Educational Action Research

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Classroom research into good learning behaviours

Steven Boyle , Ellen Fahey , John Loughran & Ian Mitchell

To cite this article: Steven Boyle , Ellen Fahey , John Loughran & Ian Mitchell (2001) Classroom
research into good learning behaviours, Educational Action Research, 9:2, 199-224, DOI:
10.1080/09650790100200149

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Educational Action Research, Volume 9, Number 2, 2001

Classroom Research into

Good Learning Behaviours

STEVEN BOYLE, ELLEN FAHEY,

JOHN LOUGHRAN & IAN MITCHELL
Monash University, Clayton, Australia

ABSTRACT This article examines the work conducted by two teacher-

researchers involved in a study of their students’ learning behaviours in their
science classes. The teacher-researchers were strongly influenced by the PEEL
project (Project to Enhance Effective Learning) and became members of the
PAVOT project (Perspective and Voice of the Teacher) through which the
research reported in this article was conducted. The teacher-researchers
studied their students’ approaches to learning and then introduced new
teaching strategies (drawn from the PEEL literature) designed to positively
influence their students’ learning behaviours. In implementing new teaching
strategies and exploring how their students’ learning behaviours altered, these
teacher-researchers suggest a number of important issues about the teaching
and learning environment. The article also illustrates the importance of
teacher-researchers being able to find ways of communicating their professional
knowledge to the larger education community.

Introduction
The first two authors are teachers at a senior campus of a secondary college
in Victoria and this article is an example of their research that is one aspect
of the teacher research conducted through the PAVOT (Perspective and
Voice of the Teacher) Project. PAVOT is funded through an Australian
Research Council (ARC) Large Grant and is designed to investigate and
develop the knowledge base of teaching through teacher research. The first
two authors of this article have been researching their teaching practice in
their classrooms. This article is therefore written using the voice of the
teachers as it is clearly most appropriate for reporting teachers’ research –
‘we’ refers to Steven Boyle and Ellen Fahey.

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Our study was an investigation into good learning behaviours

(Mitchell, 1992a, p. 28). Good learning behaviours are those which students
display when they are using metacognitive strategies in their learning:
‘many students will display some overt behaviours [when applying
metacognitive strategies] such as, ‘telling the teacher what they do not
understand,’ or, ‘suggesting new activities’ Mitchell, 1992a, p. 28. In our
study, we were concerned with developing our students’ good learning
behaviours as it seemed apparent to us that students did not generally
display (or develop) good learning behaviours in classroom learning
situations. We were therefore interested in exploring ways of facilitating the
development of students’ good learning behaviours through implementing
teaching strategies that were designed to foster this type of metacognitive
questioning of learning.
Our investigation into the use of good learning behaviours by our
students begins with a journal entry written by Ellen as part of her ongoing
record of events whilst we were conducting our collaborative research
project.

10B SCIENCE

Fifteen minutes into the lesson I take a moment to catch my breath,

stand back, and watch the students working on the task I had just
explained. Half the class are working silently on the task and are
checking their glossaries for appropriate terms, a few students are
discussing their answers, three students have given up because
it’s too hard, and one student is asking a question to clarify the
instructions and another suggests that there are alternative
answers. Typical behaviour of the students in 10B science. Wait a
minute? I take a more careful look. The roles have changed.

Six of the students working silently on the task should have me

standing over them encouraging them to get started.

I thought this task would be completed easily by the three

students who have given up.

The student suggesting the alternative answers rarely contributes

to the class and seems disinterested in most tasks.

Who was that who just referred back to their glossary without
asking me what they should do????

What has happened?

Maintaining journals became an important aspect of our work as they
offered us opportunities to reflect on our experiences as they unfolded and
were also a point of reference when reconsidering our experiences at a time

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further removed from the actual events. As Ellen’s account illustrates,

journal writing can be a most useful way of revisiting situations and
recounting what actually happened at the time; we therefore also found our
journals to be useful in terms of data related to our actions in this project.
We have been science teachers for 15 years and have been involved
with a number of approaches to teaching science. These included the
discovery-based learning of ASEP (Australian Science Education Project
[ASEP, 1974]) through to more textbook and content-oriented approaches,
hence we have been involved in teaching using a variety of approaches and
strategies. Whilst each approach had its strengths, we had often discussed
whether our teaching was really helping students to develop a sense of self-
learning. We had become concerned that many of our middle school
students did not appear to be actively involved in their learning; more
specifically, that our students:
were passive – they did not question what was happening and just
expected the teacher to be the leader and director;
did not link ideas between subjects or topics;
were not fully involved in their learning – they saw learning as a task
which they had to do;
were only concerned with an outcome – their grade.
Therefore, our interest in teaching in ways that might address these
concerns led to the research reported in this article and is the result of our
desire to understand better the interaction between the teaching procedures
we adopted in the subsequent student learning outcomes. This article is,
then, an account of our research as well as the experiences we had as
teacher-researchers – our difficulties, our solutions to problems and our
personal understandings of teaching-researching in our classes – largely as
a result of our involvement in the PEEL (and then the PAVOT) project.
In 1993, the PEEL programme (Project for Enhancing Effective
Learning [Baird & Northfield, 1992; Baird & Mitchell, 1986]) caught our
attention and a PEEL group was formed at Bellarine Secondary College.
PEEL itself began as a 2-year collaborative action research project in one
school but has grown in ways not anticipated by the founding group. Ten
years after its inception, the project is continuing and has spread to a
number of other schools in Australia and overseas (for example, Sweden,
Denmark and Canada). Much has been written about PEEL (e.g. Mitchell &
Baird, 1985, 1986; Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Baird et al, 1987; Mitchell,
1989, 1994; Baird & Northfield, 1992; Loughran, 1999), but although the
project has involved teachers in collaborative action research, it has
generated only a few examples of teachers, as first authors, in the research
literature, reporting research that they have designed and conducted. In late
1993, Ian Mitchell and Jeff Northfield established the PAVOT project, which
was initially designed to extend PEEL so that opportunities for more formal
research, led and reported by teachers, could be documented and

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disseminated. PAVOT is now in its second trimester of ARC Large Grant

funding (Mitchell & Loughran, 1997).
With encouragement from Ian and Jeff, we decided to participate in
ongoing teacher research involving PEEL strategies. We undertook to
determine the effects of certain PEEL teaching procedures on a group of
Year 10 science students. In particular, we wanted to investigate the effects
of some of these procedures on the students’ approach to learning in ‘our’
science classes.

