Abstract:
Having graduated with a Master’s degree in Natural Sciences, the
educational aspects that I engaged in during my studies seemed to
have ignited my latent affinity for education, which prompted me
to pursue a scholarship in education. Fortunately, I did not have
to choose between the two disciplines but could merge the Natural
Sciences into the field of education. However, I obtained my
entrance to the field of education through enrolling for a
Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCHE).
This qualification assumes that I am engaged in a professional
education practice which I could comply with when I became a
Life Sciences teacher-educator for postgraduate student-teachers.
Obtaining the PGCHE qualification revolved around the
continuing improvement and/or innovation of my education
practice through a comprehensive action research project.
From the onset it became clear that being a good scientist does not
mean that one is a good educator. Through this action research
project I quickly learned that it is not only the improvement of my
professional education practice that is under scrutiny, but, since
learning is personal and fundamentally holistic in nature, my
personal development is also under investigation. This also
provided the impetus to extend my action research project into my
proposed autoethnographic PhD scholarship.
I was surprised by how the simplistic cyclic conception of action
research could be transformed to support a complex endeavour of
cycles and spirals in which personal development of the highest
order to maximise one’s potential (being not only central but also
an ethical imperative in education) could so effectively be fulfilled
through action research.
