Keywords

1 Introduction

In this paper, we describe the challenges that emerged during a school project, where elementary school students participated in the cultivation of a school kitchen-garden. We also explain how the educational team transformed its research and teaching strategies to overcome these challenges. The aim of the project was to develop, through gardening, the self-determined environmental motivation of a group of elementary students from a disadvantaged background. As it has been shown in many studies, school gardens in their various forms (botanic gardens, kitchen gardens; recreational gardens, etc.) enhance students’ motivation to participate not only in the garden experience, but also in the school and community life (Blair, 2009; Darner, 2012; Murakami et al., 2018; Christodoulou & Korfiatis, 2019). In all the cases reported in the literature, the key to a successful school garden project is the degree of active participation of the children in the management and the various activities of the project (Korfiatis & Petrou, 2021).

Furthermore, an Action Research (AR) approach was adopted as it was considered to be the best way to achieve the goal for which the program was designed. According to the classic definition by Elliot (1991), an AR is the study of a social situation with a view to improving the quality of action within it. The aim of AR is to improve work practices through collaborative inquiry following a spiral of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting (Zuber-Skerritt, 2018): The planning stage includes the design of the project and the clarification of the target. The acting stage includes the implementation. The observing stage includes data collection. Finally, the reflecting stage includes conversations and critical thinking between the research team members about the collected data, the challenges that emerged during the implementation and the changes they should consider applying to the next research cycle. AR is a cyclical iterative process of action and reflection on and in action. Theory and practice are not separated; however, they are integrated as well as research and development. In that way AR allowed the continuous revision and improvement of the project, so as to better meet the needs of the participating students whose environmental motivation was about to be identified after the implementation.

AR has been used in a variety of environmental education studies to help practitioners examine and transform their practice and improve education programmes (Doyle & Krasny, 2003; Can et al., 2017; Do Carmo Galiazzi et al., 2018; Servant-Miklos, 2022). In the research presented here, AR had a dual role: to facilitate the evaluation of project implementation and to support the participating educators in examining and transforming their teaching practice.

Our aim was to understand how this project worked, what challenges the action research team faced and how they managed to overcome them. We hope that the outcomes of this research offer insights to educators aiming to motivate and engage vulnerable youth in environmental and sustainability actions.

Therefore, this paper aims to answer the following question: How were the researchers’ strategies transformed to overcome the challenges that emerged during the action research project?

2 Research Design and Method

2.1 Participants

Thirteen, six- to twelve-year-old students from a rural primary school participated in the project. Participation was voluntary and anonymous, and all the ethical considerations had been taken into account, including written agreement from the participating children and their guardians, as well as written permission from the ethical committee of the Ministry of Education. All participants were members of a group following afterschool activities organised by the school they were studying, after the end of the formal curriculum programme. Four of them were boys and nine were girls. Most of the students came from families with low socio-economic level that find it difficult to obtain their basic survival needs (ex. daily food). They also expressed low motivation, low interest in participating in school life, high obesity rates and detachment from nature, despite the fact that they were living in a rural environment.

The AR team consisted of the Teacher/Researcher (T/R), the critical friend, the facilitators (i.e. the TR’s academic advisor and the school’s principal) and three more teachers in the same school, who were the research partners.

2.2 Roles

According to Reason and Bradbury (2008), participation is the defining characteristic of action research. Participation is central to AR methods, which talks of research ‘with’ people rather than ‘on’ or ‘for’ them, involving all participants as co-inquirers (Heron & Reason, 2006). The research team may include as few as two persons, or it may include several teachers and administrators working with university staff or any other external agency (Caro-Bruce, 2000). During the AR process of the present study, all participants had a specific role, as it is described in other AR settings (Can et al., 2017; Hawkins, 2015). However, until the end of the intervention, some responsibilities needed to be explained or changed. The flexibility of the AR team roles has been stated by other researchers (Avgitidou, 2009).

The roles assumed by the participants in this action research project are outlined as follows:

2.2.1 The Teacher/Researcher

The T/R, who is the first author of this paper, had multiple responsibilities during the project, as it is often the case in educational AR projects (Kember, 2000). As a “Coordinator”, she explained the main goals of the project to the members of the team, outlined their roles and responsibilities, facilitated their cooperation and organised the meetings. As a “Teacher”, she implemented the activities with the students in rotation with the critical friend. Finally, as a “Researcher”, she was observing and taking notes on students’ participation during the project.

2.2.2 Critical Friend

In the AR literature, a critical friend is defined as a trusted person who is invited to join an AR project based on the qualities of knowledge, experience, and skills (Campbell et al., 2004). Generally, the role of a critical friend is to ask questions, provide data to be examined through another lens, and offer a critique of a person’s work as a friend (Noor & Shafee, 2021). The critical friend was chosen by the T/R from her colleagues (teachers in the same school), because of her previous teaching experience with the same group of students, as well as her previous research experience in similar research settings.

