Exploratory Practice

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Overview

These pages give an overview of Dick Allwright's 'exploratory practice' which he presents as an alternative to action research and traditional classroom research, both of which typically use conventional research techniques. There are short descriptions of some EP projects to illustrate the approach, an eight-step guide to doing EP, and a description of the principles which underlie it.

Why EP?

EP is especially interesting given the current shift of focus towards developing quality of teaching in universities, and the fact that the RAE will henceforth (apparently) include papers with a pedagogic focus as well as traditional research. EP should be of particular interest to those who want to engage in professional development activities that do not compete with the need to conduct more traditional research, because it minimises the 'parasitic' nature of classroom research.

'Parasitic' because conventional classroom research takes time and effort from the real learning and teaching activities.