Teachers and Participatory Action Research for Developing Learning Environments

Abstract

This research aims to develop learning environments through Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology in a specific context of the Department of Electronics, Nong Han Industrial and Community Education College. Three development outcomes are expected: (1) changes in expected and non-expected outcomes of action; (2) action-based learning in the researchers, research participants and the institute and (3) knowledge from the grounded theory. The results are as the followings: 1) there are positive changes in both expected and unanticipated outcomes consisting of the implementation of the co-designated development approaches and the nature of the expected learning environments, 2) the researchers, research participants, and the institute learn about the efficiency of working together, which makes everyone realize how inefficient working alone was in the past, and 3) a body of knowledge gained from practice describes the relationship between the expected changes, and the driving force and resistances to change as well as ways to overcome the resistances.