The critical friend worked as “the Partner”, giving advice and professional feedback to the T/R, as an “Evaluation Advisor”, controlling and evaluating the applied theoretical practices of the project, and finally as a “Teaching Assistant & Consultant”, providing students with the necessary tools or any other materials they needed for the activities and encouraging students to participate, cooperate and express their thinking with their team members.

2.2.3 Outside Researchers

Students facilitated as ‘outside researchers’, a characterization adopted from Doyle and Krasny (2003). They provided the T/R with comments, thoughts, initiatives, and ideas through their reflections. They communicated the facts they observed with the T/R and they were active participants by making recommendations and taking the final decisions about the actions they wanted to get involved in during the project.

2.2.4 Facilitators

The T/R’s academic advisor and the school’s principal were the facilitators of the AR process. T/R’s academic advisor played mostly a consulting role by providing scientific information about the methodology and the theoretical approaches of the project. He also inspired, mobilised and encouraged the T/R.

The school principal was responsible for designing the teaching programme during the working hours of the elementary school and making sure that it was being applied effectively. Also, the school principal provided the T/R with useful information about the participating students (academic performance, social conditions, etc).

2.2.5 Research Partners

Three teachers in the same school served as research partners by keeping notes about participating students’ collaboration, as well as students’ attitudes or expression of ideas or emotions during their involvement with gardening.

2.3 The School Kitchen-Garden Project

A school kitchen-garden is distinguished from other types of school gardens (e.g. a botanical garden, or a recreational garden), participation in a kitchen-garden project also includes participation in the preparation and cooking of meals using products harvested from the garden (Gibbs et al., 2013). After convincing the school principal of its benefits, the authors of this article initiated the project. The activities of the project were designed by the T/R based on students’ thoughts and decisions. Some examples of students’ involvement in the project include the selection of the vegetables they wanted to plant and the location of the garden in the school yard, decorating the garden, deciding how to utilize their harvest, how to take care of the garden and deal with its ‘enemies’ (i.e. bad weather, parasites and weeds). Students also cooked food using their own harvest. Overall, students had the most active role, while the adult participants in the project (i.e. the T/R, other teachers, the principal, etc.) functioned as collaborators, facilitators, and partners. The project included weekly routines concerning the cultivation of vegetable plants, as well as seventeen 40-min meetings between the children and the T/R.

2.4 The Action Research Process

During the present study, meetings were held during the planning stage of the first AR cycle to ensure that the adult participants in the AR acknowledged the main goals of the project, the research and teaching strategies they needed to apply, as well as their specific role.

Furthermore, meetings were held regularly following the circular stages of the AR process. All meetings were scheduled by the T/R. However, sometimes unscheduled meetings needed to take place to deal with a challenging situation that had emerged. The unscheduled meetings were mostly held between the T/R and the critical friend to deal with challenges relating to students’ cooperation.

During the meetings, the team members discussed their observations and the students’ reflective notes. Also, they evaluated the research tools and the teaching strategies they used. Finally, during the reflection stage of the AR cycles, the team discussed possible changes and revisions needed for the kitchen-garden project.

2.5 Data Collection

Observation Notes

During the project, the T/R, the critical friend, and the research partners recorded any kind of observation they made on students’ participation during gardening, as well as concerning student comments, or expressions of feelings or ideas. Additionally, the T/R kept notes concerning research-partners’ pedagogical approaches and implementation of research tasks.

Students Scheduled & Unscheduled Reflecting Notes

The scheduled reflective notes were open-ended forms with more specific questions about students’ feelings and experiences that were completed by the students in the middle and at the end of the project. The unscheduled reflective notes were open-ended forms that students filled in whenever they wanted to express their personal reactions, feelings, concerns, ideas, initiatives, or decisions concerning gardening. These were completed independently by each student during the project.

2.6 Data Analysis

All observations and reflective notes were studied by the T/R as the project was running, in order to identify if the research or teaching strategies which had been applied in each cycle were effective or not towards the aim of the project, or if revisions were needed. For example, a note during the second cycle of the project was as follows: “Student 4 expressed non-participatory behavior. Specifically, he refused to help his team members water the crops.” After this observation, a new approach to help this student was applied by the T/R, and changes in his attitude and behavior were recorded during the third cycle.

