Action inquiry and vocal ergonomics: A pilot study with sports coaches

BACKGROUND: Coaches critically rely on voice for occupational functioning, which has associated risks to vocal health. However, vocal occupational health and safety (OHS) and vocal ergonomics are not typically considered for, by, or with coaches. OBJECTIVE: This study piloted a participatory approach to vocal ergonomics, aiming to collaboratively (i) understand coaches’ vocally reliant occupational participation, and (ii) consider vocal ergonomic factors. METHODS: This research was undertaken at an international tournament for floorball (also known as ‘Innebandy’, ‘Salibandy’, or ‘Unihockey’). Three national coaches (n = 3) and the lead researcher undertook cooperative action inquiry. This piloted a participatory vocal ergonomics programme. Action inquiry methods included fieldnotes, interviews, observations, a workshop, ergonomics approaches, and a focus group. Multi-level analyses supported the findings, including categorical aggregation, direct interpretation, and reflexive thematic analysis. RESULTS: Participants identified vocal ergonomic factors present at the tournament; including personal, activity, physical environmental, and organisational factors. Participants developed four vocal ergonomic approaches responsive to factors. These were: (1) player consultation, (2) ongoing feedback discussions, (3) movement and postural change, and (4) specific task adaptation. Approaches 1–2 directly supported coaches’ voices. Coaches posited limitations to other strategies, but made recommendations for future use. Coaches also reflected that this collaboration provided actionable voice insights and opportunities to address vocal ergonomics. They advocated for extended engagement with coaches, increased focus on vocal health, and inclusion of early career coaches in future programmes. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support engagement of coaches, and other vocally reliant workers, in addressing voice use and vocal health at work.

How Philosophizing the Dialogos Way Can Promote Education for Sustainable Development

This paper is an inquiry into an action research process in which staff from a combined vocational and academic upper secondary school philosophized “The Dialogos Way” together, as part of ongoing curriculum reforms in Norway. Some teachers were also trained in facilitating such dialogs with their students. Since sustainable development is one of three interdisciplinary topics now supposed to run through all subjects at all educational levels, our chosen action inquiry research question in this paper reads as follows: How can training teachers in philosophizing the Dialogos Way promote attitudes and skills required for dialogic learning-and-teaching, and how can this form of learning-and-teaching support education for sustainable development? Using teachers’ and students’ meta-reflection notes as data, the authors find that the Dialogos approach offers a fruitful way of integrating sustainable development issues in the curriculum.

Action Research Approaches

The contemporary use of action research draws on the exploratory, inductive nature of many qualitative research approaches—no matter the type of data collected—because the type of research problems studied are complex, dynamic, and located in rapidly changing contexts. When action research is undertaken to support social and organizational change, support from stakeholders affected by the research problem is essential, creating further complexity. Action research may serve as an alternative to more traditional views of social science. In this chapter, the authors describe action research as envisioned by Kurt Lewin, its originator. They show how two variants of action research—action science and collaborative developmental action inquiry—advance insight into how action research can be used to develop personal capability to address system changes that action research seeks to unveil. They conclude with reflections on criteria for rigor and relevance in action research in today's post-modern, complex world.

HACIA UNA NUEVA PEDAGOGÍA EN LA EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR.

In this essay the authors argue the need for a new pedagogy in Higher Education (HE). Our hypothesis is that the predominant focus today is on instrumental systems meant to measure the “quality” of education, subjecting the HE-teacher to goal management and frameworks that limit didactic possibilities. However, acting wisely and solving challenges across professions in an increasingly unpredictable world, requires attitudes, knowledge, skills and understanding that cannot unambiguously be defined in advance. Using a reflective practice and action inquiry research approach, the authors reflect upon experiences and research involving the Dialogos approach to philosophical practice, new research findings in pedagogy for the unforeseen and data from the completion of a PhD course for employees from four faculties in higher education. We argue that higher education should focus on open-ended and creative approaches to teaching that includes philosophical practices and reflective “samhandling” across disciplines. All higher education study programmes should to some extent train students for unforeseen events in life and society.

Religious freedom, civic responsibility and local history: an embedded action inquiry

PurposeThis theory-into-practice article centers on American history through the optics of one religious organization's contestations – the Elim Springs Church of Jesus Christ, or Harshmanites as they are commonly known – with state and society. Secondary students explore the history and myriad responses from citizens and the federal government, which provides insight into what it means to be an American.Design/methodology/approachEmbedded action inquiry (EAI) couples investigation with informed action. This whole-class exploration of 19th and 20th century American history transforms into individual, independent inquiries about related historical and current civil liberty contestations. Students communicate newly generated, fully substantiated understandings first to an academic audience and then to the community.FindingsTeachers direct students' historical reading, thinking and writing toward informed civic participation. Engaging primary and secondary sources spark students' curiosity and scrutiny; writing prompts and scaffolding guide students' text-based articulations.Originality/valueHarshmanite history, initiated by an iconic leader and maintained by the congregation into its 3rd century, illuminates the best and worst aspects of America. Secondary social studies students can examine emergent, local tensions when citizens' religious freedoms confront civic duty and societal responses. Through EAI, a novel adaptation of inquiry, students make meaning out of the local history and contribute to civic dialogue.

Conditions that mediate teacher agency during assessment reform

Purpose A new senior curriculum and assessment policy in Queensland, Australia, is changing the conditions for teaching and learning. The purpose of this study was to consider the personal, structural and cultural conditions that mediated the agency of Senior English teachers as they negotiated these changes. Agency is conceptualised as opportunities for choice in action arising from pedagogic negotiations with students within contexts where teachers’ decision-making is circumscribed by other pressures. Design/methodology/approach An action inquiry project was conducted with English teachers and students in two secondary schools as they began to adjust their practices in readiness for changes to Queensland senior assessment. Four English teachers (two per school) designed a 10-week unit of work in Senior English with the aim of enhancing students’ critical and creative agency. Five action/reflection cycles occurred over six months with interviews conducted at each stage to trace how teachers were making decisions to prioritise student agency. Findings Participating teachers drew on a variety of structural, personal and cultural resources, including previous experiences, time to develop shared understandings and the responsiveness of students that mediated their teacher agency. Teachers’ ability to exert agentic influence beyond their own classroom was affected by the perceived flexibility of established resources and the availability of social support to share student success. Originality/value These findings indicate that a range of conditions affected the development of teacher agency when they sought to design assessment to prioritise student agency. The variety of enabling conditions that need to be considered when supporting teacher and student agency is an important contribution to theories of agency in schools, and studies of teacher policy enactment in systems moving away from localised control to more remote and centralised quality assurance processes.