This article describes the use of action research to increase trustworthiness through a non-judgmental approach. Two foreign language lecturers implemented an action research to improve their teaching with the use of Facebook and mobile devices. In order to remain open to all possible interpretation of the events and to incite their students to provide them with honest feedback, they openly adopted a non-judgmental stance. As a result, students freely revealed how they used funds which were given to them to access mobile Internet. Findings showed that not all students used the money as was anticipated by the lecturers, and that they spoke without restraints on the matter. This behavior has led the researchers to reflect on how this stance helped validate the trustworthiness of the data for the research, and encouraged them to focus on not judging their informants.
Serge Gabarre is currently a senior lecturer with University Putra Malaysia. His research interest focuses on the integration of social networking sites with mobile devices in the French as a foreign language classroom. This interest has led him to investigate the students’ emic perspectives through action research and grounded theory. By integrating his teaching with his research, Serge strives to provide an always evolving learning experience to his students. Serge regularly gives talks and conducts workshops across Southeast Asia enabling participants to better integrate technology in the classroom. His previous publications deal with m-learning, e-learning, social networking sites, language acquisition, online collaborative tasks, and qualitative methods. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: serge@upm.edu.my.
Cécile Gabarre’s dual field of expertise in instructional design and language teaching led her to develop MALL environments supporting immersive and personalised learning. Technology is embedded in her courses as a mean towards reaching the learners’ engagement through increased motivation and confidence building fostered with a ubiquitous access to support and resources. The co-construction of knowledge in a meaningful and caring learning community thus sustains language acquisition processes as well as lifelong learning skills. Her current interests include pedagogical approaches for MALL, teacher training, action research, technological literacies, language classroom management, engagement dynamics and language acquisition. Correspondence regarding this article can also be addressed directly to: cecile@upm.edu.my.
Rosseni Din is currently an associate professor of e-learning and computer education with the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia where she teaches technology and education as well as instructional Design. Her fields of research include developmental research method, structural equation modeling, e-learning and computer in education. Correspondence regarding this article can also be addressed directly to: rosseni@yahoo.com.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge that this research was supported by the Exploratory Research Grant Scheme ERGS/1/11/SSI/UPM/02/30
Gabarre, S.,
Gabarre, C.,
&
Din, R.
(2016).
Using a Non-Judgmental Stance to Promote Trustworthiness in Action Research.
The Qualitative Report,
21(6), 1071-1089.
https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2016.2387
