PhD Thesis Draft Version 6 Outline - Action Research.Net

How can I as an educator and Professional Development Manager working with
teachers, support and enhance the learning and achievement of pupils in a
whole school improvement process?





Submitted by Michael Anthony Bosher



For The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
of the University of Bath
2001


May 2002

Vol 1.1

Copyright




'Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with
the author. This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that
anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests
with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information
derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the
author'.
This thesis may be made available for consultation within the University
Library and may be photocopied or lent to other libraries for the purposes
of consultation.

.................................
Contents
Tables and Figures 2
Acknowledgements 3
Abstract 4
Preface 5
Introduction 13
Chapter 1 A Cultural Context 18
Chapter 2 An Autobiography 25
Chapter 3 Methodology 40
Chapter 4 The School's Action Research Cycles 89
Chapter 5 School Effectiveness and School Improvement 107
Chapter 6 Vignette 1 Alan Shelton a Teacher 'Par Excellence' 120
Chapter 7 Some More Vignettes 158
Chapter 8 A Personal Development Review 184
Chapter 9 The Circle is Completed 190
References 234
Vol 1.2 Appendices

Appendix 1 An Historical Account of Development and Synergy of

School Effectiveness and School Improvement 262
Appendix 2 Yr 11 Mentoring Report 286
Appendix 3 Soft Indicator Tool 291
Appendix 4 Raising Achievement Working Party 295
Appendix 5 My Personality as Seen by Others 300

Appendix 6 The History of My Teaching 306

Appendix 7 My Journeys Through the Thesis 324

Appendix 8 The Diary 334


Appendix 9 Successes and Failures 372

Appendix 10 Mathematics Sets at St John's 379
Appendix 11 The Teacher and Teaching in the New Millennium 383
Appendix 12 Alan Shelton's Videos - A Commentary 392
Appendix 13 Yr. 9 Examination Results 408
Appendix 14 Self-Esteem Test Score Sheet 410
Appendix 15 Susan Gibbs Personality Validation 412

Appendix 16 An Interview with Dr Hazlewood 418




Tables and Figures



Tables

Table 1 Vignette 1 interview comments
...........................................132


Table 2a A comparator of the differences between School Effectiveness
and School Improvement
.............................................................277

Table 2b Characteristics of two School Improvement
Fields..................278


Table 3a Yr. 11 mentoring results
..................................................287

Table 3b Yr. 11 mentoring results numerical scores
............................288

Table 4 Advance Level Examinations Results 1991 -
2000.....................374

Table 5 GCSE Grades 1991-
2000...................................................374

Table 6 Pupils not achieving any GCSE examination grades.
.................375

Table 7 Mathematics Department GCSE Results 1994
.......................380

Table 8 Mathematics Department GCSE Results 1995
.........................380


Table 9 Mathematics Department GCSE Results
1996..........................381

Table 10 KS4 Results
1998..............................................................408



Figures:

Figure 1 The Action Cycle
..............................................................17

Figure 2 The Kemmis Action Research Cycle
......................................61

Figure 3 Some of the action spirals
............................................91 & 226

Figure 4 A diagram to show my position at mid point in the
research.........227

Figure 5 A diagram to show my position at the end of the
research............228
































Acknowledgements



I am totally indebted to my colleagues, Jack Whitehead and Jen Russ who
have been my
teachers, colleagues and friends throughout. Their unfailing interest,
enthusiasm and
patience has given me the support I needed to complete this research.
I must also acknowledge the debt of gratitude I have to my colleagues and
pupils at St
John's School, particularly Alan Shelton. I hope I have researched with
them, not on them. Finally, I thank my wife and family for their patience,
support and understanding when the decorating has needed doing over the
last six years.


Abstract





This thesis is a personal journey through an educational world of
continuing professional
development. It is located at school level, and the fields of School
Effectiveness and School Improvement act as a context within which this
learning process is framed. I claim three aspects of originality in this
thesis.

The first claim is the manner in which the thesis has engaged in a personal
learning process using insights from the paradigm of Action Research, and
the fields of School Effectiveness and School Improvement. These are
combined and grounded in my day-to-day professional life as an educator and
provide a means of showing how my learning is integrated into a school
improvement process. It also shows how my living educational theory
develops.

My second claim is that I develop my critical judgement and living theory
as I evaluate a school's development. This is in terms of improving the
teaching and learning experiences with its staff and pupils and as I engage
with, and use the ideas from others.

I express my originality of mind and critical judgement in creating my own
living educational theory as I show how the scholarships of discovery,
integration, application and teaching, are included within my scholarship
of educational enquiry.

Preface


This preface is intended to help the reader to make sense of the writing
that follows. This is
not to underestimate the intellectual capacity of the reader or indeed to
pre-empt the
concept of drawing personal meaning or theory from what is to follow; but
to give the
reader a lens through which this thesis can be viewed and interpreted.




Signposts

To help the reader to understand and appreciate the flow of the narrative,
I have included at the start of each chapter a signpost in italic to 'show
the way' during the chapter. I hope in this way that the reader will
appreciate the multiplicity of strands, themes and journeys that are taking
place throughout the thesis. Also to recognise the Action Research cycles
as they occur and appreciate the holding together of Aristotelian
Propositional Logic, and the Socratic Dialectical Logic, the 'one and the
many'.


The use of 'I'

My aim in this preface is to act as the teacher with his pupil. To give the
reader a firm
sense of what is to come, and to show how the strands of the School
Improvement and School Effectiveness fields and the Action Research
paradigm are intertwined with the personal and professional development of
'self' as expressed as 'I' within the thesis. The focus on the 'I' is not
accidental, but a considered response to the methodology employed. This
methodology is discussed in detail in Chapter 3, but the justification is
that 'I' as the participant teacher researcher am central to the thesis as
I explore my own learning and practice in the school improvement process.
There are three forms of 'I' considered in this thesis, 'I' the researcher
developing and thinking as I work with colleagues and pupils in an
improvement process. 'I' the Professional Development Manager involved in
school improvement activities with my colleagues as a part of their
professional development and 'I' the learner. To do this successfully, I
will use an Action Research approach that uses 'self' as the focus. This
will help the reader to understand that I am using a synthesis of ideas
from these fields and the paradigm, and showing how a teacher researcher
can create his own living theory whilst acknowledging and integrating
insights from the fields of others. Hitchcock and Hughes (1989a: 209)
support the Schön (1983) idea of the 'reflective practitioner' and the
Stenhouse (1975) 'self-reflective teacher' in 'empowering professionals and
generating critically effective emancipatory activities that feed into
effective practice'. This thesis is immersed in the concept of the
reflective practitioner, me, as I engage with colleagues in Action Research
cycles which are critically evaluated, amended and progressed. The 'self'
as an integral part of the narrative is contextualised by Ricoeur (1985)
when considering its use in the MacLure (1996) form of a 'transition'.
Ricoeur (1985:280) in his analysis of narra