Li, Dongmei, Bliss, Lauren, Henderson, Laura, and Clark, Paige (2024) Professional development through collaborative action research for early career academics - a collaborative auto-ethnography during the COVID-19 pandemic. Educational Action Research. (In Press)

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Abstract

Early career academics (ECAs) constitute a significant part of the teaching responsibilities in higher education. However, ECAs, especially those employed on sessional or fixed-term contracts are particularly impacted by a lack of sustainable professional development. This article presents findings from collaborative reflection by a small group of ECAs. They explored their experiences in learning to use pedagogical action research in their own teaching facilitated by an academic developer. This collaborative autoethnographic study collected data from verbal and written reflections by all four authors, including field notes, journals, email exchanges, and group meeting recordings. A grounded approach was used to facilitate the data collection and analysis processes. The data analysis process was also guided by inductive thematic analysis. Authors’ reflections included the action research experience, and their respective teaching and teacher’s identities. These findings show that pedagogical action research was effective in helping the authors understand ourselves better as teachers which fostered our teaching practice. The collaborative reflection environment also created a stronger and supportive environment for teaching, increasing teachers’ professional confidence and a sense of belonging, which was extremely beneficial during the prolonged lockdowns.

Item ID:	85051
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	0965-0792
Copyright Information:	© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Date Deposited:	08 Apr 2025 21:56
FoR Codes:	39 EDUCATION > 3903 Education systems > 390303 Higher education @ 100%
SEO Codes:	16 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 1601 Learner and learning > 160102 Higher education @ 100%
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