The Classes
Class 10B, taught by Ellen, consisted of 22 students, 12 boys and 10 girls.
They had a range of abilities, levels of interest and, importantly, attendance
rates. Originally the class was difficult to motivate and did not work
cooperatively as a group. Interestingly, at the time of this study, one student
had left the school and the atmosphere of the class had noticeably
improved, supporting the ‘Opening the Classroom Door’ (Loughran &
Northfield, 1996) assertion that ‘students can have a significant impact on
classroom climate. It only takes a few students to make a big difference’
(p. 124). The topic being taught when we embarked on our research was
Genetics. The topic started with a comparison of inherited characteristics,
pedigrees, mitosis, meiosis and patterns of inheritance.
Class 10D, taught by Steven, comprised 9 boys and 13 girls. It was
regarded by many as the class you did not really want – a ‘real’ mixed ability
class with a range of personalities and student interactions that made
cooperative learning very difficult. At least half the class was at the low
achievement end of the scale whilst, in contrast to this, two boys were at the
very top of the scale. Much of Steve’s time was spent trying to teach many of
the students appropriate ways to relate to each other – around that goal of
improved ‘social behaviour’, he also tried to teach some science. He was
teaching a physics topic on motion throughout the time of our research that
included gravitational forces and their effects on moving objects.

Action: collecting data

A schema of our data collection, interventions, and other methodological
actions are summarised in Figure 1 to facilitate understanding of the
process we developed in this project.
Without prior classroom discussion, students were asked to list what
they thought good learning behaviours (GLBs) might be. This approach was
designed to give us a feel for the students’ existing beliefs and
understanding about their own learning behaviours. After the students had
produced their list, we discussed the GLBs identified by PEEL teachers (see
Table I). For us, the importance of GLBs was related to the fact that
displaying these behaviours has been found to correlate strongly with
intense intellectual activity and with positive attitudes towards the need for

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Good learning behaviours Baseline Post-

data intervention
Frequency Frequency
10B 10D 10B 10D
1. Tells teacher when they don’t – – 5 9
understand
2. Asks teacher why they went wrong – – – 3

3. Tells teacher what they don’t – 10 4 9

understand

4. Checks work against instruction, 3 1 3 1

correcting errors and omissions

5. When stuck, refers to earlier work – – – –

before asking teacher

6. Checks personal comprehension of 3 6 4 6

instruction and material. Requests
further information if needed

7. Seeks reasons for aspects of the – – – 4

work at hand

8. Anticipates and predicts possible – – 18 9

outcomes
9. Plans a general strategy before – – – 10
starting

10. Explains purposes and results 3 – – 6

11. Checks teacher’s work for errors; – – – –

offers corrections

12. Seeks links between adjacent 1 – 1 3

activities and ideas

13. Seeks links between non-adjacent – – 1 –

activities, ideas and between different
topics

14. Independently seeks further – – – –

information, following up ideas raised
in class

15. Seeks links between different – – – –

subjects

16. Asks inquisitive but general 7 – 6 5

questions

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17. Offers personal examples which – 6

are generally relevant

18. Seeks specific links between – – – 1

schoolwork and personal life

19. Searches for weaknesses in their – – – –

own understanding; checks the
consistency of their explanations
across different situations

20. Suggests new activities and – – 3 –

alternative procedures

21. Expresses disagreement – – 2 7

22. Offers ideas, new insights and – – 2 4

alternative explanations

23. Justified opinions – – 7 9

24. Reacts and refers to comments of – – – 7

other students

25. Challenges the text or an answer – – – –

the teacher sanctions as correct

TOTAL 19 17 56 99
Average per lesson 9.5 8.5 28 33
Proportion of students
displaying GLBs 41% 44% 89% 91%

Table I. Counts of good learning behaviours.

Having developed a list of GLBs, we then asked the students to identify

reasons why they were not displaying these in their own practice. In order to
establish baseline data, we then observed each other’s classes twice to
record the GLBs we saw occurring. This proved to be an interesting task
methodologically because it was an exploration to determine what was
apparent before we purposefully attempted to teach in ways that might
encourage their use. Further, it was a new role for us as teacher-
researchers to begin to come to grips with being able to recognise the GLBs
and to validate their use (and frequency) and to record these in a consistent
fashion.
For teachers, the chance to observe another class is a rare
opportunity, but it was important because it allowed us to ‘observe’ without
being responsible for the ongoing teaching and learning events within the
class. Collecting these particular data proved valuable in many ways, all of
which influenced our research and our understanding of the complexities of
classroom teaching and learning. For example, it offered opportunities for
us to gain an understanding of how students interact and learn – an