Simultaneously, the T/R identified all the challenges that emerged during the cycles of the AR process and came up with four broader categories of those challenges by using the method of content analysis (Cohen et al., 2018). Some of the challenges emerged before the beginning of the project, during the planning stage of the first AR cycle. Some challenges emerged during the implementation of the project, and some emerged towards the end of the project. The first category included challenges regarding “The coordination of the AR team” (Table 20.1). The second category included challenges about “The AR team pedagogical skills” (Table 20.2). The third category included challenges concerning “The AR team research skills” (Table 20.3). Finally, in the fourth category the T/R included challenges about “Students’ participation” (Table 20.4). For each challenge, a specific strategy was recommended to overcome the situation (see Tables 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, and 20.4).

Table 20.1 Coordination of the AR team
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Table 20.2 AR team members’ pedagogical skills
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Table 20.3 AR team research skills
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Table 20.4 Students’ participation (interest & cooperation)
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3 Findings

Four research cycles were carried out from the beginning until the end of the project. The T/R and the rest of the adult participants in the project concluded that no further revision of the implemented practices was necessary after the fourth cycle.

3.1 Action Research Cycles: Cycle 1

3.1.1 Plan: The Preparations

The educational meetings which were organised by the T/R aimed to inform the AR team about the main goals of the project and to understand its value and the need for its implementation. Also, semi-structured interviews were held between the T/R and the students at this stage. At the same time, the T/R was informed by the school’s principal and other teachers about participating students’ school performance and social condition.

3.1.2 Action: The Beginning of Implementation

Students were introduced to a realistic situation (our food and how it is produced) and took the decision to create a kitchen-garden in their school. They started working in mixed groups (concerning age, gender, school performance) of 3–4 members that were formed by the T/R. The students initiated conversations between their group members and the AR team. They also expressed their first thoughts about the cultivation activities (e.g., where, what, when to plant) and ideas about how to take care of their kitchen-garden (e.g., watering their crops, observing and keeping the planting area clean from litter and weeds). The T/R and the critical friend coordinated the activities of the project.

3.1.3 Observations & Reflections

The AR members collected limited data about students’ reflections and reactions towards the activities of the project and about students’ psychological needs of autonomy and competence. However, they managed to identify evidence of students participating effectively during their conversations. The T/R decided to transform the methodological tools to assist the AR members in collecting data.

3.2 Action Research Cycles: Cycle 2

3.2.1 (Re)Plan: The First Cycle Changes Applied to the Second Cycle of the Implementation

The T/R applied two additional methodological tools: The scheduled and unscheduled reflecting notes that needed to be filled out by the students and the use of an observation rubric by the AR team for a better systematical recording of information about students’ actions and behaviour. Also, the T/R drew the other AR team members’ attention to the fact that their pedagogical practices needed to be more student-centered than teacher-guided. Finally, the T/R designed a diary of students’ responsibilities for their kitchen-garden.

3.2.2 Action: Implementing the First Cycle Changes and Students’ Decisions into the Second Research Cycle

Students continued working and collaborating in groups. They created their kitchen-garden and started following a diary of responsibilities. They also decorated their garden and invited members of the community (municipality officials, parents) to visit it.

3.2.3 Observations & Reflections

The AR team members noticed that most, but not all, of the students’ groups cooperated effectively. Some students felt disappointed and worried about their crops due to rainy days and because they noticed some marks on their crop’s leaves. Also, not all students followed the diary of responsibilities and some students expressed non-participatory behaviour. The AR members noted this and wrote down their comments. Furthermore, the AR members mentioned and discussed specific moments of students’ motivation. These moments were either observed by the AR team or were written by the students in their reflective notes. Finally, the T/R evaluated the use of the two additional methodological tools and the AR members teaching approaches.

3.3 Action Research Cycles: Cycle 3

3.3.1 (Re)Plan: The Second Cycle Changes Applied to the Third Cycle of the Implementation

The AR team decided not to change students’ groups. However, they decided to provide more help, support, and encouragement to students to help them overcome the challenges that had upset them. For example, they encouraged students to search for different ways of dealing with their garden “enemies”. Also, the AR team applied a “personal approach” toward students expressing non-participatory behavior in order to gather information about their behaviour. The T/R decided to be the only member responsible for conducting activities with the students in order to apply more student-centered teaching approaches. The diary of responsibilities was cancelled, and the students were free to choose when and who would be involved in taking care of their garden.

3.3.2 Action: Implementing the Second Cycle Changes and Students’ Decisions

The students collaborated with their group members and organised a plan to deal with their crop’s “enemies” by applying organic solutions (e.g., they placed ashes in the soil to prevent snails approaching their crops). Each student decided independently how many times per week he/she would deal with the gardening. Finally, students started discovering the advantages of creating a kitchen-garden (physical activity; enjoyment; watching plants grow; food production).

3.3.3 Observations & Reflections

The AR team noticed that some students continued to reveal non-participatory behaviour and tried to find the reasons behind this behaviour. They decided to apply an external motive to attract those students’ attention. At the same time, they noted instances where students expressed relatedness, autonomy and competence. Also, they noticed that fewer students asked for help and expressed concerns about the kitchen-garden.

