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How to Do Action Research in Your Classroom

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21 Action Research Examples (In Education)

Action research is an example of qualitative research . It refers to a wide range of evaluative or investigative methods designed to analyze professional practices and take action for improvement.

Commonly used in education, those practices could be related to instructional methods, classroom practices, or school organizational matters.

The creation of action research is attributed to Kurt Lewin , a German-American psychologist also considered to be the father of social psychology.

Gillis and Jackson (2002) offer a very concise definition of action research: “systematic collection and analysis of data for the purpose of taking action and making change” (p.264).

The methods of action research in education include:

• conducting in-class observations
• taking field notes
• surveying or interviewing teachers, administrators, or parents
• using audio and video recordings.

The goal is to identify problematic issues, test possible solutions, or simply carry-out continuous improvement.

There are several steps in action research : identify a problem, design a plan to resolve, implement the plan, evaluate effectiveness, reflect on results, make necessary adjustment and repeat the process.

Action Research Examples

• Digital literacy assessment and training: The school’s IT department conducts a survey on students’ digital literacy skills. Based on the results, a tailored training program is designed for different age groups.
• Library resources utilization study: The school librarian tracks the frequency and type of books checked out by students. The data is then used to curate a more relevant collection and organize reading programs.
• Extracurricular activities and student well-being: A team of teachers and counselors assess the impact of extracurricular activities on student mental health through surveys and interviews. Adjustments are made based on findings.
• Parent-teacher communication channels: The school evaluates the effectiveness of current communication tools (e.g., newsletters, apps) between teachers and parents. Feedback is used to implement a more streamlined system.
• Homework load evaluation: Teachers across grade levels assess the amount and effectiveness of homework given. Adjustments are made to ensure a balance between academic rigor and student well-being.
• Classroom environment and learning: A group of teachers collaborates to study the impact of classroom layouts and decorations on student engagement and comprehension. Changes are made based on the findings.
• Student feedback on curriculum content: High school students are surveyed about the relevance and applicability of their current curriculum. The feedback is then used to make necessary curriculum adjustments.
• Teacher mentoring and support: New teachers are paired with experienced mentors. Both parties provide feedback on the effectiveness of the mentoring program, leading to continuous improvements.
• Assessment of school transportation: The school board evaluates the efficiency and safety of school buses through surveys with students and parents. Necessary changes are implemented based on the results.
• Cultural sensitivity training: After conducting a survey on students’ cultural backgrounds and experiences, the school organizes workshops for teachers to promote a more inclusive classroom environment.
• Environmental initiatives and student involvement: The school’s eco-club assesses the school’s carbon footprint and waste management. They then collaborate with the administration to implement greener practices and raise environmental awareness.
• Working with parents through research: A school’s admin staff conduct focus group sessions with parents to identify top concerns.Those concerns will then be addressed and another session conducted at the end of the school year.
• Peer teaching observations and improvements: Kindergarten teachers observe other teachers handling class transition techniques to share best practices.
• PTA surveys and resultant action: The PTA of a district conducts a survey of members regarding their satisfaction with remote learning classes.The results will be presented to the school board for further action.
• Recording and reflecting: A school administrator takes video recordings of playground behavior and then plays them for the teachers. The teachers work together to formulate a list of 10 playground safety guidelines.
• Pre/post testing of interventions: A school board conducts a district wide evaluation of a STEM program by conducting a pre/post-test of students’ skills in computer programming.
• Focus groups of practitioners : The professional development needs of teachers are determined from structured focus group sessions with teachers and admin.
• School lunch research and intervention: A nutrition expert is hired to evaluate and improve the quality of school lunches.
• School nurse systematic checklist and improvements: The school nurse implements a bathroom cleaning checklist to monitor cleanliness after the results of a recent teacher survey revealed several issues.
• Wearable technologies for pedagogical improvements; Students wear accelerometers attached to their hips to gain a baseline measure of physical activity.The results will identify if any issues exist.
• School counselor reflective practice : The school counselor conducts a student survey on antisocial behavior and then plans a series of workshops for both teachers and parents.

Detailed Examples

1. cooperation and leadership.

A science teacher has noticed that her 9 th grade students do not cooperate with each other when doing group projects. There is a lot of arguing and battles over whose ideas will be followed.

So, she decides to implement a simple action research project on the matter. First, she conducts a structured observation of the students’ behavior during meetings. She also has the students respond to a short questionnaire regarding their notions of leadership.

She then designs a two-week course on group dynamics and leadership styles. The course involves learning about leadership concepts and practices . In another element of the short course, students randomly select a leadership style and then engage in a role-play with other students.

At the end of the two weeks, she has the students work on a group project and conducts the same structured observation as before. She also gives the students a slightly different questionnaire on leadership as it relates to the group.

