Campus Location
Dallas Campus (Online)
Date of Award
9-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Department
Organizational Leadership
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Julie M. Lane
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Julie A. McElhany
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Amy M. Barrios
Abstract
This participatory action research study explored the effects of Harkness seminars on students’ cognitive, affective, and metacognitive learning in secondary humanities classes. Educators need an effective, flexible, and adaptive method to promote student learning beyond superficial content acquisition. With the decoupling of virtue formation from knowledge acquisition, knowledge gaps from COVID-19 lockdowns, and the rise of artificial intelligence in student plagiarism, a proven method to address all aspects of student formation is needed. Using a participatory action research framework for this qualitative study, conducted at an independent K–12 school site in Texas, the researcher interviewed six secondary humanities teachers over 9 weeks through three rounds of participatory action research interviews. Participants used a Harkness observation sheet, a Harkness oval, and triple entry reflection sheets to report their observations regarding students’ cognitive, affective, and metacognitive growth as they implemented Harkness sessions in their respective classrooms between interviews. The six participants had experience with the Harkness seminar method and had taught at the selected site or at least 1 year. After each round of participatory action research interviews, transcripts were inductively and deductively coded, and themes were identified to help formulate questions for subsequent rounds of participatory action research interviews. Codes and themes demonstrated the benefits of Harkness seminars to promote students’ cognitive, affective, and metacognitive growth; however, results demonstrated that teachers perceive the cognitive and affective benefits of Harkness more frequently and more readily than the metacognitive benefits.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Novlan, Sarah S., "Harkness Seminars in the Humanities" (2026). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1055.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/1055
Included in
Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Educational Methods Commons, Secondary Education Commons, Secondary Education and Teaching Commons