PROSPECTS AND DIFFICULTIES OF INTEGRATION OF RESEARCH AND PEDAGOGICAL POSITIONS IN THE PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES OF A TEACHER

Kravtsov L.G.

Moscow City Pedagogical University
Moscow, Russia
E-mail: KravcovLG@mgpu.ru

Recently, when discussing issues of modernization of pedagogical education, the idea that a modern teacher should be able to plan, organize and carry out research activities has been increasingly voiced [2; 4; 5; 6; 7; 9; 10; 11]. A wide variety of researchers have expressed their ideas about the purpose of research competence, its role in professional pedagogical practice, its characteristics and composition. For example, N.F. Ilyina and A.V. Schmidt rightly argue that a teacher’s research skills are a necessary prerequisite for involving students in joint research activities. One of the significant tasks of modern general education is to involve students in research work, which in turn requires that the teacher possess a culture of constructing research [4]. A.I. Kochetov states this position most categorically, asserting that «a teacher or educator who is not a researcher is not suitable for a modern school» [6].

Yu. V. Ryndina notes that teachers' research skills are essential for implementing a competency-based approach in education. Since the focus of the educational process shifts from knowledge itself to the ability to acquire, rethink, and apply it, research competence becomes universal, defining the overall form and context for the joint activities of students and teachers [11].

E.E. Krieger writes that a research position is necessary for a teacher to effectively work with uncertainty in professionally significant situations and to maintain a high level of professional health [7].                 

What all these perspectives have in common is that they view research competence as something external and complementary to the primary objectives of pedagogical practice. One might think that the pedagogical process is viewed from these perspectives as a transfer of cultural experience that will only be enriched and benefit from In many ways, this will happen when we teach teachers to integrate research into the real process of learning interactions with students. In reality, the relationship between research and traditional teaching practice is much more tense and contradictory.

On the one hand, traditional forms of training professional teachers and established paths to acquiring teaching experience lead to teachers increasingly distancing themselves from a research-based approach to their subject matter. In other words, as a rule, the more experienced a teacher is, the less they doubt the adequacy of their understanding of the mechanisms of the pedagogical process, and therefore, the less they need to explore the reality with which they work.

On the other hand, the most valuable pedagogical practice, aimed not at reproducing a developed methodology, but at the emergence of a subject of thought and the development of a vehicle of cultural action, always presupposes the teacher's investigative stance as a necessary internal condition of its possibility. In other words, any talented teacher doesn't so much teach what they already know, but rather, together with the student, discovers new possibilities for their own understanding and action, thereby constantly exploring and restructuring the fabric of the pedagogical process.

Thus, the need for teachers to engage in reflective inquiry into the ongoing educational process stems from the essential tasks of their professional activity. However, existing traditions of teacher training and the familiar stereotypes of common teaching practices hinder teachers' research competence and push them to reject the most important elements of research. Therefore, when it comes to training ordinary teachers to use research skills in their profession, the goal is not to enrich their pedagogical toolkit or to "embellish" the familiar educational process with appeals to fashionable educational trends.

In the most common teaching practice, an established teacher has a research position extremely inconvenient and unhandy. Typically, they feel that not only is it unnecessary, but it also interferes with the formulation and achievement of primary pedagogical goals. Even if they are unwilling to admit this, this can be judged by the vigorous resistance they encounter when attempting to integrate research elements into their teaching.

Let us try to trace the origin of this contradiction in more detail and think about the possibilities and necessity of overcoming it.

The origins of this tense and ambiguous relationship between teaching and research likely stem from established conceptual and methodological understandings of the principles of professional teacher training. It seems self-evident that any teacher should be a professional in at least two areas of knowledge. First, they should be a specialist in a specific subject area that underlies the discipline they teach. And second, they should be trained in teaching methods, i.e., an expert in the pedagogical approaches and technologies that pave the way for the effective and competent transmission of their subject knowledge.

The necessity of these two aforementioned components of teacher training is often perceived as so significant that it obscures the fact that they are not sufficient for building a developmentally stimulating teaching practice. Educational psychology and developmental psychology are typically studied in pedagogical universities and colleges as independent disciplines that have no direct bearing on the subject-matter and methodological preparation of future teachers. Meanwhile, the psychology of learning and cultural development are designed to advance teachers' subject-matter and methodological competencies to the necessary level of readiness for building developmental teaching practices.