She plans to analyze the results and present the findings at a teachers’ meeting at the end of the term.

2. Professional Development Needs

Two high-school teachers have been selected to participate in a 1-year project in a third-world country. The project goal is to improve the classroom effectiveness of local teachers. 

The two teachers arrive in the country and begin to plan their action research. First, they decide to conduct a survey of teachers in the nearby communities of the school they are assigned to.

The survey will assess their professional development needs by directly asking the teachers and administrators. After collecting the surveys, they analyze the results by grouping the teachers based on subject matter.

They discover that history and social science teachers would like professional development on integrating smartboards into classroom instruction. Math teachers would like to attend workshops on project-based learning, while chemistry teachers feel that they need equipment more than training.

The two teachers then get started on finding the necessary training experts for the workshops and applying for equipment grants for the science teachers.

3. Playground Accidents

The school nurse has noticed a lot of students coming in after having mild accidents on the playground. She’s not sure if this is just her perception or if there really is an unusual increase this year.  So, she starts pulling data from the records over the last two years. She chooses the months carefully and only selects data from the first three months of each school year.

She creates a chart to make the data more easily understood. Sure enough, there seems to have been a dramatic increase in accidents this year compared to the same period of time from the previous two years.

She shows the data to the principal and teachers at the next meeting. They all agree that a field observation of the playground is needed.

Those observations reveal that the kids are not having accidents on the playground equipment as originally suspected. It turns out that the kids are tripping on the new sod that was installed over the summer.

They examine the sod and observe small gaps between the slabs. Each gap is approximately 1.5 inches wide and nearly two inches deep. The kids are tripping on this gap as they run.

They then discuss possible solutions.

4. Differentiated Learning

Trying to use the same content, methods, and processes for all students is a recipe for failure. This is why modifying each lesson to be flexible is highly recommended. Differentiated learning allows the teacher to adjust their teaching strategy based on all the different personalities and learning styles they see in their classroom.

Of course, differentiated learning should undergo the same rigorous assessment that all teaching techniques go through. So, a third-grade social science teacher asks his students to take a simple quiz on the industrial revolution. Then, he applies differentiated learning to the lesson.

By creating several different learning stations in his classroom, he gives his students a chance to learn about the industrial revolution in a way that captures their interests. The different stations contain: short videos, fact cards, PowerPoints, mini-chapters, and role-plays.

At the end of the lesson, students get to choose how they demonstrate their knowledge. They can take a test, construct a PPT, give an oral presentation, or conduct a simulated TV interview with different characters.

During this last phase of the lesson, the teacher is able to assess if they demonstrate the necessary knowledge and have achieved the defined learning outcomes. This analysis will allow him to make further adjustments to future lessons.

5. Healthy Habits Program

While looking at obesity rates of students, the school board of a large city is shocked by the dramatic increase in the weight of their students over the last five years. After consulting with three companies that specialize in student physical health, they offer the companies an opportunity to prove their value.

So, the board randomly assigns each company to a group of schools. Starting in the next academic year, each company will implement their healthy habits program in 5 middle schools.

Preliminary data is collected at each school at the beginning of the school year. Each and every student is weighed, their resting heart rate, blood pressure and cholesterol are also measured.

After analyzing the data, it is found that the schools assigned to each of the three companies are relatively similar on all of these measures.

At the end of the year, data for students at each school will be collected again. A simple comparison of pre- and post-program measurements will be conducted. The company with the best outcomes will be selected to implement their program city-wide.

Action research is a great way to collect data on a specific issue, implement a change, and then evaluate the effects of that change. It is perhaps the most practical of all types of primary research .

Most likely, the results will be mixed. Some aspects of the change were effective, while other elements were not. That’s okay. This just means that additional modifications to the change plan need to be made, which is usually quite easy to do.

There are many methods that can be utilized, such as surveys, field observations , and program evaluations.

The beauty of action research is based in its utility and flexibility. Just about anyone in a school setting is capable of conducting action research and the information can be incredibly useful.

Aronson, E., & Patnoe, S. (1997). The jigsaw classroom: Building cooperation in the classroom (2nd ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman.

Gillis, A., & Jackson, W. (2002). Research Methods for Nurses: Methods and Interpretation . Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Company.

Lewin, K. (1946). Action research and minority problems. Journal of SocialIssues, 2 (4), 34-46.

Macdonald, C. (2012). Understanding participatory action research: A qualitative research methodology option. Canadian Journal of Action Research, 13 , 34-50. https://doi.org/10.33524/cjar.v13i2.37 Mertler, C. A. (2008). Action Research: Teachers as Researchers in the Classroom . London: Sage.

Dave Cornell (PhD)

Dr. Cornell has worked in education for more than 20 years. His work has involved designing teacher certification for Trinity College in London and in-service training for state governments in the United States. He has trained kindergarten teachers in 8 countries and helped businessmen and women open baby centers and kindergartens in 3 countries.

• Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ 11 Unconditioned Stimulus Examples
• Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ 10 Conditioned Stimulus Examples (With Pictures)
• Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ 25 Positive Punishment Examples
• Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ 25 Dissociation Examples (Psychology)

Chris Drew (PhD)

This article was peer-reviewed and edited by Chris Drew (PhD). The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Dr. Drew has published over 20 academic articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and holds a PhD in Education from ACU.

• Chris Drew (PhD) #molongui-disabled-link 11 Unconditioned Stimulus Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) #molongui-disabled-link 10 Conditioned Stimulus Examples (With Pictures)
• Chris Drew (PhD) #molongui-disabled-link 25 Positive Punishment Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) #molongui-disabled-link 25 Dissociation Examples (Psychology)

2 thoughts on “21 Action Research Examples (In Education)”

Where can I capture this article in a better user-friendly format, since I would like to provide it to my students in a Qualitative Methods course at the University of Prince Edward Island? It is a good article, however, it is visually disjointed in its current format. Thanks, Dr. Frank T. Lavandier

Hi Dr. Lavandier,

I’ve emailed you a word doc copy that you can use and edit with your class.

Best, Chris.

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Doing your own action research project

• December 14, 2021

Are children at your setting moving enough?  Do they enjoy plenty of physically active outdoor play?  The Newham Outdoors and Active practitioners spent eight months working through an action research project in order to identify the best ways to get their children moving and in touch with their own bodies.  Here’s how you could do the same thing in your setting.

Action research is research that is undertaken as a response to a recognised area of need.  It usually takes place in the workplace (eg your setting, or your home if you’re a childminder) and involves reflection, open ended questions and challenging your own existing practices.

Step 1: Where are we now?

The Outdoors and Active programme began with  explorations  into what was meant by the term physical development, and how it differs from physicality.  These important documents and books and will help you form ideas about what high quality outdoor physicality should look like in your setting:

• Every Child A Mover by Jan White  (Early Education, 2015) was a key text for us and is highly recommended as a guide to planning and making changes
• The Well Balanced Child by Sally Goddard Blythe (Hawthorn Press 2014).
• The British Heart Foundation guidance on  physical activity for walkers  and for  non-walkers  is essential reading.
• Exercising Muscles and Minds by Marjorie Ouvry (NCB 2003) provides an excellent overview of the connection between movement and cognition

The next action is to establish what is currently happening outdoors, so that you can identify gaps in provision.  We did this using several  audit tools :

• Jasmine Pasch’s  BoingWhooshRolyPoly  outdoor activity observation
• Play Learning Life’s  Outdoor Play  observation 
• Learning through Landscapes’  EYFS Moving and Handling  audit.

Each of these audits should be repeated at least three or four times, at different times of the day and in different weathers, in order to gain a complete picture of physical development opportunities as they currently stand.

Taking time with colleagues to analyse the outcomes of these surveys is important, not least to avoid travelling a pre-determined route in your action research.  Challenging your own and others’ established practices, views and conventions is a key element of action research.

Step 2: Where do we want to be?

Drawing up a vision for physical development and physicality is the logical step, once a clear picture of current practice has been established.  Take time to gather colleagues together; working towards a vision is almost impossible without the support and back up of everyone who’ll be affected by it.  Share the outcomes of the initial auditing stage, considering any gaps in provision that have become apparent. 

• What do you aspire to for children’s physical health and wellbeing?
• What should outdoor play look like at your setting?
• What do you want children to be able to do outdoors?  Note – not what do you want them to have!
• How will you manage provision of physical risk and challenge?
• What might the barriers be to achieving your vision?

Create a short statement that encapsulates your shared aspirations for physicality and physical development outdoors.  The statement should be clear and concise, but practical and achievable.

Step 3: How can we get there?

Once a vision statement has been agreed, it’s time to create an action research query that will guide your investigations outdoors. 

• Your query shouldn’t be too broad (“How can we improve physicality outdoors?”) or too narrow. 
• Whilst the beauty of action research is that you’re never going to be absolutely certain about the outcome, you should couch the question in terms that suggest confidence in a positive outcome – “How will increasing access to outdoor play in all weathers improve the frequency of physical activity?”.
• Take care not to generate a query that could have a simple “yes” or “no” answer.  So ask “In what ways can we help parents understand the importance of physically active play?” rather than “Can we support parents…?”.
• Choose an action research query that can be supported by evidence and data, so that once it’s complete, you can make a strong case for long-term change.  Quantitative and qualitative data are both valid and important to capture.

An action plan will help you plot a route through the action research.  It should set out:

• Your vision statement
• Your action research query
• Measuring success – how you’ll compare outcomes with your initial audit data
• Key collaborators

Short-term actions – what do you want to test/achieve in the next 6 weeks?

