A Yarra Ranges researcher is seeking secondary school teachers to help her collect data on the lived, day-to-day experiences of teachers all over Victoria.
Taking to local social media in the last weeks, a local teacher is researching the lived experiences and professional agency of secondary school teachers across Victoria.
Emma Stevenson is a student researcher at Melbourne University and a current secondary school teacher, who is gathering data in an online survey.
“My research explores how Victorian government secondary school teachers experience and exercise professional agency within Professional Learning Communities (PLCs),” she said.
“It focuses on the lived, day-to-day experiences of teachers as they navigate collaborative spaces, make decisions, and enact their values.”
Currently being conducted across Victorian government secondary schools and the study draws on responses collected through an online survey, followed by semi-structured interviews and will remain open for around eight more weeks.
“I am hoping for a broad and diverse group of teachers as an opportunity to capture their lived experiences,” said Ms Stevenson.
The interview phase will take place in the second half of the year, focusing on participants who have indicated interest through the survey.
“I’m looking to better understand teachers’ experiences of agency in the context of PLCs,’ said Ms Stevenson.
“I’m interested in the tensions and opportunities teachers encounter as they collaborate, reflect, and make decisions within structured team settings, but also how this translates across from a meeting into their classroom, practice and beliefs,” she said.
PLCs, or Professional Learning Communities, are a model underpinned by collaboration, inquiry, professional learning, trust and curiosity and in Victorian government schools, PLCs are implemented system-wide and are designed to support teacher collaboration, improve student outcomes, and foster professional growth.
“Global literature highlights their potential to build inclusive communities of practice and encourage data-informed, student-centred decision-making,” said Ms Stevenson.
The data to be gathered in the survey hopes to understand the ways teachers draw on their own expertise, experiences, and goals to make purposeful decisions in context.
“By capturing teachers’ lived experiences within PLCs, this research unpacks how agency is expressed, negotiated, and enacted in the lived reality of teacher experiences,” said Ms Stevenson.
“Ultimately, I hope this research contributes to broader conversations about teacher experiences, PLCs, and how agency is experienced by our secondary school teachers,” she said.
Taking part will mean doing an online survey (lnkd.in/eQG5pNSX), which will take approximately 10-15 minutes of your time to complete and teachers must be a secondary or high school teacher currently employed as a range one or two classroom teacher in a Victorian government secondary or high school.
One unique aspect of the survey is a question in the survey that invites participants to upload a royalty-free image that represents their experiences.
“It will be fascinating to see what people choose, whether it be things like classrooms, nature or even metaphorical representations, and how they use these images to articulate their experiences and what matters to them,” said Ms Stevenson.
“I’m hopeful it will give insight into the lived experiences, which text alone struggles to capture.”