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opportunity created in new ways because as observers we were not also

responsible for ‘doing’ the teaching. In the hurly burly of teaching, there is
rarely time to sit at the back of a class and observe students’ learning
behaviours. We also found that it can be difficult to observe an entire class,
and to maintain consistent recording as so many things happen at once.
Within the framework of our methodology then, learning to validate GLBs,
record them consistently and draw inferences about their use involved
reframing (Schön, 1983, 1987) our understanding of classroom research.
However, we did develop these skills and got better with practice, but as is
often the case for teacher-researchers, data collection is an additional extra
on top of the day-to-day teaching responsibilities, so in a purely technical
sense, our training in this role was dependent on a form of collegial
triangulation. For us, the ability to be confident that what we believed we
were recognising and recording as GLBs had to be fully explainable and
justifiable to each other; in that sense, the manner in which we double
checked one another’s understandings of the GLBs and how we recognised
them in the classes was our way of triangulating our results so that our
frequency tabulations were accurate and carried the same meaning for both
of us.
However, in order to conduct our research programme, different
observers also had to be used to count GLBs so that our collection
procedures could continue after this intervention, as we would not have the
time to be fully responsible for all recordings throughout the period of our
study. Therefore, we needed to train our own research assistants so that
others could similarly use the GLB descriptors and consistently record the
frequency of their occurrence within our class. Being involved in PAVOT
made it possible for us to get some help with teacher replacement so that we
could teach others to recognise and record GLBs in our classes. Through
this informal approach to research assistance, we developed an ability to
collect data in our classes throughout the time we used our interventions.
Clearly then, the data in Table I may carry a lower reliability rating
than equivalent data from a single, experienced observer. Nevertheless,
there are two important reasons why we believe that the differences between
the pre- and post-intervention counts are significant. Firstly, the differences
are well supported by our front-of-the-class perceptions as recorded in our
diaries, so in a sense, that is a validating exercise through internal
triangulation. Secondly, Mitchell (1993) and Mitchell & White (1996), who
developed the use of GLBs as an indicator of quality learning, found that
inter-observer reliability was good (within 10%) for all bar the most
interactive sequences where, with five GLBs in 20 seconds being typical,
observers were unable to record all that was occurring. We did not have
such sequences in our pre-intervention lessons, but did find this situation
occurring in our post-intervention lessons; hence, the differences between
the respective counts in Table I are more likely to be understated than
overstated.

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In essence then, we were attempting to recognise and document GLBs

and to tabulate the frequency of their occurrence in our classes. The GLBs,
we believe (see Table I), are really self-explanatory and do not require
technical definitions and intricate explanations – their descriptions make
sense. Therefore a programme of training to recognise the GLBs was not a
major concern to us as we were experienced teachers and were used to
maintaining an understanding of the many learning behaviours being
exhibited in a class while teaching. As observers, we were very attentive as
we were not responsible for the documentation of the GLBs on top of the
demands of teaching; accurately recording the number of GLBs was more of
a concern (as noted earlier).
Finally, although we were attempting to maintain the same approach
to documentation and recording of good learning behaviours throughout the
study, the constraints of time and research assistance could have
influenced our results (perhaps by understating them), but it was not until
we were reviewing our data that we realised that the actual figures per GLB
were not as important as we had initially envisaged; it was really a matter of
whether there was a change at all. Hence, the overall results of our
recordings of GLBs are an indication of what is possible through
purposefully teaching using strategies to enhance GLBs, which is very
different from attempting to align particular teaching strategies with
individual GLBs alone. This is outlined in more detail later.

Intervention: teaching procedures adopted

We identified nine procedures as our interventions for use with the two
science classes. The procedures, selected from chapter 10 of Learning from
the PEEL Experience (Baird & Northfield, 1992), were chosen to promote a
range of GLBs. These GLBs, together with a brief description of each
procedure, are listed in Table II. Both of our two science units took 10
lessons to teach over a period of 3½ weeks. During this period, we each
used eight of the nine procedures: Ellen used all except concept mapping
and Steven used all except role-play. At the time, we did this with the
express purpose of encouraging the GLBs that these procedures are
designed to prompt in students, therefore we were attempting to cover the
range of GLBs as best we could by having a divergent range of teaching
procedures to encourage a range of GLBs.

Results: studying the effects of the intervention

During the time that the teaching procedures were used, data were collected
using the following methods:

teacher diaries;
written student evaluations of the procedures;
interviews with 12 of the students; and

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classroom observation to count and record the frequency of GLBs.

Title Description Intended

GLBs
Inserting a Key words are deleted from a text passage and 6
correct word students fill in the missing terms.

Inserting Students are given an extract from a text, broken 6

subheadings into paragraphs, without headings. They decide on a
suitable heading for each paragraph.

Students Students were asked to select for homework,

select their between 5 and 10 questions which they felt would 3, 6
own problems be most helpful for their learning at that moment.

(P.O.E.) Students are shown a situation and asked to make

Predict, a prediction with reasons as to what will happen 8, 9, 10,
Observe, when some change is made. They record their 12, 20,
Explain observations and try to explain any differences 21, 22,
between their prediction and their observations. 23

Reversing the Students create questions, including appropriate

Task data values, from the answer.

Role-play Students role-play a process such as mitosis. 6, 9

Concept Map Students arrange terms on a piece of paper and

connect them by lines, writing on each line the 6, 12
nature of the connection.
6, 12
Sort out Students are given a piece of the text or instructions
jumbled for lab work which have been jumbled, e.g. students
notes or rearrange the steps of mitosis and meiosis in correct
instructions order. 5, 6

Post Box Each student writes their opinion on several issues

on separate sheets and posts the sheets in
numbered boxes. Each group is responsible for one
box. They categorise the comments and prepare a 21, 22,
presentation to the class showing the range of views. 23, 24

For more detailed descriptions, see Baird & Northfield (1992), ch. 10.

Table II. Teaching procedures used to stimulate good learning behaviours (GLBs).

