Action Research
 Not traditional educational research often research tests
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theory not practical
Teacher research in classrooms and/or schools/districts for
the purpose of:
Improving teaching
Investigate areas of concern
Testing educational theory
Evaluating and implementing an educational plan
Meet the challenges within classrooms and schools
 Action research is used to describe an approach to
classroom research
A few reasons to do action
research…
 Help you build a reflective practice based on proven
ideas or techniques
 Allow you to try new ideas and reliably assess their
effectiveness
 It will help you build confidence in your managerial or
instructional decisions
 It will contribute to the professional culture of
teaching at your school
 It can create meaningful and lasting change in order to
improve student achievement
Levels of Action Research
 Individual for classroom
 Group of teachers for department
 Teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders to
affect change in larger school community
Action Research History
 Kurt Lewin(1946) credit with development of concept
of action research
 Evolved and influenced by Kemmis(1983), Ebbutt
(1985), Elliott (1991), Hopkins (1985) and others…
Conducting Action Research Steps
 Identify the question, issue or problem
 Conduct a literature review
 Define a solution
 Apply the solution and collect the data
 Analyze your findings
 Report your findings
 Take ACTION
How to Get Started.. Identify the
Question, Issue or Problem
 Decide on a FOCUS
 Find your professional self…some guiding questions may
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be…
What are your broad interests in teaching?
What are your specific interests?
What questions are manageable?
What are you passionate about?
 Is there a problem or question that you would like an
answer to or as a future teacher, administrator, policy
maker, researcher and how will an answer to your question
or idea help you do a better job?
Literature Review
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2d7y_r65HU&featu
re=related
What is a Literature Review?
 A “lit review” done early in the research process is the
review of the research literature related to the problem
or question posed?
 Once the problem or question has been identified,
information is needed about the problem so that it can
be placed in the proper context and the research can
proceed…
Sources of Information
 Studies published in books, journals, periodicals, technical
reports, and academic theses and dissertations available
either in print or online through the library’s electronic
sources.
 Note: one distinction made between references is whether
they are primary or secondary sources.
A primary source is a report, book, article written by
the person who conducted the research.
Secondary sources are written by someone at least
one step removed from the research.
Assembling and Summarizing
Information
 Once you locate and review the sources from the
literature search, then you must consider the question
“What should I do with this information?”
 First, you need to determine if the content of the
source is relevant to your research problem or
question? Try to stay focused…
 If is not relevant, delete it!
Interpreting and Using Information
 Once you review your sources, you can skim them to
get an overview.
 From this overview, you can make a decision on
whether this information is relevant to your research
problem or question…
Writing the Review
Now the information that you have reviewed and
synthesized can be put into the review of the
literature…
For your literature review… it should be from 10 to 15
pages with a minimum of 10 references.
Referencing
 When information is reported from a source, it must
be adequately referenced. Please use APA format.
 Referencing can be done in a number of ways, a
reference list is limited to references sited in your
report…please use References for your report.
 A bibliography may also include references for
background information or further reading
Conducting Action Research
Steps
 Identify the question, issue or problem
 Conduct a literature review
 Define a solution
 Apply the solution and collect the data
 Analyze your findings
 Report your findings
 Take ACTION
Conducting Action Research
Steps Further Defined
 At this point,
 You have identified the question, issue or problem
 Conducted a literature review search
 Reviewed the available literature and written a
Literature Review on your question of interest
What have you discovered?
Conducting Action Research
Steps Further Defined
 Define a solution
 Apply the solution and collect the data
 Analyze your findings
 Report your findings
 Take ACTION
What do we mean by Define a
Solution Next Step?
 Research Design
 Quantitative or Qualitative?
 Action research is defined as research conducted at the
local level, conducted by a practitioner, focused on
solving a particular problem it can be either…
 Research Methods
 Sampling procedures
 Data collection procedures
The Nature of Educational
Research
 Research is empirical.
 Research is systematic.
 Research should be valid.
 Research should be reliable.
 Research can take on a variety of forms.
Research is empirical
 Educational research is characterized as empirical,
because empiricism is the concept that all knowledge
is derived from sense experience.
 Information takes the form of data, which can include
test scores, field notes, responses to questionnaire
items, etc…
Research is systematic
 Based on the scientific method, there are five steps
 1. Identify the problem
 2. Review the information
 3. Collect data
 4. Analyze data
 5. Draw conclusions within the framework of your
study
Research should be valid
 Validity is when something should be based on fact or
evidence
 Internal validity is the extent to which results can be
interpreted accurately
 External validity is the extent to which results can be
generalized to a population, situations and
conditions..in action research we are not concerned
about this area…
Research should be reliable
 Reliability of research concerns the replicability and
consistency of the methods, conditions, and results.
Research can take on a variety of
forms
 Basic and applied research
 The primary purpose of basic research is the extension
of knowledge
 The primary purpose of applied research is the
solution of an immediate, practical problem…
Action Research
 One type of applied research is action research …this is
what we are doing!
 Action research is often conducted by teachers,
administrators or other educational professionals for
solving a specific problem or for providing information
for decision making at the local level.
 Action research is less rigorous in terms of design and
methodology then other educational research…
Research Methods
 Describe your sampling and data collection procedures
 Identify your instrument, test, interview,
questionnaire, survey…
 How will you measure?
 What about validity and reliability?
 How will you analyze the data? Important to think
about ahead of time, if you are using human subjects
you need to go through an institutional review board.
Data Collection
 Measuring instruments must be identified and/or
developed
 If the data is descriptive in nature, you must take field
notes
 You can collect data by doing interviews or
observations
 If you conduct a survey, you need to determine what
measuring instruments you will use, i.e.
questionnaires, standardized tests
 Think ahead…about preparing the data you collect for
analysis
Next Step
 Defining your solution……
 Collecting your data……..