FACULTY OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT GUIDE

SECTION 1: PRE-INTERVENTION PHASE

INTRODUCTION

Focus on the whole research in terms of:

o type of research
o problem under study
o purpose of research
o structure (in terms of sections).

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Background should cover:
o Who are you?
o What were you teaching? Where? When? Who had the problem?
o What are the school ethos and culture? (As it relates to your research).
o Always justify what you describe.
o Infuse literature in your discussion
o Focus on your class and collaborators (collaborators are people who take part
in the research from start to end)
o What resources are in the classroom? How are you using the resources? How do
these influence your research problem?
o Who are the participants and why and how did you pick on these. Describe a
number of incidents you observed the problem and the actions you took to try
and solve it. What were the results of these actions?

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM.
o This should be explicit in terms of the focus of the study.
o Statement should be elaborate but specific.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

There should be about three research questions that cover:

 o How do you identify the cause of the problem? Why?
o What can be done to overcome the problem?
o How do you evaluate the strategy to check if the problem was solved?

INTENDED INTERVENTION STRATEGIES

You need to indicate your intended intervention strategy.

o Literature on possible intervention strategy is critical at this stage.
o Justify why you have chosen that particular strategy ahead of the others.
o Clearly describe the strategy and justify its suitability to solve the problem.
o Definition of strategy, if possible, should be done here.
o Give a summary of the chapter and lead into the next section

SECTION 11: INTERVENTION PHASE

INTRODUCTION
Give the focus of this section. This should be a brief outline of the section.

PLAN OF ACTION
o Activities should emanate from your strategy.
o Justify the activities (infuse literature)
o The tense should be on intentions.
o Plan of action could be in terms of a table or diagram
o Spell out data generation instruments (observations, interviews, focused group
discussions, exercises, tests etc.)
o Data should bring out the qualitative nature of Action Research.
o Statistical measurement should compare the individual.
o Give indication of how recordings will be done (tables, checklists, video recordings etc.)

IMPLEMENTATION OF PLAN

o Give an explanation of activities done. These should come from plan of action.
Any deviations from the plan of action should be highlighted and justified.
o Give the results of the actions / observations. Both positive and negative results
should be given.
o Triangulate and as much as possible give reflections.
o For each instrument, present, analyse, and reflect. At the end give a synthesised
reflection of all instruments, to come up with next cycle.
o Using reflections adjust plan and implement as before.

SECTION 3: POST-INTERVENTION PHASE

INTRODUCTION

Highlight the purpose of the research study, number of participants used and cycles
carried out. Give the focus of the section.

OVERALL FINDINGS AND REFLECTIONS

o Give overall findings of all the cycles done, highlighting observations and
reflections.
o To make proper reflections, ask yourself the following:
(a) What worked well as a solution to the problem?
(b) What did not work well and what should be omitted or improved?
(c) What opportunities did the action research project offer you?
- What threats / limitations / shortcomings did you experience? Conclude by stating
whether the problem was solved. If problem was not solved, indicate the next course of
action, suggestions for further action research

References
These should be sources used and referred to in the write up.
References should follow the APA. References should include the Internet

Appendices

o Schemes of work and lesson plans

o Children’s work
o Sample of instruments used
o Sample of responses.
o Correspondence
o Pictures and videos.