Mi’kmaq women in Nova Scotia are reported to have lower rates of Papanicolaou (Pap) smear screening and have higher rates of cervical cancer compared to non-Aboriginal women. Much of the cervical cancer literature reflects mainstream values and tends to essentialize Aboriginal women as one at-risk homogenous group lacking knowledge about cervical cancer prevention. The primary purpose of this qualitative participatory study was to explore Mi’kmaq women’s and primary healthcare providers’ experiences with Pap smear screening and to consider the broader historical, economic, and socio-political contexts that shape those healthcare experiences. Mi’kmaq women’s experiences accessing Pap screening services, their encounters with healthcare providers and the health care system, and women’s past experiences with Pap smear screening were also explored. This inquiry was grounded in postcolonial feminist perspectives and Indigenous principles in a two-eyed seeing approach. Community facilitators were identified to assist with recruitment and the research process. Women participated in talking circles to learn about and shape the study. Sixteen Mi’kmaq women and five healthcare providers participated in two semi-structured interviews. Five themes were identified from the women: a) Finding Our Way, b) Our Understanding and Perceptions about Pap Smear Screening, c) The Impact of History on Our Health and Healthcare Experiences, d) Healthcare Providers’ Encounters: “Making a Difference in Our Path to Paps,” and e) “The Healthcare System is Complicating Our Going for Paps.” Two themes were identified from healthcare providers: a) Understanding the Realities of Aboriginal Women’s Lives and b) Fostering Aboriginal Women’s Access to Pap Smear Screening. This research contributes to an understanding of the continued impact of wider historical, political, and socioeconomic conditions that have resulted from colonialism, residential schools, and assimilation on Pap smear screening. It reinforces the importance of not essentializing women’s views or experiences and recognizing that some are accessing Pap smear screening regularly in spite of challenging circumstances. Mi’kmaq women have been underrepresented in the previous Pap smear screening literature. It is critical that healthcare providers understand how they can improve access to Pap smear screening and the screening process itself.

Project work has gained a prominent place in research for its significant educational potential (Blumenfeld et al., 1991; Fallik et al., 2008). Teachers, however, have not been providing project work with a prominent place in the elementary classroom (Blumenfeld et al., 1991; Fallik et al., 2008; Rogers et al., 2010; Tse, Lam, Lam, & Loh, 2005). To encourage and support teachers in practicing Project-Based Learning (PBL), we need to understand what motivates teachers to enact PBL, the challenges they face in doing so, and ways to support teachers in overcoming these challenges. To examine teachers’ lived experiences in enacting student-centered project work, the current study used the method of participatory action research (PAR). This method included the active participation of a teacher (Megan) and me (the principal researcher) in the design, enactment, and reflection upon a constructivist, whole-class project in an eastern Ontario Grade 5 classroom. The study was structured around two research questions: (1) what did we perceive as challenges and benefits of organizing and enacting a student-centered project, and (2) how did we perceive that our collaboration in organizing, enacting, and reflecting upon this project impacted our thinking and practices with regard to project work? Megan’s and my reflections were collected over the course of the project through two semi-structured interviews, diary writings, a pre-structured planning journal, and three semi-structured discussions. Megan and I perceived project work as beneficial to students’ engagement and learning. Enacting the project was challenging, as we lacked the management and organizational skills to enact project work efficiently, and we possessed a strong desire to control the direction of the project. Megan and I were further challenged by students’ lack of skills and comfort with the project’s demands and the lack of school support and time we needed for the project. Collaboratively experiencing and reflecting upon the project demonstrated how essential these challenges were in increasing Megan’s and my comfort, appreciation, understanding, and skills in enacting project work. Based on these findings, the study encourages teachers to collaboratively design, experience, and reflect upon project work in the context of their classrooms. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-04-09 16:30:00.451

No description available.

Cooperative learning (CL) research has gone through a series of phases representing different orientations of research. This inquiry uses action-research as a way of implementing cooperative learning in a pre-service science course. Cooperative learning was regarded as an innovation in the context of this inquiry. The evidence of the inquiry was in the form of texts from sources including classroom observation, student reflective notes, the research diary and interviews, among others. The qualitative analysis involved the writing of descriptive-interpretive reports which were used in a process of data reduction to formulate analytic theme reports. Propositions were developed from these reports. Some recommendations emanated from these propositions. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Durban-Westville, 1997.