Collectively, the application of these data collection procedures allowed

a range of lenses for observing students’ learning behaviours and their
beliefs about the nature of learning (and subsequent changes in both of
these). The post-intervention data in Table I were collected over two lessons
(10B) and three lessons (10D).

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A: Baseline Data
When the students were asked the question, ‘What do you regard as good
learning behaviours?’, their responses included:
listens in class;
completes homework;
does not disrupt others;
follows instructions; and
completes class work.
These responses tend to illustrate compliant behaviour more than GLBs.
However, five students noted that asking questions could be an important
GLB and this type of response begins to illustrate an important issue for our
baseline data. On analysis, we realised that (generally) students’ perceptions
of GLBs were virtually the same as those cited in the work practices section
of our student reports (see Figure 2). We began to wonder whether the
students had internalised these phrases and regarded them as GLBs. This
was of concern to us as we felt that these behaviours did not necessarily
assist students in becoming effective learners; rather, they allowed the
students to appear to be engaged in learning or to cope with their learning
demands. We began to see that the behaviours the students identified
tended to describe passive learning and are quite different from the GLBs
listed in Table I. Therefore the difference between Table I and Figure 2 was
an unexpected matter of concern – a new perspective raised through the
research which we had previously not considered. This difference between
passive learning behaviours and GLBs was also an important teaching issue
for us and a valuable learning issue which may have easily been overlooked
had we not been approaching our research in the manner described earlier;
our research had already taught us something and helped to highlight an
important learning issue for our students.

WORK PRACTICES

Works cooperatively Completes homework

Meets deadlines Completes classwork
Follows instructions Comes prepared for class activities

Codes for Work Practices:

C = Consistently, U = Usually, S = Sometimes, R = Rarely.

Figure 2. Part of the school’s report format.

When we asked the students why they did not display many of the GLBs
identified by PEEL teachers, they gave two types of reasons: either they did
not regard the behaviours as useful or they were too risky (or both). Some
typical responses included:
I didn’t think it was needed.
I don’t want to give an opinion in case it’s wrong.

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Steven Boyle et al

You just can’t be bothered or it may take too long.

There’s no point in thinking about linkage between subjects
because there is no point.
When you’re always asking questions people think you are dumb.
Disruptive behaviours from other students.
What stops me from making a plan before I start is I never thought
of doing it.
What was increasingly apparent to us then was that the students were
doing in class that which was consistent with what they said they should be
doing. Obviously, these students had developed an understanding of the
expectations of schoolwork and were applying themselves accordingly.
Sadly, the behaviours they were exhibiting were more like coping strategies
rather than GLBs.
In our study, we had set out to determine the frequency of GLBs before
and after our interventions. Table I lists the class-wide frequency of GLBs
for both classes before and after the interventions, but these results are now
only one aspect of our learning through this research project.
As there is very little research into GLBs, we were actually surprised
when we discovered that the frequency of GLBs in ‘normal’ classes is low. As
we began the data collection phase, we did not regard the pre-intervention
frequencies of one GLB every 4-5 minutes as high, but they are in fact
higher than those in completely non-PEEL classes (reported by Mitchell,
1993). In one sense, research results such as these were almost counter-
intuitive for us as classroom teachers and a little hard to believe, so we had
a need to understand more of Mitchell’s research.
Mitchell (1993) analysed tapes of lessons from a highly competent
science teacher. The lessons were selected as those which were likely to
generate student ideas, comments, arguments and questions, yet the
average was only 3.5 GLBs per class per 50 minute lesson. This is
consistent with Dillon (1988), who found a frequency of one student
question per class per 35 minutes in a study of 27 classrooms in contexts
where the likelihood of student questions was maximised. Mitchell (1993)
listed teacher behaviours that were very influential in promoting or
suppressing GLBs. Our teaching style, including our questioning and our
handling of student responses and comments, had already been influenced
by PEEL. We therefore concluded that a shift towards more frequent use of
the behaviours listed by Mitchell appears to have had an influence even
before we began our use of the procedures listed earlier, as these behaviours
are at the heart of PEEL teaching. This conclusion is supported by the five
students who volunteered question asking as a GLB.
The overall trend that was apparent from our baseline survey was that
before our intervention, there may have already been a small shift in the
students’ learning behaviours. However, their conceptions of good learning
were largely confined to what we regarded as quite passive behaviours.

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B: Intervention
Teacher diaries. As noted earlier, we maintained diaries throughout our
study. These diaries were an important data source as we used them to
document actions, thoughts and feelings about our teaching and our
students’ learning throughout the study. In many ways, these diaries were
our field notes and were an important ‘touchstone’ (Walker & Evers, 1984)
for us when we were reviewing events; we had descriptions of what really
happened rather than memories – which may be prone to alternative
reconstruction over time. Reviewing entries in our diaries highlighted data
that showed that we believed that change was occurring. Some typical
entries are outlined as follows.
Predict – Observe – Explain activity (White & Gunstone, 1992)

The question was, ‘Which object would hit the ground first when
dropped from the highest point in the school: a nail or one kilo
weight (Standard shape found in physics labs)?’

The students made predictions and gave reasons (all were

involved), developed a plan of how to implement a strategy and
how to measure.

They carried out the activity (even Matthew actively involved).

Students worked cooperatively to gather data.

Discussion afterwards was active, many were surprised at

outcome. [They] had difficulty discussing why, but many
exchanges took place between students – I barely had to
contribute! Some students who had predicted correctly were keen
to explain to the others. Discussion spread to other questions
involving a parachutist carrying a brick and lets it go – which
would land first?

Great activity – even Kristy and Matthew were active and involved.
(Steven)

Starting topic on Gravity with a concept map. Students generated

10-12 key words, there seemed to be involvement of most
students. Students were then asked to choose 6 for their concept
map. Students had to try to explain any linkages they could make
between the words they chose and to write down questions that
came to mind.

