ACTION RESEARCH Dulce Roman

ACTION RESEARCH Dulce Roman

1. DEFINITION

   • Action Research is a processin which participants examine theirown educational practicesystematically and carefully, usingthe techniques of research

2. BASED ON

   • Teachers and principals work best on problems they have identified for themselves
     • Teachers and principals help each other by working collaboratively
   • Teachers and principals become more effective when encouraged to examine and assess their own work and then consider ways of working differently
     • Working with colleagues helps teachers and principals in their professional development

3. CHARACTERISTICS

   • It analyses the human actions and social situations that students and teachers experience
     • lt uses an exploratory approach
       • It aims to explain what happens in the classroom in relation to specific teaching contents
         • It interprets different classroom events from the point of view of those who take part; that is, it involves teachers and students: their beliefs, values,intentions, decisions
           • It uses direct simple language, in contrast to the technical specialised language used by conventional research, to explain the classroom situations that are analysed.

4. STAGES IN ACTION RESEARCH

   • STAGE 1
     • The identification, evaluation and formulation of the problem
       • STAGE 2
         • Preliminary discussion and negotiations amongst interested parties — teachers, advisers, researchers, sponsors — culminating in a draft proposal
           • STAGE 3
             • Review of research literature and comparable studies
               • STAGE 4
                 • Restatement of the problem, or formulation of a hypothesis; explicit discussion of the assumptions underlying the project
                   • STAGE 5
                     • Selection of research procedures, allocation of resources, choice of materials and methods, etc
                       • STAGE 6
                         • Choice of evaluation procedures -bearing in mind that evaluation will be continuous
                           • STAGE 7
                             • The implementation of the project itself, including data collection and analysis, monitoring and feedback.
                               • STAGE 8
                                 • The interpretation of the data; inferences to be drawn; overall project evaluation

5. TYPES

   • Individual Teacher Research
     • Collaborative Action Research
       • School-wide Research
         • District-wide Research
           • more complex and utilizes more resources, but the rewards can be great. Issues can be organizational, community- based, performance-based or processes for decision making
         • focuses on issue common to all
       • include as few as two teachers or a group of several teachers and others interested in addressing in a classroom or department issue
     • usually focuses on a single issue in the classroom

6. CRITICISMS OF ACTION RESEARCH

   • Reliability
     • refers to the consistency of results obtained from research
   • Validity
     • seeks to establish to what extent the research really investigates what the researcher wants it to

7. INSTRUMENTS FOR DATA COLLECTION

   • INTERVIEWS
     • • Open interviews
     • • Semi-open interviews
     • • Semi-structured interviews
     • • Structured interviews
   • QUESTIONNAIRES
     • advantages
       • • They can be administered to large groups of subjects. • The data provided tend to be quite uniform and standard.
     • disadvantages
       • the questionnaires are taken home to be answered, the response rate is usually very low and this may affect validity and reliability. • Depending on the nature of the questions, the data provided can be very subjective. Thus it may need to be contrasted and checked in other situations. • The sample of students which we use for our questionnaire may be too limited, or even unrepresentative of language learners as a whole. The important point here is for the teacher-researcher to beware of generalising from the data.
   • CASE STUDIES
   • DIARIES