Co-production and multimodality: learners as co-researchers exploring practice

In recent decades, three forms of practitioner research have emerged: Reflective Practice, Action Research, and Exploratory Practice. While Reflective Practice and Action Research focus on teachers-as-researchers, Exploratory Practice positions learners as co-researchers, alongside teachers, teacher educators, and others. This article adds to those which examine the notion of learners co-producing research by exploring the potential of multimodal methods for data generation and analysis; it does this by critically analysing posters produced by learners as they puzzled, explored, collaborated, and disseminated their developing understandings on a pre-sessional English for Academic Purposes course in the UK. Focusing particularly on these ‘sticky objects’, to which emotions and beliefs attach, I argue that learners, like teachers, can ask robust questions, engage in creative investigative practices, integrating research and pedagogy. I posit that learners can develop profound insights into their practice which contribute to theory-building more broadly. This ‘fully inclusive’ notion of co-produced research challenges traditional assumptions about who does what in research and pedagogy, indicating an ethical imperative for learners to be included as co-investigators contributing their understandings to developments in theory and practice.