Having moved on from the swampy lowlands (Cook, 2009, p. 279), I now find myself in the research jungle, where I may encounter unexpected obstacles – but, thinking reflexively, perhaps opportunities to understand, not only the view of student participants in the study – but also the tensions that exist between the pedagogy and the institution itself – at least at course level.
Indeed, I did feel somewhat feel ambushed when I received an instruction to effectively cease and desist with the intervention with one of my groups. The focus on ‘translanguaging’ – despite only being only a small part of the lesson – seemed to be putting students off from attending. Any activity focused on multicultural community building should take place outside the class time. This in contrast to the generally positive and supportive feedback I had otherwise received from both students and course leaders.
This unexpected direction has motivated me to implement the data collection both pragmatically and strategically. In a previous workshop at LCC, critical friendship had highlighted that need to consider the language ability and comprehension of participants (as largely L2 users of English) of any questions in interviews or focus groups. The language appropriate for any survey would also need to be graded to the extent that all participants could access the necessary response – and be able to articulate this. For this reason, I have decided to advance a volley shot of surveys – this designed to reach the maximum range of participants and achieve data saturation (Creswell and Poth, 2016) – especially those who I may not see again in the Language Development classroom, being delivered via Moodle announcement to all the various course groups who had been included in the intervention. It’s worth noting that following this action I was also instructed not to communicate anything regarding the ARP to the students of particular groups via announcements – to paraphrase Tyler Durden from Fight Club (1999): the first rule of Action Research is – don’t talk about Action Research!
The synchronous data collection would potentially involve a smaller number of participants and would also need to be organized as appropriate to the wishes of the student participants. Where this can form a meaningful learning experience as part of the lesson (an opportunity to apply the seminar skills that we have developed earlier in the scheme of work), and where participants are no longer willing, or able, to engage with this ‘teaching moment’ (O’Reilly, 2025), I will organize ad hoc outside the class time. This also attempts to respect the principles (at least) of ‘participatory action research’ (Lenette, 2024).
I hope that the outcome of this research can provide meaningful insights for both learners and teachers. Ethically I cannot use a lot of the potentially useful data, as it was not offered in response to the agreed data collection. In the future iteration of the research, in addition to students, I will also be seeking to understand the attitudes and feelings of educators regarding the intervention.
(500 words)
References:
Cook, T. (2009) ‘The purpose of mess in action research: building
rigour though a messy turn,’ Educational Action Research, 17- (2)- 277-291, DOI:
10.1080/09650790902914241
Creswell, J.W. and Poth, C.N. (2016) Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Sage publications.
Fight Club (1999) Directed by D. Fincher. [Feature Film] 20th Century Fox
Lenette, C. (2024) PAR: Participatory action research. August 2024 (Available at: https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/2190224/mod_folder/content/0/Lenette%20%282024%29%20PAR%20%28Video%29.mp4?forcedownload=1 (Accessed 25 October 2025).
O’Reilly J. (2025) Workshop 1: Action research project, 2025-26 PG Cert Academic Practice. London College of Communication, 26 September 2025