supporting tiriti-based curriculum delivery in mainstream early ...

esearch, and then afforded opportunities to investigate appreciative inquiry. This
approach simply would not have happened if the length of time had been
shortened: revisiting teachers at the first two centres 4 years after completing the
action research cycles enabled a stock-take of what had occurred during the
intervening time. In short, I was fortunate to be able to investigate the
sustainability of Tiriti-based curriculum in this research. This is discussed in
Chapter Six.
Over a time-span such as this it was hardly surprising that some people
exited the study. Pleasingly, however, only one participant could not be contacted
by the end of the investigation and everyone else responded to requests for further
involvement. Furthermore, two other teachers continued their involvement in the
research until completion even though they no longer taught at the same centre.
Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered as depicted in the figure
above. The initial data collection began with an anonymous survey and this was
followed by three case studies. The details of case study approaches and the
specifics of the data collected in the three case studies in this project are discussed
in chapter 4. Commentary on data analysis is also included in chapter 4.
The methodological framework with Case Study One and Case Study Two
was critical action research because initially, this methodological approach was
perceived to be valid for this study. However, a shift to the methodological
framework occurred with Case Study Three so that appreciative inquiry was used.
My concerns about action research led to the decision to adopt appreciative inquiry
for the third case study and this is discussed in chapter 3. The diagram also shows
the methods that were utilised within the case studies. These encompassed
observation, reflective journals and interviews. A focus group across the case
studies was also planned. These too are discussed in chapter 4.
Importantly, I evolved the appreciative inquiry workshop by intentionally
adding separate action research cycles with which the teachers were familiar. It
was this that led to the emergence of action development which is the final
component of the figure. Although the account of action development is described
in chapter 3, the significance of this new methodology is discussed in chapter 7.
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