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I thought frequently about the advice in the captions (above) during
the five years I was engaged in school based research at Li Po Chun College,
Hong Kong (LPC). The direction in which my thoughts usually took me was
to question the wisdom espoused! Was the first step in deciding to embark
upon a case study in international education, leading to PhD, really the
most difficult? What had been the first step? In my case it had been to
discuss a fledgling research proposal with Jeff Thompson. I had just agreed
to produce a plan for a more coherent pastoral care programme at the year-old
United World College of Hong Kong. It seemed an ideal opportunity to engage
in school based research, recording and evaluating the development of
the new pastoral process as it was articulated and implemented by my staff-student
working party. Jeff was enthusiastic, pointed me in the right direction,
enrolled me in the library and I set off at full gallop! March 1999 The 'first step' was definitely not the most difficult of the long journey that followed. Indeed, had I been aware of what was involved in completing a five year research programme whilst being in full employment, I doubt I would have started the journey in the first place. The 'first step' was seductively easy and the support of CEIC at University of Bath continued to make my 'distance research' a feasible proposition over subsequent years. The most difficult task in this extended exercise was keeping myself on target. Did it help to visualise the finishing line? Towards the end of the five years, when I was engaged in the mind sapping job of proof reading second and third drafts of the thesis, the relief that would accompany the final award conferring ceremony certainly galvanised my efforts throughout periods of serious second thoughts. By now you will be asking why am I writing this in a publication which
sets out to promote educational research. My comments so far might give
a negative impression of school based research but this would be misleading.
I think that school based research is of value to both researcher and
school, and I would recommend it to others. In my new position I actively
encourage such research. My personal experience lay with a multidimensional
investigation using Action Research methodology which offered an unusual
variation of the case study paradigm. A major component of this project
involved tracking the attitudes of four cohorts of teachers over four
years to a series of initiatives designed to enhance the pastoral care
provision in an international boarding school. As both researcher and
the primary change agent in this school, my own role was intriguingly
complex. Keeping on top of the workload required fine time management
skills and a very patient family. Work on the research had to be undertaken
in bite-sized chunks, usually timetabled into long weekends and holiday
breaks. The downside of this pattern was a feeling of starting over again
each time a new stage of writing or analysis was begun.
There is no question that the school benefited from the process. Staff
were brought together in a collaborative exercise that was energised and
enlightened by ideas from the collective experience of other schools which
were made available through my literature search. The Action Research
methodology led me to evaluate regularly the success of the various initiatives
leading to improvements in aspects of the programme which in turn benefited
the students. I currently face a similar challenge in expanding the pastoral programme
of my new school. One of the conclusions in my thesis was that the results
of research in one school are not necessarily directly transferable to
others, but what I experienced at LPC in terms the reaction of a multicultural
staff to 'pastoral care', the angst felt by teachers over the content
and methodology of pastoral care programmes, the needs of 16-18 year-olds,
and the process of managing change, are all issues replicated at CIS.
My research in international education will now pay dividends as I move
forward faster, with greater ability to plan proactively for the inevitable
'road blocks' that are bound to appear on what I hope will be a shorter
journey than the last.
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