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Teachers and researchers in collaboration. A possibility to overcome the research‐practice gap?
Author(s) -
Runesson Kempe Ulla
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
european journal of education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.577
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1465-3435
pISSN - 0141-8211
DOI - 10.1111/ejed.12336
Subject(s) - learning sciences , point (geometry) , object (grammar) , mathematics education , process (computing) , educational research , psychology , professional learning community , experiential learning , pedagogy , knowledge management , computer science , geometry , mathematics , artificial intelligence , operating system
Taking as its point of departure the discussion about the disconnection between research and practice, this article presents learning study as a research approach to overcoming this gap. Learning study has commonalities with design research and lesson study, but is a teacher‐researcher collaboration where both have a common object of research. Thus, it is research with teachers, rather than on teachers and focuses on constructing knowledge concerning objects of learning as well as teaching‐learning relationships. The focus of the research collaboration is professional problems related to the object of learning that teachers encounter in their everyday practice. The process is guided by a theory of learning and pedagogy—the variation theory. The knowledge product of learning study is a theoretical description of what must be learned in order to develop a specific capability. Examples of knowledge contributions from learning study are given and it is suggested that such knowledge can be considered to be public knowledge that can be shared, used and developed by other teachers in other contexts. Furthermore, it is suggested that there are specific features of learning study that make it a research approach that may strengthen connections between research and practice.