Preservice Teacher Action Research: Making Meaning and Generating Knowledge Through Inquiry

This article analyzes the ways in which action research during preservice teacher education influences the development of a critical inquiry stance. By following eight preservice teachers as they conducted action research in their final semester of student teaching, this article demonstrates how action research created the space for preservice teachers to engage in practical and critical inquiry, which allowed participants the opportunity to develop a critical inquiry stance, to varying degrees. Discussed are the disparate ways participants thought about the meaning they made and the knowledge they generated during their action research assignment. The freedom action research granted preservice teacher to make meaning of their classroom instruction, generate knowledge, and bridge the gap between theory and practice, instruction and learning, and their students and themselves, allowed for the development of a critical inquiry stance. Findings suggest that through inquiry, preservice teachers disrupted the hierarchy of knowledge generation in teaching, as they theorized instruction, problematized pedagogy, and improved their teaching practices.