The dominance of subject-based and methodological components in teacher training inevitably leads to the entrenchment of an expert position. Professional teachers gradually become accustomed to considering themselves the bearers of a cultural norm within their subject, which unambiguously regulates what they should teach and how to do it. It's easy to see that an expert position, especially when elevated to absolute levels, greatly hinders the transition to a research-based approach, which initially requires admitting one's ignorance and lack of mastery of the required method.

A teacher who has adopted an expert stance sooner or later begins to feel as if they are acting as a "translator" of a particular subject matter, as if pouring something from a fuller vessel, their own experience, into a relatively emptier vessel, the student's "head." Leaving aside the criticism of this well-known pedagogical metaphor, we note that the process it describes is in many ways the opposite of research. After all, research is always associated with finding grounds for revising one's ideas, whereas "translation" aims to transmit knowledge in its most unaltered form.

Discussions about the relevance of teachers' research skills within their own teaching practice have arisen in connection with a rethinking of the goals of the educational process. If we assume that the essence of education is not limited to the transfer of cultural experience, but consists of supporting the development of subjects of learning and productive activity, then a number of consequences follow that place teachers in a reflective and exploratory attitude toward the subject of their work. Here are some of them.

First, the sequence of learning in a developmental educational process should not be subject exclusively to the logic of reactive learning. Following L.S. Vygotsky, we understand reactive learning as a form in which each subsequent "portion" of educational content is determined by the specifics of the subject matter, imposed by the curriculum, or, in other words, dictated by some external educational "program" [1]. If the student has no idea what they will be taught next, and any new material arises in the educational process only at the teacher's initiative, it is hardly surprising that students lack the development of goal-setting and independence in learning. The difficulty with the opposite approach lies in the fact that organizing "proactive" learning requires the development of student self-assessment of existing competencies and the joint design of future paths of advancement in the subject being studied. This is already a research task, since the teacher cannot have an answer in advance to the question of how, in this particular case, the transition to a higher level of goal-setting will be structured, i.e., in fact, to the next stage of development.

Secondly, recognizing students' right to set educational goals and self-determination necessitates accepting the multiplicity and variability of individual educational plans, trajectories, and routes. The search for and discovery of common and specific methods for plotting such routes, as well as landmarks for the necessary "navigation" along them, represents another form of the same research task that arises in the practical work of teachers.

Thirdly, the organization of multiple individual educational pathways within the educational process does not mean that each student now studies "on their own," moving solely along their own "track," and is only nominally present in the general group of students. Quite the contrary. The discrepancy and divergence of students' educational trajectories is a necessary prerequisite for their productive collaboration and mutual learning. However, one of the key questions now is to identify those types of commonality that stimulate educational development, understand how they are structured, and help them emerge. And this is another form of the general research task that exists within pedagogical practice.

Thus, we have outlined only a few contours of the complex and multidimensional reality that constitutes a necessary subject of research in the practical work of a teacher. It should be noted once again that this subject is not always "visible" to a teacher, but only when they maintain a reflective and exploratory attitude toward their own professional work.

Let us now dwell on the understanding of the general structural components of the research position of the teacher and try to compare them with the existing guidelines of ordinary pedagogical practice.

A necessary initial step in any research is to do something like problematization. Its essence lies in the discovery and sharpening of incompleteness and contradictions in existing ideas about the reality being studied. If a person is completely satisfied with their existing image of reality and does not for a second attempt to doubt it, then all subsequent actions based on this image, even those that lead to its modification, cannot be called research in the true sense of the word. As is well known, any activity ultimately changes the ideas that underlie it, but this is not a reason to call every interaction with reality research [8]. Only those actions can be called research that, by their design, are aimed at revising existing ideas about the subject of study, and to do this, it is first necessary to prepare the ground for such a revision. Problematization is precisely why it is necessary in research: it allows one to "clear the way" for the purposeful implementation of knowledge growth. Without an initial doubt about the adequacy of existing ideas, it is impossible to plan and direct efforts to overcome the gap between knowledge and reality. And although psychologists usually like to emphasize the genetic relationship between scientific research and the subject-manipulative activity of a young child [10; 12], in this case we are talking about the irreducibility of developed forms of research to manipulative activity.

