the fact that each and every instance of practitioner research is unique, and that a report resulting from that research will also be unique in terms of its format and outline. That being said, a general outline for reports of practitioner research is shown in Figure 3.2. Once again, it is important to note that these aspects or headings can be customized or adapted in order to “fit” a particular research study. In other words, the labels for the headings and subheadings may change, but it is important that all of the material outlined above appears somewhere in the report (Mertler, 2020). It is essential for all of these aspects to be

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Figure 3.1  Typical, Generic Outline for a Written Report of Research.

Figure 3.2  General Outline for Reports of Practitioner Research.

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included because you want the reader to fully understand all aspects of your study. You never want to force your reader to have to make assumptions about something that you did in your study, simply because you failed to include that information in the report. If you force readers to try to figure things out for themselves, they may do so in an inaccurate way. By providing them with all of the information, you avoid this occurrence. A final consideration regarding the formatting of research reports is a recommended length for the report. I am often asked how long a report of practitioner research should be. The most appropriate response that I can provide is that it should be “as long as it needs to be in order to thoroughly and accurately tell your story.” As you can imagine, most people do not find comfort in that recommendation, although it is true and accurate. More concretely, however, the length of a research report is often dictated by its audience and the outlet intended to be used to share the report. For example, if you are looking to publish a report in a particular journal, that journal will provide recommended page lengths. If the purpose of a report is to share the results of your research with colleagues, then I would recommend that the report be much shorter. You will learn much more about designing reports for different audiences later in this book.

ETHICS IN WRITING REPORTS OF PRACTITIONER RESEARCH Arguably, the most important ethical practice when conducting or writing a report of practitioner research is that the researcher maintains the anonymity and confidentiality of all participants in any research study. These two terms are often lumped together as a single ethical practice and are sometimes difficult to discern. However, each is individually important. Anonymity means you do not know who the participants are, while confidentiality means you know who they are but you remove identifying information from your research report (Scribbr, 2023). You can only guarantee anonymity by not collecting any personally identifying information—for example, names, phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, physical characteristics, photos, or videos. In all likelihood, this is an impossibility when conducting practitioner research since you are studying people you know and with whom you work. However, you can keep their data confidential by using aggregate information in your research report, so that you only refer to groups of participants rather than individuals. This ethical consideration also most certainly extends to the writing process. When developing a final report of research, it is crucial that the researcher keep the identities of participants involved in the study

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confidential. This can be accomplished through the use of pseudonyms or simply by not providing identifiable details. This not only pertains to individual participants but also to participating schools or districts.

PRACTICAL GUIDELINES FOR WRITING A PRACTITIONER RESEARCH REPORT We began this chapter by discussing the fact that some people love the writing process while others detest it. Regardless of which side of that fence you fall on, it is important to recognize that writing of an academic nature is arguably the one aspect of every profession that keeps that profession changing, growing, and expanding (Mertler, 2020). Communication— especially of research and research findings—among the members of any given profession allows those members to stay abreast of new ideas, innovations, and opportunities. Writing is the primary mechanism through which we can learn more about a given topic, share with others what we know about a topic, and gather ideas for new things to try in our profession. I believe that we are at a critical stage in the broad field of education where the voice of the practitioner is desperately needed—now more than ever. If you had told me several years ago that by this time in my career I would have written numerous research articles and several textbooks, I probably would have laughed … I certainly would not have believed you. I never thought I was capable of producing such written works related to my profession. However, now that I have been engaged in the writing process for nearly three decades and over several projects, I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoy it! For me, the key has always been to follow several tips that I have developed for myself. Keep in mind that when developing your “rituals for writing,” you have to find out what works best for you in order to be successful. With that in mind, I offer the following suggestions (Mertler, 2020, pp. 245–246): ■■

Establish a writing routine. Writing takes time; there is no sense in thinking that it is something that can be done quickly. One of the best things you can do to facilitate your writing is to make it part of your professional life. Find time where it falls or make time, if necessary. It is really no different than any other aspect of teaching—we all make time for lesson planning, grading, developing a unit test, and so on. Writing simply becomes another one of our important professional activities. In addition, find a comfortable place to write—perhaps at your home computer or with a legal pad

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■■

■■

■■

■■

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and a pencil at your kitchen table. Find a place that works for you and make it part of your routine. Try to write at the same time every day. Along with establishing a writing routine, try to build into your daily schedule some time for writing. Perhaps that time will consist of 30 minutes or an hour. Regardless of the amount of time, make it a regular part of your daily routine. For example, you might decide that before school for 30 minutes is the best time for you to write, or maybe a period of time after school or even after dinner will be the best time for you to write. Failure to establish a routine writing time only serves to promote procrastination. Write as if you are talking to a friend. Remember that you are trying to communicate your study and the results as clearly as possible. When you write, imagine that you are telling a friend about your study. This friend knows nothing about the topic, so you must communicate all aspects of the study in understandable, simple terms. Begin with an outline and organize your thoughts accordingly. When I write, I begin by developing a thorough outline. Then all I have to do is to fill in the “blanks” of the outline. The outline helps keep me on track and focused; plus, it creates somewhat of a series of checkpoints for my finished product. (I love to cross things off of my lists!) Do not worry initially about spelling, grammar, and how your report reads. When developing the first draft of your action research report, do not become too concerned about how your report reads. I believe that many people who are new to academic writing fall victim to this—they try to make their reports read “perfectly” the first time out. Do not concern yourself with finding the ideal phrase or with the correct spelling of a given word. At this point in the writing process, you should only be concerned with getting your thoughts, ideas, and information on paper. You will have ample opportunities to refine and “wordsmith” your writing at a later stage. Realize that writing a first draft is only the first step in the writing process. When you begin to write, it is important to realize that you are writing a first draft. You will have opportunities to edit and revise and then edit and revise again. This part of the process enables you to further refine and clarify your thoughts and ideas; each time, they become a little more coherent, with an improved sense of flow to your report.

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Last, but in my mind most importantly, develop a realistic writing schedule. If you begin writing with no clear sense of schedule, you essentially lack the incentive to continue making progress on your report, again fostering procrastination. Developing a realistic—and I stress the word realistic—schedule for your writing is the first thing you should do before ever putting your first word on paper.

These suggestions—especially the last one—have helped me throughout my various writing projects. I know that the closer I can stick to my writing schedule, the more successful my writing project will be. In addition, there is something to be said for being able to check off sections of your report as you complete them—it creates a sense of accomplishment, provides you with repeated opportunities to pat yourself on the back, and provides the necessary encouragement to keep going, because there is a light at the end of the proverbial writing tunnel! Just remember to find what works for you and stick with it.

TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CHAPTER ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

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Academic-style writing is a skill that takes hard work, focused effort, and patience. Numerous style guides are available to standardize and guide the writing process. APA style is arguably the most commonly used style guide in the broad field of education. Conventions of style are important in that they standardize written reports of research so readers can focus on content. It is critical that academic writing be free of bias that perpetuates demeaning or otherwise disparaging and offensive attitudes and assumptions about specific populations. When writing a research report, it is critical to ensure that the author never claims credit for words or ideas that are not their own. Titles and abstracts are crucial, since they serve as the screening mechanisms for many readers of research reports. First person and active voice are stressed when writing reports of practitioner research. Generally speaking, reports of research should be written in the past tense, with the exception of conclusions, limitations, and future directions for research.

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Care should be exhibited in the use of definitive statements in a research report. It is important that research reports are clear, consistent, and use simple and straightforward language. There are several general components to a generic outline for writing a report of practitioner research. Maintaining anonymity and confidentiality of participants is essential in any written report of research. Following several practical guidelines for writing provides a strategy for promoting successful writing habits.

REFERENCES American Psychological Association (APA). (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). American Psychological Association. Grant Rankin, J. (2020). Increasing the impact of your research: A practical guide for sharing your findings and widening your audience. Routledge. Johnson, A. P. (2013). A short guide to action research (4th ed.). Pearson. Mertler, C. A. (2020). Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators (6th ed.). SAGE. Mertler, C. A. (2022a). Introduction to educational research (3rd ed.). Sage. Mertler, C. A. (2022b, November). Online EdD program graduates’ persistence for engaging in ongoing practitioner research. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Florida Educational Research Association, Daytona Beach, Florida. Scribbr. (2023, February 8). What’s the difference between anonymity and confidentiality? https://www.scribbr.com/frequently-askedquestions/anonymity-and-confidentiality/

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Chapter Four

Presentations of Research

A PRIMER ON RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS In the previous chapter, you read about the act of writing reports of completed practitioner research. As uncomfortable as many people—including practitioners at virtually all levels—find the writing process, I would argue that the notion of standing up in front of peers, colleagues, and other people that you may have never met and discussing your research could possibly create an even greater amount of anxiety and apprehension—perhaps even feelings of intimidation. After all, writing a report of research would seem to be a less “risky” venture, once the writing process has been completed. When other people read a written report of research, they are typically not sitting right in front of you doing so. There is no opportunity for direct eye contact, for someone to visually or verbally react (either positively or negatively) to something you are trying to communicate, or for follow-up questions. However, all of those things are a distinct possibility—and in many cases, they are a probability—when you present the results of your practitioner research. In my opinion, this will nearly always be the case, regardless of the makeup of your audience. Verbal and nonverbal reactions, as well as follow-up questions for clarification or for further information, as well as interactive discussions about your topic, should always be anticipated during and following a research presentation. As you can imagine, presenting the results of research requires the practitioner researcher to put oneself “out there,” so to speak. You have to prepare for and be willing to stand on that “stage” and speak knowledgeably about your work. It requires a certain amount of preparation—both physical and emotional— as well as perhaps several deep, calming breaths before you begin. I have been presenting my research at conferences and other outlets for nearly 30 years. I have presented my research to audiences of five

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people and to audiences of more than 200 people; some of my presentations last 10 minutes, and others have lasted six hours. I still get a little nervous before speaking about my work each and every time that I do it, but I approach the task with confidence, knowing that I have done a good job with my research and that I am simply trying to share the results with others who are interested in learning about my research and my topic, as a whole. Some members of the audience may like what I have to say; others may not. That is their prerogative … and I am perfectly fine with that. When presenting the results of research, I would urge all practitioners to approach a presentation task with a similar attitude. Not every individual in an audience will agree with what you have to share. It is important to know that and to acknowledge that before uttering your first word. To be honest, for the vast majority of instances where I am sharing my research either in written or presentation forms, I find the presentation forms to be more professionally satisfying and rewarding. Since presentations are spoken, they tend to be somewhat less formal. They also tend to be much more personal and intimate than writing a report of research for others to read. In my opinion, one of the most gratifying and productive features of research presentations is the fact that I am typically afforded the opportunity to interact with the audience around my topic. There can be questions and answers, or there can be frank and open discussion and conversation around the topic. Incidentally, this also fosters opportunities to network with like-minded people who may share similar research and practice interests. You never know where those exchanges may lead. Next, we will take a look at several different types of presentation opportunities.

TYPES OF PRESENTATIONS Arguably, most presentations occur at professional conferences. Some conferences may be relatively small, with perhaps no more than 40 or 50 people in attendance. Other conferences may have participant numbers that are enormous and include thousands and thousands of attendees— although not all of them will attend your presentation. Professional conferences are typically held annually and are usually sponsored by state, regional, or national organizations (Mertler, 2020). You will learn much more about the conference presentation process in Chapter 7. Here, however, we consider five different types of presentations, four of which typically occur in a conference setting.

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Paper Presentations As the name clearly implies, a paper presentation is just that—it is a presentation of a complete report of research that you have previously written (Mertler, 2020), as you learned about in Chapter 3. The presentation essentially takes the most important aspects of the research report and organizes them using some type of presentation software. A handful of common examples of presentation software include, but are not limited to, the following: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Microsoft PowerPoint (Mac and PC) Keynote (Mac) Google slides (web-based; https://www.google.com/slides/about/) Prezi (web-based; https://prezi.com/) Canva (web-based; https://www.canva.com/)

In addition to the three popular web-based presentation platforms listed above, numerous others exist as well. Most of the web-based platforms have free versions that do not require a subscription or payment; however, as you can imagine, paid plans offer more bells and whistles. Research papers are usually presented as part of a paper session. Paper sessions at a conference may range anywhere from roughly 60 minutes in length to 90 or even 120 minutes. This is usually dependent on the number of paper presentations that are included in a session. Typically, each paper is allotted roughly 10–15 minutes to present, with allotted time for Q&A (i.e., questions and answers) for the presenters following the completion of all presentations. For example, in a typical paper presentation session that lasts 75 minutes, there might typically be four papers presented. Each paper—note that this does not meet each author, should a paper have multiple authors—would be allotted roughly 12 minutes to present. This will be followed by 20 minutes of Q&A for all four papers. Factoring in the transition time between paper presenters, this would fill the 75-minute timeslot. The American Educational Research Association—arguably the preeminent education research organization in the US—describes paper presentations in their annual call for proposals (American Educational Research Association [AERA], 2022) as follows: In paper sessions, authors present abbreviated versions of their papers, followed by comments/critique if there is a discussant, and audience discussion. Paper sessions have a chair; discussant(s) are optional. Chairs and discussants for paper sessions are identified

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by unit program chairs. A discussant (or discussants) is included as part of a paper session only if a discussant’s expertise can add to the understanding of the papers. A typical structure for a session with four or five papers allows approximately 5 minutes for the chair’s introduction to the session, 10 minutes per presentation, 20 minutes of critique, and 15 minutes of discussion. Session chairs may adjust the timing based on the number of presentations and discussants (where applicable) scheduled for the session. Individuals must be attentive to the time allocation for presenting their work in paper sessions. In the case of multiple-authored papers, more than one person may present, but multiple presenters must divide among the presenters the total time available to them. They should take steps to ensure that including more than one speaker does not detract from the overall presentation of the work or infringe on the time allotments for other presentations. (pp. 4–5) As an additional (albeit briefer) example, the Florida Educational Research Association describes paper presentations in their call for proposals (Florida Educational Research Association [FERA], 2022) as follows: Paper presentations should be prepared for an average 15-minute time span. Individual papers will be grouped by topic into paper sessions. Each paper session will include an introduction by a session facilitator, presentation of the papers, and audience questions and reactions. (p. 2) The first thing that you might be saying to yourself is … “That is not much time to present my entire research report!” I would wholeheartedly agree. Actually, I believe this to be one of the biggest challenges of developing a conference presentation—that being the challenge of whittling down a lengthy report of a research study into a 10- to 15-minute presentation. It requires that the presenter be very strategic in developing the presentation in order to highlight and discuss only the most salient points of the paper (Mertler, 2020), and not to get bogged down in the minutia of the report. That being said, there should be a very close alignment and parallel between the actual written report and the presentation of that report, as depicted in Figure 4.1. This figure shows the title page from a written report of research and the title slide for the presentation of a conference presentation that I recently delivered (Mertler, 2022).

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Figure 4.1  A Written Report of Research and Corresponding Presentation Slide.

More detailed information about strategies that can be used to actually develop this type of conference presentation will be discussed in Chapter 7.

Symposium Presentations A symposium or panel presentation is a special type of (usually) conference presentation. It is typically characterized by several individuals (perhaps anywhere from four to seven people) presenting on the same topic but who provide unique or different perspectives or different experiences on that topic (Mertler, 2020). Symposium presentation sessions can last anywhere from 60 to 120 minutes, depending on how they might be structured at a given conference. AERA (2022) describes symposia sessions as follows: A symposium provides an opportunity to examine specific research issues, problems, or topics from a variety of perspectives. Symposia may present alternative solutions, interpretations, or contrasting points of view on a specified subject or in relation to a common theme. Symposia may also use a panel discussion format targeted

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at a clearly delineated research issue or idea…. Session submissions for symposia must have a minimum of three (3) participants. Session submissions for symposia are limited to six (6) participants for 90-minute sessions and seven (7) participants for 120-minute sessions. The number of participants includes presenters and any discussants. These limits are in addition to the chair. The presentation limits are to allow for meaningful presentation, discussion, and audience participation. In general, symposia sessions include presenters from different institutions or from different research groups or teams. (p. 7) FERA (2022) describes their symposia sessions as follows: A symposium provides an opportunity to examine specific problems, topics, or projects from a variety of perspectives. Papers presented in a symposium should be on the same theme and should complement each other. A symposium should provide an opportunity for presentations as well as dialogue, critique, and audience comments. Presentations should be organized within a 60–90-minute time period. The organizer of a symposium is responsible for suggesting the topic, securing speakers, and arranging for a facilitator. If the symposium is accepted by the Program Committee, the organizer is responsible for assuring that everyone named as a participant (whether a presenter or facilitator) will be present at the meeting. If the organizer so desires, the Program Committee will secure a facilitator for the session. Should circumstances prevent a participant from attending the meeting, it is the organizer’s responsibility to secure a suitable replacement and notify the FERA Program Committee of the substitution as soon as possible. The organizer is responsible for notifying all other symposium participants. The Program Committee will notify only the organizer. (p. 2) A good deal of thought must go into the development of a symposium or panel, so that it has an organization to it and that multiple perspectives are presented. After all, it might not be beneficial to hear five individuals discuss the exact same thing. As an example, I recently participated on a panel presentation at a high school on the topic of academic plagiarism.

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There were five individuals on the panel, with one person discussing each of the following topics: (1) the legal aspects of plagiarism, (2) plagiarism in high school academics, (3) plagiarism in college/university academics, (4) the effects of plagiarism on job/career prospects, and (5) ways to avoid plagiarism (Mertler, 2020).

Poster Presentations A third type of presentation format—which might be very appealing to the novice conference presenter—is a poster presentation. Posters are typically presented as a session in a large room with tables, where each presenter sets up either a flat or a tri-fold board. On the board, the researcher assembles summarizations of various aspects of the study (i.e., think back to your middle school science fair presentation!). AERA (2022) describes a poster session—which they have updated in recent years to incorporate remote poster presentations, as well as the integration of video and audio—in the following manner: Place-based poster sessions combine display of materials on a video monitor with the opportunity for individualized, informal discussion of the research with attendees during a 90-minute session. Papers accepted for place-based poster sessions will be grouped by the program chair into appropriate poster sessions. Individual presenters who are accepted will create an iPresentation for monitor display during their poster session that will also be additionally accessible for viewing through the AERA Virtual Poster Gallery. Papers accepted for virtual poster presentations will be available for on-demand viewing at any time. Authors of virtual poster presentations will include an overall narration as part of their iPresentation. This interactive technology will permit the presenter to include video, sound, text, narration, and charts. (p. 5) Conference attendees meander through the room, reading the posters and interacting—in an informal question-and-answer format—with the researchers (Grant Rankin, 2020). This presentation format tends to be much less stressful, because of its less formal nature and its conversational style (Mertler, 2020). An example of a research study presented in a poster session at a conference is shown in Figure 4.2 (notice that the actual written research report is also available in the table in front of the poster). Admittedly, this example is somewhat of an “old-school” approach

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Figure 4.2 A Sample Poster Presented at a Research Conference.

to developing a poster that summarizes research. Notice that it is really nothing more than the various aspects of the study printed on 8-1/2″ × 11″ paper and then assembled in an appropriate manner on the trifold board. A more current example of a research poster that was presented at a conference is shown in Figure 4.3. This poster represents a more modern approach to designing and laying out the information on a poster, typically using software such as Microsoft PowerPoint. The reader should notice that doing it in this manner and utilizing the benefits of computer software allows the researcher to utilize different sizes and styles of fonts, a variety of colors, and other aspects that are tend to be much more appealing to the eye and would likely garner the attention of a conference participant better than the previous example shared. As with paper presentations, more detailed information about strategies for developing poster presentations will be discussed in Chapter 7.

Invited Presentations Although it might not happen early in your career as a presenter of your research, with more experience and exposure could come opportunities

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Figure 4.3  Another Sample Poster Presented at a Conference.

for invited presentations. These kinds of presentations include serving as a conference’s keynote speaker or featured speaker (usually one of several). Over my career, I have been fortunate and blessed to have been asked to serve as a keynote or other type of invited speaker more than 25 times. I have served as a keynote speaker for state, regional, national, and international conferences (both in-person and virtually), as well as much smaller, local events. These smaller and more local events include being invited to speak to doctoral students enrolled in a specific program at a particular university as part of an immersion weekend or of a local leadership conference. Unlike presentations that we have examined earlier in this chapter, invited presentations typically give you much more flexibility. Seldom are you limited to a timeframe such as 10 or 15 minutes for your presentation. Most conference keynote or invited addresses that I have delivered have afforded me the opportunity to speak anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes. As you can imagine, this becomes a much more relaxed environment in which to speak, where there is no pressure to rush through a presentation because of a limited timeframe.

