Meeting One: Coming Up With a Research Question
Session 6: Individual and Group Responsibilities

Activity 1: Conclusion of Meeting One

Group Process:

1.Pass out Reflecting On the Problem to Develop a Research Question, Parts 1 and 2. Explain to participants that these exercises are similar to but more comprehensive than the activities they completed in the meeting. Tell participants to complete both Parts 1 and 2 at home. Have everyone check their calendars to determine the date when participants will complete this exercise and email the research problems and questions to everyone in the group.

2.Discuss some of the ways the group can expect to use email in their research. Remind participants that via email they can stay connected and communicate with the entire group to keep updated in between meetings, offer support and share resources with one another. Find out if anyone in the group needs help setting up a distributed mailing list or an email account, etc. and make arrangements for technical assistance as necessary. (At this point in the project, participants already know they will have to use email to carry out their research; the expectation was presented in the application process.)

3.Pass out copies of the book Teachers Investigate Their Work: An Introduction to the Methods of Action Research. Explain that the group will be using this text throughout the project. Ask participants to read Chapter 4, "Clarifying the Starting Point of Research," beginning on page 44. Although this is not a requirement, suggest to participants that they also complete the exercise M9 Graphical Reconstructions. Page 62. It provides a practical method for using diagrams to help clarify a person's research situation.

4.Pass out your program's practitioner research letter of agreement. Explain to participants that a written agreement allows you to be clear and consistent with everyone in the group regarding the expectations and responsibilities for the project. Tell people to take the agreement home - and to sign and return it to you (or the appropriate person) by a certain date, in approximately a week to ten days. Explain to participants that this waiting period gives everyone time to reflect on the first meeting's activities and to consider the commitment that conducting practitioner research demands. Gently remind participants that practitioner research-professional development may not be suited for everyone. It's OK for people to return the agreement unsigned, and to "stop out" of the group.

5.Distribute the other handouts you have for participants to take home. Some of the resources participants in the Virginia Adult Education Research Network found helpful in the beginning of the research process included:

The Adult Educator's Guide to Practitioner Research by Suzanne Cockley, 1993

Adult Literacy Practitioners as Researchers by Cassandra E. Drennon, 1993

Focus on Basics, Volume 1, Issue A, February 1997

The Art of Classroom Inquiry by Ruth Shagoury Hubbard and Brenda Miller Power, 1993

The Virginia Adult Education Research Network: Practitioner Research Briefs, 1999-2000 Report Series or the 1998-1999 Report Series

Other handouts for Meeting One

6.Respond to the group's remaining questions/comments. Evaluate Meeting One. Ask participants to respond in writing to these questions: