교사 연구자들의 연구 경험에 대한 내러티브 탐구

Abstract

Various researchers have argued that teacher research contributed to narrowing the gap between educational research and its practice in school settings. However, only few research has studied its reality, effect, and implications on teachers' practice and their professional development in Korea. Thus the present study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of the reality of teacher research. This study was conducted by narrative inquiry to analyze and interpret teachers' research experiences. Three research questions were posed to investigate their research experiences: First, how do the teacher researchers define the teacher research? Second, what are the distinctive features of teachers' research experiences? Third, what are the critical issues which were derived from teachers' research experiences? The findings of this study are as follows. First, teacher researchers perceived teacher research as teachers' spontaneous inquiry and action for solving the problem which they encountered in their everyday practice. Second, their research experiences indicate that teacher research is personal, professional, and practical. Third, teacher researchers found it difficult to justify and legitimate their research as "research" due to their preconceptions of research which were based on the traditional or academic research, lack of knowledge of traditional research methodology, and different ways of sharing and disseminating research findings than academic publications. The findings of this study suggest that the traditional perspective on research is dominant in the field of education and it need to be transformed to fully understand the value and possibilities of teacher research.