3.4 Action Research Cycles: Cycle 4

3.4.1 (Re)Plan: The Third Cycle Changes Applied to the Fourth Cycle of the Implementation

The AR team members continued to encourage and support students. They also continued to apply the “personal approach” and engaged in more discussions with the students about their feelings and their intentions regarding the kitchen-garden. Additionally, they decided on the introduction of the external motive of giving diplomas to all students who were seen to care about their garden.

3.4.2 Action: Implementing the Second Cycle Changes and Students’ Decisions

Students continued to work collectively, being encouraged, and rewarded (with diplomas) by the AR team when they got involved in their kitchen-garden care.

3.4.3 Observations & Reflections

The number of students who worked collectively significantly increased. At the same time, students who revealed a high level of interest from the beginning of the project increased the frequency of visiting and working in their kitchen-garden. Also, most of the students made sure that their participation did not go unnoticed by the T/R, who would provide them with the diplomas. It seems that the external motive of diplomas worked effectively in students’ participation in the project.

3.5 Challenges Emerged During the Action Research Cycles

Tables 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, and 20.4 present all the categorised challenges that emerged during the above-mentioned AR cycles and the new strategies that were applied as the solution to each challenge.

4 Discussion

This AR study highlights core issues that emerged through the implementation of a kitchen-garden programme with a group of vulnerable elementary school children.

During an AR that takes place in a school, problematic issues can appear concerning either the research team members, or the students participating in the procedure (Zhou, 2012; Can et al., 2017). This was apparent in the present study as all the challenges concerned either the AR team or students’ participation in gardening. The issues referred to four different aspects: The coordination of the AR team, the AR team’s pedagogical skills, the AR team’s research skills and the students’ participation.

The process of an AR requires much effort, concentration and systematicity. The AR team members, having a participatory role, are responsible for identifying not only the challenges that emerged during the AR process but also the strategies that lead to the solution of those challenges. The reflective character of an AR is a huge advantage in this process (Palmer, 2017; Pine, 2009; Reason & Bradbury, 2008). According to Katsenou et al. (2015), a key and fundamental characteristic of AR is its participatory and critical-reflective nature.

In the present study, most of the challenges that emerged were about students’ participation. Challenges concerned their interests and their collaboration in the activities of the kitchen garden project. The T/R applied specific strategies to attract students’ attention and to support their collaboration. Strategies (such us engaging in a real scenario deriving from students) and applying games (such as role playing or debates) provided students with the opportunity to choose and apply their own decisions concerning the activities of the project. These strategies were applied successfully in the present project, but they are also recommended by other researchers (Liao & Wang, 2008).

Another important outcome was that during the specific AR no challenges emerged concerning the research team’s relationship and collaboration. This was probably due to the educational meetings that were held between the AR team members before the implementation. During those educational meetings, the AR team members were convinced about the need to implement the project. Therefore, the AR team members expressed their personal interest and volition in participating in the AR process. According to Barber et al. (2021), collaboration between action researchers is the key to AR.

Another outcome of the specific study that comes into agreement with previous findings is that the teachers participating in an AR need professional development with respect to methods and techniques for doing AR (Zhou, 2012; Kalaitzidaki & Filippaki, 2021). Even though the T/R organised educational meetings before the implementation during which she tried to explain the observatory role of each AR team member, the student-centered pedagogical approaches they needed to apply and the AR methods, the outcome didn’t meet the preferred standards as this strategy did not work very effectively. It seems that more than educating meetings is required to develop the research skills of the teachers. More frequent experiences of participating in different research settings would be helpful to develop the appropriate research skills.

Finally, an important outcome of the specific study was that the success of implementing the project was due to the effective collaboration between the AR team members and the students. The relationship between the co-researchers and the participants is very important during an AR process (Jacobs, 2016).

Nobody can be sure in advance about the process and the outcomes of an AR project. The specific research highlights core issues (challenges about the AR team coordination, the AR team members pedagogical and research skills) which can emerge through the implementation of a kitchen-garden project with vulnerable elementary school children. Nevertheless, it would be very useful to know the possible challenges that may arise during an AR process as well as some specific recommendations to deal with those challenges.

During this project, a research group committed to dialogue, shared knowledge and action, managed to create a participatory and effective project with participating vulnerable children. Specific strategies such us organising regular meetings between the research team members, developing a friendly relationship between teachers and participating students, having a personal approach towards students who participate in the applied project (e.g., private conversations), identifying students’ personal worries or social difficulties and applying activities promoting students’ creativity, mobility and autonomy, could be helpful to other environmental educational projects, as well.