Conversation As Methodology In Collaborative Action Research

After nearly two decades of neglect, action research re-emerged in the 1980s as a significant form of research into practice. Teachers are being encouraged to engage in this self-reflective inquiry as part of pre- and inservice teacher education (e.g., Gore & Zeichner, 1991), masters degree programs (e.g., Feldman, 1998), and as part of educational reform efforts (e.g., Calhoun, 1994; Sagor & Curley, 1991). Action research can take on a variety of forms, as Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan Lytle (1993) have demonstrated, and can be individual or collaborative undertakings. Collaborative forms can be collaborations between teachers and outsiders, such as university researchers (Feldman, 1993a), or they can be collaborations among teachers -- what I refer to as collaborative action research. There are a number of problematic aspects of teachers' action research, such as whether teachers should engage in research modeled on academic research (Feldman & Atkin, 1995), what counts as tests of validity (Feldman, 1994a; Watkins, 1991), and whether it is even possible for most teachers to do action research given the structure of schools (Elliott, 1991). An additional question, and the one that is not often addressed, is what is it about action research that makes it research? This has been explored to some extent by Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1993), among others. I raise a somewhat more focused question here: What role does conversation play as research in collaborative action research?