Research Question: How can English Language Arts teachers help their students to understand and practice digital compassion?

I plan to investigate this question through the implementation of action research. Collaborating with other English Language Arts teachers, we would create a unit plan on the theme of digital communication, to be delivered to grade 9 students. This unit would include an exploration of current events and nonfiction, fictional texts such as short stories, and students’ own lives and practices. Students would also create written and reflective texts on the topics and themes that emerge. Data gathered for this research question would include in-class observations, interviews conducted with both the students and teachers involved, the texts students create in class, and a closing questionnaire.

Source: SCV Tutors

Action research would be the best method for this research question because, as outlined in the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s Action Research Guide for Alberta Teachers (2000),  I would be seeking to deal with a tangible issue that needs real, practical solutions, and this is what action research is designed to do. Other advantages include its participative and empowering nature, where many parties can be involved in, contribute to, and benefit from the research in meaningful ways. Because this is a relatively new area with no simple answers, the interpretive, tentative, and critical facets of action research are important contributing factors, as well. In exploring my research question, then, meaning would be constructed from all participants’ multiple realities, there would not be right or wrong answers, but rather, many possible solutions based on diverse viewpoints, and all participants would critically examine the specific problems of digital relationships, and act as self-critical change agents.

Additionally, because this research question has to do with the complex, complicated, and multi-faceted issues of harmful and even dangerous digital interactions and relationships, action research would be appropriate because of its spiral-like nature of reflection.  As an action researcher, I could plan a change, act and observe on the process and consequences of the change, then reflect on the process and re-plan, act and observe again, reflect again, and so on. This spiral offers the opportunity to visit a phenomenon at a higher level each time, ideally leading to ever-greater understanding (Koshy, 2010).

Action research also appeals to me on a personal level because in implementing it, I would not only be a researcher, but I can also, as an English Language Arts teacher, be a participant. There is not the same expectation to be “distant” or “detached” as there may be in other methods (Koshy, 2010). Advantages and additional insights will also result because I would not conduct individual action research, but would collaborate with other teachers and their students, with interventions occurring over a diversity of sites. The individual praxis that each teacher will bring to the unit of study, and the unique classroom conversations and texts that are produced in each location, will undoubtedly lead to deeper understanding.

Difficulties may emerge with action research, however, in that much of the literature reveals that action-research partnerships can sometimes come with conflicts between partners, especially when the different parties have neither met nor worked together before (Platteel, Hushof, Ponte, van Driel, and Verloop, 2010). Questions are also sometimes raised regarding the validity of findings with action research, such as how objectivity can be achieved when someone is researching his or her own practice. This can be dealt with, at least in part, if researchers acknowledge their values and epistemological stance at the outset, or if they set up a validation group (Koshy, 2010). This is also part of the reason why I would perform collaborative action research, rather than simply one individual intervention in my own classroom.