This dissertation describes a research study that investigated cooperative inquiry as a strategy for professional learning of inner-city school principals in a large urban centre in Western Canada. The study attempted to identify the central issues of concern and means of redress for school leaders in high-poverty communities, many of which focused on educational leadership, school management, the context of their schools within impoverished communities, and the challenges of personal well-being. The findings suggest that cooperative inquiry was an effective strategy in that the approach was participatory, democratic, empowering, life-enhancing, and fostered community-building among participants. The findings also suggest that the approach was effective in that it was grounded in the action research cycle of planning, action, observation, and reflection. The study further examined the use of dialogue as a means of constructing knowledge regarding these issues, and identified the ways in which such knowledge impacts upon the professional practice of these principals. Findings suggest that participants gained knowledge from each other, offered knowledge from others, constructed knowledge together as a group, and developed deeper understandings of their own perspectives. Findings also suggest that meaning is lost when dialogic interactions are transcribed into print. Thus, dialogue is a form of communication in and of itself, one that cannot simply be transformed into the written word without losing part of that dialogic essence. Further, this study posits that dialogue has unique power to be both a process for meaning making, as well as an ontological means of clarifying one’s own sense of reality.

Expatriate teachers do not always have a strong connection to the place in which they are living (Richardson, von Kirchenheim & Richardson, 2006). How might this lack of connection affect how they teach environmental education? Our qualitative study explored the lived experiences of how five expatriate teachers engaged in environmental education. Using action research, we participated as a team and learned more about our perceptions of environmental education and explored how these perceptions influence our teaching. We found that our previous knowledge and passion effected how we taught environmental education. After researching how different people view and implement environmental education we reflected on our research to improve our taught curriculum. Then we used a participatory action research model to reflect and re-design our current environmental education learning engagements. After the completed research we all agreed that this method of reflection worked for us and we would continue the PAR process.

Research shows that the dominant pedagogical practices of physical education are irrelevant to young people in the 21st century, and that physical education currently exists in a time of innovation without change. Subsequently, physical education as a curriculum subject is at risk of becoming extinct unless the 'talked' about pedagogical innovations that provide authentic, relevant and transferable learning experiences can become sustainable 'actioned' futures. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to explore how a pedagogical innovation, the Cooperative Learning model, could be used over an enduring period of time. Participatory action research (PAR) was used as the methodology to scaffold the inquiry and to support eight secondary school physical education teachers' learning and use of Cooperative Learning during an academic year. This thesis considers how PAR enabled teachers to break the dominant practice architectures of physical education and how PAR supported teachers‘ use of an emergent pedagogical approach within and beyond the honeymoon period of implementation. In other words, how PAR facilitated teachers' ability to work beyond the dominant pedagogical practices of physical education and the practices endorsed by the school as an institution. Furthermore, how PAR sustained teachers' engagement with, and use of, the Cooperative Learning model. Indeed, Cooperative Learning was firstly immersed within the milieu of the practice architectures. Yet through the use of PAR the teachers were motivated to move beyond the honeymoon period and began to use the model within, with and then against the mess of the practice architectures. Subsequently, Cooperative Learning was emerging as the dominant pedagogical approach. However, this only occurred for some teachers where social connectivity and an emerging community of practice were significant variables in sustaining and adapting the use of Cooperative Learning. The contribution to knowledge is therefore the methodological processes of how to move beyond dominant pedagogical practices and facilitate innovation with change. In order for a pedagogical innovation to become a sustainable 'actioned' future its use is context dependent and PAR facilitates its sustainability. Furthermore, teacher learning should be advanced and teachers should be encouraged to create communicative spaces with colleagues and researcher facilitators.