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Granted, most novice speakers—as well as many experienced speakers—might cringe at the thought and be quite hesitant to deliver any sort of invited presentation, especially if the audience has the potential to be quite large. In that case, you might want to consider starting out slower, and on a smaller scale. For example, you could present your practitioner research to your colleagues or broader community at your place of work (see the next section). You might also consider local service organizations and clubs, like a Chamber of Commerce, Rotary club, or local board of education (Grant Rankin, 2020). If and when you are asked to deliver any sort of invited presentation, I urge you to strongly consider accepting the invitation. Although it brings with it its own unique level of stress, it serves as professional recognition of your work. This type of invitation is a direct reflection on work that you have done and a particular reputation that you have earned with respect to a specific area of focus. Receiving these kinds of invitations simply means that other people are recognizing your work and value the contributions that your work could make to the lives and professional experiences of others.

Workplace Collegial Presentations Up to this point in this chapter, we have considered several types of presentations, most of which typically occur at a professional conference. Presentations to colleagues in the workplace constitute a different kind of presentation. These presentations tend to be much less formal. They may be less formal for several reasons. In all likelihood, you have been asked to present as part of some other formal gathering, like a monthly staff meeting, a board meeting, or a special professional development session, for example. Also, most of these audiences would not necessarily be expecting a formal, academic-type presentation, similar to what one would make a conference. They know you; they work with you; they are already familiar, to some degree, with your work. They might be expecting you to talk to them as you have done many times before, in similar types of meetings. Furthermore, workplace collegial presentations often afford you the opportunity to get “straight to the point.” In other words, since these are people with whom you work on a daily basis, they already know about the setting and the context in which you work. You do not have to spend part of your presentation time—as you would at a conference, when presenting to strangers—to explain the nature of the context in which your research was conducted.

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These types of presentations ordinarily would not necessitate that the presentation be accompanied by a formal written report of the research. However, in many instances, it is advantageous (for you as the speaker) and beneficial (to your audience) if you developed and provided a brief summary of the main points that you will be talking about in your presentation. This summary of your research might be in the form of a one-page handout or something resembling an infographic (see Chapter 5). Finally, and similar to all types of presentations that we have previously looked at, workplace presentations require appropriate preparation. Standing in front of colleagues, superiors, and perhaps subordinates and discussing the practitioner research in which you have engaged is not the time to “wing it” or “fly by the seat of your pants.” The goal of your presentation is not to inundate them with details, but it is important that you appear knowledgeable and well-informed on the topic of your research. You want to be sure to develop a well-thought-out and well-timed presentation. These types of strategies related to developing presentations in formally presenting them to an audience will be discussed further, in more detail in Chapter 7.

A Quick Note About Virtual Presentations One impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that was felt and experienced by people around the entire globe was the fact that virtual work using online conferencing software became the norm. During that 2- to 3-year period from March of 2020 until roughly the middle of 2022, many organizations continued to hold their annual conferences, albeit in virtual formats. At the time of the writing of this book, as we continue to move further away from those pandemic-related necessities, many workplaces as well as research organizations have continued to utilize virtual formats to some degree. Most professional organizations have returned to place-based conferences, although they have retained some sort of virtual component. Some of these organizations offer programming within the conference schedule—either concurrent with or immediately following the place-based conference—where there are only virtual sessions. I believe that they have done this in order to encourage people to want to present at their conferences, even if they may be hesitant about travel, lodging, and interactions with other people outside of their local communities. It remains to be seen how long these virtual components will be retained by the organizations. However, suffice to say, there is a meaningful proportion of the large world-wide community of conference presenters who have appreciated and taken advantage of the virtual option.

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I raise the issue of virtual presentations only to point out that this may be a viable option for some time to come. However, nearly everything that you have read about in this chapter up to this point would still hold true for a virtual presentation. I have seen conferences that offer virtual presentation sessions for paper presentations, poster presentations, and even symposia panel discussions. In fact, in November of 2020—less than 1 year into the pandemic—I participated on a symposium panel (Clark et al., 2020) for a conference that took place on the other side of the country, and did so from my office within my home. Many, if not all, of the requirements and expectations for these various kinds of presentations that we have discussed thus far are still requirements and expectations if the presentations are delivered in a virtual environment. Aspects of and guidelines for virtual presentations will also be addressed in Chapter 7.

ETHICS IN PRESENTING PRACTITIONER RESEARCH Since you are reading about ethics once again in this chapter, I am guessing by now that you have realized that ethics—in both conducting research and disseminating and sharing research—is of the upmost importance. You will continue to see it in subsequent chapters throughout this book. As you read in Chapter 3 regarding written reports of research, the most crucial ethical behaviors that a practitioner researcher must follow center on the notions of maintaining the anonymity and confidentiality of participants in the research process. This notion continues to hold true when we engage in the process of presenting the results of research in a public setting. Of particular importance, you want to ensure that you do not include the names of individual or organizational participants on any of the slides or posters that you use to present the results of your research. This is relatively easy to ensure by following the basic rule that you not include names—other than the possibility of using pseudonyms—in any of your visuals. Also, since these are visual extensions of your research, you should not incorporate any photos or videos of participants, unless you seek and they provide written consent to do so. However, in my opinion, one of the more difficult aspects of following ethical guidelines when presenting research is to avoid inadvertently and unintentionally utter the names of individual participants or their organizational settings. This can sometimes be a challenge—especially for a novice presenter—simply because of nerves. When you’re standing in front of an audience, presenting your research, there exists a tendency to be nervous, anxious, or trepidatious, as we have discussed previously. We all know that when we are nervous and speaking out loud and in public,

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we sometimes say things that we should not say or reveal. As you will read more about later in this book, that is why I often stress that the timing of a presentation is crucial. You do not want to feel rushed during your presentation, or this kind of nervous utterance is more likely to occur. In addition, spending time rehearsing your presentation prior to actually delivering it can help to alleviate these kinds of occurrences. However, it is always important to remember that, even though these kinds of accidental pronouncements may be somewhat alleviated by preparation, they are not completely eliminated by doing so.

PRACTICAL GUIDELINES FOR DEVELOPING A PRACTITIONER RESEARCH PRESENTATION There are numerous guidelines that I can offer regarding a presentation of practitioner research. We will look at many of the “nuts and bolts” of developing an actual presentation in Chapter 7. However, here we will examine guidelines that one should consider in preparation for developing a full-blown presentation of practitioner research. Grant Rankin (2020) offers several considerations that I have adapted and expanded on below: ■■

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Try to accurately anticipate your audience. It is critical to determine if your audience will be made up primarily of researchers, practitioners, or a mixture of the two. Depending on the makeup, you should plan to structure your presentation accordingly. More specifically, if your audience will consist of researchers, you will likely focus your presentation much more on details such as related literature, specific methodologies that you employed in conducting your research, as well as other aspects of the research process. However, if your audience is made up of practitioners, then I would recommend focusing far less on these aspects and more on the context of your research, the problem that you were investigating with your research, and the ultimate conclusions that you drew from your research. If you know or anticipate that your audience will contain members of both groups, then it will be important to provide a mix of methodological details and practitioner-oriented information. Determine an ultimate purpose and message for your presentation. What is your ultimate reason for wanting to share your research with others? You might be trying to share with them an important finding or result from your research (e.g., your supplemental reading activities resulted in an increase in students’ comprehension

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■■

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test scores). In contrast, you may decide to focus your presentation on the innovative strategies and/or methodologies that you used in your research (e.g., the specifics of the supplemental reading activities you implemented). Another option for the focus of a presentation may be on a particular population of participants (e.g., second-grade students in a Title I school). The reason that is important for you to make these determinations at the outset of your planning is because you can then structure your presentation with that overarching goal and message in mind. That way, it will be continually reinforced, and perhaps even mentioned, throughout your presentation. This helps an audience to really understand what it is that you are most focused on trying to share with them. Craft a compelling title and description. As we mentioned in the last chapter about writing research reports, a title and an abstract are especially important aspects of a paper. Similarly, a title and description of your presentation are the initial screening mechanisms for conference participants or others to decide whether or not they want to attend your presentation and listen to what you have to say. Your title and description of your presentation should be compelling enough to capture the attention of potential audience members and draw them in. However, the title should also be an accurate reflection of what you will be presenting. Similar to our discussion in Chapter 3, I would recommend avoiding “cute” titles or ones that pose riddles, for example. Remember that you want to entice them to attend your presentation; you do not want to entertain or mislead them with your “creative” title. I have been in conference presentation sessions over my career where people have titled their presentations in such a manner. Once they start their presentation, and some participants in the audience realize that the presentation has nothing whatsoever to do with the cute title that the presenter used, they literally get up and walk out of the presentation room. Although you cannot control that as a presenter, that is not something that you want to happen. Be prepared to talk solutions and not just problems. In my opinion, a majority of people attend research presentations because they are interested in finding out what you discovered in your research or the solutions at which you arrived. If you present to them, and only focus on the fact that you had problems—ironically, your audience probably encounters similar problems, which is why they are attending your session in the first place—they will leave your session feeling disappointed and empty-handed. In many cases,

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people attend research presentations because they have encountered problems similar to yours in their work and they are looking for potential solutions that you may have discovered and are willing to share with them as part of your research and presentation. The handful of guidelines presented above will not guarantee you a perfect presentation, but they will get you started on the right path. Following these guidelines will help you plan for the development of a research presentation that is compelling, interesting, and helpful to members of your audience. Not only is your research presentation important to you as the researcher and presenter, but also it is always vitally important to remember that your audience is investing time and energy in attending and listening to your presentation and they want to be able to take something positive away from the experience.

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Many practitioners find that presenting their research causes more anxiety than writing a report of research. Putting oneself “out there” during a research presentation can be unnerving. Since presentations are spoken, they are typically less formal than a written report. A paper presentation is a presentation of a complete written report, resulting from a research study. Paper presentations are usually delivered with the accompaniment of slides developed with presentation software. Paper presentations at a conference are usually part of the session where multiple papers may be presented in the same timeslot, resulting in a short amount of time for each presentation. A paper presentation should focus on the most salient points of the written report that the practitioner wishes to share with others. A symposium is characterized by several individuals who present on the same topic, but provide different perspectives or experiences. Symposia require a great deal of planning and preparation in order to coordinate the timing and contributions of each participant. Poster presentations are a visual option to presenting research, which are typically appealing to novice conference presenters. Poster presentations provide a summary of various pertinent aspects of the research study, and do so on either a flat or trifold board.

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Invited presentations can include keynote addresses, invited sessions, or featured addresses. Invited presentations typically offer the speaker additional time in order to share perspectives, research, or experience. Workplace collegial presentations are typically less formal, since you are speaking to people with whom you work and who know your context. Although workplace presentations typically do not require a formal written report, they should still be well-developed and planned in advance. As with sharing or disseminating research in any form, ethics are always an important consideration. Important guidelines for developing a presentation include trying to anticipate the makeup of your audience, determining a purpose and message for your presentation, crafting a compelling title and description, and being prepared to talk about solutions along with problems.

REFERENCES American Educational Research Association [AERA]. (2022). Annual meeting call for submissions. https://www.aera.net/Events-Meetings/ Annual-Meeting/2023-Annual-Meeting-Call-for-Paper-andSession-Submissions-Revised Clark, M., Coddington, C., Curran, C., Hersh, D., Koro, M., & Mertler, C. A. (2020, November). Educational research under COVID: Now and beyond. Virtual Forum of the Florida Educational Research Association. Florida Educational Research Association [FERA]. (2022). FERA 2022 call for proposals general announcement. https://feraonline.org/ conference/call-for-proposals/ Grant Rankin, J. (2020). Increasing the impact of your research: A practical guide for sharing your findings and widening your audience. Routledge. Mertler, C. A. (2020). Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators (6th ed.). Sage. Mertler, C. A. (2022, November). Online EdD program graduates’ persistence for engaging in ongoing practitioner research. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Florida Educational Research Association, Daytona Beach, Florida.

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Chapter Five

Posters, Infographics, and Video Formats

POSTERS Although we have already considered and discussed posters in Chapter 4 on presentation formats, it is worth mentioning that they also have a rightful place in a discussion of visual formats for disseminating and sharing the results of practitioner research. Posters are certainly a legitimate and accepted format for presenting at conferences, but it is important not to lose sight of the fact that posters represent a visual medium for sharing the results of research. Hence, the reason for also listing and briefly revisiting posters in this chapter on visual formats. Even though posters can be grouped in with other formats in a conference setting—such as formal paper presentations—they are a bit unique in that you typically do not have a captive audience seated in front of you to listen to your presentation. As previously discussed, poster sessions typically take place in a large open meeting space, such as a ballroom. A poster session may last for 60 or 90 minutes. A unique aspect of a poster session is that participants literally wander through the meeting space, not only reading the information provided on the posters, but also engaging in discussion with the presenters/ researchers. One of the aspects of this format that makes it distinctive and special is that conference participants may approach you while you are in the middle of a conversation with another participant. In other words, it is unlikely that all participants with whom you engage during a poster presentation will hear everything that you have to say or that they will hear it in the same order of discussion, due to the fact that they are coming and going at different times during the lengthy session.

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This is the main reason that the visual components of the poster are so critical, in my opinion. If people are just strolling by your poster, you want to have aspects of the poster that will draw them in … attract their attention … in essence, “advertise” what you have to share. For better or worse, sharing the results of any sort of research requires the incorporation of and the effective and judicious use of text in order to share your research story. I mention the “judicious” use of text because, for obvious reasons, you do not have the amount of space that you would be afforded in a written report of research, in order to go into extensive detail about various aspects of your research study. However, one should not overlook the importance of visual images—whether those images be graphs, tables, photographs, icons, symbols, logos, etc. As important as we think the written contents of our posters might be, the simple fact is that visual images will likely do more to attract people and tempt them to take a closer look at our posters. Again, in my opinion, I think the two most essential and enticing components of a research poster are the title of your poster presentation—of course, as you have read about earlier in this book—and any visuals that “jump out” to people passing by. In Chapter 4, I shared with you a poster that I presented at a conference several years ago. Below, I share two more examples of posters that were presented at conferences. Daniels and Simzer (2022) conducted a practitioner study on middle school support sessions and their resulting impact on fostering academic self-confidence (see Figure 5.1). As their research poster demonstrates, most posters presented at research conferences will contain a good amount of text. Daniels and Simzer’s (2022) poster is essentially set up in three columns. You can see that they have provided information in the column on the left, including their research questions, rationale for the study, hypothesis, and summary of a literature review. The middle column summarized the methodology (specifically, a timeline and quantitative data collection strategies) and their references. Finally, in the right column, the authors summarize their findings (including two graphs and samples of student work that were produced as part of the program). The poster contains a good deal of text but also includes graphics and photos. The graphs help to visually summarize the results, and the photos of student work produced during the implementation of the innovation help to convey the impact of the program to the reader. A second example of a research poster is shown in Figure 5.2. RotheramFuller and Turner (2019) examined the effectiveness of applied behavior analysis trainings in Spanish for parents of children with autism spectrum disorder. Similar to the previous figure, there is a good amount of text that appears on the poster. However, Rotheram-Fuller and Turner have

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Figure 5.1 Practitioner Research Poster for a Study of Support Sessions and Academic Self-confidence in Middle School Students.

Figure 5.2 Research Poster for Study of Effectiveness of Parent Trainings in Spanish for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

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included photos, tables of data and results, and even a flowchart of the steps undertaken in their research study. Both of these posters also contain a lot of bright colors, which can only serve to help attract the attention of a potential reader.

INFOGRAPHICS Another somewhat lesser-known visual format for research presentations is infographics. An infographic—the shortened combination of information and graphics—is a visual representation of information or data (Venngage Inc., 2022). More specifically, an infographic is a collection of imagery, data visualizations (like pie charts and bar graphs), and minimal text that provides an easy-to-understand overview of a topic. The intent of an infographic is to grab the attention of the reader and not let go. They aim to distill information into a quickly digestible, picture-driven format that viewers can more easily retain (French, 2020). Information, data, or knowledge is presented quickly and clearly in a visual format—which is much more efficient than trying to explain concepts, etc. in full text—that enhances the understanding and ability to retain information in the mind of the consumer or viewer. A well-designed infographic increases the willingness on the part of the viewer to engage, simply because the brain is able to absorb the information quicker (French, 2020). The popularity of infographics as a medium for efficiently sharing information is a relatively recent phenomenon; however, infographics have actually been around for centuries (French, 2020). One example is the English nurse Florence Nightingale, who, in 1857, produced an infographic to lobby for better conditions in military hospitals by comparing and diagramming various causes of death for soldiers during the Crimean War (see Figure 5.3). Her infographic resembled a pie chart containing color-coded wedges that corresponded to different causes of death. Granted, our infographics today are much fancier and technologically advanced, due to our computer-enhanced capabilities. That being said, it is interesting to note that infographics have been a meaningful way to share detailed and complex data and information in an easy-tounderstand format. A second, more up-to-date, version of an infographic is shown in Figure 5.4. This infographic summarizes an internal research study— including an overview of the methods and findings—related to college students’ experiences with academics and coursework during the COVID-19 pandemic (Bebko et al., 2020). This visual summary incorporates several important features of infographics. Initially, notice that the left side (in

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Figure 5.3 Florence Nightingale’s Infographic of the Causes of Death among Soldiers.

Figure 5.4  Example of an Infographic from a Study of College Students’ Academic Experiences during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

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green font) succinctly summarizes the methods used in the study. The right-hand side (in red font) reviews four main findings from the study, as well as the authors’ recommendations. The reader should take note of key aspects of the infographic, namely: ■■ ■■

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Notice the eye-catching title at the top of the infographic. It utilizes a larger typeface to stand out. Also, note the authors’ use of small graphic icons in order to attract the reader’s attention to specific points being addressed. While they are not necessarily images that directly correspond to the ideas themselves, they are simple and visual attentiongrabbing images. Finally, notice that the text that used in the infographic is relatively brief. In most cases, the text represents a simple phrase or bullet-point idea.

The last point that I want to raise is a recognition of the fact that the information in this infographic could have been shared using nothing but text. The author could have written a numbered list with these ideas, where he explained each of them in more depth than what you see on the infographic. If I had to guess, I would likely estimate that this could have been anywhere from five to ten—or possibly even more—double-spaced, typed pages of text. You could have read through those pages and had a sense of these findings, but I am highly inclined to think that the image of the infographic will stick with you longer—in your brain that processes visual images quicker, better, and longer than it does text—than those ten-plus pages of ideas might. An example of an infographic resulting from an actual research study (see Figure 5.5) is one that I developed for a research study that I conducted several years ago and presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (Mertler, 2017). This presentation was actually a paper presentation, for which I had written a formal research report. However, I wanted to do something a little bit different for the audience, so I developed an infographic, passed that out to the session attendees as a handout, and then based my presentation on the contents of the infographic. Once again, I want to point out a couple of key components in this infographic. Many of the key aspects appear in bright blue font, including the title and important quantitative results. I also incorporated the use of small graphic icons to help represent ideas or concepts being presented, and limited the use of text throughout the infographic itself. Keeping in

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Figure 5.5  Example of an Infographic Presented at a Research Conference.

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mind the importance of the visual aspects of the infographic is always key when designing an infographic. Remember that you are trying to grab the attention of the conference participants who hopefully want to learn more about your research work. A final example of a research-based infographic appears in Figure 5.6. The author of this infographic utilized this format in order to share the findings of her dissertation research (Gruber, 2023). Once again, it is important to note several important aspects of her infographic. First, she used a large font to provide the title, typed in white font on a green background so that it stands out. She also provided her name and affiliation before she listed and highlighted seven key findings from her research study. While she chose to utilize a bit more text in describing the findings, she nonetheless incorporates numerical icons—in order to create a numbered list for the reader—as well as graphical and pictorial icons that help to attract a reader’s attention. One of the things that I think stands out most about this infographic is the use of varied and vibrant colors. At this point, you might be asking yourself how one goes about designing an infographic. Admittedly, they are complex and require a lot of graphic layout capability. However, as we saw with the development of presentation slide decks in Chapter 4, there are numerous online resources to help you design your own infographics. For example, if you Google “make my own infographic,” you will receive back a list of numerous—and I stress, numerous—websites that will facilitate the design and development of an infographic. There are simply too many to list and review here, but suffice to say, you should have no trouble finding a resource to help you. Many of these require a fee or membership, but there are others that are free of charge, although they likely have fewer bells and whistles included. Depending on your level of comfort, you can even design infographics in Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, or other similar, more common software programs. In fact, the infographic that I presented and that you saw in Figure 5.5 was developed in PowerPoint. As most of us must do from time to time on the Internet, this activity will require a little bit of investigation and examination on your part. Finally, I want to emphasize something that I think is very important about infographics. Up to this point, I have been discussing them as if they are something that accompany an oral presentation. This may often be the case. However, by design, infographics are meant to stand alone as a visual communiqué of information. When designing an infographic, I always recommend that you keep this fact in mind, and that you design the

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Figure 5.6 Example of an Infographic Summarizing the Results of a Dissertation Study of Parent Mindfulness.

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infographic to serve as a standalone form of communicating the results of your research. If you are fortunate enough to be able to present the infographic and discuss aspects of your research alongside the infographic, that is an added benefit, in my opinion.