Good involvement, questions generated were helpful to process,

many students sought clarification of terms, there was a lot of
interaction. Some complained that it was too hard – particularly

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Kristy and Matthew, noticed 2 other students were passive and

content to work from person next to them. (Steven)

Nine students absent (must check on Paul – sure I saw him this
morning). I want to introduce mitosis, will have to organise
something for absent students. New student – Melanie. We’ve
started with inherited characteristics – now looking at how they
are passed from generation to generation (one of the student’s
questions during brainstorming last week).
Sexual intercourse mentioned by Sarah – others become interested!
Diagrams drawn on board – ask students to explain what is
happening and predict next step. Everyone seems to be paying
attention and thinking (not the previous case in this class). Seven
students ask questions, Travis volunteers information about his
tests for haemophilia, more questions. Try role-play of
mitosis/meiosis in a few lessons. (Ellen)
These entries illustrate what we felt were important changes in our classes.
For example, the second entry reported a significant change in student
learning behaviours: the students’ focus was entirely on the activity, social
behavioural issues disappeared, students listened to each other and there
were no put-down comments. This was most pleasing because prior to the
intervention the class was volatile and difficult to keep on task, students
readily put down anyone brave enough to offer a suggestion – the tone was
quite negative and not conducive to active, involved learning.
Our journal entries also indicated that we could see an increase in
student involvement in their own learning. They had become more active
and much less passive learners. The substantial improvement in the
classroom climate was a very important change for us as teachers. At the
start of the year, we each regarded both classes as difficult and stressful to
teach; the increased involvement in learning meant that the lessons became
much more collaborative and interactive, management problems declined
sharply and our level of enjoyment and satisfaction rose.
As teachers in the classes, these changes would often be felt as
impressions of change; because we were actively involved in researching our
practice and gathering data, we were encouraged by the empirical results
that now supported our claims. As teachers, this was quite a shift in our
understanding of evidence beyond the normal feeling of knowing.
Frequency and distribution of GLBs. The data in Table I show a significant
increase in the use of GLBs. There were three noticeable changes:
more GLBs from the class as a whole;
more students in each class displayed GLBs; and
a greater range of GLBs were displayed.

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The average frequency of GLBs rose from nine per lesson to 30. Before the
intervention, only 41% of students in 10B and 44% of students in 10D
displayed GLBs. After the intervention, the percentage of students
displaying GLBs in any one lesson increased to 89% in 10B and 91% in
10D. The range of GLBs also increased; from seven different GLBs in 10B
and only three in 10D to 12 in 10B and 17 in 10D. These are marked
changes that again offer substantial evidence to support our sense of
knowing that the classroom environment was changing. In fact, this feeling
of change (now being supported by evidence) is an interesting issue for us
as teachers and is similar to what Marton & Booth (1997) explain as the
concept of appresentation (as used in phenomenology):
If we look at a tabletop from above, for instance, we hardly
experience it as a two-dimensional surface floating in the air, in
spite of the fact that what we see is, strictly speaking, a two-
dimensional surface separated in some mysterious way from the
ground. But in looking down on a tabletop we experience the legs
that support it as well, because the experience is not of a two-
dimensional surface, but of a table. Thanks to our previous
experiences of tables, and of the particular table we are looking at,
we have learned to know tables in general and this particular
table as well. We are familiar with them so that when we see a
part of a table we are aware of the presence of the table as a
whole. (Marton & Booth, 1997, p. 99)
In a similar way, as teachers we are very familiar with how a class looks
when we see a part of it. Through this research project we began to
recognise that what we were seeing no longer always resembled the normal
class but that the appearance of the class was changing. However, because
we were now researching our practice and the nature of our students’ GLBs,
the recognition of this change could be validated. In terms of teacher
research, we think this is a most important step forward in supporting
teachers’ feelings about how their teaching and learning environment
changes with changes in practice. It also offers ways of developing teachers’
professional knowledge so that ways of validating change can move beyond
that which is often described as only anecdotal.
Extending this learning through research, we also note that it has
been reported (by, for example, Mitchell & White, 1996) that PEEL teaching
often produces academic inversions – where some traditionally low
achieving students were found to be very skilled at oral activities such as
making imaginative (and useful) links between school content and the
outside world. This point also touches on ideas such as those by Gardner
(1985) whereby different students have different approaches to, or
preferences in, learning styles. Hence, a change in teaching style (in this
case PEEL teaching style) may well be opening up new opportunities for
different learning approaches for students who are often not engaged in
normal classroom practice.

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We have also noticed this academic inversion and highlighted it in the

way we began this article with the short case which illustrated similar
changes in Ellen’s class. As stated in Ellen’s example, her expectation of
student roles was challenged and actually proved to be less than correct.
Some of the students who were doing well were in fact those who would
normally have been regarded as low achievers, while conversely, some of the
students who she thought would complete the task easily did not. The task
was filling in the missing words in a passage. Two students who gave up
(stopped working on the task) were concerned that there could only be one
correct term and did not want to take the chance of getting it wrong –
because they always get everything right. They wanted Ellen to tell them the
answers. The student who suggested alternative answers felt comfortable
with the idea that there was not one correct answer. Actually, that student
often answered questions incorrectly. One student who gave up said she
‘couldn’t do it because there were no pictures’, even though there were
diagrams.
The students were used to answering questions without reading or
understanding the content. However, in this task they had to read carefully
to understand the content. The focus of the learning had shifted and
therefore different students were encouraged in different ways to respond
accordingly; some previously successful students became less motivated
and less successful, while for others, the opposite occurred. This again
helped us to question some of our taken-for-granted assumptions about our
classes and helped us to reframe our teaching and learning situations.

