M Hammersley (1993) On the teacher as researcher (p211, Vol. 1 Educational Research)

Integration of roles of Teacher and Education Researcher. No thank you!

Nearly 10 years after Hirst, Hammersley wrote to argue that Teacher Research (what we know as Action Research today) was OK but should be done by researchers or by teachers but as an end in itself, not co-erced or incorporated into the job of being a teacher. That was nearly 14 years ago, and the argument looks academic today. Certainly teachers are being loaded with administrative, assessment duties to add to their teaching commitments, rather than being forced to do research to improve their professionalism. But issues examined are still of interest, even if the political impetus that once threatened as, as far as I know, vanished. Action Research done by teachers as participants surely goes on, but, in my experience as a practitioner, it is voluntary and done with almost a hobbyist approach (by which mean it is accepted as self-developing, self-research and inquiry to helping reflection); "if it does not work out, ah well, it was a useful exercise from which we have all learnt something". TR, as Hammersley calls it, is cool, but should not be forced on teachers. TR may be done well by either insiders or outsiders. His teachers' learners seem to be children (see p221), by the way.

Teachers are well placed to research education because they are in a position to test educational ideas. They are also implementers of the curriculum, so perception of professionalism was tied up with curriculum development. Lawrence Stenhouse was seen as an authority and pushed the notion that professionalism should also be judged by TR. Hammersley carefully and respectfully shows this to be nonsense. (I do not yet know much about Stenhouse's work, but I suspect it has wasted a lot of people's time. For instance, he considered teachers as senior learners and that "no intelligible conclusion should be ruled out by a teacher". Well, OK James, you think that it is alright to stab people if you are called Jim. I understand that conclusion, so I won't ask you to rule it out." And I won't mention suicide bombers ... I digress...).

So, the idea came about that education research was best done by teachers than non-teaching researchers. Seems crazy to me, and maybe the likes of Hammersley saved us from this daft practice.

When is a researcher not a researcher? When she/he is a teacher. When is a researcher not a teacher? Never. Sounds like a joke to me.

Anyway, conventional research (CR) was critiqued by Stenhouse, Carr and Kremis and collaborative and practitioner research gained advocacy. Hammersley's article is in support of the conventional and goes on to show why critiques are unbalanced or flawed.

• CR is not irrelevant because although not always leading to a solution, it does sometimes and although some "solutions" are generalised, others are specific or can be adapted.

• CR is not invalid because it is so objective it is removed from practice because being an outsider can enable research and validate it; there are pros and cons to being an insider or an outsider for most research one can think of.

• CR is undemocratic, if it means anything is specious because research is not itself the practice it studies (my words).

• CR exploits teachers. (And TR forced onto a teacher's job description wouldn't?). Researchers can draw praise on themselves away from the teacher, for wisdom more rightly credited to teachers. (Who cares so long as the kids learn? - that is what I thought as I read that part...). This seems to be a reason for caution, not for prescription.

The conclusion is that TR should be an extra activity added on to teaching in classrooms and schools, not a transformation of that teaching. The proposal to integrate the roles of teacher and educational researcher "is untenable from the point of view both of research and teaching".

Not all educational research should be done by teachers. Outsiders are welcome. Nice.