VIDEO FORMATS A final example of visual presentations are videos. You might be wondering what these look like, since their use is not that common in terms of a presentation format at conferences, for example. In fact, I have only ever seen this at a handful of conferences over my career, but it is an interesting approach to presenting the results of research. In essence, the researcher develops a video vignette—a relatively short video, maybe 10–12 minutes in length—that summarizes the research study and its results. The video often consists of the practitioner/researcher simply discussing the research project, similar to how you would do if you were presenting it in front of a captive audience as a formal presentation of research. With today’s cell phone technology, this becomes a relatively easy and feasible way to produce this type of presentation. I have seen situations where people have collected qualitative data and conducted interviews with participants, and the participants have even appeared on the videos providing data and feedback in the form of their quotes regarding the study. The only potentially “advanced” type of skill that might be required is the ability to edit or splice short videos together, in order to make the final version for presentation. The presentations themselves are very interesting. When I have seen these kinds of sessions at conferences, they somewhat resemble poster presentation sessions. There is a large room with tables set up, where people have placed either video players or laptop computers on the tables. Participants in the session can then walk around the large room and stop to view videos of research studies they might be interested in learning more about. One of the distinct advantages of this type of session for the presenter is that you do not have to physically be there in order for participants to hear you talk about your study, the way you would have to be in a poster presentation session. However, I would stress that if you ever avail yourself of this kind of presentation opportunity, you would also likely want to have some sort of hard copy supplement—in the form of a written report of research, infographic, or other sort of handout—that could accompany the video. It might even be beneficial to have some sort of poster board with nothing more than the title of your presentation and your name as the researcher.

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Remember that you will need to initially attract people to your video, and a posted title with authorship can do just that.

ETHICS IN VISUAL PORTRAYALS OF PRACTITIONER RESEARCH Once again, we revisit the importance of ethics in sharing and disseminating the results of practitioner research. Our discussion in this chapter somewhat merges the discussions that we had in Chapters 3 and 4. The logic for this is that a poster presentation is an oral presentation, similar to what we discussed in Chapter 4. Further, and in a manner of speaking, an infographic is primarily a written form of communicating the results of research, similar to a written report of research, as we discussed in Chapter 3. Therefore, it is crucial that your written presentation information (e.g., an infographic) or your oral presentation of research (e.g., a poster presentation or video vignette) not reveal names or otherwise identify any of the participants in your study. You would want to ensure that you did not divulge names, or use photographs or videos that would identify individuals, unless you had written consent from those individuals to be included and identified within your research presentation. To reiterate an earlier discussion, this is sometimes potentially challenging—especially in a poster presentation that is live and “on the spot”—to avoid inadvertently or unintentionally articulating names of participants or the names of the organizations or settings where the research took place.

PRACTICAL GUIDELINES FOR VISUALLY SHARING PRACTITIONER RESEARCH I want to reiterate several important guidelines of a practical nature for visually sharing the results of practitioner research. Several of these have been discussed earlier in this book, but bear repeating, especially when preparing for any sort of visual presentation of research. These pertinent guidelines are as follows: ■■

Always try to accurately anticipate the makeup of your audience. This concept is admittedly important when disseminating, or otherwise sharing, the results of research in any sort of format. With respect to visual presentations of research, this is again a crucial aspect that any practitioner researcher should consider prior to developing an actual visual mechanism to share research. You always want to make sure that whatever you are sharing and however you are sharing it—either visually, orally, or both—is an

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appropriate match for, at least, the majority of people who want to learn more about your research. For example, if you will be presenting your research primarily to academics, you likely want to focus your presentation more on the methodology—including research, design, data collection, strategies, and data analysis procedures—that you utilized, and perhaps even the literature that formed the basis of your work. In contrast, if you will be presenting primarily to practitioners, you would want to focus more on a clear description of the problem, the key findings from your research, and what you intend to do in the future, in terms of future practitioner research or practical applications of your findings. Determine the ultimate goal for the message you want to share. Again, depending on the makeup of your audience, you should have a clear goal in mind regarding the message that you are trying to convey with the visual presentation that you share. Are you most concerned about conveying the type of research you conducted or the methodology that you employed? Or, are you more focused on communicating to others the results and conclusions that you drew from conducting a research? These are important decisions that should be made prior to developing a visual presentation and then incorporated appropriately into that presentation. Develop a compelling and attention-grabbing title. As we have stressed previously, the title of any presentation is a potential audience member’s initial mechanism for screening your presentation and determining if they want to read any further or if they want to attend your session. Titles should be clear and accurate descriptions of your research, factoring in your intended goals for your presentation. However, you also want your title to be interesting enough such that it will garner the attention of a potential participant and audience member for your visual presentation. Do not limit yourself to a one-way flow of information; be prepared for a two-way conversation. It is important to be mindful of the fact that, although the intent of any sort of presentation is for the researcher to share their work with others, many participants will desire to engage in conversation and discussion with the presenter. Therefore, it is always wise not to limit yourself to approaching your presentation as if it will only be a one-way transmission of information. It is advisable for a presenter to anticipate that there will be questions, comments, conversations, and perhaps

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even disagreements with what the researcher has presented. This is all part of the process of professionally sharing the results of research in a wider community of researchers, practitioners, and others who might be interested in learning more about your work. Remember that guidelines such as these will not guarantee you a “perfect” presentation. They will, however, help you to be better prepared going into a presentation, in terms of interacting more professionally and collegially with members of your audience who likely want to engage with you and discuss your research endeavors.

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Posters are an important and primary form of visual presentation of research. One challenge of a poster presentation is that you do not have a designated block of time to speak; participants circulate throughout the room and can stop and converse with the presenter at any point in the lengthy session. Visual components of a poster are crucial since this is often what will attract participants to engage with the presenter. As with any form of presentation, a detailed, accurate, and attention-grabbing title is critical. Infographics are another visual format for research presentations and combine imagery, data visualizations, and relatively minimal text in order to provide an overview of the topic. Infographics can take many forms, but most share important elements in terms of visually interesting fonts, colors, and graphics that stand out. Infographics are extremely efficient ways to highlight various aspects of research studies. Numerous websites exist to help practitioners design their own infographics. Infographics can also be designed using commonly accessible software like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. Although infographics can accompany a paper presentation (or other form of oral presentation), they are intended to serve as a standalone means of communicating data and information resulting from practitioner research. Although their use is rare and more limited, video vignettes may also be a possible way to share practitioner research.

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As with any sort of presentation of research, the presenter must adhere to ethical practices. Practical guidelines for visual presentations include anticipating the makeup of an audience, determining a goal for the presentation, developing a compelling title, and being prepared for twoway discussions of research.

REFERENCES Bebko, M. E., Goff, D. R., Kammeyer, E. J., Ruffin, M. A., & Turos, J. M. (2020). Student learning analyst assessment report infographic: Academics during COVID-19. Office of Academic Assessment, Bowling Green State University. Daniels, C., & Simzer, A. (2022). Middle school support sessions to foster academic self-confidence [Poster presentation]. Annual College of Education Student Achievement Council Research Symposium, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL. French, N. (2020, June 23). Design your first infographic. https://www. linkedin.com/learning/design-your-first-infographic Gruber, N. (2023). Completing the circle: Supporting child emotion regulation through a parent mindfulness program in Arizona’s first “mindful school district.” [Doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. Mertler, C. A. (2017, April). Understanding teacher motivation, job satisfaction, and perceptions of retention among Arizona teachers [Paper presentation]. Annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Antonio, Texas. Rotheram-Fuller, E., & Turner, K. (2019, May). Effectiveness of ABA parent training in Spanish for children with ASD [Poster presentation]. Annual conference of the International Society for Autism Research, Montreal, Canada. Venngage, I. (2022, July 4). What is an infographic? Examples, templates, & design tips. https://venngage.com/blog/what-is-an-infographic/

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Section III

Strategies for Disseminating and Sharing Practitioner Research

Section III of the book provides a discussion of various types of delivery strategies for disseminating or sharing the results of practitioner research. The focus of this section is on the processes associated with sharing practitioner research. In Chapter 6, you will learn about refereed publications, including print journals, electronic journals, and scholarly versus practitioner journals. You will also learn about the refereed publication process. In Chapter 7, you will learn more about presentations at conferences as well as other types of presentations. You will also learn about the process of submitting to and presenting at a conference. Chapters 8 and 9 represent a bit of a shift, in that you will learn about sharing the results of your research through social media outlets, as well as other sorts of web-based electronic media. In all chapters, best practices in the use of these various strategies are presented.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003322498-9

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Chapter Six

Refereed Publications

WHY PUBLISH IN A REFEREED JOURNAL? This is a very legitimate question, and one that many practitioners ask when they are involved in practitioner research. At any stage of a practitioner research study, you may have heard a small voice in the back of your head saying, “Getting published is not important to me or to my career. There is no real reason for me to write about my [practitioner] research.” Mills (2018) would argue—and I am in complete agreement—that there is real value in writing a report of practitioner research. As a community of professional educators, it is critical that we move beyond the expectation that writing a research report is something that is done only by academics at colleges and universities. Mills goes on to suggest that the actual process of writing such a report requires practitioner-researchers to clarify various meanings throughout their reports. You must choose your words carefully, thoroughly describe the events that you experienced during your study, and reflect on those experiences. Through engaging in this process, you will likely continue to learn more about your topic of study, your students, their learning, your teaching, and so on—things that perhaps you had not considered or thought through. In addition, the act of formally writing a research report forces you to be honest, accurate, and thorough, thus promoting a better final product (Mills, 2018). In addition to the clarification of various meanings associated with your action research, Mills (2018) also lists several other reasons for formally writing a report of practitioner research. The feedback you receive from reviewers and readers of your research will provide you with validation for who you are and what you do as a professional educator. The act of continuously reflecting on your instructional practices will empower you to continue to strive for better ways to educate your students. Finally, writing a research report will quite honestly provide you with a terrific sense of accomplishment. It can be both gratifying and humbling when colleagues read your work and recognize your accomplishments (Mills, 2018). DOI: 10.4324/9781003322498-10

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Mills’ arguments aside, I believe that there are additional, more fundamental reasons for publishing the results of practitioner research. We often discuss the gap that exists between research and practice. This tends to be based on the fact that research is conducted—and ultimately published— by those who do not work directly in the context of “schooling” (however we choose to define that). These research findings often do not take into account teachers’ perspectives or the practical challenges that must be faced in a classroom or school on a daily basis. As we have discussed earlier in this book, the practitioner-researcher becomes the missing link between the theorizing researchers and the practicing educator (Mertler, 2020). However, simply conducting a practitioner research project will not automatically facilitate or contribute to the closing of this gap (Mertler, 2020). Communicating your results—in written, as well as in other, formats—lends credibility to the process of conducting practitioner research because professional educators tend to see this process as one that gives educators a voice. Suddenly, research is not as far removed from classroom practice as one would think; research and practice have, in a way, become one (Mertler, 2020). Research is no longer an isolated activity, separate from the instructional process. It has become an integrated process such that the advantages of research (e.g., research designs, data collection methods, validity, and reliability) and the advantages of teachers’ “voices” (e.g., knowing about the instructional process, having familiarity with teachers’ day-to-day schedules, resource availability, and time constraints) can be realized in concert with one another. Perhaps more important, the act of sharing, communicating, or otherwise disseminating the results of your action research allows other educators to see this as well. Publishing the results of practitioner research projects in refereed journals helps to narrow the gap between theory/research and practice, but doing so also provides the practitioner-researcher with the opportunity to gain additional insight into the topic under investigation as well as into the research process itself (Mills, 2018). If at the outset of your study, you believed that the topic you had decided to investigate was an important one and in fact worthy of studying, in all likelihood there are other teachers, administrators, counselors, and so on who would feel the same way and would also be interested in your findings. There is a tendency for virtually anyone—but, particularly practitioner-researchers—to feel intimidated at the thought of presenting or publishing their research, almost to the point of outwardly resisting the notion. As human beings, none of us likes to feel the wrath of our critics. However, by taking this next step in the research process— regardless of the reactions garnered by communicating your results—you will almost certainly experience professional growth (Mertler, 2020).

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Since academic journals have the potential to reach larger audiences than many other forms of dissemination, you may want to consider submitting your study to a journal in your particular field—one that focuses on the topic you studied or that focuses broadly on classroom- or schoolbased practitioner (or action) research. Academic journals are refereed, meaning that any manuscript submitted receives a blind, peer review by a minimum of two and sometimes three reviewers who provide comments on the quality of the study as well as on the written manuscript detailing the study (Mertler, 2020). Typically, comments provided by reviewers are both positive and constructive. Good reviewers will provide complimentary feedback about the good things done in the study. They will also provide suggestions for improving the quality of the manuscript. Their final comment is usually a recommendation to publish the paper or not. There are usually three types of recommendations (Mertler, 2020, p. 262): ■■

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Accept as is. If your paper receives this recommendation, no revisions are necessary. The paper is ready to be published in its current form. Sadly, but not surprisingly, this type of recommendation is seldom given by any reviewer. Accept with revisions (also communicated as conditionally accept). This is a much more typical recommendation for well-written papers of well-conducted studies. Almost every paper accepted for publication in an academic journal will require some revisions. Reject. If your study had substantial methodological flaws or if the research paper was written poorly or simply not written clearly, perhaps because you did not pay attention to common stylistic conventions of academic writing (see Chapter 3), you may receive this recommendation. If this occurs, try not to become too discouraged— it happens to all of us! Consider taking the feedback provided by the reviewers, revising your paper, and submitting it to another journal. Sometimes when a manuscript is rejected, the editors may suggest that you “revise and resubmit” the paper. This may occur when the paper is poorly written and may need a complete reworking, but the topic may be of great interest to the readers of the journal.

Additional details regarding the process of submission, review, and publication for refereed journals appear in a later section of this chapter.

PRINT VERSUS ELECTRONIC JOURNALS Although the distinction between the two basic formats for journals seems pretty basic, the similarities and differences are worth examining. Print

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journals are the physical, bound, paper version of a journal. Since they are physical, they typically can only be accessed by visiting a college or university library (Bhosale, 2021). In contrast, electronic (or digital) journals are accessible via electronic transmission from the Internet. To make matters slightly more confusing, some journals are online-only journals, whereas others are online versions of printed journals (Bhosale, 2021). Arguably, electronic journals are advantageous in the sense that they are readily available on the web and can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, and by multiple readers at the same time. If one is trying to access a print journal in a library and another person has already coincidently accessed that particular journal, it would not be available to anyone else at the same time. Membership subscriptions are available for most journals, but that also creates a distinction between the two formats. Print journals must be printed and bound, and then physically shipped in order to reach their subscribers, thus reducing the opportunity for immediate access by readers. On the other hand, when articles are published in an electronic journal, they are immediately visible and accessible—depending on whether the journal is open access or a subscription journal. An open access journal means that literally anyone, anywhere can access a journal article in its entirety, from beginning to end—it is openly accessible to everyone. If an electronic journal is a subscription-only journal, then readers must pay for access to the journal, and then gain access by using their username and password. Historically, articles published in open access electronic journals get cited more frequently—and are likely read more often—than those that are published in print journals, as well as those that are published in non-open access electronic journals (Bhosale, 2021). Articles appearing in either type of electronic journal also have the benefit of search engine optimization. In essence, this means that they are searchable online through the use of keywords and other keyphrases. This enhances the discoverability of articles that are published online—clearly, an aspect of print publications that hinders their discoverability (Bhosale, 2021). It may be much more difficult to locate an article that appears only in print media due to this fact. Another benefit of electronic journals over their print counterparts is the fact that other material and information can be embedded throughout the article in the form of hyperlinks. This way, if the reader wants to know something more about a particular topic referenced within the article, the reader can simply click on the hyperlink, which will take them to the external source of information. Even though this is typically seen as an added benefit over print journal articles, they can still be somewhat problematic—for example, in instances where a hyperlink may no longer

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be active and would not lead the reader to additional information, which can then become frustrating for the reader. A final substantive difference between print and electronic journals is that print journals often face a challenge of space constraints, as they have a limited number of pages that can be allotted for articles within an issue of the journal. If several articles within an individual issue of the journal did not adhere to the word count or page limit, this might lead to an increase in the printing cost for the journal. Clearly, this is not an issue for electronic journals, since they are generally available in either HTML or PDF formats and are not restricted to a specific number of printed pages. Furthermore, manuscript formatting in electronic journals can occur much more quickly than formatting for print journals. This often results in a quicker turnaround time from acceptance of a manuscript to actually seeing the published version. Corrections are also more easily facilitated—and are much more cost-effective—when articles appear in an electronic format. I mentioned earlier that some print journals also produce an online version. Many of these either require membership—as previously mentioned—or require the reader to pay “on-the-spot” in order to download the PDF version of an article you might be interested in reading. As an end-user and potential reader of a particular research article, this can often be extremely frustrating as well as costly, as some journals may charge anywhere from $30 to more than $55 (or more) just to download one published article from their journal.

SCHOLARLY VERSUS PRACTITIONER JOURNALS In the previous section, we examined the distinction between two different formats for the ways that journals are produced and distributed to readers. In this section, we again consider a distinction of two different types of journals. This time, however, the distinction is based on an intended audience for the journal. Scholarly journals tend to focus on readership consisting of researchers and faculty in institutions of higher education. In contrast, practitioner journals focus on an audience that consists primarily of professional educators who continue to work as practitioners in the field. You might be asking why this distinction is important for you to consider as the potential author of a manuscript that you are considering submitting to a journal. The reason that this distinction should be factored into decisions that you make about submission is due to the fact that many aspects of the writing process—as well as the final manuscript itself—should be dictated and guided by the type of journal to which you are submitting. For example, scholarly journals tend to publish manuscripts that have a greater focus on things such as the literature review, theories that have guided

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the development of the research study, and the methodologies used in the research. Practitioner journals, on the other hand, likely include an increased focus on the research process as experienced by the practitioner. In other words, the author of a practitioner-focused manuscript might spend more time than in a scholarly journal manuscript focused on a detailed description of the context and the problem of practice being investigated by the practitioner’s research. In addition, there would likely be a more detailed discussion of conclusions and next steps in this type of journal publication. In addition, from my experiences, articles that appear in scholarly journals tend to be somewhat longer than those that appear in practitioner journals. Please know that this is a blanket statement and is not necessarily the case for each individual journal. I use the following conversion factor when equating typewritten words to page equivalents, based on American Psychological Association (APA) formatting style of double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font (APA, 2020, p. 44), which is a commonly used font style used by many journals: 250 typed words ≈ 1 typed page For example, the American Educational Research Journal would most certainly be considered a scholarly journal. In its guidelines for submission (American Educational Research Journal, n.d.), it states that manuscripts should not be longer than 50 double-spaced pages (including tables, figures, and references). Based on the conversion factor above, this is equivalent to a maximum threshold of 12,500 words. While there is quite a bit of variety with respect to recommended lengths for manuscripts in practitioner journals, they are substantially less than this. For example, the Journal of Teacher Action Research states that submitted manuscripts should not exceed 5,000 words and/or 20 double-spaced pages (Journal of Teacher Action Research, 2015). Similarly, Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research (Networks, n.d.) recommends that submitted papers be no less than 2,000 words and no more than 4,000 words (or, roughly 8–16 pages). Clearly, these handful of examples indicate the important and substantial difference in terms of these two types of journals with respect to manuscript preparation and submission. Of course, the ultimate goal of submitting a manuscript to a journal for possible publication is actually getting the manuscript published. The selection of a journal for publication is not a decision that should be taken lightly. We have cited several reasons for this above, but in all honesty, you will always stand a better chance of having a manuscript published if

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it is an appropriate match for the journal itself. One of the most common reasons for editors to reject a manuscript is because the contents of the research report are simply not appropriate for the journal (APA, 2020, p. 373). In essence, there is a mismatch between what you have researched, how you have researched it, and/or how you have written about that research, and what the journal is looking to publish. I recommend that, once you believe that you have identified a possible journal, you take a look at three or four articles that have been recently published by that journal. Skim through them in order to see if they are written in a tone and coverage of research—e.g., the scope and size of the research study, the methods used, and interesting or unique features of the particular articles—that matches your written report of research. If those randomly selected articles are relatively similar to what you have written, then this is probably an appropriate journal to which you could submit your manuscript. If those articles are drastically different from what and how you have written your report, I would urge you to return to the process of reviewing additional journals as possible outlets for your research. In addition to the couple of journals mentioned above, I have provided a more comprehensive list of journals that publish the results of practitioner research studies in Figure 6.1. In the figure, I have attempted to provide accurate URLs—at least at the time of writing this book—in order for readers to be able to access each journal’s website. I have also indicated whether I believe that the journal is predominantly more practitioner or scholarly focused, as well as indications of each journal’s accessibility online. It is important for me to note that the determination of a particular journal’s focus is a subjective judgment on my part; many of these journals will publish both scholarly-related and practitionerrelated manuscripts. One final suggestion that I like to make is that practitioners not limit themselves to journals such as the ones that I have listed in Figure 6.1. There are so very many journals out there that might be possible outlets for your practitioner research. If you are not comfortable choosing one that has a focus on the practitioner research process, I would recommend that you look at others that might be focused on a specific content area—such as mathematics education, early literacy, counseling practices, etc.—or that you might focus on finding a journal that focuses on a specific age group or education level—such as early childhood or secondary education. If you work in any of these contexts, these can also be wonderful outlets for a practitioner research that is done with that level of student or in a particular content area of teaching and learning.

