An Action Research Inquiry: facilitating early childhood studies undergraduate researcher development through Group Supervision

This paper reports an Action Research Inquiry that aimed to develop research supervision as a learning strategy, in order to facilitate early childhood undergraduates' completion of a primary research project and dissertation in the final year of their degree programme. Researchers in this context are conceptualised as a community of practice where there is a common goal for undergraduates to become researchers. In this community, supervision accompanies students along their research project; it provides opportunities for learning for the supervisor and the student. Communities of Practice are spaces for social learning. The objectives of introducing supervision as a group social practice were to provide a space to develop researcher identity, apply research skills and make sense of the experience of research. Group Supervision represented a shift in teaching and learning practice. Action Research was applied as a research method. Such an approach placed emphasis on the participation and collaboration of lecturers in a strategy for changing practice. The research was conducted in a University in the United Kingdom. One cycle of action research was completed. Findings from the study suggest Group Supervision is valued and understood, by lecturers and students, as a social learning process.