Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Day 12
Day 12
Assumption Example
Teachers and other education A team of teachers, after discussions with the school
professionals have the authority to administration, decide to meet weekly to revise the
make decisions. mathematics curriculum to make it more relevant to low-
achieving students.
Teachers and other education A group of teachers decide to observe each other on a weekly
professionals want to improve their basis and then discuss ways to improve their teaching.
practice.
The entire staff—administration, teachers, counselors, and
Teachers and other education clerical staff—of an elementary school go on a retreat to plan
professionals are committed to ways to improve the attendance and discipline policies for the
continual professional development. school.
Teachers and other education Following up on the example just listed above, the staff decides
professionals will and can engage in to collect data by reviewing the attendance records of chronic
systematic research. absentees over the past year, to interview a random sample of
attendees and absentees to determine why they differ, to hold a
series of after-school roundtable sessions between discipline-
prone students and faculty to identify problems and discuss
ways to resolve issues of contention, and to establish a
mentoring system in which selected students can serve as
counselors to students needing help with their assigned work.
Assumptions Underlying
Action Research
• A number of assumptions underlie action
research:
– Participants have the authority to make decisions
– Those involved are seriously committed to improving
their performance
– Educators and others involved in schools want to
engage in research systematically
– Those performing the research will make the
necessary changes and recommendations
Types of Action Research
• There are two main types of action research:
1) Practical Action Research
• Addresses a specific problem
• Primary purpose is to improve practice and inform larger
issues
• A “how to” approach
2) Participatory Action Research
• Philosophically driven
• Empower individuals and groups to improve their lives and
bring about a social change
• Stakeholders are involved and are active in all processes
Levels of Participation
• Provide information • Participate in
• Become informed of interpretation
purpose of the study • Participate in designing
• Receive findings the project
• Assist in data • Participate in problem
collection specification
• Review findings • Initiate study
Steps in Action Research
• There are four steps or stages in Action
Research:
Goal is to solve problems of local concern. Goal is to develop and test theories and to
produce knowledge generalizable to wide
population.
Little formal training required to conduct such Considerable training required to conduct such
studies. studies.
Intent is to identify and correct problems. Intent is to investigate larger issues, of local
concern.
Carried out by researcher who is not usually
Carried out by teacher or other local education involved in local situation.
professional.
Uses primarily professionally-developed
Uses primarily teacher-developed instruments. instruments.
Less rigorous. More rigorous.
Usually value-based. Frequently value-neutral.
Purposive samples selected. Random samples (if possible) preferred.
Selective opinions of researcher often Selective opinions of researcher never
considered as data. considered as data.