Doctoral defence - Ingibjörg Ósk Sigurðardóttir

Doctoraldefence from Faculty of Education and Pedagogy 

Preschool teachers’ professional development through collaborative action research: Creating mutual understanding and professional language about values and values education

The opponents are: Dr. Margaret Riel Director for Center for Collaborative Action Research, Pepperdine University, Malibu, USA, and Dr. Liora Bresler, Professor at University of Illinois.

Supervisor was Dr.  Jóhanna Einarsdóttir, Professor at School of Education, University of Iceland and  co-supervisor Dr. Pia Williams, Professor at University of Gothenburg, Sweden. A memer in the doctoralcommittee was also dr. Anna-Maija Puroila, Senior lecturer at University of Oulu, Finland

Dr. Jónína Vala Kristinsdóttir, Professor and Head Faculty of Faculty of Education and Pedagogy, School of Education, is the master of ceremony

The study was collaborative action research (CAR) and lasted for 24 months. The overall aim was to create new knowledge on values education in early childhood education and on the methodology of CAR. The author worked in close collaboration with seven preschool teachers in one Icelandic preschool, who focused on their own professional development in relation to values education. The main research question that guided the study was How can collaborative action research support preschool teachers’ professional development in relation to values education? The thesis consists of four empirical studies that have been presented in four research papers. The first paper focuses on what values the preschool teachers found important to teach the children in the preschool and why these values were seen as important. The focus was also on how the preschool teachers saw their own role as values educators. The second paper focuses on how the preschool teachers communicated the values they found important to the children. The third paper focuses on how the preschool teachers learned and developed professionally through participating in CAR and how they experienced the advantages and challenges of the process. The fourth paper focuses on how the researcher’s role was constructed during the process. 

The findings of the study show that the CAR methodology proved to be effective for professional development in relation to values education. The preschool teachers chose to focus on values related to social skills and found it important to make the children socially competent.