Natalie Martin: Critical Reflection on Professional Practitioner Inquiry

Module 2 ‘Professional Practitioner Inquiry’ has been really insightful in looking at my daily professional practice and focussing on an area to develop in order to plan a research inquiry. This process has developed and improved my research skills, networking skills, analysing skills and planning skills.

The difficulty I had starting this module is, what do I want to do my research inquiry on? I know I wanted to link my past experience as a professional performer with my current professional practice as an Early Years Teaching Assistant and singing teacher. Reflecting on my daily practice and discussing ideas with my SIG groups (fellow teachers and BAPP students) Music and movement were the catalyst to most of my question ideas see Appendix A.

An occurring theme that stood out for me was how music and movement can be linked to Early Years child development. Using my personal experience and knowledge observing pupils aged 4-5years on a daily basis it was clear that music and movement plays a big role within early years practice e.g. during continuous provision, learning activities and carpet time. However, I wanted to find out how does music and movement help a pupils development and progress? Also, in what ways? To help me research this further I used my professional networks and posed some example questions on my created SIG group with fellow BAPP students on Facebook as well as discussing ideas with colleagues at school. It was insightful to get people’s opinions and ideas the most beneficial process for my inquiry was talking to colleagues who work within the early years setting, as they could relate to the inquiry topic better and share their experiences see Appendix B.

Having the support and guidance from my SIG I used the feedback to focus my literature research based on evidence that proves music and movement helps a child’s Early Years development see Appendix B. Using the University library, online sources and schools resources there was plenty of evidence confirming music and movement helps a child’s development. It was interesting looking at a theorists point of view, in particular; Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852). It was intriguing to find out a child participating in music, movement and rhyme activities during Early Years development many years ago to present day encourages pupil progress within many areas of literacy, numeracy, physical development and creativity skills see Appendix C.

After lots of tweaking, re-writing questions I finally decided on an inquiry question that I was happy with;

“In what ways can music and movement enhance different aspects of a child’s development within Early Years?”

Knowing my area of inquiry it was important to research the ethical considerations. Exploring my schools ‘policies’ and ‘code of conduct’ made me aware of ethical elements I need to consider in my chosen research tools see Appendix D. To help me with this I looked at the ‘BERA Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research 2011’ and ‘British Psychological Society Code of Ethics and Conduct 2009’ These established frameworks were great in guiding me through the ethical considerations within my own research inquiry considering confidentiality, integrity, safe practice, permission and professional code of conduct see Appendix E. An area of the ‘BERA’ framework that helped within my inquiry is ‘respect’. I used this as the basis for my trial interview, being respectful to the participant and appreciating their values and opinions on Early Years practice allowed me to obtain knowledge and draw on their experiences to progress my research inquiry further and enhance my evidence.

A deeper understanding of the ethical issues enabled me to plan and to arrange a meeting with my Head teacher to present the employer/professional support agreement form to allow me to conduct my research inquiry within the primary school setting. I repeated this process for the participants who took part in my trial interview.

Deciding on research tools, I knew Interviews were the best option for my inquiry. Carrying out a trial interview with a fellow colleague enabled me to obtain beneficial information about my research inquiry. Having the opportunity and permission to interview an experienced Early Years practitioner produced insightful evidence that supported the statement music and movement helps Early Years development. I have to consider interviewing a colleague can produce bias evidence which can benefit my inquiry i.e. the interviewee being comfortable and open with their opinions and thoughts. However, on the other hand I’m only gaining evidence from one educational setting. I have to consider other Early Years practitioners may have different opinions and thoughts on music and movement.

By investigating into how music and movement helps Early Years development, it’s allowed me to discover valuable evidence that will benefit my everyday practice as an Early Years practitioner. However, there are some elements of Early Years practice that don’t benefit from music and movement. I also need to consider the individual that carries out the learning activity involving music and movement. Does an Early Years practitioner with more experience and knowledge of music and movement have more of an impact in carrying out a learning activity? Does this impact on the child’s development?

Overall Module 2 has expanded my knowledge, research skills and emphasised the importance of ethical considerations when conducting a professional research inquiry. It’s shown the importance of using your professional networks to gain evidence and develop ideas and see evidence from another point of view to benefit and expand my inquiry.

Appendix A:

Natalie Martin BlogSpot Task 4A Developing questions for professional inquiry.

Link: http://natalieamartin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/task-4a-developing-questions-for.html

Appendix B:

Natalie Martin BlogSpot Task 4B/C

Link: http://natalieamartin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/task-4bc.html

Appendix C:

Natalie Martin BlogSpot Task 4d Literature Review

Link: http://natalieamartin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/literature-review-task-4d_4.html

Appendix D:

Natalie Martin BlogSpot Task 5A Ethics 15^th March 2014

Link: http://natalieamartin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/ethics-task-5a.html