Student evaluation of procedures. We tried several ways of getting students

to comment on the perceived merits of the different teaching procedures.
One approach we tried was to ask them to rate the procedures from most
helpful (10) to least helpful (5) and provide an explanation for their ranking.
On another occasion, students were asked to respond to the question,
‘Which activities caused you to be more focused and think about your
work?’
We had expected that there may have been one or two procedures that
would be regarded as most helpful by most students; however, surprisingly,
this was not the case. All the procedures received responses which
demonstrated that each individual procedure was regarded positively by
some students and negatively by others, but there were marked differences
between students as to which procedures were most useful for them. The
willingness of all students to offer negative comments, we believe, reflects
the honesty of their evaluation of the procedures. The overall judgement was
positive, with a two-to-one ratio of positive to negative comments.
We illustrate the pattern of responses with those from 10B for two
procedures: Role-play and Post Box (see Table II for brief explanations of
each procedure).

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Role-play
Positive comments:
Because I got into it and you really had to think.
Because we had to know how it worked and it made me
remember.
This one helped also because it helped to remember instead of
writing it and forgetting about it.
You could understand it well.
Explained a few things I didn’t quite understand.
Helped me understand more.
Hands on stuff is better.
You had to understand what was happening first to act it out
anyway.
Made you get it right.
Negative comments:

This wasn’t very clear.

This was stupid and confusing.
It was a bit confusing.

Post Box
Positive comments:
Saying what I want and getting into groups was more interesting
than doing just sheets by yourself.

Group work is really good because you get to find out other
people’s ideas in a non-threatening way.

This activity was good because it got us into groups discussing

things, but I feel that it wasn’t really science. In science you should
learn things more. (Travis – recognition of the pseudonym applied
is important for data in student interview section following)

It made you think about the issues and find out other people’s
opinions.

Good because it made me think.

Negative comments:
This wasn’t really learning anything. I had my own view and
wasn’t worried about other people’s views.

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It was good to see what everyone else thought but I didn’t learn
too much.
A most important issue here is that making a shift in students’ expectations
of school learning is difficult (Loughran & Northfield, 1996). Quality learning
is risky and stressful and requires much more energy and effort from
students than the passive learning that is so common in schools (Baird &
Northfield, 1992). The reactions of our students are much more positive
than the largely negative reactions of students at Laverton Secondary
College at a similar point in the first year of PEEL (Baird & Mitchell, 1986).
In many ways, coming to understand the importance of a shift in the
nature of learning (encouraging risk-taking) is closely aligned to Pollard’s
(1997) notion of a Learning Stance, whereby due recognition of students’
openness to ‘experience and support ... confident or fearful ... willing to take
risks or defensive’ (p. 132) becomes a most important factor in influencing
their position to learning in a formal institution (school). Similarly, then,
both the learning stance and the development of metacognition (Flavell,
1970) impact on the development of GLBs and may help students to
reconceptualise their approach to their involvement in classroom teaching
and learning episodes.
We would contend that the range of data we have been discussing in
this article illustrates that the students involved in this study have, through
the development of their GLBs, begun to illustrate how their understanding,
and practice, is indicative of a reconceptualisation of their understanding of
classroom teaching and learning episodes – we as teacher-researchers are
not exempt from this either. We will explore this further in the next section.

Student interview data. Eleven students, taking into account mixed ability
and gender balance, were interviewed by a mature-age Graduate Diploma in
Education student who completed a 5-week teaching round at the school in
which we were conducting this research project. The interviews were
audiotaped and the following examples are indicative of the questions asked
and the typical range of answers received.
1. Are you now aware of any other good learning behaviours?

Asking relevant questions and asking when you are unsure ... not
just using the teacher as a resource. (Nicole)

thinking things through ... all about becoming a good thinker ... it’s
okay if you make a mistake. (Daniel)

don’t give up if it’s too hard ... asking the teacher questions is
important. (Melissa)

sitting back and thinking, asking questions. (Owen)

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2. What procedures do you think were the most helpful in

developing good learning behaviours?

Strategies used in science have been useful in understanding the

topic; increasing interest. (Owen)

POE (Predict, Observe, Explain) was good because you had to

think ... Science has been different from other years because
everything is done in more depth. (Melissa)

POE was good because you had to think. (James)

Doesn’t think she is any good at science but thinks some of the
strategies have helped her learn. (Interviewer about Kristy)

Thought the role-play was dumb. (Interviewer about Travis)

3. Do you use these good learning behaviours in any other

classes?

... used in English class. (Sarah, Wade, Liz)

... does use GLBs in other classes. (Interviewer about Travis)

... used in other classes except in Art or Graphics where it doesn’t

apply. (Interviewer about Nicole)

... finds it hard to use GLBs in other classes because a lot of it is

very mechanical, i.e. ‘today you are going to do this’. (Interviewer
about Daniel)
As Baird & Mitchell (1986) noted, during the first year of PEEL at Laverton
Secondary College, the teachers soon discovered that one cannot plan to
change students’ learning behaviours without appropriate changes in their
conceptions of what good learning is, as well as changing their attitudes
about what type of learning and teaching they prefer. We believe that in our
study, collectively our data reveal some changes in both of these dimensions
and in fact highlight one of Fullan’s (1982) assertions about change that is
crucial in terms of learning – that change is a process not an event. This is
well demonstrated by the fact that for many students in our study, there
was an increased awareness of GLBs and the importance of their role in
learning. The students identified the importance of asking questions,
reflection, and not writing (copying) things down that they did not
understand. Students identified their use of GLBs in other classes
(particularly English) but one student highlighted the difficulty of doing this
when the structure of the class was too mechanical. By this the student was
perhaps implicitly describing teacher behaviours which suppress GLBs
(similar to that noted by Mitchell, 1993).

