Action Research

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• Action Research

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What is Action Research?

• Applied focus
• Specific, practical issue
• Solve problem
• Improve practice

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Importance of AR

• Promotes reflection
• Tests new ideas
• Encourages change
• Empowers teachers
• Improves educational practice

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Practical AR

• Studies local practices
• Involves individuals or teams
• Focuses on teacher development
  or student learning
• Implements plan of action
• Leads to teacher-as-researcher

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Limitations of AR

• Researcher as participant
• Limited number of subjects
• Lack of traditional controls
• Limited replication

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Pay attention to .

• Validity
• Sensible
• Meaningful
• Useful

• Reliability
• Stable
• Consistent

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Triangulation

• Use multiple sources of data
• Achievement
• Engagement Attitude

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Data Collection 3E
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Ethical and Practical

• Do no harm
• Informed consent
• Confidentiality
• Dont mess your nest

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Systemic Reform

• Systemic issue or problem
• Systemic action or solution
• Substantive collaboration
• Plan intervention assessment
• Implementation

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Research Design

• To claim the intervention is effective
• You must provide evidence of change
• Comparisons are critical

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Comparison I

• Individuals With v Without
• E.g. K students learn some letters with pictures
  and some letters without pictures
• Caution Equal time on task
• Caution Sequence of treatments - randomize if
  possible

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Comparison II

• Group/Class With v Without
• E.g. One class uses paired discourse and another
  uses individual worksheet to summarize.
• Caution Equal time on task
• Caution Equal inclusion of classes. NB
  Hawthorne effect.

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Comparison III

• Student Subgroups
• Consider groups disaggregated under NCLB
• Race/ethnicity
• Gender
• SES/poverty
• LEP

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Comparison IV

• Skill Subsets
• E.g. facts, concepts, problems
• E.g. achievement, engagement, attitude

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Comparison V

• Individual Before After
• Useful for skills attitudes
• Can be combined with other comparisons
• Caution Students may learn something under any
  conditions.

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Comparison VI

• Progress over time
• Comparison of daily or weekly scores.

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Collecting Data

• To interpret your results,
• Look for.
• Significant differences
• Correlations
• Patterns emergent themes
• Collect the data you need
• Observation journal