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Figure 6.1  Journals that Publish Practitioner Research.

THE REFEREED PUBLICATION PROCESS Before we take a detailed look at the process of publishing a manuscript in a refereed journal, it is important to understand who all of the “players” are in the process. First, all journals have one or more editors. An editor is responsible for the quality and content of the journal, and has ultimate responsibility for publication decisions (APA, 2020). Depending on the size of a journal, there may be section editors or associate editors that are responsible

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for different elements of a journal, such as empirical articles, commentaries or opinion pieces, book reviews, or other specific content areas addressed by the journal. Those individuals would likely be responsible for the contents of their sections, but would yield ultimate authority to the editor—in these cases, sometimes referred to as the editor-in-chief or lead editor. Again, depending on their size and scope, many journals have editorial review boards. Individuals who sit on these review boards are often higher education faculty who are selected because they are seen as scholars and experts in the content as addressed by the focus of the journal. Further, these individuals have a primary responsibility to review a minimum number of manuscripts that are submitted each year. Seldom is this group of reviewers sufficient to handle the load of reviews that must occur in a calendar year. For that reason, many journals seek out ad hoc manuscript reviewers. These are individuals who, again, have scholarly expertise in an area being addressed by a manuscript or may be particularly adept at a specific research methodology that is utilized in an individual manuscript. The editors of the journal may contact individuals and ask them to review a manuscript on a one-time basis. Of course, if these individuals do a good job—in the opinion of the editors—with their reviews and submit them in a timely manner, they may likely be asked to serve in an ad hoc capacity in the future. For any given manuscript, a journal editor will identify a minimum of two—and sometimes three—reviewers to provide feedback on the manuscript. In addition to providing substantive feedback and commentary on various aspects of the manuscript, the reviewers are also charged with providing a recommendation regarding publication. These recommendations typically correspond to the three outcomes that we discussed earlier in this chapter—namely, that the manuscript is accepted, rejected, or accepted with revisions. The vast majority of journals utilizes a double-blind review process. This means that the identities of both the author of the manuscript and the reviewers are kept hidden from each other. The researcher/author does not know the identities of the individuals who will review the manuscript; at the same time, the reviewers of the manuscript do not know who wrote the paper. This is a very explicit process that is designed to reduce the potential bias in the review process should any of the participants know the identities of others involved in the process. The time for most manuscripts to be reviewed and for a decision to be made is usually stated in the guidelines for authors on a journal’s website. Many journals indicate that the time for review is anywhere from 2 to 3 months (APA, 2020), although this is often not realistic (in my experiences). Unfortunately, editors are often at the mercy of reviewers. If reviewers do not submit their written reviews on time, then any decision

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on the manuscript can be delayed. I am certainly supportive of the fact that, if you submit an article and are told by the editor that you will receive a decision within three months, but that timeframe passes, it is certainly appropriate that you contact the editor regarding when a potential decision could be expected. Many of the aspects of the submission and review process are outlined on a journal’s website. As one example, I have included the author submission guidelines provided by the journal Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research (Networks, n.d.), in Figure 6.2.

Figure 6.2 Example of Author Submission Guidelines Provided on a Journal’s Website.

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Figure 6.2  (Continued)

Note that these guidelines provide an overview of the review process utilized by this particular journal, including the statement that reviewers are asked to complete their reviews within four weeks. Also noticed that they describe the three possible decisions that will be made on a particular manuscript—accept with minor (or no) revisions, conditionally accept with major revisions, or reject. The guidelines close by providing

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information regarding the type and length of articles that can be submitted to the journal, as well as specific formatting requirements for the actual document that is submitted. Figure 6.3 depicts the process for publication of a research paper, beginning with manuscript submission and ending with publication of the article. I want to highlight a couple of things in this flowchart. First, notice that, after the author submits the manuscript to the journal, the editor will engage in a quick review to determine the appropriateness of the manuscript for the journal. If the editor deems that it is not appropriate content, they may reject it outright. You should not be (too) disappointed if

Figure 6.3 Flowchart Showing the Process of Manuscript Submission and Review.

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this happens to you; it simply means that you likely identified the wrong journal as an outlet for your research. It is best to then try to find a more appropriate journal for submission. My recommendation at this stage— do not give up. Second, once the editor has received all of the reviews, the editor will then compile them, and make an overall decision regarding acceptance for publication. If the manuscript is rejected, it is time to once again look for a different journal. If it is accepted “as-is” for publication, it enters the production process—although this almost never happens. The more likely outcome is that the manuscript is accepted with revisions, meaning that the author will have to make some changes, revisions, or rework the paper based on the feedback from reviewers before it will be acceptable for publication. Once the manuscript has been revised and resubmitted to the editor, it would then enter the production phase. Third, and finally, when the manuscript enters the production phase, it is edited for grammar, punctuation, and consistency. Authors will always be given the opportunity to review the final version of the manuscript prior to publication. As mentioned earlier, this part of the publication process takes substantially longer for print journals than for electronic journals. From the time that the manuscript is submitted to a journal to the time that it actually appears in print (either in hard copy or online), it is feasible that anywhere from 5 to 9 months will have passed. Admittedly, this seems to be an excessive amount of time; however, it is a byproduct of the publication process that all of us who want our work to be disseminated in this medium simply have to grudgingly embrace. In Figure 6.4, as a real-world example of this process, I have included a copy of an email correspondence that I recently received from the editor of Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation whose recommendation was to “provisionally accept” my manuscript. In her email, she specifically noted that minor revisions had been requested. In the second paragraph, she highlights the major focus of the revisions by noting that some claims that I made need supporting literature to back them up. She also highlighted a comment regarding the title and the need to clarify the purpose of the paper. When I visited the website portal used by the journal for submission, there were several additional—but much more minor— revisions requested. Although it is typically not required by a journal or its editors, one thing that I always like to do is to track all of the revisions that I make in a document that is separate from the manuscript. This allows me—as well as the editor—to quickly skim the list of revisions to ensure that I have addressed everything that I was asked to address. I actually like to

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Figure 6.4 Email from Journal Editor Communicating a Decision on Submitted Manuscript.

send this document to the editors along with my revised manuscript, just so they can quickly see the items that I addressed in my revisions. The list of revisions that accompanied the revisions of the manuscript discussed in the previous figure is shown in Figure 6.5. Notice that I begin this list by graciously thanking the editor and the reviewers for the feedback and suggestions that they provided, largely due

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Figure 6.5 Revision Response from the Author that Accompanied the Revised Manuscript (Referenced in Figure 6.4).

to the fact that I believe that they collectively improved the quality of my manuscript. I believe that this is one of the best and most positive ways to view this manuscript review process. Interestingly, the journal in which my article (Mertler, 2021) appears is a fully online journal. I submitted the manuscript at the beginning of March, and it was accessible online as a published article at the end of August—6 months to go through the entire review and publication process.

BEST PRACTICES IN PUBLISHING PRACTITIONER RESEARCH The following guidelines and best practices for publishing practitioner research in refereed journals are a combination of recommendations from the literature, as well as from my own personal experiences for more than

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three decades of publishing—or trying to publish—my own work in journals. My recommended best practices include the following: ■■

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Familiarize yourself with journals to which you are considering submitting a manuscript. In preparation for submitting a manuscript to a particular journal, one of the best things you can do is to become familiar with the journal and the types of articles that it routinely publishes. You can do this in two ways. First, pay close attention to the guidelines that are provided on the journal’s website and the suggestions made by the editors with respect to the types of articles that they are looking to publish. This can be a quick screening mechanism early in the process to help you either identify or eliminate possible journals from your list. The second way that you can do this is by skimming articles that have been published by the journal. Trying to get a clear sense of not only the type of articles and research studies that the journal publishes but also the writing styles used by authors who have successfully published in the journal. Avoid emulating the writing style of articles published in a particular journal. This follows immediately and logically from the previous bulleted point. Often, prospective authors may skim articles published by a journal and then try to mimic or imitate the writing style of particular articles, assuming that this is what led to successful publication. In my opinion, this is seldom the case. While writing style and the ability to communicate with an audience are important, so too are the contents of the manuscript that you prepare. I believe that it is best to develop your own writing style and to use your own voice as a means of communicating to others the practitioner research in which you have engaged. Be very descriptive of the site and context of your practitioner research. One of the things that you want to accomplish for a potential reader of your written report is to help that reader clearly envision what you did and how you did it. Successfully writing a compelling story of your context, the problem that you chose to investigate and why, the methods that you used to implement an innovative strategy, and the data that you collected, along with the ultimate conclusions that you drew from your study, will not only be a crucial factor in helping to get your manuscript published, but it will also be highly advantageous to—and appreciated by—potential readers of your published article. My suggestion is that you try to do your best to paint a vivid picture with your written words.

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■■

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Be sure to address all aspects of the research process, even if you attend to them briefly. One of the things that editors and peer reviewers will be looking for in your manuscript is a clear description of the research methodologies that you used in your study. You want to make sure to address all aspects of the research process— as we discussed back in Chapter 2—ensuring not to overlook any aspect of the process itself. That being said, writing about your research process can begin to take on a life of its own within your manuscript. By that, I mean that if you write in great detail about your research process, you essentially are consuming a lot of your page allotment with your research methods—and perhaps leaving yourself more limited space to cover aspects of the context and your ultimate findings and implementation of those findings. For that reason, I often suggest that you be sure to include discussion of all aspects of the process, even if you choose to address some of them more briefly than others. This way, reviewers and editors will know that you understand all aspects of the process, even if they return feedback to you asking for you to revise your manuscript by enhancing the details of a particular component of your process. Be respectful of the peer review process. As I have mentioned a couple of times earlier in this chapter, submission of a manuscript to a journal and peer review is a process. For better or worse, it takes time—in many cases, it takes several months. Although the anticipation of an impending decision from an editor regarding your manuscript is often difficult to balance against your potential excitement (or disappointment), I suggest that you be respectful of the work that peer reviewers and editors are doing on behalf of your written work. Admittedly, it can sometimes be frustrating to sit and wait on a decision for weeks and months, but that is the nature of the process, and the best thing that we can all collectively do is to be respectful of that process. Be patient! Part of being respectful of the peer review process is to be patient. As I just mentioned, this can sometimes be difficult. However, as the sayings go—patience is a virtue and good things come to those who wait (hopefully). Once individuals submit a manuscript, it is not uncommon for them to reach out to the editor and ask for an approximate timeline for a decision. From my experiences, most editors will be very honest with you in terms of their expectations. However, if that timeframe comes and goes, and you still have not received your decision, it is certainly acceptable for you to reach out to the editor again and ask for an update on the

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status of your manuscript. Whether it is still in review or has inadvertently been lost somewhere in the administrative shuffle of the journal, this can serve as a gentle reminder to the editor that you are still hopeful about the potential of publishing in their journal. Adherence to these best practices will most certainly not guarantee that your manuscript will get published. However, paying attention to them will enhance the potential for your manuscript to be seriously considered for publication in a particular journal. Finally, it is important to remember that the peer review process is just that—it is a process. Even experienced researchers and authors will write and submit papers that are ultimately rejected by journals. It is all part of the process. My advice is that you use whatever experiences you gain through participating in the peer review process as an opportunity to learn more about the broad field of both conducting and disseminating your research.

TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CHAPTER ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

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Publishing research in a refereed journal can provide numerous professional benefits and experiences for the practitioner. Publishing in refereed journals provides a voice for the practicing educator, and also helps to narrow the research-to-practice gap. Refereed journals provide reviews of manuscript in the form of blind peer reviews. Three possible outcomes of a peer-reviewed paper include “accept as is,” “accept with revisions,” or “reject.” Print journals are printed, bound, hardcopy versions of a journal; whereas, electronic journals appear on the Internet and are accessible via electronic transmission. Access to print journals is available through membership to the sponsoring organization or via college and university libraries. Access to electronic journals is more easily facilitated if the journal is an open access journal; if it is not, then membership to the organization or a one-time payment is required. Print journals have a limitation of space constraints, while electronic journals typically do not. Scholarly journals typically focus on readership consisting of researchers and higher education faculty. Practitioner journals focus on audiences that consist primarily of professional and practicing educators. Articles appearing in scholarly journals are typically longer than those that appear in practitioner journals.

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■■ ■■

While most journals are generally classified as scholarly- or practitioner-oriented, many of them will publish both types of articles. Key players in the peer review process include editors, associate editors, and peer reviewers. Manuscript reviewers are typically members of the journal’s editorial board or ad hoc reviewers, and are assigned by editors or associate editors. The peer review process can be a lengthy one, ranging anywhere from 3 to 9 months or longer. Best practices for engaging in the peer review process includes familiarizing yourself with journals, writing in your own style, focusing on practitioner research description, and being respectful and patient with the peer review process.

REFERENCES American Educational Research Journal. (n.d.). Submission guidelines. https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/aer American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association: The official guide to APA style (7th ed.). American Psychological Association. Bhosale, U. (2021, January 27). Electronic journals vs print journals— here’s how you can choose the right journal! Enago Academy. https:// www.enago.com/academy/electronic-journals-vs-print-journals/ Journal of Teacher Action Research. (2015). Author guidelines. http:// www.practicalteacherresearch.com/author-guidelines.html Mertler, C. A. (2020). Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators (6th ed.). Sage. Mertler, C. A. (2021). Action research as teacher inquiry: A viable strategy for resolving problems of practice. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 26, Article 19. https://doi.org/10.7275/22014442 Mills, G. E. (2018). Action research: A guide for the teacher researcher (6th ed.). Pearson. Networks. (n.d.). Policies: Submitting to the journal. https://newprairiepress. org/networks/policies.html#whatcansubmit

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Chapter Seven

Face-to-Face (and Virtual) Presentations

WHY PRESENT YOUR RESEARCH TO OTHERS? Similar to the question posed at the beginning of Chapter 6, this is also a legitimate question and one that is often asked by practitioners who engage in the process of inquiry. This question is typically followed by a more specific question, such as “If the focus of practitioner research is to help me improve my own practice, why do I need to concern myself with sharing it with other people?” Essentially, the arguments for doing so parallel those that were shared regarding the publication of the results of practitioner research. In fact, I am a firm believer that presenting the results of practitioner research may potentially be more powerful and empowering to other educators and practitioners than publishing the results in refereed journals. The main reason that I say this is because I believe that presentations offer something much more unique than a publication could ever do—the opportunity to directly interact with people who are interested in your work and in the results of your practitioner research. Over my more-than30-year career as a professional educator, I can probably count on one (or, maybe, two) hands the number of times that I have been contacted regarding one of my published articles. In contrast, I could not begin to tell you how many interpersonal interactions I have had with individuals who have attended a research presentation that I have delivered—sometimes during the presentation, sometimes immediately following the presentation, and sometimes several weeks or months after had I delivered the presentation. In addition, these interactions can be quite diverse. I have had people approach me to provide feedback on what I have done, to ask questions about my work and how it might pertain to their context, or simply to thank me for sharing my work with them. More than

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anything, presentations tend to promote professional discussions among professional educators and other practitioners from diverse settings, levels of responsibility, and educational contexts (Johnson, 2013). Sometimes, presentations as we are discussing them here may not even need to be or to meet the notion of a “full-blown” formal presentation, as we discussed earlier in this book. As you will find out later in this chapter, presentations can sometimes be extremely informal and brief, yet still be highly informative. Depending on the audience to whom you are speaking and the timeframe you are allotted for a presentation, you may be able to do great justice to your practitioner research by simply highlighting the aspects that would be most pertinent to your audience. As research presentations can run the gamut from informal to very formal and from very brief—e.g., 5 or 10 minutes to a couple of hours—my advice is that you not shy away from any possibility if you are for the opportunity to present and share the results of your practitioner inquiry. All that being said, let us now take a look at several different types of presentation settings.

SITE-BASED CONFERENCES Site-based conferences are exactly as the name implies—they are conferences that are located on-site, usually at a hotel or large conference center. In most cases, these typically take place in medium to larger cities where those kinds of venues exist. The conferences themselves may not necessarily be large in terms of the number of attendees, but they certainly can be. Over my career, I have attended and presented at conferences where there were as few as 150 participants, but I have also presented at conferences where there were roughly 15,000 attendees. This fact tends to intimidate many practitioner researchers, simply due to the fact that there are so many attendees. However, it is important to realize that in a given presentation session, there will not be nearly that number of people who attend. This is due to the fact that site-based conferences typically operate on a schedule where there are concurrent sessions. This means that there could be anywhere from five or six to as many as 30 or 40 different smaller rooms where presentation sessions are occurring. Further, within each of those sessions, there can be anywhere from three to five research presentations occurring. One of the advantages to presenting your research at a conference that we discussed in the previous section is the opportunity to share your research and to network with a wider variety of people. This tends to be the case for sitebased research conferences due to the fact that people will often travel from different states in the country—and sometimes even from outside the country—in order to attend and participate in a site-based conference, regardless of

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its size or number of attendees. Sharing your research among a much broader community of professional educators provides even greater opportunities for professional dialogue, reflection, and brainstorming (Mertler, 2020). Professional conferences are wonderful environments for communicating the results of research, sharing ideas for future cycles of action research, and networking with other educators who have similar research interests. Site-based professional conferences are usually held annually and are sponsored by a state, regional, or national organization (Mertler, 2020). Most site-based conferences operate under a system where potential presenters submit proposals for their presentations into a blind system of peer review, not unlike the process of submitting a research paper to a journal for possible publication. The process is similar, but many of the requirements are different from the peer review journal process. We will discuss the process of submitting a proposal for a possible presentation at a conference later in this chapter. If you are not familiar with professional conferences in your areas of interest, a search of the Internet will lead you to the websites of various organizations, which typically include links to information about their conferences. In lieu of a search on your own, in Figure 7.1, I have provided

Figure 7.1  Conferences for Presenting Practitioner Research.

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a list of some potential conferences as well as websites that list various conferences. This is certainly not meant to be an exhaustive list; rather, it should serve as a starting point for those interested in pursuing opportunities for presenting their practitioner research at professional conferences.

VIRTUAL CONFERENCES Back in Chapter 3, we introduced the notion of a virtual presentation. In that context, we were examining virtual presentations as part of a larger conference that might have been primarily a site-based conference (and offering a limited virtual presentation option) or a hybrid conference (i.e., combining face-to-face and virtual presentations). However, I believe that many organizations—as a result of being “forced” to shift to entirely virtual conferences as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic— have made the conscious choice to continue their conferences in totally virtual formats. Admittedly, there are both strengths and limitations to this approach. On the one hand, the organization and implementation of an entirely virtual conference are arguably more cost-effective. A physical venue such as a hotel or conference center does not need to be reserved and rented (months or years in advance, as is often the case), and there is no need to organize sessions around that particular physical space. In addition, virtual conferences are much more cost-effective for the attendees and presenters. You are able to literally present and attend the entire conference from the comfort of your own home. There are no individual or organizational expenses necessitated for travel, lodging, or food. In contrast, there would be expenses associated with a virtual conference that would not be part of a site-based conference—namely, securing and paying for adequate bandwidth to support virtual conference technologies and software. In addition, attendees miss out on valuable opportunities to network with other people with whom they might share common interests. These kinds of network opportunities can typically occur in between presentation sessions. They might take place in presentation rooms following a series of presentations, or they might take place in the hallway while grabbing a cup of coffee between presentation sessions. One of the advantages, in my opinion, is the opportunity to feel more comfortable presenting due to the fact that it is commonplace for people delivering virtual presentations to have presentation notes in front of them while they are sitting at their computers and delivering their presentation (Grant Rankin, 2020). It is a somewhat frowned-upon practice

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for a presenter at a site-based, face-to-face presentation to have notes to which they are constantly making reference. This is a distinct advantage for novice presenters, who might be a little more anxious at the thought of presenting their own research. Being able to rely on written notes— even if you might not need them—is something that provides comfort to many presenters. Once you have participated in and presented at a few online conferences, I believe you will find it much easier to deliver a similar kind of presentation before a “live” (i.e., in-person) audience (Grant Rankin, 2020).

INVITED PRESENTATIONS We briefly examined invited presentations in Chapter 3. I want to quickly revisit them here as an opportunity for practitioners to present their work. As was mentioned earlier in the book, invitations to serve as an invited presenter—whether to deliver a keynote address or a featured speaker address—typically come as an individual establishes a reputation or area of expertise with respect to their research. However, that does not mean that requests to serve as an invited speaker might not come earlier in one’s career—albeit, at smaller conferences—not just as a reflection of work over the course of several years, but perhaps, even as an opportunity to present the results of practitioner research that has a very specific focus and might be closely related to the content or theme of a particular conference. All of the various aspects of conference presentations that we had discussed would most certainly apply to invited presentations, with the exception of the process of having a proposal reviewed and accepted for presentation, as will be discussed in detail in the next section. It is important to realize that if you receive an invitation to serve as an invited speaker, your work, in essence, is already being recognized by the conference organizers. There is something about your work that they want you to speak about with their participants because they feel that their participants would be interested in your work without having to have a proposal reviewed as part of a blind review process. The conference organizers may suggest what it is they would like for you to speak about. For example, my primary areas of expertise are action research and practitioner inquiry in educational settings. Virtually every time that I am asked to serve as an invited speaker, those are the topics that I am asked to talk about. However, it is typically left up to me and my professional discretion to decide specifically what my presentation will entail. That is one of the perks and

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benefits of being asked to serve as an invited speaker. As I mentioned earlier in the book, if you are ever approached about such an opportunity, I strongly urge that you take advantage of the invitation. It is an honor that also serves as recognition of your contribution to the field of education.

