Transcript Action Research - Central Connecticut State University

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
Sources
 Information and ideas taken from Research Methods
in Education, by William Wiersma