EDD-FPX8040 covers research design specifically for the practitioner-researcher — someone studying their own organization, which raises distinct methodological and positionality considerations traditional external researchers don't face.
Research design for insider/practitioner researchers
EDD-FPX8040 covers action research and other methodologies well-suited to practitioner-researchers, who are simultaneously the investigator and an embedded member of the organization being studied, requiring specific attention to positionality and potential bias.
Balancing research rigor with practitioner constraints
The course covers designing research feasible within a practicing educator's actual constraints — limited dedicated research time, access constrained by one's own organizational role, and ethical considerations specific to studying colleagues, students, or one's own institution.
Key topics in EDD-FPX8040
- Action research methodology for practitioner-researchers
- Positionality and insider bias considerations in practitioner research
- Designing feasible research within practicing-educator time constraints
- Ethical considerations studying one's own colleagues, students, or institution
- Mixed-methods approaches well-suited to practitioner research
- Balancing rigor and feasibility in insider research design
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Worked example: addressing positionality bias in insider research
- Situation: A principal is conducting research on teacher morale within their own school
- Positionality risk: Teachers being surveyed or interviewed may give socially desirable answers, knowing their principal is the researcher, rather than fully honest responses
- Mitigation strategy: Using anonymous surveys administered by a neutral third party, and explicitly acknowledging this positionality limitation in the research report rather than ignoring it
- Lesson: Practitioner research doesn't eliminate insider bias risk, but rigorous design explicitly identifies and mitigates it rather than pretending it doesn't exist
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Frequently asked questions
Positionality refers to how a researcher's own role, identity, and relationship to the people and context being studied can influence the research process and findings — a practitioner-researcher studying their own school or organization occupies a genuinely different position than an external researcher, since participants (colleagues, students, staff) know the researcher personally and hold an ongoing relationship with them beyond the research context, which can affect how honestly participants respond, especially if there's a power differential (like a principal researching their own teachers). EDD-FPX8040 teaches practitioner-researchers to explicitly acknowledge and actively design around this positionality — using strategies like ensuring genuine anonymity, having a neutral third party administer sensitive data collection, and transparently disclosing the researcher's institutional role and potential influence in the final research report — rather than treating positionality as a factor that can simply be ignored.
Action research is an iterative methodology that cycles through planning, acting, observing, and reflecting, specifically designed for practitioners to systematically investigate and improve their own practice within their own real-world context, rather than requiring the kind of controlled, externally-observed conditions traditional academic research often assumes. EDD-FPX8040 teaches action research as well-suited to practitioner-researchers because it explicitly embraces the practitioner's dual role as both researcher and practice-improver, working within genuine real-world organizational constraints rather than an idealized research setting, and its iterative cycle structure mirrors how practitioners naturally already engage in ongoing reflective improvement of their own practice, just formalized with more systematic data collection and structured reflection than informal practice improvement typically involves.