THE CONFERENCE PRESENTATION PROCESS As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the process of submitting a proposal for a possible presentation at a conference resembles the process of submitting a paper for possible publication in a journal. The sponsoring organization typically releases a “call for proposals” anywhere from 4 to 10 months in advance of the conference (Mertler, 2020). Included in the call is a description of everything you need to include in your proposal. The proposal usually consists of a three- to four-page summary of your study. Once you have submitted it to the organization—usually through an online portal accessible via the Internet—it is sent out to other professional educators for a blind review, once again meaning that they do not know who the authors are at the time they review it. They review your proposal based on a pre-established set of criteria and either recommend it for inclusion in the conference program or not. This is a part of the process that differs from submitting to a journal, because there are no opportunities for you to revise a proposal when submitting for a presentation at a conference. If it is accepted for presentation, you receive notice a couple of months in advance of the conference in order to have time to prepare your actual research report (if required) and formal presentation. As a submitter, you will be given the opportunity to see the ratings and comments provided by the reviewers on your proposal. The reviewers may often ask or request that certain issues be addressed in the presentation. This advance notice of acceptance is beneficial so that you have time to address any of those issues, where they might be appropriate. An example of an acceptance notification is shown in Figure 7.2. This was the notification that I received for a conference proposal submission for a research study that I recently conducted. Notice that the formal decision to accept my work for presentation is shown at the top of the notification. The next section provides feedback under the heading “Comments to the Author(s).” Notice that the reviewers acknowledged positive aspects of the proposal, but also provided recommendations for aspects that they thought would enhance the quality of the paper before I formally delivered the presentation at the conference.

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Figure 7.2  Notification of Acceptance for a Conference Presentation.

The main aspects of the research to include in a proposal—as well as in the formal presentation itself—parallel those that were previously shown in Figures 3.1 and 3.2. Depending on the nature and size of the professional conference, you will likely have anywhere from 15 to 75 minutes to present your study—this will typically be conveyed to you prior to the conference so you can plan appropriately. Figure 7.3 depicts the process for presenting research at a conference, beginning with the submission of a proposal and ending with the actual conference presentation. Notice that this process is somewhat similar to the review process that we have looked at previously for submitting a research paper for a possible publication in a journal. However, you will

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Figure 7.3 Flowchart Showing the Process of Submission for a Conference Presentation.

certainly see that this process is not quite as involved as that process. This is primarily due to the fact that there are no opportunities or requirements for formal revisions in order to present at a conference. Essentially, the proposal is evaluated on its own merits—and either given a decision of “accept” or “reject.” As noted above, reviewers will often provide recommendations or suggestions for improvements to the paper and/or the presentation, which can be incorporated at the author’s discretion. One of the most important aspects of delivering any sort of conference presentation is the development of the slides that will outline your presentation and guide you through it. After all, your slides are the visual portion of your presentation—your audience will hear you speak, but they will also see the information provided on your presentation slides. For that reason, it is crucial that your presentation slides are neat and uncluttered, avoid the overuse of text, and do not contain a great deal of superfluous colors, shapes, and images, typically in the form of the background for

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your slides. Presentation software like Microsoft PowerPoint (Mac and PC), Keynote (Mac), and Google Slides provide great options for wonderfully formatted slideshow themes. However, I strongly recommend that you select and use these judiciously—you do not want them to detract from the focus and content of your presentation. As an example, look at the two slides shown in Figure 7.4. Both slides contain the same basic information that I want to present about

Figure 7.4  Examples of “Bad” and “Good” Presentation Slides.

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professional educators and their perspectives on research. However, the slide at the top is, quite frankly, horrible to look at. The colors are too bright and almost hurt my eyes, and they detract from the text in front of them. In addition, there is entirely too much text on the slide. Because of all the text, as a presenter, I would be tempted to simply read my slide to the audience. In contrast, the slide at the bottom prompts me to discuss the same information with my audience without visually inundating them with sensory overload. Notice that virtually all of the text that appears on the top slide is included in my “presenter notes” for the bottom slide. This is because these are the things that I want to talk about, but they should not and do not need to appear on the actual slide that the audience sees. The simple caption and the photo should be enough to remind me of the key points that I want to raise when I talk about the slide. Shortly, I will provide some additional suggestions for best practices for presentations.

NON-CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS Formal conference presentations are wonderful outlets to share the results of practitioner inquiry but are certainly not the only ways for you to present and share the results of your practitioner research. There are several other presentation venues—most of them are more “local” in nature—that afford the practitioner valuable ways to share the results of their research.

Local Presentations There are several possible audiences for local presentations of your research, but probably none will be more interested than your colleagues (Johnson, 2013). More than anything, these presentations tend to promote professional discussion among teachers, counselors, principals, as well as other educators. These types of discussions are essential for facilitating professional reflection and growth in the teaching profession (Johnson, 2013). I do not believe that you should necessarily become concerned about the notion of a full-blown presentation; it may not be necessary. These “presentations” may range from very formal to very informal. They may take the form of a formal teacher in-service session, a brief talk at a regularly scheduled faculty meeting, or perhaps an ongoing discussion among teachers within a school. Regardless of the level at which the presentation occurs, Johnson (2013) recommends that your audience of

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colleagues will tend to find your presentation more interesting if you keep it brief and focused and include only the details that other teachers might find helpful in their classrooms—or that other educators would find beneficial in their particular context. Another possible audience for your presentations is an audience consisting of your district’s administration (Mertler, 2020). One of the more powerful aspects of practitioner research is the impact that it can have at the local level. These potential audiences might include members of the school board, the superintendent, the assistant superintendent, directors of curriculum and instruction, directors of special education services, and so on, as well as building-level administrators (i.e., principals, assistant principals, deans of students, instructional coaches, interventionists, etc.). Often—and unfortunately—district-level decisions regarding teaching and learning are made apart from considering any research related to them—and also disregarding the input of classroom teachers or other professional educators. Johnson (2013) believes that this can result in bad educational practice or perhaps even educational malpractice. The results of action research can be used as an effective means of enabling your school or district to make educational decisions that are better informed. Carefully constructing an argument based on the collection of relevant data for an administrator to see is also very powerful—and can be very empowering to the educators themselves. These decisions then are based on actual data collected, as opposed to being based on hunches or simply on what “looks good” to those making the decisions (Mertler, 2020). One way to combine these efforts into a larger-scale event is to hold something that schools and districts refer to as “gallery walks.” A gallery walk would be appropriate in situations where multiple individuals or collaborative groups have engaged in practitioner research—for example, over the course of an academic year—and then are provided with the opportunity to share their results in a public forum. Researchers create posters or infographics to share their research, and then those visuals are hung in a hallway on the walls or in a larger room, such as an auditorium or gymnasium. Visitors—who might consist of district personnel, school colleagues, parents, or interested community members—can circulate throughout the room, engaging with various practitioner researchers and seeing the fantastic and innovative work that is resulting from site-based practitioner research. A facet of practitioner research that is equally empowering is that it can give voice to professional educators—something that has been progressively stripped away from them over the past 20 years or so

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(Mertler, 2021, 2023). Practitioner inquiry gives voice to the professional educator, allowing that educator to identify and investigate problems with the goal of seeking solutions. In essence, the broader result of this process is that teachers have the capacity to become what Dana and YendolHoppey (2019) refer to as knowledge generators. Teachers have been historically seen as “dispensers of knowledge,” as opposed to “generators of knowledge.” Teacher inquiry is the systematic process that allows educators to create original knowledge about educational practice. This can come through “loud and clear” when practitioners present the results of their inquiry to local audiences.

Practitioner Inquiry Communities Along similar lines of sharing action research with audiences local in nature is the concept of creating practitioner inquiry communities (or PICs). A PIC is analogous to a term I coined a few years ago— namely, an action research community (Mertler, 2016, 2018). A PIC can be defined as a professional learning community (PLC) made up of educational professionals driven by a common goal of practicing reflective teaching as a means of improving classroom instructional practice or other aspects of the educational process. Generally speaking, PLCs are composed of educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve (DuFour et al., 2008). They are based on the notion that the key to improved student learning is continuous, job-embedded learning for educators. However, a key aspect and contributor to the success of a PIC is the continuous sharing of results both among and beyond the membership of the PLC. A deeper dive into various aspects of PICs is admittedly beyond the scope of this book. However, if the reader is interested in learning more about the nature, design, and implementation of PICs, refer to Mertler (2016, 2018, 2020).

BEST PRACTICES IN PRESENTING PRACTITIONER RESEARCH In this section, I once again provide guidelines for best practices in developing and delivering a presentation of practitioner research. As with similar lists in previous chapters, these best practices are taken both from the literature and my own personal experiences of presenting research

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throughout my career. These best practices include, but are not limited to, the following: ■■

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Develop an outline and then carefully prepare your content. As you can imagine, the content of your presentation is crucial when you consider what your audience might be interested in hearing about. That means that you need to carefully craft the content that you will be delivering. Focus on key aspects of the research process—this includes any necessary background information, the purpose of your study and research questions, an overview of the methodology employed, your results, conclusions, and the action plan that you are taking for your practice or future cycles of inquiry. Some people like to sketch an outline of their presentation on a legal pad or even type it out in a word processing program, while others will jump right in and outline their content directly on the slides that they intend to use, whether in PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides. You have to find a system that works for you and with which you are comfortable. It is also important to realize that, not unlike the process of writing a formal report of research, you will likely revisit your outline and/or actual slides and revise them several times prior to your actual presentation. Prepare compelling and effective slides for your presentation. Once you have your content prepared, you need to prepare the slides that you will use for your presentation. This means not only putting the content on slides, but also selecting a format and template for the slides that do not serve to attract attention away from your content. As we discussed earlier, you should avoid the use of bright, borderline-obnoxious color schemes on your slides. Also, avoid the use of “fancy” fonts—e.g., fonts like this … or like this … or like this … or like this … or like this—that prevent your audience from easily reading the content on your slides. Those fonts are cute and stylish, and serve a purpose—but simply do not belong in a professional presentation. Along those lines, also try to avoid an overuse of text on each slide. Strive to have two or three main points that you want to make on each slide, where that content serves as a reminder to you of what it is you want to discuss. Ideally, your slides should be a collection of images, isolated words, and short phrases that typically would not make sense to your audience without your explanation (Grant Rankin, 2020). Prepare a handout … but only if you think it will add to your presentation. If you are presenting in a session or venue where you

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■■

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will have the opportunity to share slides on a screen, I personally do not believe that a handout is necessary. However, there may be situations where you present to a smaller audience—like a group of colleagues, district officials, or others—where you may not have the opportunity to share slides. In that case, a handout is most definitely warranted. However, I would strongly recommend that your handout be limited to one page, so that it is brief and succinct, yet serves as a thorough synopsis of your presentation and of your research. Double-check any technology requirements. Make sure that you are comfortable with all technological aspects of your presentation. This may sound simple—and it may seem as if I am stating the obvious—but I have seen so many people whose time has come for them to present in a conference session and they struggle with figuring out how to begin playing their slideshow, or how to connect their laptop to the projection system. Also, be sure that you have any necessary adapters that might be needed to connect your laptop to the projector—as is often the case for MacBook laptops—do not assume that someone will have what you need. If they do not, then you are stuck with the inability to share your presentation slides. Also, if you will use a handheld clicker—which I strongly recommend—to advance your slides, make sure that you are comfortable with how to plug it in (if it requires a USB connection) or how to connect it (if it requires a Bluetooth connection). You do not want to struggle with these things when your audience is staring at you and anticipating the launch of your presentation. Practice … practice … and then practice some more! Probably the best and most sincere piece of advice that I can offer in preparing to present your research is to practice your presentation repeatedly. On a personal level, I probably overdo this. I typically have my slides ready to go weeks in advance of a conference or keynote address. Then I practice my presentation virtually every day up until it is time for me to formally present. This may seem excessive to many of you, but when I get up in front of an audience to speak—because I have practiced so many times—I am very comfortable with the content that I am presenting, as well as with what I have on each of my slides. I go so far as to use my clicker, and to time my presentation each time I practice it (usually just using the timer on my smart phone). I also stand up when I practice my presentations. I want everything in

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my practice sessions to resemble as closely as possible the actual presentation that I will deliver. This way, I know if I need to add something, delete something, or change something in my presentation—before it is too late to do so. Speak confidently … and do not read your slides. One of the benefits of practicing your presentation is that you become very knowledgeable about the specific content that you plan to share. This enables you to be confident and determined when delivering your presentation. It is always obvious to me as an audience member when someone has not adequately prepared for a presentation. They almost seem to question themselves and are very uncomfortable making some statements during their presentation. I believe that this is a byproduct of simply not being prepared. Along those lines, when delivering your presentation, make every effort not to read your slides verbatim. As previously mentioned, your slides should serve as a reminder … almost as a “prompt” to remind you of the points that you want to make on each particular slide.

From my personal experiences over three decades of presenting, I can honestly say that I do not believe that any presentation goes perfectly as planned. However, adhering to the best practice guidelines above will help to ensure that you remove the majority of variables and factors that have the potential to go wrong and detract from the quality and professionalism of your presentation. You will be very proud of yourself following such a presentation … and your audience will greatly appreciate the attention you paid during your preparation.

TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CHAPTER ■■ ■■ ■■

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Presenting one’s research provides opportunities to directly interact with people interested in your work. It is always important to remember that presentation opportunities can vary greatly in terms of formality, length, and detail. Site-based conferences take place in hotels, or large conference centers, but can vary drastically in terms of the number of participants. Site-based conferences are typically held annually, and are sponsored by state, regional, or national organizations. Most virtual conferences are run in similar fashion to site-based conferences.

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Most conferences—whether site-based or virtual—engage in a process of blind review for presentation proposals. Virtual conferences have the advantage of reduced expenses and time due to no travel requirements. Invited presentations are often a recognition of your work, and include things like keynote addresses and featured addresses. The conference submission process is very similar to that for submitting to a journal for possible publication. A major difference between submitting a proposal to a conference and submitting a manuscript for publication is that a conference presentation proposal is either accepted or rejected; there are typically not opportunities to revise and resubmit a conference proposal. Non-conference presentations include a variety of local presentations to colleagues, administrators, or other interested professional educators. Best practices in developing and delivering a presentation of practitioner research include carefully preparing content, preparing effective slides, double-checking technology requirements, practicing your presentation, and speaking confidently.

REFERENCES Dana, N. F., & Yendol-Hoppey, D. (2019). The reflective educator’s guide to classroom research: Learning to teach and teaching to learn through practitioner inquiry (3rd ed.). Corwin. DuFour, R., DuFour, R., & Eaker, R. (2008). Revisiting professional learning communities at work: New insights for improving schools. Solution Tree. Grant Rankin, J. (2020). Increasing the impact of your research: A practical guide for sharing your findings and widening your audience. Routledge. Johnson, A. P. (2013). A short guide to action research (4th ed.). Pearson. Mertler, C. A. (2016). Leading and facilitating educational change through action research learning communities. Journal of Ethical Educational Leadership, 3(3), 1–11. http://www.cojeel.org Mertler, C. A. (2018). Action research communities: Professional learning, empowerment, and improvement through collaborative action research. Routledge. Mertler, C. A. (2020). Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators (6th ed.). Sage.

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Mertler, C. A. (2021). Action research as teacher inquiry: A viable strategy for resolving problems of practice. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 26, Article 19. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/ pare/vol26/iss1/19 Mertler, C. A. (2023, March 26–29). “A road less traveled”…But why? Courageous educators and their journeys into practitioner inquiry communities [Research keynote address]. Annual Meeting of the Association of Teacher Educators, Jacksonville, FL, United States.

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Chapter Eight

Social Media

TWITTER With more than 330 million monthly active users (Sukhyani, 2023), Twitter is an online social media and social networking service, founded in 2006, on which users post or reply to texts, images, and videos known as “tweets” (“Twitter,” 2023). Registered users can “tweet” original content, “like” someone else’s tweet, forward someone else’s tweet to their followers (known as a “retweet”), retweet with an added comment (known as “quoting a tweet”), and “direct message” (DM) other users, while unregistered users only have the ability to view public tweets. Users interact with Twitter through a web browser (http://twitter.com) or smart phones and tablets via the mobile app. The primary purpose of Twitter is to connect people and allow them to share thoughts and ideas with an audience larger than that to which they would normally have access (Forsey, 2021). This fact alone seems to make it an ideal medium for practitioners to share their research. Forsey (2021) has described Twitter as follows: In many ways, Twitter has both unlimited meaning and immeasurable potential. It can connect you with someone in Thailand as quickly as it can introduce you to your next-door neighbor. You might choose to fill your feed with industry professionals, news sites, celebrities, comedians, or friends. Twitter works by first creating an account, thus becoming a registered user, and then developing your username, also known as a Twitter handle. The user posts 280-character—doubled in 2017 from the original 140-character limit—status updates, which are known as tweets. A tweet can be seen by anyone who has chosen to follow you. Within your tweet, you can link to other articles, websites, or videos. You can also scroll

DOI: 10.4324/9781003322498-12

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through your Twitter homepage in order to see what other people—whom you have chosen to follow—are posting about. As a somewhat recent development over the last few years, it is important to note that a person’s Twitter handle (unless you add new ones to a conversation), links to external webpages, photos, nor videos count toward the 280-character limit. From within the mobile app, for example, you initiate a tweet by pressing on the “+” in the blue circle, located on the bottom right portion of the screen. This takes you to a new screen with the words “What’s happening?” in a text box (see Figure 8.1). To create your tweet, you simply begin typing in that text box. In addition, by using the icons in the middle of the screen, you can add (in order from left to right) an audio recording, a photo from your library, a GIF, a poll, and your precise location. When you are ready to post your tweet and share it with your followers, press the “Tweet” button, located in the upper-right corner.

Figure 8.1  Mobile Interface for Creating a New Tweet on Twitter (@craigmertler).

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Many subscribers use Twitter for both professional and personal reasons, although some limit their use to professional interactions on Twitter and personal interactions on other platforms, like Facebook—I actually use Twitter for both. Twitter can be an effective and efficient way to share information regarding your practitioner research. In fact, Grant Rankin (2020) claims that of all social media platforms, Twitter is arguably the one where the research field is currently most active. Due to the character limitations of posting a tweet, you unfortunately are not able to communicate a great amount of detail when sharing information about your research. However, it can be used very judiciously to provide “teasers” or other sorts of attention-grabbers in order to pique the interests of your followers. As examples, refer to the screenshots of tweets that I made in support of two more traditional outlets for research in Figure 8.2. The screenshot on the left is a tweet that I sent out a couple of weeks prior

Figure 8.2  Screenshots of Tweets in Support of Research Dissemination (@craigmertler).

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to presenting a research study at a site-based conference. The screenshot on the right is a tweet that I sent out after a colleague and I co-authored an article—on the topic of practitioner inquiry—that was published in a peer-reviewed journal. The effectiveness of these tweets is enhanced through the inclusion of hashtags (i.e., #) and tags (i.e., ATs or @)—these will be discussed later in this chapter. These types of tweets can be even more successful in terms of connecting with your followers if a hyperlink is included to external resources—such as links to the online version of the published paper or to the conference website. I would recommend that you not take lightly the thought of posting on Twitter—or any social media platform, for that matter. It is important to plan out appropriate times to post content as opposed to simply posting when it might be convenient for you to do so. Although you can certainly find disagreements regarding these kinds of analytics from those who track such things, one source provides general guidelines for the best days and times to post on Twitter. Sukhyani (2023) recommends posting a tweet on Monday through Friday between the hours of 9am and 3pm. Further, she states that the ideal time to tweet is on Wednesday, either at 12pm or between 5pm and 6pm. Finally, she states—fairly emphatically, I might add—that one should avoid tweeting at any time over the weekend, as it simply is not very effective in terms of reaching your followers. Providing more of a “bottom line,” Needle (2023) recommends that the best time to post on Twitter is any day between 9am and 12pm, followed closely by 12pm to 3pm. He suggests that the absolute worst time to tweet is any day between 6am and 9am.

FACEBOOK Facebook—founded in 2004 and officially launched in 2006 (“Facebook,” 2023)—currently boasts more than 2.9 billion monthly active users (Sukhyani, 2023). Facebook users share status updates, post photos and videos, and often share external links to blogs or news stories. Many users of Facebook (http://www.facebook.com or the mobile app) tend to focus on personal connections (known as “friends”), like staying in touch with friends and family, as opposed to using it for professional reasons. However, there is nothing that limits someone from doing just that. Like Twitter, Facebook can be an efficient way to share ideas and information with people who share similar interests—“comments” and “shares” allow people to interact with other users and their shared information (Chi, 2021). Users can “like,” “love,” or “laugh” at a post, along with show concern, sadness, or anger. They can also provide their own comments and share another’s post with their friends.

