Teaching Quality in Self-Study Research
There has been a growing debate on the quality and validity of biographical genre in general and of self-study research (Bullough Jr. & Pinnegar, 2001; A. Feldman, 2003) in particular. It is acknowledged as one of the prominent "work [s] in the new scholarship of education" (Zeichner, 1999, p.11). This paper discusses how MEd students are empowered to understand and monitor quality in self-study research. This paper is based on the experience of teaching self-study research over a period of three years. The MEd students in the Teacher Learning course were asked to explore their journey of becoming teachers and teacher educators using self-study research. As an end product, the students were asked to write an autobiography.
In the process of self-exploration and the writing process, which are interdependent, they were asked to keep in mind the 14 guidelines identified by Bullough Jr. & Pinnegar (2001) in their article "Guidelines for quality in autobiographical forms of self-study research". These guidelines were shared and discussed with the students. They were given the responsibility to follow them while doing self-study research and writing autobiography. At different stages, there were several ways employed for ensuring that they follow the guidelines such as reading and analyzing quality self- study research papers, writing reflections by answering specific questions, reading and responding to their own writings and that of their peers. Despite the systematic approach to ensure quality in self- study research, there were a number of challenges. These challenges are discussed at the end of the paper.
References
Bullough, Jr. R.V., & Pinnegar, S. (2001). Guidelines for quality in autobiographical forms of self-study research. Educational Researcher, 30 (3), 3-21.
Feldman, A. (2003). Validity and quality in self-study. Educational Researcher, 32 (3), 26-28.
Zeichner, K. (1999). The new scholarship in teacher education. Educational Researcher 28 (9), 4-15.