The purpose of this action research study was to understand the research training climate in anesthesiology at the University of Saskatchewan, and to collaboratively determine strategies for addressing persistent challenges to resident research training. Whilst there have been a number of published research training programs, influence over priorities has been top-down. Medical educators have lacked a model for collaboratively enhancing the research climate for trainees in anesthesiology. A three-phase, sequential mixed methods design was employed. In phase one, residents completed the revised Research Training Environment Scale as a quantitative measure of the research climate. In phase two, ten residents and six faculty mentors participated in semi-structured interviews to explore the underlying reasons for lower-scored items, and to generate suggestions for improvements to guide three simultaneous action research cycles. An advisory group collaboratively decided upon three actions for improvement of the research training climate. Phase three followed the initiation of three simultaneous action research cycles to reflexively evaluate the impact of these actions. The use of action research to identify shortcomings, generate solutions, and collaboratively choose actions for improving the research training program inspired changes to the research climate including: 1) the addition of research presentations by senior residents and faculty mentors at the research orientation for first-year residents to enhance communication of ongoing and new research ideas, and provide earlier exposure to faculty, 2) the creation of an online repository of research resources for enhanced communication of research ideas and to offer examples of past study-related documents, and 3) the encouragement of resident collaboration by offering a range of options such as involvement in individual projects, new team projects, and ongoing projects. Furthermore, during the course of this research, residents and faculty engaged in reflection-on-action and highlighted several additional suggestions for future action research cycles. This research offers two main contributions to theory. First, this study produced a model whereby action research could be used by others in pre-existing resident research training programs. Second, this study further conceptualized research culture in one postgraduate medical education, specifically by elucidating some of the underlying assumptions that formed the essence of the culture.

The present study used action research with youth to investigate and create radio shows about the role place has played in maintaining the identities of activists committed to social and ecological justice. The research focused on whether youth involvement in a participatory, critical learning experience of creating radio shows interviewing activists from their community helped those students to develop and maintain their own activist identity and community. The study also examined other aspects of the critical learning process and conditions of the radio studio that affected their identity. Finally, the study asked if the youth participants planned to take any steps to maintain their activism beyond the study. In addressing these questions of activist identity in relation to place, the study is presented as three mini-studies. Mini-study 1 addresses how the experienced activists who were interviewed by youth described the role of material places in enabling and supporting their activism, the final product of which is two radio shows. Four inductively generated, theoretical categories are presented to capture the experienced activists’ descriptions of place including relationality, the act of making place, normalizing transgression in everyday life, and using power. Mini-study 2 addresses how the youth participants perceived the process of interviewing activists on a radio show, as well as other aspects of making radio shows including the radio studio as having contributed to their own activist identities. It also looks at the steps, if any, the youth had planned to stay active beyond the study. Profiles of each youth participant are presented to represent their perceptions of creating radio shows. Mini-study 3 invites the reader on my self-reflexive journey as an educator committed to social and ecological justice including reflections on existing practice in schools, place and youth identity, collective spaces for agency, intergenerational mentoring, slow pedagogy and mindfulness, radio as a pedagogical tool, and my own style of teaching.

This study responds to the critical question: How could I as an educational leader in Manitoba improve educational outcomes for students who are the least privileged in society? I envisioned a leadership development program which would enhance the ability of teacher leaders to facilitate change from within schools. This critical action research study aimed to: 1) identify the knowledge, skills and dispositions teacher leaders required to be agents of change in educational contexts; 2) identify the learning processes that developed agency; and 3) determine the impact of a co-constructed community on teachers who participated in the leadership development program. As a participant-researcher I facilitated six full-day leadership development sessions with a cohort of nine teacher leaders committed to social justice. Qualitative data sources which captured the processes influencing teacher leader development included: videotapes of focus groups and leadership development sessions; participants’ and researcher’s written reflections, journals and action research cycles; pilot test feedback forms, self-assessment and peer reflection instruments; audio-recorded mentoring conversations; and curricular and design process notes. Data analysis was ongoing, cyclical and reflexive; it included content and thematic analysis, “themeing” (Saldaña, 2013, p. 175), and crystallization across multiple sets of data. Research outcomes include the creation of the Social Justice Teacher Leadership Self-Assessment (SJTLSA) and Peer Reflection (SJTLPR) tools offered for use in various educational contexts to promote self-knowledge, reflection and dialogue. A theory-in-context is proposed which synthesizes the knowledge, skills, dispositions and agency of teacher leaders for social justice. Seven elements were found to promote critical reflection and agency of teacher leaders: action research, learning-focused conversations, dialogue, self-assessment, peer feedback, journals and critical reflection. The co-constructed community contributed to participants’ feelings of acceptance, validation, belonging and challenge. A three phase modular leadership development model is proposed which summarizes the design, enactment and outcomes of the leadership development sessions. Positive outcomes for teacher leader participants were transformative experiences, frameworks for action and a community to support sustained engagement. The iris is used metaphorically to describe the catalytic potential of the leadership development sessions. Implications of the study for teacher leaders, facilitators of adult learning, theory and future research are identified.