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Facebook differs a bit from Twitter in that there are specialized platforms depending on whether you are an individual or a “business.” Individuals have Facebook profiles, whereas businesses have Facebook pages. As example, I have both—I have a profile for my personal connections and a page to promote my work as an author. A profile is where all of your personal information lives on Facebook, including things such as your name, photo, hometown, workplace, education history, etc. You can make your profile as public or as private as you want by disabling the information that you do not want publicly visible (Chi, 2021). Some terminology is unique to Facebook. For example, the newsfeed is the place where all of your friends’ posts will appear. You will also see updates from business pages that you have liked. Your posts will also appear in the newsfeed where your friends can see them. In contrast, a timeline is your personal record of all the posts that have been shared by you and posts that you have interacted with. You usually will not see a friend’s status updates in the timeline, unless they have tagged you in a post or a photo (Chi, 2021). Other unique terminology includes the differentiation between “status” and “post.” Status is when a user shares some original content that they post on their newsfeed. A post is the term used to describe when a user shares something else that they found on Facebook, such as text, photos, videos, or a location. Finally, stories are another way to share content on Facebook. Stories are short pieces of content that are only visible for 24 hours. After 24 hours, they disappear from your newsfeed (Chi, 2021). In terms of sharing information related to your practitioner research, posting an updated status would seem to be the most appropriate strategy, unless you are sharing information related to your research from another post, potentially from a friend or follower. Stories likely would not be the best way to do this, since they disappear and people would not have access to them after 24 hours following the initial time of posting. The creation and use of groups could also be an effective way to share the results of practitioner research, in that you are creating a group where people who share similar interests request to join the group so that they could see updates to that content. A group could be created based on people who teach at a particular school, work in a particular content area, or teach at a specific grade range (i.e., early elementary or middle school). One final way that you could also share the results of your work would be to broadcast yourself on Facebook Live. This gives you an opportunity to interact in real time with some of your followers, provided they know that you are going to be live on Facebook. You might consider sharing a status update in advance to let friends (or group members) know that you will be online at a particular time to talk about your practitioner inquiry. Figure 8.3 is a screenshot

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Figure 8.3  Screenshot of a Facebook Live Post.

of a Facebook Live post that I did several years ago while working on a research study about teachers conducting their own action research. According to Sukhyani (2023), the best times to post any content on Facebook are Wednesday around 3pm, as well as Thursday and Friday between 1pm and 4pm. If you are interested in posting over the weekend,

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she suggests between 12pm and 1pm on either Saturday or Sunday. Finally, she recommends avoiding posting any content to Facebook on any day of the week between the hours of 8pm and 8am. Needle (2023) provides a different perspective, stating that the best time to post on Facebook is any day between the hours of 6pm and 9pm, followed closely by posting between 12pm and 3pm. He indicates that the best days to post to Facebook are Friday and Saturday.

INSTAGRAM Founded in 2010, Instagram (http://www.instagram.com or the mobile app) is a photo and video sharing social network service (“Instagram,” 2023). The app allows its users to upload media in the form of photos and video that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging (i.e., “geotagging”). Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users’ content by hashtag and/or by location, view trending content, “like” photos, and follow other users to add their content to their personal feed (“Instagram,” 2023). You can take, edit, and publish visual content for both followers and non-followers, provided your account is public. Users can interact with your content by “liking,” “commenting,” “sharing,” and “saving” (Forsey, 2023). As of 2022, Instagram had over 1 billion active users. One of the aspects of Instagram that I believe makes it so popular is the fact that there is not a heavy reliance on text; Instagram’s sole purpose is to enable users to share images or videos with their audience (Forsey, 2023). Since Instagram is now owned by the parent company of Facebook (i.e., Meta), it is feasible to connect accounts between the two social media platforms. When creating an Instagram account—if you have a Facebook account—you can simply connect the new Instagram account to your existing account in Facebook. You can also connect your Instagram account and posts to your Facebook account, as well as to your Twitter account. This also makes posting to multiple platforms much easier— when you post a video or photo to Instagram, you will be provided the option to simultaneously post it to Facebook or Twitter (Forsey, 2023). An Instagram post will stay on your feed theoretically forever. In contrast, you can also post an Instagram Story which, similar to stories on Facebook, will disappear 24 hours after posting. While Instagram initially focused its content on photos, in recent years it has begun to shift more toward promoting video content. A Reel is limited to video content posted on Instagram. A Reel is a 15-, 30-, 60-, or 90-second video clip

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that you create by recording directly on your smart phone through the Instagram app. There are numerous tools that you can use to enhance your video in order to be more creative, including adding special effects, music, and movement to your video clip. These various tools are highlighted in Figure 8.4, which is an Instagram Reel of my dog, Ace, and which highlights the use of Instagram’s “Doodle Heart” filter.

Figure 8.4  Screenshot of Instagram Reel Interface.

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Clearly, Instagram has a different audience makeup than other platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Sukhyani (2023) says that there is no bad day to post to Instagram. If you want to post on a weekday, the best time frames are 6am to 9am, 12pm to 2pm, and 5pm to 6pm. The best times to post to Instagram on the weekends are either Saturday or Sunday between 9am and 2pm. She does, however, recommend a different timeframe to post videos to Instagram—those will attract more viewers if posted any weekday between 9pm and 8am. Apparently, video viewers are also night owls! Needle (2023) somewhat disagrees by indicating that he believes the best times to post are mid- to late-afternoon and evening, specifically 6pm to 9pm, followed by 12pm to 3pm, and finally between 3pm and 6pm. There is agreement with respect to the fact that the best day to post to Instagram seems to be Saturday.

LINKEDIN LinkedIn is a business- and employment-focused social media platform that works through its website (http://www.linkedin.com) and mobile app (“LinkedIn,” 2023). LinkedIn was launched in 2003, technically making it the oldest social media platform. As of March 2023, LinkedIn had more than 90 million registered users worldwide in more than 200 countries and territories. LinkedIn allows members (both individual workers and employment organizations) to create profiles and connect with each other in an online social network that may represent real-world professional relationships. Members can invite anyone (whether an existing member or not)—a feature that makes it quite different from other platforms we have examined—to become a connection. Virtually anyone can be invited to become a connection on the platform. LinkedIn can also be used to organize site-based events, join groups, write articles, publish job postings, post photos and videos, and more (“LinkedIn,” 2023). When creating a profile on LinkedIn, as it is professionally based, the information provided should not be highly personal, but rather should be related to your professional identity—i.e., current position and work history, education background, skills and areas of expertise, etc. A screenshot of my LinkedIn profile is shown in Figure 8.5. LinkedIn is a quite versatile platform that allows its users to do a multitude of things. That being said, however, the majority of users on LinkedIn focus their posts on things such as sharing employment updates, indicating that they may be looking for new positions (and therefore may post a résumé or curriculum vitae on the site), and sharing work-related events and professional accomplishments. Connections

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Figure 8.5  Screenshot of the Author’s LinkedIn Profile.

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then have the opportunity to react to the post by liking or congratulating you on the content of your post. I have shared two of my previous posts in Figures 8.6 and 8.7. Figure 8.6 is a post that I made in an effort to promote an upcoming presentation of research that I was delivering at a site-based conference. Figure 8.7 is a post that I made following the completion of the research study, where I actually shared the infographic—that you previously saw in Chapter 5—resulting from that study with my connections on LinkedIn. Keeping in mind that LinkedIn is the largest professionally based social network in the world, it would only make sense that the best time to post any content to LinkedIn would be during business hours on weekdays as that is when you will get the most engagement (Sukhyani, 2023). More specifically, she indicates that the best time to post on LinkedIn is on Tuesday between 10am and 11am. She also indicates that posting on Tuesday or Wednesday between 12pm and 5pm is highly effective. Needle (2023) suggests that posting any time during work hours during the week—but, particularly on Monday, Wednesday, and Tuesday, in that order—tends to be equally effective. Finally, there tends to be greater agreement with respect to posting on LinkedIn, as both Sukhyani (2023) and Needle (2023) recommend avoiding posting anything on the weekends, as many professionals may likely cut back on the time that they spend on any social media platform.

Figure 8.6 Screenshot of Post on LinkedIn, Promoting Upcoming Research Presentation.

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Figure 8.7  Screenshot of Post on LinkedIn, Sharing an Infographic of Research.

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BEST PRACTICES IN SHARING PRACTITIONER RESEARCH VIA SOCIAL MEDIA One of the distinct benefits of using social media as a means of sharing practitioner research with a wider audience is twofold—(1) it is a relatively simple thing to do and (2) it requires a minimal amount of time. However, in the effort to maximize the reach and size of the audience with whom you connect via social media, there are numerous best practices that I would suggest that you follow. These include, but are not limited to, the following: ■■

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When creating a username (or profile) for any platform, use a variation of your actual name. This probably seems pretty simplistic, but I have a reason for making this recommendation. Most platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn will actually use your name as your profile name. However, one exception is Twitter. Twitter allows you to give yourself your own handle based on your desired level of creativity. For example, when I first created my Twitter profile and handle in 2009, I tried to be creative and give myself a name that was reflective of my work and my passion. My initial Twitter handle was @actionr3search3r—get it? It was my attempt to be “creative” and highlight my passion—namely, the value and benefit that I see in action research. However, therein lied the problem—no one could easily identify that handle as me. Grant Rankin (2020) strongly recommends that you create a profile that will be easy for others to find. After a year or two of struggling to make connections and find followers with that handle, I changed my Twitter handle to @craigmertler. Clearly, this was a better identifier for me on the platform. Your handle or profile name does not have to be your exact name, but it should be something that is very close and highly representative of your name so others can find you easily. Create a good profile, with a biography and photo included. I always believe that creating a good profile also helps people find you easier. Disclosing some information about yourself personalizes your profile and your account on whichever platform you might be using. You do not have to provide a lot of detail—in fact, I would recommend not providing a great deal of detail—but consider providing some interesting aspects of yourself, such as your birthdate or birthplace/hometown, where you currently live, what inspires you, a couple of words referencing your professional or personal passions, or a link to your website. I also believe that it is

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very important to include a photo of yourself. When you are connecting with people on a personal or professional level, they want to “see” you. They want to know who the person is that they are messaging or with whom they are otherwise communicating. From my personal experiences, I do not want to see a random picture of their pet, of a flower, or of some abstract artwork as their profile photo. Grant Rankin (2020) quotes Alquist, who said “Not having a photo on LinkedIn [or other social media platform] is like pulling your hand away right before somebody tries to shake it.” Incorporate thoughtful and judicious use of hashtags (#) and tags, or ATs (@). I mentioned both of these earlier in the chapter, but will go into greater detail here. Here is an explanation of them if you are not that familiar with their use. The fundamental difference between the two is that a # links to all other posts that include the exact same hashtag—it connects or links ideas or topics—whereas @ is used to tag specific people, businesses, or profiles on the platform—it connects your post to other users. A hashtag, or pound symbol on your computer keyboard, is also called an octothorpe and was historically used to indicate numbers (Macready, 2022). Since 2007, the use of hashtags has been critical to the growth and explosion of social networking. Essentially, hashtags are a way to connect social media content to a specific topic, event, theme, or conversation (Macready, 2022) by making the terms searchable and discoverable by other users. Although initially only used on Twitter, hashtags are now commonplace across virtually all social media platforms. The benefit of hashtags is the opportunity to connect with people who are interested in similar topics. People can search for hashtagged terms, but there are some important rules to follow (Macready, 2022): ■■

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Hashtags always start with a #, but will not work if there are spaces, punctuation, or symbols in the terms. For example, #practionerresearch would work effectively, but #practitioner-research! would not. Hashtags will only work if your account is public. If your account is marked as private, people who are not your followers will not be able to see your post, even if they search for that particular hashtag. Avoid stringing too many words together or having exceptionally long hashtags. You want them to be relatively easy for people to remember and to be able to use as search terms.

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For example, #situatedandcontextualizedpractionerresearch would not be a good hashtag. Finally, limit the number of hashtags that you use in a single post. One of my pet peeves is seeing a post that is followed by 20+ different hashtags. Now, I understand why posters do that—they want to try to reach more people. However, their post ends up being more obscure and less relatable since it can connect to so many different topics or conversations. McCready (2022) actually says that using too many hashtags gives the appearance of the post being “spammy.” Generally speaking, she recommends no more than three to five hashtags per post.

In contrast, a tag or AT uses the @ symbol and involves posting content, but also essentially “sending it” directly to the feeds of specific individuals or other users on the platform (Kratofil, 2013). This provides you the opportunity to make sure that particular users will see your post since it will show up in their feed, because their username appears in your post. This has the potential to drastically increase the impact of your post since you are targeting specific people who you think may be interested in what you have to say or share. In my opinion, there is only one vitally important aspect of using @ in your posts: ■■

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You have to be absolutely sure that you have spelled any other usernames correctly. Otherwise, your post will never show up in their feeds.

Make use of QR codes, when appropriate. Although we have not discussed them previously, QR codes can be a highly effective way of drawing people to external links and resources within social media posts. A QR code—which is short for quick response code—is a matrix or square barcode that is a readable optical image that can direct people to websites, for example (“QR code,” 2023). A QR code can be embedded as a photo in a social media post that would then direct users to an external website where you might have an infographic, presentation slides, or a complete report of research for them to view. Obviously, you can’t include this much content in a limited social media post, but you can direct users to an external location where they may be able to access them. Generating a QR code is a relatively easy process, as there are numerous QR code-generating websites that you can find through a quick Google

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search—simply type “qr code generator” in the search bar. Finally, QR codes are most effectively used with smart phones, as they simply require you to point your camera at the code. When you do, your phone will prompt you to open a web browser that will open the site linked to the code. I am sure that many of us have used QR codes to access information on the Internet, but if you have not done so and you want to try, point your smartphone’s camera at the QR code below and see where it takes you (I promise that it is entirely safe!):

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Use social media to share presentations, publications, infographics, or other results of your practitioner research. As was just mentioned above, with the use of QR codes, you can use social media to share or promote any research work that you have done. While you might not be able to include an entire report of research or a PowerPoint slide deck, for example, you can share things like infographics—which can be uploaded as photos—or QR codes that would take users to a different site on the Internet, which would house your work. These alternative sites on the Internet could be personal websites (which will be discussed in Chapter 9), or perhaps an online journal or conference website where your work may be included or even featured. Be prepared to engage with your followers or connections in follow-up conversations. I believe that it is essential to keep in mind that social media should not be intended to be a one-directional flow of information, as in only you sharing information with other people. Often, your followers or connections will read what you post and want to engage with you in conversation or discussion. They may have follow-up questions for you. They may want to solicit your advice or newfound expertise. They may even want to reach out to you with opportunities for collaboration or

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opportunities to share your research in detail in a different forum. My point here is simply to be prepared to engage further with your social media followers. Social media should not be an end to the process; it should be a way to initiate further and deeper discussions and conversations with people who share similar interests or work.

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Unconventional outlets for sharing the results of practitioner research include various social media platforms. Twitter is a social networking platform where users share tweets with their followers. On Twitter, a user’s profile name is known as a Twitter “handle.” Tweets are limited to 280 characters. This limit includes any terms used with the # or @ symbols. Twitter can be used effectively for both personal and professional communications. Twitter users should pay attention to recommended timeframes for posting. Facebook is arguably the largest social media platform with nearly 3 billion active users. Most people tend to use Facebook for personal connections, where they can share status updates, photos, and videos with their Facebook friends. In Facebook, a “status” post is when a user shares their own original content; a “post” is when they share something that they found elsewhere; a “story” is a short piece of content that is only visible for 24 hours. Alternative methods of posting in Facebook include the creation of groups and broadcasting yourself on Facebook Live. Similar to Twitter, Facebook users should follow recommendations for the best days and times to post. Instagram is primarily a photo and video sharing social network service. Instagram can be connected directly to a Facebook account. In Instagram, a “post” will stay on your feed forever; a “story” will disappear 24 hours after being posted; a “reel” is limited to video content and can be anywhere from 15 to 90 seconds in length. As with other platforms, there are recommended best days and times to post to Instagram.

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LinkedIn is primarily a business- and employment-focused social media platform. LinkedIn is technically the oldest social media platform. Followers in LinkedIn are known as “connections.” Most users tend to focus their posts on LinkedIn to things related to employment updates, sharing work-related events, and communicating professional accomplishments. Since it is focused on work-related sharing, the best time to post on LinkedIn is any day of the work week, but not on weekends. Best practices for sharing practitioner research via social media include creating a username that is a variation of your actual name, creating a good profile including a biography and photo, incorporating the use of hashtags and tags, using QR codes if appropriate, using the platforms to share information housed outside of the social media platform, and being prepared to engage with followers or connections in follow-up conversations.

REFERENCES Chi, C. (2021, August 27). How to use Facebook: A beginner’s guide. Hubspot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-use-facebook Facebook. (2023, April 10). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Facebook Forsey, C. (2021, July 26). What is Twitter and how does it work? Hubspot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-twitter Forsey, C. (2023, February 21). How to use Instagram: A beginner’s guide. Hubspot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-use-instagram Grant Rankin, J. (2020). Increasing the impact of your research: A practical guide for sharing your findings and widening your audience. Routledge. Instagram. (2023, April 11). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Instagram Kratofil, C. (2013, May 31). Hashtag etiquette: When to # and when to @. sheknows. https://www.sheknows.com/living/articles/993583/ hashtag-etiquette/ LinkedIn. (2023, April 11). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ LinkedIn Macready, H. (2022, May 2). How to use hashtags in 2023: A guide for every network. Hootsuite. https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-use-hashtags/

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Needle, F. (2023, January 24). The best times to post on social media in 2023 [new data]. Hubspot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ best-times-post-pin-tweet-social-media-infographic QR code. (2023, April 12). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ QR_code Sukhyani, M. (2023, February 17). Best times to post on social media [2023 complete guide]. SocialPilot. https://www.socialpilot.co/ blog/best-times-to-post-on-social-media Twitter. (2023, April 10). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Twitter

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Chapter Nine

Even More Options

PERSONAL WEBSITES I believe that personal websites are a fantastic way to share the results of your practitioner research. One of the distinct benefits of a personal website is that you can customize it to appear exactly the way you want—and you can choose what you want to include on your site. Your website could be as simple as one page where you house basic information and resources for those who visit your site, or it could be a more comprehensive site where you have different pages that provide different types of resources. I have seen examples of practitioners’ websites where they have pages for sharing things like research projects, but also have pages where they provide resources for their students, parents, or colleagues. The only real downside to a personal website is that it will likely cost you some money. You will have to pay for a web hosting service, which is usually done on an annual or biennial basis. Web hosting services are companies that maintain all of the files that make up your website as well as provide Internet access to your site. In essence, you are renting space on the Internet from the service provider. There are numerous web hosting service providers, but some of the more popular—and higher-rated—ones include: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Wix (www.wix.com) GoDaddy (www.godaddy.com) bluehost (www.bluehost.com) IONOS (www.ionos.com) Hostinger (www.hostinger.com)

If you decide to go the route of developing your own personal website, I would also strongly recommend that you register a domain name that is unique and easily identifiable for you and your work. This simply makes it easier for people to find you on the Internet. Some hosting services will

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allow you to register a domain name for free, while others may charge a fee. However, from my perspective, I think it is money well spent. Years ago, when I first developed my website, I purchased the domain name www.craigmertler.com and, at that time, I believe I paid a one-time fee. By doing so, I now “own” that domain name and URL—no one else can use it (unless I release it). For obvious reasons, it is very identifiable as my website, in a similar way that using a variation of your actual name as a social media profile is more effective in terms of helping people find you. I have included a couple of screenshots of my website as examples—which, by the way, I built on Wix. In Figure 9.1, you see the homepage for my

Figure 9.1 Screenshot of the Author’s Personal Website Showing the Homepage.

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website (http://www.craigmertler.com). This page actually serves several purposes. You will notice that I have included a brief bio and photo of myself, along with the work that I am passionate about doing. I also provide links to all of my social media profiles, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and my Amazon Author page. Across the top of the page, beneath my name, you will see the links to the other pages that reside on my website—including pages for my research, consulting activities, speaking engagements, videos, textbooks I have authored, novels that I have written, and a page where you can contact me by completing an online form. Finally, on the homepage, I have provided a direct link to send me an email as well as a visual counter of the number of people who have visited my website. Figure 9.2 is a screenshot of the second page that appears on my website. This page highlights recent research publications that I have authored

Figure 9.2  Screenshot of the Author’s “Research” Page.