However, problematization, while an important prerequisite for the transition to new theoretical concepts, is a poor aid in practical work. Since the traditional pedagogical position is associated with the formulation and solution of purely practical problems, problematizing one's own ideas seems alien and unacceptable to teachers. They need to teach specific children normative solutions to typical educational tasks within a limited timeframe, and problematizing their assumptions about the mechanisms of the pedagogical process can only hinder them from achieving this purely practical effect.

In this regard, if we want to integrate the research position into the professional activity of the teacher, we will first have to convince him that his activity is not strictly practical. A teacher's understanding and identification of specific mechanisms of academic development is a crucial prerequisite for their students' academic success. Focusing on student development in teaching requires identifying the actual circumstances and variables of their developmental process, which constitutes the research focus of the teacher's work. If a teacher consciously chooses this challenging path and accepts that drilling students with normative algorithms and rote memorization are unsatisfactory, they will have to accept that they are not only a practitioner but also, in part, a researcher of the processes of academic development.

The second important structural component of a research stance integrated into pedagogical practice is the acceptance of the actual multiplicity and variability of specific trajectories and mechanisms of educational development. In other words, a teacher-researcher cannot have a single, universal answer to the question of how the development process is realized in a given subject area, or they must be aware of the abstract and schematic nature of such an answer. Otherwise, research simply cannot proceed, for "why look for something if you already know what it is and where it lies?" For brevity, this component of the research stance can be called "«a posteriori installation»", since any research implies a specially constructed human experience that helps to find the actual answer to the question of interest.

However, in purely practical activities, this "a posteriori attitude" is as ineffective as the aforementioned "problematization." In research, it assumes that a person doesn't know the configuration and order of their own actions in advance; they must be generated and organized in accordance with a conceptualized problem and a defined hypothesis for the work. In professional practical activities, the picture is quite the opposite. Any artisan envisions the order of their actions in advance; the skills and meta-skills they've developed help them almost automatically format the subject and structure of their work. Moreover, the more competent the practitioner, the less they think about "configuring" their activities; the selection and organization of their existing action templates occurs almost automatically.

Something similar holds true for the traditional pedagogical position, aimed at transmitting normative knowledge and generally accepted patterns of action. And although, of course, the average practicing teacher is aware that they are not "churning out stools," the selection and revision of their preferred pedagogical methodology is usually a routine matter for them. And the difficulty lies not in their gradual descent into "working from a template." Ultimately, professional templates and skills of varying levels are the mechanisms of any practical activity, without which it would be impossible. It's just that for the practitioner, the organizational templates they use during their work never become the subject of conscious exploration and critical revision. This is precisely what distinguishes pure practice from research.

In this regard, integrating research and teaching requires a rethinking of the teacher's work. If they are part researchers, then the product of their labor is not limited to the appropriate level of their students' learning, but includes knowledge of identified specific developmental mechanisms and designed methods for discovering them. Figuratively speaking, a teacher cannot have a "key to all locks" in advance. The "key" must be selected and refined for each individual student, repeatedly throughout the educational process.

The third essential structural component of a research approach integrated into teaching practice is the generation and testing of pedagogical hypotheses. As is well known, hypothesizing is the central point of any research, and any empirical work without a hypothesis can hardly be classified as research. It is the research hypothesis that determines the choice and application of research procedures, and also sets the appropriate perspective on the findings.

However, the main difficulty in discussing pedagogical hypotheses within the context of a teacher's research position lies in their non-discursive, implicit nature. In the existing, generally accepted culture of extensive scientific activity, any hypothesis must be formulated and substantiated; the researcher must present the grounds for its advancement and the consequences that follow from it. But since we are discussing a teacher's research position, embedded in the ongoing process of their practical activity, it must be recognized that the practitioner lacks the opportunity to formulate and substantiate their current hypothesis. Rather, a pedagogical hypothesis in this context should be defined as the teacher's semantic guess about the structure of the current educational situation, the specific deficiencies and difficulties of a particular student and ways to overcome them, etc. Representatives of modern "reflective pedagogy" call the situation with the implicit generation and testing of a hypothesis within the teaching practice itself "contextual research" [2]. This type of research, proponents of this approach argue, is distinguished by the unity of pedagogical action, reflection, and the transformation of the educational situation toward the development of its participants. In general, the provisions of "reflective pedagogy" derived from J. Elliott and M. Wallace largely echo the main ideas of this article [2; 3; 5; 13; 14; 15].

