Classroom Research: An Introduction

Bruce Kochis The classroom research approach championed by K. Patricia Cross and Tom Angelo proves useful in many settings as a formative, ongoing method of receiving and responding to student feedback. It's a method whereby instructors get what they ask for-and sometimes more.

You stop your class with a couple of minutes to go and pass out halfsheets of paper. You ask your students to answer anonymously the following: What is the most important thing you learned today? Back in your office you read the answers and realize that about one-third of the class didn't see a critical link between two aspects of that day's work. The next day you talk to the class about your findings and spend a few minutes discussing for the one-third (and reviewing for the twothirds) that important link. At its simplest level, that is classroom research: finding out if your students learned that day what you tried to teach them and modifying the next class accordingly. As a first step, classroom research helps teachers become sophisticated observers of classroom learning. A Tentative Definition Classroom research is more than just teaching techniques and tricks, though; its basic idea might be best described as "the systematic investigation of the effects of our teaching on student learning for the purpose of improving instruction." It consists of two aspects: a repertoire of techniques for getting information from students about their learning and an effort to organize that information into a larger picture of practical learning theory. The leaders in promoting classroom research, Patricia Cross (at University of California-Berkeley) and Tom Angelo (Boston College), frequently stress that classroom research differs from traditional educational research in purpose and design. Traditional research, associated with colleges of education and departments of educational psychology, is primarily concerned with finding the putative underlying "laws" of learning. Using methods derived from the natural sciences, traditional research idealizes a "typical" student by eliminating some variables and isolating others. This method purportedly leads to generalizations about student learning, generalizations that teachers can then use to design lesson plans and class work. The obvious weakness of this approach to educational knowledge is that as soon as you reintroduce the bracketed variables in the real world of the classroom, the "results" of the research no longer hold in any kind of practical, obvious way. For example, the war in Iraq had significant effects on the ability of our students to concentrate. But nowhere will you find research like "The Effect of the Persian Gulf War On Vietnamese Students in My History Class, Winter Quarter 1991." But that's exactly what you need to know in order to teach them. Classroom research is radically context-dependent inquiry. Underlying Principles

Classroom research is based on the principles of "naturalistic" inquiry. In addition to being context-dependent, it is interactive, multiple-focused, interrelated, formative, and concrete. I have often used the words "conversational" or "artistic" to describe it, as opposed to the "technological" approach of traditional research.

Classroom research is radically context-dependent inquiry.

But this should not be construed to imply that classroom research is amateurish, soft, or nonobjective. On the contrary, it is rigorous, solid inquiry that strives to build for the individual teacher a sophisticated theory of learning. This theory, however, is radically integrated with practice; so much so, in fact, that the distinction between the two reaches the vanishing point. More Examples In their Sustainable Community Systems coordinated studies program at Evergreen, Robert Cole and Russ Fox report that at the end of lectures, they occasionally asked students to write on index cards "one sentence summaries" of the most important concepts of the presentation. "This was especially useful," Rob Cole comments, "when I was teaching the students some fairly abstract concepts on alternative forms of economic development: I wanted to make sure students were understanding concepts related to currency-backed commodities and issues of ownership in land trusts. The one sentence summaries clarified for me what to pick up in my next class." "We used a second approach," Rob adds, "when we were not clear whether students were going deep enough with distinguishing between various methods for initiating social change. For part of a seminar, we asked students to draw concept maps to distinguish between the methods of Alinksy, Freire, participatory research, and liberation theology. This exercise helped us and the students to refine our thinking and our discussion of these approaches." In a coordinated studies program, Journeys: An Exploration of Personal and Social Identity, at North Seattle Community College, I joined my colleagues Rita Smilkstein and Larry Hall to use student selfevaluation as an assessment of student progress. The self-evaluation protocol was given to the students at the beginning of the quarter and discussed in class. At the mid-quarter point we had students write out some preliminary comments in response to the points of self-evaluation, e.g., "participation," "seminars," "outcomes of the course," and then share their thoughts with each other in small groups. This led to a larger group discussion about self-evaluation and its role in this program in particular and education in general. Finally, at the end of the program the students wrote their formal self-evaluation, but by this time, of course, none of the issues were surprises or afterthoughts. The advantages of using self-evaluation all along the way are several. First, in the act of selfassessment students develop the "metacognitive" abilities to see themselves more clearly as learners in relation to course objectives. Second, students through small group discussions get to compare and contrast their experiences with others, and through large group discussion they develop a sense of the whole class and where it's moving. Third, faculty not only get insights into how this group of students is doing, but they also open up channels of collaboration for faculty to work with individual students on their progress in the course. At Seattle Central Community College, the faculty team in the coordinated studies program, Love, Sex and the 21st Century, used the half-sheet response papers extensively to find out "who the students were and what their main issues were." Going to the heart of diversity, the faculty members wanted to elicit from each student ideas, thoughts and feelings in his or her own unique voice. According to faculty member Nancy Finley, "Coordinated studies and classroom research are practically synonymous. The