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or co-authored. By clicking on the title of the article, a visitor is taken directly to a journal’s website, and specifically to my article. This is an excellent and efficient way to share research with other people and make it easily accessible. Even if you do not formally publish an article in a journal, practitioners can upload products such as summary reports, infographics, and presentation slides that visitors could download for themselves. I also included a link to my Google Scholar profile, which would allow visitors to see all of the work that I have published over my career, as well as the extent to which people have cited my work in their own. To some of you, my website might look complex; to others, it might look very simple in terms of design. Personal websites do not need to be incredibly “fancy” in order to be effective. Although I have “tweaked” it numerous times over the years, I believe that it initially took me only a couple of days to set up my entire website and all of the associated pages. However, I do not want to mislead you into thinking that this is a quick and easy solution to your research sharing needs. Setting up a website does take some time, although many web hosting services provide assistance in the form of templates for sites and individual pages, a user-friendly interface that facilitates the building of your site, and technical support should you run into problems. However, another alternative to an individual website is to highlight practitioner research on an organizational website. One of the leaders in this area, in my opinion, is the Madison (WI) Metropolitan School District. Since 1990, they have promoted the implementation of practitioner research in their school classrooms. They have dedicated two main webpages to this initiative. The first page (https://www.madison.k12. wi.us/assessments/data-security-and-privacy/classroom-action-research) is an informational page devoted to sharing information about the action research process. However, it is the second page that continues to impress me. This page (https://www.madison.k12.wi.us/assessments/data-securityand-privacy/classroom-action-research/car-abstracts-and-selectedpapers) is one devoted to disseminating the work of their practitioner researchers. Organized by the authors’ last names, this page provides clickable links that take the reader to the abstract for each write-up of practitioner research. Most every paper includes its abstract; several of them include PDF versions of the full report of practitioner research.

ALTERNATIVE WRITTEN FORMS OF SHARING RESEARCH Next, we will consider and examine several options for communicating and sharing the results of practitioner research in written form, yet quite differently from how we have examined doing so previously.

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Blogs In Chapters 3 and 6, we discussed formally writing up the results of practitioner research. I know that for many practitioners, and those who might be considered novices at both research and publishing, the thought of writing a full-blown manuscript for a journal can seem very daunting. A wonderful alternative to writing a complete journal article—yet still an opportunity to provide a written form of communicating the results of your research—is a blog. A blog—a shortened form of “web log,” meant to describe the process of “logging the web”—is a regularly updated website or web page, and can either be written for personal use or to fulfill a business need (Forsey, 2022). Minaev (2022) has defined a blog as an online journal or informational website, where information is displayed in reverse chronological order, with the latest posts appearing first, typically at the top. A blog is typically comprised of a website. In contrast to a blog, a blog post is one page or a single entry in the blog. The blog itself might have a larger, more comprehensive focus, whereas a blog post would be an entry on a single topic. If you develop your own personal website, you can also incorporate a blog into that website. In essence, it would be a separate page as part of the overall site. Visitors to your site would find posts or entries by scrolling down the page of your blog. However, a blog can also be an entirely separate website all on its own. Just like there are hosting services for websites, there are also hosting services for blogs. Examples of these blogging sites include: ■■ ■■ ■■

Blogger (www.blogger.com) Tumblr (www.tumblr.com) Wordpress (www.wordpress.com)

One way that a blog could be very effectively used to share the results of practitioner research would be in situations where multiple people at a school or in a district, for example, were involved in conducting practitioner research. The school or district could develop and hold responsibility for the overall blog, but single blog posts could be made by individual practitioners in order to discuss and share their research. That way, the overall blog, as well as practitioner research at that site, take on more of a collaborative feel. The research itself may not be—although it could be— collaborative, but the sharing and dissemination of everyone’s research would be a highly collaborative effort. Of course, one aspect of blogging that you do not want to overlook is the fact that the blog would have to be promoted and advertised. Remember

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that the key here is that you want to draw readers to your blogging site. An effective use of social media accounts could accomplish this for you. For example, if a structure existed like the one that I described in the previous paragraph, everyone who is conducting research in your school or district could promote and advertise the blog site on their own individual social media accounts. Those account holders would obviously share some followers and connections (e.g., colleagues and administrators), but everyone would also have many other own unique followers and connections, thus bringing more and more people—as potential readers—to the blog site. Blogs can offer a certain degree of freedom that cannot be realized through more conventional publication opportunities (Grant Rankin, 2020). Blogs offer practitioners the opportunity to share in writing their work in a much less formal manner. As you will read later in the “Guidelines” section, it is recommended that blog entries are not incredibly lengthy; if they are, people are less likely to read them. This can be appealing to many novice writers in that it simply is not as daunting a task to write a blog entry—that may be four or five paragraphs in length—as compared to writing a complete journal article, for example.

Zines Zines are another option for writing up the results of practitioner research in an alternative form. A zine—short for “magazine” or “fanzine”—is best described as a small-circulation, self-published work containing text and images (“Zine,” 2023). Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very small group, and are popularly photocopied—using a good, old copy machine—into physical prints for circulation. They are often produced in editions fewer than 100 copies. Many people trace the beginning of zines back to Thomas Paines’ popular 1775 pamphlet Common Sense (“Zine,” 2023). Zines arguably gained popularity through their application in the science fiction genre and have continued to do so via the feminist movement. Today’s desktop publishing software makes the development of zines relatively simple and straightforward. Although not a common outlet for practitioner research, I could envision a zine being the hardcopy version of an organizational website featuring practitioner research. A zine could be produced as a summary “report” of practitioner research from within a school and then shared with other schools in the district. We could even think on a slightly larger scale and produce a zine that serves as a summary of research across a district that is then shared with community members, school board members, “donors”

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who provide funding or support to a school or a district, other members who support schools or organizations in different ways, people who volunteer to work in the district, etc. Once again, in an effort to make this outlet reach as many people as possible, a PDF version of the zine could be shared on social media by a multitude of people who may have contributed to the contents of the zine, or by others, who are simply interested in getting the word out about the great work that practitioners are doing. The zine itself could also be housed on the website, whether an individual website, an organizational website, or both.

Editorials A final example of alternatives to formal written research reports are editorials. Editorials are typically brief 500–1,000 word “essays” on timely topics that are typically published in newspapers and other sorts of periodical publications (DeMatthews et al., 2021). Editorials often explain a critical topic or challenge, while persuading readers to take some sort of action. They provide a thoughtful and brief summary of key facts, and then end with a set of conclusions that readers (hopefully) will remember. While this might not be a typical outlet for a single practitioner research study, I could certainly envision its use as a culminating activity, following the accumulation of knowledge gathered as a result of several cycles of practitioner inquiry. DeMatthews et al. (2021) are quick to remind us that editorials are not academic manuscripts. First, they should be written in a very brief format, which means that there is not space for lengthy explanations. Second, authors of editorials should most definitely avoid the use of technical and/ or research jargon, realizing that the readership for these editorials will likely be people from all walks of life and not just those who work in the same field of study as the author. Grant Rankin (2020) claims that newspapers and other periodicals are generally written for a high-school reading level or below. Finally, they provide opportunities for the practitioner researcher to take a specific and persuasive position or stance and to make recommendations for action. Honestly, I would not recommend editorials as a typical outlet for a majority of practitioner research. However, there may be instances and opportunities where it would be a very appropriate avenue to pursue, especially if the outcomes of multiple cycles of research would warrant a persuasive approach toward getting people in the community to change or take some course of action.

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ALTERNATIVE NON-WRITTEN FORMS OF SHARING RESEARCH Okay, I get it … I really and honestly do get it. I have talked a lot about writing in this book, and I realize that some of you out there absolutely detest the idea of writing. But, have faith, there are alternatives.

Vlogs If you would like the idea of writing a blog—especially because it is a more brief outlet for sharing your research—but simply do not enjoy the process of writing, consider a vlog. A vlog—the shortened form of “video blog”— is actually a form of blog where the medium is video. Vlogs can be a very effective way for people to share research. I say this primarily because it combines aspects of blogging and presenting at a conference—you are talking about your research to potential audience members. However, if you get nervous standing in front of people and talking, vlogging might be a great alternative for you and your colleagues. To be honest, some people simply find it easier and faster to communicate by saying what they are thinking, as opposed to writing their thoughts (Grant Rankin, 2020). Finally, with the video capabilities on today’s smartphones, the process of recording, editing, and uploading videos to an Internet site could not be much easier. Perhaps the most convenient way to vlog is to first create a free channel on YouTube or Vimeo. Your video channel (i.e., vlog) acts like a blog—in that it would be the larger entity that houses all of the individual entries—and where individual videos would be analogous to individual blog posts. Again, this could be done in a collaborative manner, as I previously described in the section on blogs earlier in the chapter. Someone at the school, district, or other organization could maintain the channel on YouTube or Vimeo, and individual practitioners could record and provide videos that with them be uploaded to the channel.

Podcasts A podcast is an audio program made available for live listening or digital download (“Podcast,” 2023). The word itself is a shortened and combined version of “iPod” and “broadcast.” Podcasting as an outlet for practitioner research is potentially even more appealing than other things we have looked at previously—mainly because no one even has to see you in any form; the medium for podcasting is purely audio. Not unlike blogs and vlogs, a podcast is the name given to the overall audio program; each individual recording makes an episode of the podcast.

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Podcasting is very efficient in terms of cost and potential return on investment. Podcasting apps are typically free to download directly on your smartphone. If you are not interested in pursuing high-tech microphones, you can record yourself directly on your smartphone and upload the podcast episode from there. Usually, whichever platform for podcasting you use, you will need to create a podcast and essentially apply for it to be approved on that platform. This usually does not take very long—maybe a few to several days. There are numerous—way too many to begin to talk about here—platforms for creating and hosting your podcast. However, I would caution you to look carefully at the various requirements of each one that you might consider. Many of them charge a monthly fee to host the audio files and bandwidth for your podcast, even though many have free options that limit you to a small number of podcast episodes per month or the removal of episodes that have been there after a specific period of time. In contrast, there are several free (or at least free versions or plans)—and quite good, in my opinion—podcasting platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podbean, Podomatic, Acast, and RedCircle. I believe that podcast would best work in an arrangement similar to the one that I discussed with respect to vlogs. In other words, an individual or organization would be in charge of the podcast itself. That person could, for example, act as the host for each episode. Then each episode could feature a different practitioner researcher discussing their research and the impact that it is having on their work. A variation of this design might be that discussions with some researchers or collaborative teams of researchers could span several podcast episodes. Finally, there would always be an opportunity to promote the audio podcast through social media channels.

YouTube and Vimeo Although we have previously discussed outlets for sharing video content (for example, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram), there are two platforms that are dedicated to sharing video content—namely, YouTube and Vimeo. YouTube is considered a video sharing and social media platform (“YouTube,” 2023), whereas Vimeo is seen more as just a video hosting and sharing outlet (“Vimeo,” 2023). Both offer free and paid versions on their sites. With more than 2.6 billion active users, YouTube is the second-mostused social media platform in the world (Sukhyani, 2023). Vimeo has a much smaller community. Of its 170 million viewers, about 42 million are in the United States (Simon, n.d.). YouTube’s larger audience produces

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more content, but you may run into some questionable, highly offensive users that are not afraid to provide brutally honest feedback about how they feel about your video (Simon, n.d.). In contrast, Vimeo’s community is generally very supportive and has many users that offer more constructive feedback than you may find on YouTube. Although YouTube tends to get more traffic, Vimeo contains no adult content and is less likely to be blocked by various institutions’ Internet firewalls (Grant Rankin, 2020). The best advice might be to create a channel on both platforms and post videos to each. As with other mechanisms of sharing research, using other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to help drive people to your video channels will be key to extending their reach and growing your audience. Admittedly, I have used YouTube for the professional dissemination of my work, but really only in a limited manner. Figure 9.3 is a screenshot of my YouTube channel where I shared the video of my TEDx talk that I delivered several years ago (Mertler, 2018). According to Sukhyani (2023), the best times to post videos on YouTube are on weekdays between the hours of 2pm and 4pm. On weekends, she recommends posting between 8pm and 11pm. Posting on weekdays in the morning hours is the least effective timeframe (Needle, 2023; Sukhyani, 2023).

Figure 9.3  Screenshot of TEDx Talk from the Author’s YouTube Channel.

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BEST PRACTICES IN SHARING PRACTITIONER RESEARCH VIA ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES Since the strategies presented in this chapter are quite diverse, the guidelines and best practices shared below are very general in nature. In addition, I have intermingled some general guidelines for best practices in the sections that you have read earlier in this chapter. Here, however, I have provided a summary of some best practices—that would likely cross over platforms and strategies, as well. These best practices and guidelines include the following: ■■

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When developing personal websites, be strategic about planning your content. It is important not to have entirely too much content on your website. If you do, in all likelihood, it will not get read or viewed by visitors. I would suggest having a homepage that serves as an introduction and overview to your entire site, followed by three to five individual pages (at most) with specific contact. Include a navigation bar—or “list of links”—somewhere so that users can easily maneuver around your website without having to hunt for links to the other pages. Finally, be sure to include all of your social media handles and actual links to your profile pages. When developing and writing blogs, brevity is best. According to Grant Rankin (2020), the best blogs are generally 1,000 words or less. In my opinion, this does two very important things for you— (1) they are not lengthy pieces for you to write and (2) they are not lengthy pieces for others to read. The bottom line is that if you want your blog to be read, keep the individual posts brief and they will be more likely to be read by visitors … and for those visitors to return in the future. When writing individual blog posts, consider using one or two images that help readers understand and connect with your topic. This tends to be an important feature for those of us who are more visual in terms of the way we take in information. Of course, the post itself will be text and narrative, but having one or two images that help to create a visual stimulus in your reader is never a bad thing (Grant Rankin, 2020). Also, within individual blog posts, always be sure to include your social media handles and usernames. This can be efficiently done in a sidebar or directly beneath the title of an individual blog post (Minaev, 2022). When engaging in blogging or vlogging pay special attention to your titles. With both blog posts and vlog entries, use concise and interesting titles, so as to attract the attention of potential readers,

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so that they want to read your post or view your video (Grant Rankin, 2020). This seems like a pretty basic guideline to follow, but I believe that it is often overlooked, and something to which not enough attention is paid by bloggers and vloggers. Unlike personal websites, blogs, vlogs, and podcasts need frequent updating. A primary purpose of blogs, vlogs, and podcasts is ongoing and continuous interactions with your audience. If you only have one topic, for example, that you are passionate about and try to write a blog, you will likely only end up with one or maybe two individual posts on your blog. Effective blogs, vlogs, and podcasts may be updated with new content each week, every couple of weeks, or maybe once each month. I believe that the timeframe itself is less important than a commitment to continually updating your content. I recommend not developing and engaging in podcasting, blogging, or vlogging if you do not intend to provide frequent updates with new content (Minaev, 2022). Realize that there will be some necessary writing included with blogs or other video posts. Do not be misled into thinking that creating and posting videos will not require any writing. One of the things that is essential that you do with video posts of any kind is to include a very brief but highly accurate description of what the video is about. Sometimes people want to read that before they spend time actually watching the video in order to see if the video will be of interest to them. These brief descriptions serve as an enticement for visitors to take the next step and actually click on the video and spend their time engaged with it. Be prepared for feedback and engagement. Remember that any— and all—of these strategies are intended to serve as outlets for you to share the results of your practitioner research. Along those lines, as people become interested in your work, they will also become interested in engaging with you in a variety of ways. They may provide unsolicited feedback—whether positive or negative; they may reach out to have a conversation with you in order to learn more about your work; they may contact you about potential collaborative projects; or they might even contact you to speak to their group or community about your work. Regardless of the reason, if you do not actively engage with those who visit anything that you have created or posted about your work, you are missing out on potentially valuable opportunities. In addition—and no lesser importance—it may appear as if you are “snubbing” those people whom you are trying to attract. Even if it is unintentional, it may

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appear this way, and that is never a good thing. My best advice is that you respond—appropriately and professionally—to anyone who makes an attempt to contact you about your work and what you have shared with a more extensive audience. Finally, never overlook the opportunity to cross over sharing platforms and strategies. As a final, overarching guideline and best practice, I want to stress what I think is an important concept and practice—that of mixing various dissemination and sharing strategies. I have mentioned this earlier, but I specifically want to highlight it now, as we are near the end of the book. I suggest that you never limit yourself to only a single form of dissemination or sharing. Always try to combine your efforts. For example, after completing a research study, you might develop an infographic or a handout to share at a local presentation. Why not also tweet about your study and include the infographic, or do the same thing on Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn? You could also post a video of you discussing the research that you have conducted and the ramifications and implications that you think that it will have on your future work. Combining strategies in this way only increases the reach, influence, and potential impact that your research and the dissemination of that research can have.

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Personal websites are a fantastic way to share not only the results of your practitioner research, but also other professional interests you have. Developing a personal website may require some expense, but web hosting service providers can help to facilitate the process by providing templates, a manageable user interface, and technical support. An efficient alternative to an individual website is an organizational website that could highlight practitioner research. “Blogs” are an alternative form of written communication of practitioner research, and consist of individual blog “posts.” Blog posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order. Blogs can also be incorporated into personal websites. A “zine” is a short magazine-like publication that is printed in hardcopy. A zine could be viewed as a hardcopy version of an organizational website that features practitioner research.

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“Editorials” are short 500–1,000 word essays on timely topics and could be written in a way to feature practitioner research. A “vlog” is essentially a video version of a blog. Vlogs and vlog posts can be made to a channel housed on YouTube or Vimeo. “Podcasts” are audio programs for listening or downloading. “YouTube” and “Vimeo” are platforms for sharing video content. Individual videos can be posted to YouTube or Vimeo, or those platforms could house a vlog. Always consider using social media to promote and advertise your other dissemination and sharing efforts. Never overlook the opportunity to combine sharing and dissemination efforts—whether those be in written form, video formats, or audio formats … and be sure to include your social media handles.

REFERENCES DeMatthews, D., Reddick, R. J., & James, L. (2021). Speaking up and speaking out. In A. M. Urick, D. E. DeMatthews, & T. G. Ford (Eds.), Maximizing the policy-relevance of research for school improvement (pp. 43–74). Information Age Publishing. Forsey, C. (2022, September 16). What is a blog, and why should you create one? Hubspot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-a-blog Grant Rankin, J. (2020). Increasing the impact of your research: A practical guide for sharing your findings and widening your audience. Routledge. Mertler, C. A. (2018, October). Personal empowerment through reflection, learning, and improvement. TEDx Lakeland University, Lakeland University. Minaev, A. (2022, December, 26). What is a blog? Definition of terms blog, blogging, and blogger. First Site Guide. https://firstsiteguide. com/what-is-blog/ Needle, F. (2023, January 24). The best times to post on social media in 2023 [new data]. Hubspot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ best-times-post-pin-tweet-social-media-infographic Podcast. (2023, April 13). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Podcast Simon, J. (n.d.). YouTube vs. Vimeo: What’s the difference? TechSmith. Retrieved April 14, 2023, from https://www.techsmith.com/blog/ youtube-vs-vimeo-whats-the-difference/

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Sukhyani, M. (2023, February 17). Best Times to post on social media [2023 complete guide]. SocialPilot. https://www.socialpilot.co/ blog/best-times-to-post-on-social-media Vimeo. (2023, April 14). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Vimeo YouTube. (2023, April 14). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ YouTube Zine. (2023, April 13). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zine

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Section IV provides some motivation for those new to the ideas of disseminating or otherwise sharing the results of action/practitioner research.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003322498-14

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Motivating Yourself to Share Your Practitioner Research

REVISITING THE ORIGINAL QUESTION: WHY SHOULD YOU BE CONCERNED WITH DISSEMINATING YOUR RESEARCH? At the outset of this book in its Introduction, I posed this question to you as the reader … and as a practitioner researcher. My hope is that by this point in the book, you have come to realize two very important aspects related to the question above: ■■

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Disseminating and sharing the results of practitioner research is an important aspect and component to the process of conducting original, practitioner-based research. Although some of the strategies shared in this book are more timeand labor-intensive than others, disseminating and sharing the results of practitioner research is not difficult, although many of the strategies presented do require an individual to broaden their particular skill set in this area.

