The Influence of Teacher Research: process or product?

Teacher research has been viewed as a powerful mechanism for professional development and school change. Based on data from a research study, which combined a questionnaire to a sample of 127 teacher‐researchers with in‐depth interviews with a smaller sample of teachers and local education authority advisers, this article discusses the factors which promoted and constrained the sharing of teachers’ research findings. Sharing was hindered by aspects of the individualist culture of teaching, but evidence shows that the values and processes of teacher research can help create a more collaborative, critically reflective culture. Unlike other studies, it was found that teacher‐researchers preferred to work within the system to effect change rather than as a more subversive counter‐culture. A tension is revealed concerning whether the potential relationship between teacher research and school change is best viewed in terms of the processes or the products of teachers’ enquiries.