Narrative Approach to Teaching and Learning in Teacher Education

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to gain increased knowledge on how a narrative approach to teaching and learning can contribute to enhanced insight and critical reflection on inclusion, disability, and physical education as part of the professional development of students and teacher educators. 

Project Description

Research Questions

The project aims to illuminate the following two main research questions:

1. How do physical education teacher students experience a narrative approach to teaching and learning about inclusion, disability, and physical education? (emotionally and cognitively)
2. How do I, as a teacher educator, experience using narrative as a pedagogical approach and reflection tool for teaching and learning about inclusion, disability, and physical education in physical education teacher education?

Design and Methodology

To shed light on the experiences of students and teacher educators with a narrative approach to teaching and learning, the study employs a qualitative research design. The project is methodologically based on a combination of self-study, autobiographical, and narrative approaches. The study is grounded in a scientific perspective aligned with the critical-interpretive paradigm.

Methodologically, both the students' and teacher educator's experiences will be explored using narrative research, with the aim of contributing to increased knowledge about their experiences with a narrative approach to teaching and learning about inclusion, disability, and physical education by thinking with (not about) narratives. Furthermore, it involves how narratives can help us understand experiences by surrounding ourselves/living with narratives in daily life, by telling, reliving, and retelling the narratives of experiences that are created, individually and socially. A narrative approach will additionally create space to retell and explore our own stories through autobiographical perspectives, where one's own interpretations, understandings, thoughts, and actions in the present are viewed in light of and influenced by past experiences and expectations for the future.

Knowledge about students' experiences will be produced using reflection notes, where they will write their own narratives, describe their own reactions and reflections on others' narratives by answering some questions related to a selection of narratives, and through 1-2 group discussions/focus group interviews with a selection of 5-8 students.

The teacher educator's experiences are primarily illuminated through a combination of autobiographical approach and self-study of one's own practice with a couple of colleagues as critical friends and co-researchers. The purpose of such a methodological approach is increased self-understanding, self-reflection, and challenging one's own ideas and practices, and the approach is based on the recognition that teaching and learning occur in close interaction between the teacher educator, students, and the context in which the teaching takes place.

Read More

The self-study of one's own practice, S-step, follows the following guidelines:

1. The research is self-initiated and self-focused. This means that it is I, as the teacher educator, who chooses and focuses on specific questions, challenges, and problems in my professional practice, and the attention is directed towards how my assumptions, attitudes, and values are created and influenced by practice.
2.  Furthermore, the purpose of the self-study is to create improvements in practice and it is development- and future-oriented. The attention is directed towards understanding oneself, one's own practice, and the context of one's practice.
3. Self-study of practice is interactive and takes place in interaction with students and two to three critical friends/colleagues. In this study, feedback from students will be part of the study, but the main part of this section of the study will take place with critical friends observing my teaching, and by conducting 2-3 discussions about my study/project and teaching.
4. The self-study is based on data from multiple sources, including reflection notes, observation, and group discussions.
5. The quality of the study is based on credibility and is considered qualitatively good when colleagues are involved, knowledge is shared with colleagues, and they can benefit from the knowledge produced.

Results

Findings from the study will be published in recognized and peer-reviewed scientific journals and presented at national and international conferences.