The Group of Nine Experience:
Action Research

PIETER TOTH

THE IMPACT OF ACTION RESEARCH, or any form of serious inquiry, never ceases to amaze and inspire. Dr. Maurice Taylor of the University of Ottawa Faculty of Education spearheaded the Action Research Project, fondly referred to by the participants as the “Group of Nine.”(1) The project design had three phases — recruitment, implementation, and sharing. For most of the Group of Nine participants, this was their first experience working with colleagues from diverse environments, right across the country, using the same research model for a wide range of topics. While all three of the phases were successfully completed, the momentum did not stop there. Nine individual instructors and program coordinators within the Workplace Literacy Field from across Canada were brought together, introduced to the concepts of action research, exposed to different ways of thinking and questioning, and then set loose on an unsuspecting nation: after two years, the ripples are still expanding!

The Dofasco Experience

My research was based at Dofasco, Canada’s most successful steel producer. Dofasco’s advanced facilities in Hamilton, Ontario, produce high quality flat rolled and tubular products as well as a wide variety of processed steel products.

In 1997, Dofasco initiated the development of a Workplace Essential Skills Program to offer employees the opportunity to improve their literacy and technology skills. The company chose one department, Plant Services, to spearhead the initiative from within the company and contracted with a number of community-based educational service providers to design the curriculum and provide instruction.

Dofasco partnered with a local broker, the Adult Basic Education Association (ABEA) to coordinate instructional service providers within the Hamilton Community. This program has been highly successful and has continued to grow in both the number of students and variety of the courses being offered.

As the Dofasco program began to expand, it started to experience subtle changes or “growing pains” common for any instructional program moving from a small to a mid-sized initiative. My action research addressed this issue through an inquiry into instructor team building and its impact on program effectiveness.

Instructor Team-Building

While working through the core processes of Action Research in the Dofasco context, it became clear to me that instructor team-building would be the main focus of the project. I designed an intervention strategy, developed success criteria, collected pre-intervention data and then implemented the plan. After the intervention was completed, I collected post-intervention data, processed the results and then spent some time reflecting on the entire process and sharing the results with other practitioners.