philosophy of the learning community implies the seeking out of student 'voice,' that is, active participation in the learning process itself." Procedures Any technique that an instructor can dream up to get good feedback from students about the course while it is in progress is classroom research. There are, however, some guidelines that have proven successful in most situations. In my view, students should have an opportunity to respond anonymously, and thus provide the instructor with the best possible information, untainted by fears of evaluation, embarrassment, or reprisal. A classroom is a power structure where teacher evaluation of students is the law of the land. Anonymous feedback avoids run-ins with the law. Instructors should never ask a question if they don't want to hear the answer. Classroom research sits squarely on a foundation of trust, and therefore, fearing or hiding or not squarely facing the student responses would destroy that foundation and destroy all future negotiations with students. Furthermore, the information from students should be given back to the students. This reinforces the instructor's credibility and informs individual students where they are in the class mix. The most intriguing and challenging part of classroom research occurs in the privacy of your office, or in the company of your teaching team, thinking about the information you have just received: "How are they thinking about this subject? Why? What shall I (or we) do next?" Classroom research can be intellectually very demanding, and at times, quite perplexing. Instructors should comment on the feedback, even to disagree or explain. Most importantly, instructors need to be willing to act upon the information they get back from their students. That action can take many forms, but the point of the research is to enhance the learning of these students, this term, and that means doing some modifying right now. At this point an objection is usually raised to the effect that this is too time-consuming. An extreme form of this objection is the near moral crusade to "cover the material," regardless of whether or not it was actually learned. The truth is that, done with sophistication, classroom research saves time by increasing learning early on, where the foundations of a course are laid. Teachers are much more able and likely to focus on difficult areas, and to use their time much more wisely. Implications Classroom research opens up the classroom to a broader range of student voices. The traditionally quiet, shy student now has a channel for communicating opinions and ideas to the class as a whole. The class shifts from a teacher-centered to a student-centered classroom, and all students are included. The unilateral, unidirectional power relationship encoded in the evaluation/grading system is modified to accept the suggestions and advice of the students. Instructors, however, do not give up authority, just authoritarianism. In hearing regularly what their peers are thinking, students are able to overcome the isolated, individual student/teacher relationship of the past. They now can see themselves as part of a group (including the teacher) that is marked not by competition, but by solidarity in a common enterprise of understanding and using the subject matter with competence and confidence. The positive effects of classroom research do not occur overnight; they are the result of instructor and student work over a period of time as each learns how to give and take feedback. Nevertheless,

classroom research is so powerful and helpful that even the most modest attempt can bring provocative and insightful results. Some useful resources on classroom research: Cross, K. Patricia Cross and Angelo, Thomas A. Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for Faculty. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993. Guba, Egon G. and Lincoln, Yvonna S. Effective Evaluation: Improving the Usefulness of Evaluation Results through Responsive and Naturalistic Approaches. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1981. back to the Table of Contents

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