Some of you might have asked then—and could possibly still be asking now—the following question: “Okay, I ‘get’ all of these dissemination products and strategies, but do I have to share my practitioner research?” My easy answer to that question is to simply say, “Of course, you do not have to”—unless you are in a graduate program and it is a requirement of the program. In that case, we are dealing with something entirely different. However, be prepared for my follow-up question—“Why would you not want to share the results of your research with others?” For many years, I have believed that the teaching profession—and in this comprehensive statement, I include all professional educators and the work that they collectively perform—has fallen victim to mass DOI: 10.4324/9781003322498-15

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deprofessionalization (Vaughan & Mertler, 2020). Generally speaking, our communities, whether local or considered more broadly, have largely begun to devalue the work related to being a professional educator. The demands and expectations placed on educators are often unrealistic. I sense that many professional educators across the country and throughout the world feel as if they have begun to lose touch with why they entered this profession in the first place. Our communities expect professional educators to act as professionals, yet roadblocks and massive hurdles continue to be placed right in front of them that prevent this from efficiently and effectively happening. Professional educators need strategies by which they can meet the current demands and expectations of their professional practice, but that also enable them to regain a sense of this lost professionalism. To my very core, I believe that practitioner research is a means by which this can happen. However—to reiterate the basic tenet of this book—simply conducting practitioner research should not be enough for any of us. We need to let others know of the innovative and creative problem-solving strategies and results that we are using in our educational institutions for the overall betterment of the teaching–learning process. I think it is important to remember that if you believed at the outset of your research that a topic you had decided to study was an important one, and worth spending your time and energy conducting practitioner research about, in all likelihood there are other professional educators who would feel the same way and would be interested in your findings (Mertler, 2020). Engagement in the act of sharing—and of celebrating—the findings from your practitioner research can be an incredibly satisfying and rewarding professional experience. Engaging in these kinds of activities collectively provides us with unique circumstances for professional growth that, up until now, many of us have not had the opportunity to experience. If this kind of professional growth and learning is within our grasp, why would we not want to reach out and seize hold of it while the opportunities exist? By sharing and disseminating your practitioner research, you also encourage others to engage in these types of activities in their own classrooms and schools. I have worked with countless teachers who have shared that they simply do not know how to do these types of things or simply do not have the time. The opportunity to see colleagues with whom they work engaging in this kind of professional work might just encourage them to try it as well. Educator empowerment can be contagious! (Mertler, 2020).

IMPORTANCE OF SHARING RESULTS OF YOUR RESEARCH Although we have touched on this fact already, it bears repeating here. One of the most important aspects of sharing the results of practitioner research

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is the fact that it helps to bridge the gap between research and practice—a void that has existed in the field of education for countless decades. This gap is best described as follows: educational research tends to occur in the ivory towers of higher education, whereas the practical application (i.e., the education of children and all things associated with that) takes place in schools and classrooms. What goes on in school classrooms often does not reflect research findings related to instructional practices and student learning (Johnson, 2013). At the risk of overgeneralizing, most research conducted in the broad field of education is conducted by higher education faculty and other researchers, who may conduct studies and collect data in schools, but they are not in those schools each and every day. They are not “on the ground,” so to speak, and experiencing the nature of those educational problems of practice in any way that remotely resembles how the practitioner is forced to deal with those problems on a regular and continuing basis. These kinds of problems—which typically serve as the impetus for practitioner research endeavors—are so inextricably context-specific that, in my opinion, visitors from the outside (e.g., such as those who work in higher education and conduct research in schools) will never be able to fully grasp critical aspects of a given problem, such as its complete extent, or its frequency, urgency, or intricacies (Mertler, 2023). However, that being said, I do not believe that either party—that is, the research side or the practice side—bares full responsibility for the gap. The research–practice gap could be envisioned as a two-way street. On one hand, moving in one direction, we have researchers who are often disappointed with the fact that practitioners do not use the results of their research in their classrooms and in their professional practice. Moving in the opposite direction, we have practitioners who are disillusioned with the results of educational research, citing the fact that these studies often do not factor in the realities of their particular context, which makes the results essentially unusable (Mertler, 2023). As with many two-way directional flows of traffic, there exists a substantial concrete median between these two opposing lanes that are seemingly moving in opposite directions … and toward different destinations (i.e., goals). We know that the median serves a valuable purpose—to keep traffic moving in opposite directions from inadvertently entering the opposing flow of traffic. However, in the case of educational research, we need to remove that median, thus helping to bridge the gap between research and practice. Practitioner research—and sharing the results of practitioner research—can be an incredibly valuable strategy that helps to bridge that gap. I touched on another facet of practitioner research that helps to support its importance and relevance in earlier chapters but is worth reiterating. Practitioner research is exceptionally empowering in that it gives voice

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to professional educators—something that they have been progressively losing over the past couple of decades (Mertler, 2021, 2023). Practitioner inquiry gives voice to the professional educator by allowing that educator to identify and investigate problems with the goal of seeking solutions. Further, rooted in the fact that these solutions are based on the implementation of innovations in the classroom and/or school, on the execution of a strategic approach to investigating the effectiveness of those innovations, and on the collection of actual data, professional educators have an opportunity to become integral participants in various decision-making processes in schools and districts. In essence, the broader result of this process is that teachers gain the capacity to become knowledge generators (Dana & Yendol-Hoppey, 2019). Practitioner inquiry and engagement in the research process are the systematic strategies that allow educators to create original knowledge about educational practice. Again, I believe wholeheartedly that the powerful act of creating new professional knowledge can be enhanced even more when practitioners present the results of their inquiry to local—as well as not-so-local—audiences.

REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS One of the biggest arguments that I often hear from practitioners regarding the concepts of both conducting practitioner research and of sharing the results of practitioner research is that there are limitations due to a lack of flexibility and time constraints. Often, practitioners working in various educational settings have limited—if any—“free” time during their workdays. Many of them have very strict schedules that do not allow for much flexibility. I am not going to say that these are not valid concerns, because I know full well that they are. However, I do believe that there are ways to circumvent these potential limitations. First, one of the things that I think can be key to helping practitioners succeed in these professional endeavors is when administrators—schooland district-level—both support them and provide some sorts of incentives for them to do this. I believe that administrators need to view this kind of work as an investment in their faculty and staff. More specifically, it is an investment in the customized, professional growth and learning of their faculty and staff. These practitioners have made the decisions to take it upon themselves to identify areas of their practice where they want to improve, and then to embark on a journey to accomplish just that. Support is incredibly important. This can take the form of moral support as well as more comprehensive professional support. When practitioners are outwardly encouraged to do this kind of work by their administrators, it provides increased motivation for them to do so. However, as important as that can

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be, administrative support should not be limited to simple “pats on the back.” Support can be provided in the form of offering to sit with practitioners and engaging in brainstorming sessions with them. This notion might be extended even more, as when the administrator connects the practitioner with someone that the administrator knows who could be useful to the work and research of the practitioner. In addition, it might be possible to provide financial incentives that could be connected to grant funding. I have seen other schools that have offered mini-grants to teachers to cover costs related to resources and supplies in order to conduct practitioner research (Mertler, 2018). Another thing that I have been able to see administrators do for their teachers in an effort to offer support is to provide them with some time to dedicate to research activities. I know … in our current educational climate, this is a “big ask.” Admittedly, in many cases, administrators may not be able to carve out much time. However, it is still indicative of an effort being made on the part of the administration to provide support to teachers and other practitioners doing this kind of research work. They might only be able to make available one or two hours each month for teachers to work on this. However, if that is dedicated time set aside to work on research-related activities, it is a show of good faith on the part of the administrators to help facilitate the practitioners’ work. Even though limited, this time could be used for activities such as data entry, data analysis, working on a research report handout or infographic, or drafting and posting to social media—or all of the above. A final effort that administrators can make to help promote this kind of work in their staff is to engage in the process themselves and to “lead by example.” We all know how strong a motivator and incentive seeing our leaders engage in the same kinds of professional growth activities in which they want us to engage. Again, I have been fortunate to witness this occur during professional development sessions that I was leading in a school. The administration in that school building attended and participated in every aspect of a day-long training on practitioner research and left at the end of the day with the same products—the beginnings of a practitioner research project (i.e., a research problem, research questions, and ideas for an innovation and data collection strategies)—as all of the other professional educators in the room. That was so powerful for me to see and for everyone in that room to experience. To this day, I tip my hat to those administrators for motivating their teachers through the overt and motivational strategy of leading by example. Second, I strongly urge all practitioners to evaluate the amount of time and energy that they believe they could expend on a practitioner research project and dissemination thereafter. This requires a different kind of professional reflection—one where you lay out the work that you want to conduct,

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but then evaluate it against the amount of free time that you have. This free time could be free time during your work day or during your own personal time. While I am certainly not advocating for practitioners to do this kind of work during their own personal time, many people do just that. These are personal decisions, and ones that must be weighed at the individual practitioner level. Accordingly, my recommendation is to only take on practitioner research projects and dissemination strategies that you feel will fit into your professional and personal schedules. This is important work upon which you will be embarking, but if it is not balanced appropriately with your available time, it will not get done, thus becoming counterproductive. Finally—and especially for those of you who may be new to practitioner research—my sincere recommendation is for you to start small. Identify a small and manageable project that you can take on. It is important to realize that the results of this research project may not change your world drastically, but they will serve as your initiation into the process of conducting practitioner research. One of the things that is vitally important is for you to have a level of comfort with the process of conducting research. By starting small, you envision and design a manageable project that will fit into your time constraints and already busy schedule. As you become more familiar with the process of conducting your own research, the scope of the projects that you envision and that you identify for research can be scaled up accordingly. Following that, of course, be sure to take opportunities—regardless of how small or limited they might be—to share the results of your work with colleagues or with your administration. This could even be done informally, but it still serves as a foray into these kinds of professional activities that will help build a solid foundation for moving forward and continuing this work. My point in offering all of the suggestions above is to say that any practitioner entering into the realm of conducting their own research and dissemination activities needs to be very realistic about their expectations. Realistic expectations extend from the beginning of a process when you are identifying a problem to study, but also to the scope of the actual research activities that you envision and the strategies that you desire to use as a means of sharing the results with a larger audience. Approaching these tasks from a realistic and manageable point of view serves to set the practitioner up for a greater degree of success.

A FINAL WORD … FOLLOWING THROUGH AND FOLLOWING UP In case you have not guessed it by now, I am very passionate about the potential that lies in practitioner research. What I truly think is the most impactful aspect of practitioner research is the fact that I see it as a means to achieve customizable professional growth and learning, specifically

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focused on aspects of the teaching and learning process that have been identified as areas in need of improvement by particular, individual professional educators. This is not the “one-size-fits-all” professional development to which we have become accustomed over the last several decades (Mertler, 2013). This is not professional development where everybody in the school or district attends the same three-hour training on the same topic—which may or may not apply to the work we do as professional educators. We have all attended those sessions (of that, I am sure), and they can be very “hit-or-miss” in terms of their effectiveness—sometimes they pertain to us and are somewhat valuable; other times, they are not at all. This kind of professional development has been referred to using a variety of slang terminology, including “hit-and-run,” “drive-by,” and “spray-on” professional development (Casey, 2012; Mertler, 2023). That is not at all what we are talking about here. I believe that there is so much power associated with practitioners undertaking these kinds of professional learning initiatives. They stand to improve their own practice, by focusing on what they deem valuable to that practice. If we are improving the way we do our work, then it only stands to reason that the recipients of our work—namely, our students, families, and communities—also have the opportunity to benefit. However, this simply cannot happen if, as practitioners, we do not lay out a plan and follow through with it. By that, I mean that we must put ourselves “out there”—we must be willing to take risks, to try new things, and to systematically and strategically evaluate how successful those efforts are for us and for those we serve. We need not be afraid of failure. That being said, I am also a firm believer in the fact that, when we try these kinds of new things, there is no such thing as “failure”; there is only learning and moving our collective practice forward (Mertler, 2014). As members of the broader educational community, if we make the conscious decision to embark on this kind of journey, we really have no idea what we may find or where it may lead us. It may be scary … there may be hurdles and obstacles that we encounter along the way … we may experience a lack of success, in whatever way we envision “success.” However, we may surprise ourselves … and obtain results that are incredibly rewarding and professionally gratifying. But, as an educational community, if we are not willing to take these risks and to re-envision the work that we do—and the way that we approach improving our work on a continuing basis—we are missing out on huge opportunities … the opportunities: ■■ ■■

To REINVENT who we are and what we do, To RE-EVALUATE our beliefs and our practices,

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To RE-EXAMINE what we do versus what we are capable of doing, and To REALIZE that there are different perspectives on what we believe constitutes good practice and evidence of what works (Mertler, 2023).

Finally, I believe that moving forward with this work requires courage, confidence, and—dare I say—perhaps a bit of arrogance. I challenge each of you reading this book to seek out this work, to carve out your own niche in practitioner research, and to take charge of your professional practice, as well as your own professional growth, learning, and development. This is your opportunity to take your professional practice to new levels (see Figure 10.1).

Figure 10.1  Motivational Caricature of the Author.

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You CAN do this! I believe in each of you, and I absolutely cannot wait to see the fantastic work that each of you does, to see the new professional knowledge that you generate, and to see the results of your research labors shared with the world!

TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS CHAPTER ■■

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Disseminating and sharing the results of practitioner research is an important aspect of the process of conducting original practitioner-based research. Disseminating and sharing the results of research is not difficult, although individuals may have to broaden specific skill sets in this area. Practitioner research is a means by which professional educators can begin to regain a sense of lost professionalism. It is not enough to simply conduct practitioner research; we need to let others know of the innovative and creative work we are doing for the betterment of the teaching–learning process. If you believe that an educational problem is worth studying, it is likely that other professional educators will agree and be interested in your results. By sharing the results of your practitioner research, you may encourage and motivate others to engage in similar activities. Practitioner research is an effective strategy that can begin the gap that exists between research and practice. Educational problems are so context-specific that many “outsiders” will never be able to fully grasp the extent of the problem. Practitioner inquiry also gives voice to professional educators by allowing them to investigate self-identified problems and seek their own solutions. The generation of this new knowledge through practitioner research can provide professional educators with the opportunity to become integral participants in decision- making processes. Administrative support is incredibly important in the conduct of practitioner research. One important and effective thing that administrators can do to support practitioner research in their setting is to lead by example. It is important for professional educators to reflect on schedules and time constraints in order to identify manageable projects.

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It is vitally important for practitioners to be realistic with their expectations about engaging in the process of practitioner research. Practitioner research is a means to achieve customizable professional growth and learning. Practitioner research is not typical “one-size-fits-all” professional development. If we strive to improve our practice, it would logically follow that the recipients of our work would also experience improvements in the teaching–learning process. When we think about practitioner research, do not think of a lack of success as “failure”; it is an opportunity to learn and move our practice forward. If we are willing to take risks, we have no idea what we may find on the other side of the practitioner-research process.

REFERENCES Casey, A. (2012). Practitioner research: A means of coping with the systemic demands for continual professional development? European Physical Education Review, 19(1), 76–90. Dana, N. F., & Yendol-Hoppey, D. (2019). The reflective educator’s guide to classroom research: Learning to teach and teaching to learn through practitioner inquiry (3rd ed.). Corwin. Johnson, A. P. (2013). A short guide to action research (4th ed.). Pearson. Mertler, C. A. (2013). Classroom-based action research: Revisiting the process as customizable and meaningful professional development for educators. Journal of Pedagogic Development, 3(3), 39–43. http://www.beds.ac.uk/ Mertler, C. A. (2014, July). It’s okay to be wrong (You just might learn something) [Invited address]. #COLchat to Action Conference, Swartz Creek, MI, United States. Mertler, C. A. (2018). Action research communities: Professional learning, empowerment, and improvement through collaborative action research. Routledge. Mertler, C. A. (2020). Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators (6th ed.). Sage. Mertler, C. A. (2021). Action research as teacher inquiry: A viable strategy for resolving problems of practice. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 26, Article 19. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/ pare/vol26/iss1/19

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MOTIVATING YOURSELF TO SHARE YOUR PRACTITIONER RESEARCH

Mertler, C. A. (2023, March 26–29). “A road less traveled”…But why? Courageous educators and their journeys into practitioner inquiry communities [Research keynote address]. Annual Meeting of the Association of Teacher Educators, Jacksonville, FL, United States. Vaughan, M., & Mertler, C. A. (2020). Re-orienting our thinking away from “professional development for educators” and toward the “development of professional educators.” Journal of School Leadership, 31(6), 569–584. doi:10.1177/1052684620969926

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Index

Note: Italic page numbers refer to figures. abstracts 42–45 academic journals 91 accept as is (publishing recommendations) 91 accept with revisions (publishing recommendations) 91 acting stage 28–29 action research 7–10, 15–16; cyclical process of 30–31, 31; Gabrielle case 33–35; process of 26–33, 27; professional benefits of 16–22; vs. traditional educational research 10–15 American Educational Research Association (AERA) 58, 60–62, 77 American Educational Research Journal 94 American Psychological Association (APA) 40–42, 46, 48, 54, 94 anonymity 51 Ballou, S. 40 bias-free writing 41–42 blog 148–149, 154 Campbell, W. 40 case study 13

causal-comparative study 11 clarity 47–48 comparative study 11 comparison group 12 conference presentation process 113–117, 114–116 confidentiality 51 consistency 47–48 conventions of format 49, 50, 51 correlational study 11 COVID-19 pandemic 66, 75, 111 critical action research 19 cyclical process 30–31, 31 Dana, N. F. 20, 119 Daniels, C. 73 Davies, G. 17–18 debriefing 33 definitive statement 47 DeMatthews, D. 150 dependent variable 12 descriptive statistics 12 descriptive study 11 developing stage 29 Dewey, J. 7–8 disseminating research 22–23

173

INDEX

economy of expression 48 editorials 150 educational practice 18–19 education research 14, 14–15, 17 educator empowerment 19–20 electronic journal 91–93 ethnographic study 13 experimental research 11–12 Facebook 128–131, 130; status and post 129 Florida Educational Research Association (FERA) 59, 61 Forsey, C. 125 Grant Rankin, J. 127, 137–138, 150, 154 grounded theory research study 13 hashtags 138–139 independent variable 11–12 inferential statistics 12 infographics 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81 Instagram 131–133, 132 intellectual engagement 20 intended audience 93 invited presentations 63–65, 112–113 Johnson, A. P. 9, 45, 117–118 Journal of Teacher Action Research 94 journals: academic 91; author submission guidelines 98–99; print vs. electronic 91–93; refereed 89–91; scholarly vs. practitioner 93–95 knowledge generators 20, 119 language, simplicity of 48–49

174

LinkedIn 133–136, 134–136 local presentations 117–119 logicoinductive analysis 13 Madison (WI) Metropolitan School District 147 McNiff, J. 21 member checking 32–33 Mertler, C. A. 119 Microsoft PowerPoint 63 Mills, G. E. 9, 89–90 Minaev, A. 148 mixed-methods research study 11, 13–14 Modern Language Association (MLA) 40 Needle, F. 128, 131, 133, 135 Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research 94, 98 Nightingale, F. 75, 76 non-conference presentations 117–119 nonexperimental research 11 octothorpe 138 old-school approach 62–63 Oliver, B. 21 open access journal 92 panel presentation see symposium presentation paper presentation 58–60, 60 past tense 46 peer review process 98, 105–106 personal websites 144–147, 145–146, 154 person and voice 45–46 phenomenological study 13 PIC see practitioner inquiry communities (PIC) plagiarism 42 planning stage 26–28

INDEX

podcast 151–152 poster presentation 62–63, 63–64 posters 72–73, 74, 75 poverty 44 PowerPoint 79 practitioner inquiry communities (PIC) 119 practitioner journal 93–95 practitioner research 162–164 presentations 56–57; bad and good 116, 116–117; conference 113–117, 114–116; ethics 67–68; guidelines for 68–70; invited 63–65, 112–113; local 117–119; non-conference 117–119; paper 58–60, 60; poster 62–63, 63–64; of practitioner research 119–122; symposium 60–62; virtual 66–67; workplace collegial 65–66 present tense 46 print journal 91–93 probability 56 professional growth and learning 21–22 professional learning community (PLC) 119 publishing: practitioner research 103–106; process for 100, 100–101; recommendations 91; refereed journal 96–103 QR codes 139–140 qualitative research 11 quantitative research 11, 15 Rankin, G. 43, 68 realistic expectations 164–166 reconnaissance 27–28 refereed journal 89–91, 96–103 reflecting stage 29–30 reflection 15 reject (publishing recommendations) 91

reliability 31 report structure 49, 50, 51 rigor 31–33 Rotheram-Fuller, E. 73 scholarly journal 93–95 search engine optimization 92 self, focusing on 17 self-plagiarism 42 sharing research 22–23 Simzer, A. 73 site-based conferences 109–111, 110 Slade, C. 40 social justice advocacy 19 social media: benefits of 137–141; Facebook 128–131, 130; Instagram 131–133, 132; LinkedIn 133–136, 134–136; Twitter 125–128, 126–127 statistical significance 12 Sukhyani, M. 128, 130, 133, 135, 153 symposium presentation 60–62 tag/AT symbol 139 tense 46 tentative statement 47 theory to practice connection 17–18 titles 42–45 traditional educational research 10–15 treatment group 12 triangulation 13, 32 Turabian, K. 40 Turner, K. 73 Twitter 125–128, 126–127 University of Chicago Press 40 validity 31 video formats 81–82 video vignette 81 Vimeo 152–153

175

INDEX

virtual conferences 111–112 virtual presentation 66–67 visually sharing, guidelines for 82–84 visual portrayals, ethics in 82 vlog 151 voice 20 workplace collegial presentation 65–66 writing routine 52–53 writing style: bias-free 41–42; clarity and consistency 47–48; ethical

176

practice 51–52; guidelines for 52–54; person and voice 45–46; plagiarism and self-plagiarism 42; simplicity of language 48–49; tense 46; tentative and definitive statements 47; titles and abstracts 42–45 Yendol-Hoppey, D. 20, 119 YouTube 152–153, 153 zines 149–150