Sustainable Development of Students’ Assumed Responsibility for Their Own Learning during Participatory Action Research

Abstract

The goal to ensure sustainable development in the education process obliges to create such practices of teaching and learning which would create conditions for individuals to act in complex situations in a sustainable manner. Personalized, perceived responsibility of a learner for one’s own learning becomes important for implementation of sustainable learning. This research is aimed to reveal authentic experiences of school students assuming responsibility for learning, emphasizing prospects of sustainable education development in practice and possibilities for improvement by employing the strategy of participatory action research. The data was collected according to the stages of the chosen action research during lessons on learning to learn. Forty-six school students and two teachers took part in the research. On the basis of content analysis, it was revealed that school students assume the responsibility for learning when it is grounded on cooperation taking place in the dialogue-based culture, where negotiation and creation of opportunities to choose are among the most important strategies making the assumed responsibility relevant. Intervening conditions emerging in the context of the strategies were also identified: making learning experiences relevant, clarity of criteria, attitude towards failure and the self as a major resource of learning, expectations, and goals and feedback of learning. Interacting with each other, prevailing strategies, and intervening conditions act as components of sustainable development of school students’ assumed responsibility for learning.