The fourth important addition regarding the structural features of a teacher's research position is related to understanding the type of substantive generalizations embodied in pedagogical hypotheses. A research hypothesis cannot be limited to guesses about specific student characteristics or aspects of the current educational situation. Otherwise, such a hypothesis would be considered diagnostic. Teachers themselves often fail to distinguish between research and diagnostics, although these forms of knowledge do not coincide in the nature of the generalizations they yield. Diagnostics yields knowledge "about the individual," while research is always oriented toward obtaining general concepts and patterns. Thus, a pedagogical hypothesis, although based on a specific educational situation, must at least partially incorporate a theoretical generalization of the mechanisms of the pedagogical process.

Finally, as a fifth essential structural feature of the teacher's research position, it is worth emphasizing its non-self-sufficient nature. While conventional scientific research continues a certain scientific tradition and opens up prospects for further exploration, it is nevertheless, in its own way, always an autonomous, self-contained, and complete event in the world of science. In contrast, the teacher's "contextual research" is always complemented by the need to move on to the resulting practical pedagogical action, the effectiveness of which serves as the primary measure of the validity of the pedagogical hypothesis being tested. This explains the unique nature of the teacher's work in interpreting the results of contextual research procedures.

The main difficulty here is that results are always embedded in a constantly changing educational environment, requiring special efforts to identify and understand them. Furthermore, research findings do not always align with the desired pedagogical effect. From a research perspective, it's not so much the student's mastery of a difficult task that matters, but rather an understanding of the mechanisms by which they achieved this.

From all the reasoning proposed within the framework of this article, the following follow: Conclusions:

1. If a teacher positions themselves as a seasoned practitioner, a research-oriented approach is truly unnecessary and can only hinder the application of established practices. In solving the practical problem of achieving a high level of learning in their students, such a professional approach can be quite effective.
2. The fundamental structural components of a research-based approach can undoubtedly greatly complicate a teacher's professional work. A fundamental prerequisite for successfully integrating research and teaching approaches is the teacher's acceptance of the idea that the product of their work is not only advances in their students' academic development, but also an understanding of the mechanisms by which these advances are achieved.
3. The need to combine practical and cognitive problem-solving in "contextual research" requires special skill from the teacher-researcher. They must master pedagogical actions that are integrated into both types of activity: they have educational value and contribute to the testing of the current pedagogical hypothesis.
4. Teaching teachers to adopt a research-oriented approach is unlikely to follow the same paths as training classical scientists and research fellows. Rather, instilling a taste for research in teachers can only be achieved through their own practice, through a painstaking, reflective process of restructuring.
5. Perhaps another essential prerequisite for a teacher's adoption of a research-based approach is the models of pedagogical practice within which they themselves learned and developed. Therefore, the professional development of teachers themselves should also be structured as "contextual research," so that teachers can focus their own practice on the models they have assimilated for supporting the development of the subject of the educational process.

Literature

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References

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3. Esenkova TF, Shustova LP, Danilov SV, Kuznecova NI. Means of forming the reflective competence of a young teacher / Collection of didactic materials. Uljanovsk, 2018. 47 p.
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6. Kochetov AI. The Culture of Pedagogical Research. Minsk: Literatura, 1996. 327 p.
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10. Pod'jakov AN. Exploratory behavior: strategies of cognition, assistance, resistance, conflict. 2nd ed., revised and enlarged. Moscow: PER SE, 2006. 240 p.
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12. Savenkov AI. Psychological foundations of the research approach to learning: a teaching aid for university students majoring in 031000 – pedagogy and psychology / A. I. Savenkov. Moscow: Os'-89, 2005. 479 p.
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15. Wallace, M. Action research: How to do it / M. Wallace // Paper presen ed at the 2nd international conference of the Malaysian English language teaching association, 24-27 May 2007 (mimeo).