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Collectively, the data in this study indicate that the intervention

resulted in significant change: the students’ learning was more informed,
purposeful and intellectually active, they generally supported the
approaches used and there was a substantial rise in the number and range
of GLBs per lesson as well as in the number of students displaying them.
Comparisons with other studies suggest that the extent of the changes
made by students in our classes was substantial, particularly when one
considers the relative time frame (3½ weeks). In addition to the non-PEEL
classes referred to earlier, Mitchell & White (1996) reported counts of GLBs
in Year 10 science classes that had had two different levels of exposure to
PEEL teachers. Both groups of classes had several experienced PEEL
teachers during the study and displayed learning behaviours different from
non-PEEL classes and the classes reported by Dillon (1988). One group
(called low-PEEL) was studied during the first 4 weeks of their exposure to
procedures such as those in Table II, and the other (called high-PEEL)
during the last topic of the year. Table III compares data from our classes
and those of Mitchell’s non-PEEL, low-PEEL and high-PEEL classes. Our
intervention period was not dissimilar in length to Mitchell’s low-PEEL
classes: the data were collected after 3 weeks (as opposed to his 4 weeks) of
using the procedures in Table II, although we had taught the classes for
several months.

Fahey/Boyle Mitchell
Pre- Post- Non- Low- High-
interaction interaction PEEL PEEL PEEL

Mean no. of 9 30 3.5 25 52

GLBs/lesson

Proportion of 41% 90% 12% 45% 70%

students who
offered GLBs

Table III. Good learning behaviours in different classes.

As stated earlier, the sample selected from the non-PEEL classes was biased
towards good lessons from a good teacher on content likely to stimulate
GLBs. GLBs in 10B and 10D are nearly nine times more frequent than in
these non-PEEL classes and twice as frequent as in the low-PEEL classes.
The proportion of students in 10B and 10D displaying GLBs is higher than
even the high-PEEL classes. This is likely to be due to several reasons; one
of these may be smaller class sizes (average attendance was 17 students v.
21 in Mitchell’s PEEL classes). Another, perhaps more influential, reason is
that we used a greater variety of procedures over the 3 weeks than was used
during the periods of data collection in Mitchell’s PEEL classes.

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Limitations
As with many research projects, what we set out to research and the
manner in which we conducted the research influenced how our research
developed and changed over time. In our case, as teacher-researchers, the
interplay between what we were researching and our ongoing understanding
of teaching and learning was continual and although we used the teaching
procedures (outlined earlier) to encourage particular GLBs, it is obvious that
the link between a particular procedure and a given GLB does not
necessarily demonstrate a one-to-one correspondence. Importantly though,
our research illustrates that the teaching procedures (and the way in which
we have used them) do encourage the use of GLBs; more so, the frequency
and range of their use is increased. Our initial concern which prompted this
research has therefore been addressed.
More traditional researchers might consider this lack of one-to-one
correspondence as a failure of the research, but we would not as the
development and enhancement of use of GLBs is a valuable outcome on its
own. In fact, it makes sense that if students begin to recognise GLBs and
incorporate them into their learning practice, it is inevitable that other GLBs
will similarly be encouraged as the students’ metacognitive skills are being
fostered and enhanced. Hence, the stimulation of GLBs is a good outcome
and for us as teacher-researchers, we have had the changes demonstrated
in ways which are not common in the normal teacherly manner of
validations of feelings about, and approaches to, the use of alternative
teaching procedures and students’ learning outcomes.
An important methodological limitation of the study surrounds GLB 6
(checks personal comprehension of instruction material; requests further
information if needed). It could be argued that, as this GLB was an intended
outcome of most of the teaching procedures, it would have shown a
noticeable increase between the pre- and post-intervention. Table II
illustrates that there was little change in the frequency of this GLB and the
result highlights the difficulty of this type of research and may offer an
insight into some of the disparity between our results and those of others.
Although we trained ourselves (and our assistants) to recognise and code
reliably for a range of GLBs, the coding is dependent upon the students
overtly demonstrating the GLB. Obviously, many of the GLBs may be being
used by the students but simply not being expressed verbally so that they
can be recognised and coded by a researcher. GLB 6 in particular fits into
this category. Students may well be personally checking their
comprehension of instructions and material without this action being
noticeable to an observer; hence, it would only be by the student actually
requesting further information (if needed) that the GLB might be
apprehended by the researcher. This limitation, however, does not
undermine the study; rather, it illustrates the difficulties of researching
actions which are often hidden to others – particularly when the exploration

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depends on individuals’ (silent) cognitive actions being verbalised in order to

be recognised.
One final issue is related to our use of the teaching procedures. As
experienced PEEL teachers, we were certainly familiar with the teaching
procedures we were employing, and as is the case with many classroom
teaching and learning situations, it is one thing to know how to use a
procedure, but it is another matter as to how it is enacted in a particular
situation; context matters. We could not (nor would not want to) argue that
the use of a teaching procedure translates to the same learning outcomes in
every situation, but the skilled use of a particular procedure does carry with
it a change in the nature of the student–student and student–teacher
interactions from a more traditional chalk and talk method. Therefore we
would assert that our use of the teaching procedures carried an overt
change in the teaching and learning environment from the normal situation
such that how the procedures were used or altered is not as great an issue
as the fact that they were used. The procedures adopted were all designed to
change the normal classroom interactions, therefore their use by us was an
appropriate intervention aimed at encouraging students to use GLBs, and it
was the GLBs we were most interested in researching, not the fidelity of
practice associated with the implementation of particular teaching
procedures.

