Participatory action research for inclusive education implementation and professional development in Botswana: teachers' perspectives

Abstract

This paper specifically focuses on the analysis of Botswana teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of Participatory Action Research (PAR) in promoting inclusion of learners with diverse educational needs, and its use as a strategy for professional development. This exploratory qualitative study is part of a large scale international collaborative initiative themed ‘Learning for Democracy: North South Collaboration.’ The authors of this article were part of this collaborative process and were engaged to train teachers on PAR. Teachers were recruited from nine administrative regions by the Division of Special Support Services of the Ministry of Basic Education. Thirty-two teachers participated in the training programme. The teachers were engaged in a three week long-training workshop on PAR; one before the teachers undertook PAR and the second after three months following training. The final one was at the end of the project where teachers were given a self-administered questionnaire to evaluate their perceptions about PAR on implementation of the inclusion of learners with diverse educational needs and using PAR for teacher-development. The questionnaire consisted of a Likert scale and open ended items which requested participants to reflect on their inclusive education experiences during implementation of PAR. Twenty six of the 32 participants responded to a questionnaire. The quantitative part was analysed using SPSS, whereas Atlas Ti7.5 was used for the open-ended part. The findings of this study indicate that teachers enjoyed using participatory action research to enhance their teaching, student learning and student behaviours. Based on the study, it is recommended that PAR be used as a strategy to promote inclusive education as well as professional development in Botswana. Keywords: inclusive education, participatory action research, professional development, teacher perceptions