Reflections: conclusion
Good learning is multifaceted, encompassing a range of cognitive and
metacognitive behaviours. The list of good learning behaviours in Table I
reflects this range and it is as important to increase the range of aspects of
good learning occurring as it is to increase the frequency of their
occurrence. Measuring whether this has occurred is not easy. Each student
behaviour is unique and the 25 descriptors in Table I are an attempt by
PEEL teachers to classify what they were seeing. In practice, many student
behaviours have characteristics of two or three of the descriptors and, as
might be expected, counts of types of GLBs are less reliable than counts of
total numbers (Mitchell, 1993). Nevertheless, we believe the increase in the
range of GLBs is significant and does reflect our front-of-the class
judgement that more aspects of good learning were being displayed.

What Brought about These Changes?

We have identified three factors which have contributed to the changes and
to the rapid pace of change.

1. Use of the PEEL book, Learning from the PEEL Experience (Baird &
Northfield, 1992), which gave us access to a large number of proven
procedures. This allowed us to draw upon well-developed procedures
without having to go through the process of creating them.

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2. We used a range of intervention procedures, which we feel was very

important. The students’ evaluation of these indicates that a variety of
procedures are necessary to address the different learning styles displayed
by students. Variety increases the likelihood that a greater range of
students will have the opportunity to achieve success. This assertion is
supported by comparing the positive and negative comments made by two
students when they evaluated two of the procedures.
Role-playing
Student A (Travis): This was stupid and confusing.
Student B (Liz): This gave me a better understanding [of the work],
because I find it hard to understand writing from the text.

Reversing the Task

Student A (Travis): Really made you think back, especially the
error.
Student B (Liz): Didn’t think it helped me much.
3. The discussion of the GLBs may have played as important a role as the
PEEL teaching procedures. Overall, students were interested to hear about
approaches to how they learn. As they were exposed to what GLBs were and
started to understand them, we felt that they started to monitor and
regulate their use of GLBs. For example, one student, when asking the
question, ‘I don’t get this’, stopped himself and said ‘I can’t ask that type of
question’ and then rephrased the question to include what he thought it
was that he did not understand. This raises two questions: when do
students become interested in learning styles and how do they learn, and
could a greater understanding by students of their own learning behaviours
be a factor in helping motivate them to become more involved in their
learning? Our experience would suggest that, at Year 10 level, from the
classes we have studied, the answer is yes.
We also believe that one of the difficulties for us as teacher-researchers has
been to learn to be comfortable with researching our classes in ways that we
may have previously thought was not necessary because we felt we knew
our classes well enough to see changes. Therefore, being able to research in
the organised and structured fashion that this article demonstrates,
although not necessarily easy in the daily rush and bustle of our teaching
responsibilities, has been important in helping us to reframe our own
understanding of researching teaching.
Finally, one last aspect of this project is the relatively low number of
studies that address issues which are important to teachers (rather than
academics alone) and which encourage teachers to conduct their own
research into the type of issues and concerns which they have for their
practice and their students’ learning. For us, this article has been most
valuable in highlighting what we have begun to understand about
researching teaching so that what we know about the relationship between
our practice and our students’ learning becomes clearer, more articulate

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and more communicable to others in the education community; teachers

and academics alike. We hope that our study might encourage others to
‘reframe’ classroom research both in what is researched and how it is
researched so that this knowledge base might be enhanced and valuable to
classroom teachers.

Acknowledgement
The research reported in this article was supported by an Australian
Research Council Large Grant.

Correspondence
John Loughran, Faculty of Education, Monash University,
Wellington Road, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia
(john.loughran@education.monash.edu.au).

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rationale; the reality, Research in Science Education, 17, pp. 129-138.
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application. Paper available from the authors, Faculty of Education, Melbourne:
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Mitchell, I.J. & White, R.T. (1996) Good Learning Behaviours, paper available through
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The Collaborative Action

Research Network
CARN is committed to supporting and improving the quality of professional practice,
achieved through systematic, critical and creative inquiry into the goals, processes
and contexts of professional work. The quality of our work in the professions
depends upon our willingness to ask questions of ourselves and others, and to
explore challenging ideas and practices, including the values that underpin them.
CARN was founded in 1976 to follow up the development work of the Ford Teaching
Project in UK primary and secondary schools. Since that time it has grown to
become a national and international network drawing its members from a variety of
educational, health, social care, commercial, and public services organisations.

CARN SETS OUT TO PROMOTE

RECOGNITION
That professional development requires critical inquiry into, past, current and future
practice; That practitioners themselves should be actively and creatively involved in
defining and developing professional practice; That all relevant communities
(including service-users, students, clients, etc.) need to be involved in developing
the provision of services; That individual professional development needs to be seen
in the context of institutional practices and structures; That action research provides
a powerful means of developing worthwhile professional and institutional practice.
SUPPORT
For professional staff carrying out action research, individually and in collaboration
with others, in their place of work; For employers/managers wishing to set up action
research activities as part of development planning; For professional development
through action research as a life-long focus throughout all phases of professional
careers; For collaboration and dialogue between those concerned, to develop
research-based professional practice, and practice-based research, i.e.
Between professional practitioners and their clients, e.g. students, service-users
Between professionals and peers in the same and other professions
Between professionals and colleagues at all levels in their organisations
Between professional workers and community members.
NETWORKING
Through sharing accounts of action research, in the Newsletter, on the CARN
website, in the journal Educational Action Research, and through other CARN
publications; Through attentive personal encouragement and critical feedback;
Through engaging with CARN colleagues at steering group meetings, regional
events and at the CARN annual conference.

For membership details please contact the Secretary

Lucila Recart, School of Education and Professional Development,
University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom
(l.recart@uea.ac.uk).

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