• List the steps you plan to take, building in regular time for reflection and tweaking of the project.
• What resources might you need?  Where will you source them?  What budget is there?
• Who will help?  Who needs to know?
• What kind of enabling environment do you want to create?  What sort of atmosphere will it have?

Medium term actions – after reflection, what can you do over the following 3 – 4 months?

As above, plus:

• How will you communicate progress with your key collaborators and other stakeholders?  How will you seek feedback, and how will you incorporate it (where appropriate)?
• What are the management issues?  What are the budgeting issues?
• Essential resources to push the research forward
• Resources you should plan to acquire in the next 6 months in order to sustain change
• Resources wish list – fundraising challenges, perhaps?

Step 4: Making the changes

At the end of your action research period, review progress.  This is a crucial stage; be honest about what worked and what didn’t, and if possible, ask a colleague to work with you to pick out the interventions that need to be implemented permanently.  Gather and present your evidence so that you can make the case for change, along with any requests for a budget allocation or changes in the way outdoors is organised or managed.  Long term, sustainable change is only possible with whole setting buy-in, so keep colleagues fully informed during this important phase.

Step 5: Celebrate

Audit the provision of physically active play, using the same audit tools as step one.  Celebrate the changes – share details with parents and colleagues; talk to children about how they have progressed throughout the action research project period, asking them what they can now do, what they enjoyed trying, what they’d like to do next and sharing photographs and video footage of their journey.

If you’ve made significant changes to the layout, features or resources of outdoors, consider celebrating with a grand relaunch, inviting everyone that helped, parents and local community members, and of course your local authority early years team!

Further reading

Physical development in early childhood.

Clare Devlin, Early Education Associate What aspects of physical development should we focus on within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and other early years

Outdoor learning in the early years

by Kathryn Solly The benefits of outdoor learning in the early years have now been firmly recognised for  both educators and young children’s learning and

Families’ access to nature project

The Families’ Access to Nature Project was undertaken by the Froebel Trust and Early Education between October 2021 and January 2022. Children, their parents, and

Risk: A Forest School Perspective

Guest blog by Sara Knight Why are opportunities for risk and adventure essential for normal development in the early years?  Tim Gill (2007) identifies four

Going out to play and learn

Why go outside? Big movers Have you ever been in an open space with young children? The first thing they want to do is to

Outdoor play and learning – ideas, info and lots of links

When writing our January Early Years Teaching News, I tweeted a survey to ask if practitioners and leaders would like information about ICT or outside

Outdoors and Active

Outdoors and Active – an action research project commissioned by the London Borough of Newham – took practitioners from nurseries, schools, PVI settings and children’s

Busy modern lives are having a dramatic impact on the health and wellbeing of our youngest children.  They play outdoors less, spend more time being

Top tips for physicality in the park

Little or no equipment is needed to get children active in the park – not even the play equipment that’s probably already there!  If there is play

Top tips for everyday physicality

Even everyday journeys and mundane chores can be used to encourage children to be more physically active.  Here are some ideas, suggested by the Outdoors

Boing! Whoosh! RolyPoly!

Toddlers need plenty of balance practice once they are up and walking. Each of the three semi-circular canals in the inner ear respond to movement in different

Overcoming barriers

An early task for the Outdoors and Active action researchers was to identify the barriers to taking children out and about beyond the setting.  Only

Taking risks in play

Human beings are “hardwired” to take risks, from birth.  Babies take their first independent breaths; they decide to try crawling and walking and then running;

Loose parts for physicality

Traditional fixed play equipment is not necessary for physicality; if it’s there, then great – use it.  Most of the Outdoors and Active project settings

Landscapes for physicality

Children can have fun and be active in any kind of landscape, but there’s no doubt that the more diverse and intriguing the space, the

Audit your environment

To audit the current provision for physical development outdoors in your school or setting, you can download our three sample audit sheets below. You should

Grab and Go Kits

Some of the childminders involved in the Outdoors and Active project thought that a kit of easy to carry, low cost resources could encourage children

Babies and toddlers outdoors

This content by Jan White comes from our out of print leaflet “The Sky is the Limit: Babies and Toddlers Outdoors: developing thinking, provision and practice”

Outside in all weathers, by Kathryn Solly

Healthy settling for high wellbeing How can we best help children feel at ease so that they are secure and settled in their new provision?

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• Action research: The benefits for early childhood educators
• This article introduces the purpose, process and benefits of engaging in action research in early childhood settings.
• Engaging in action research is an effective form of professional learning for educators.
• Action research is authentic because it allows educators to respond to issues of importance unique to their own settings.
• Educators have ownership over their action research projects, resulting in ‘transformative’ rather than ‘transmissive’ professional learning.
• Using action research in early childhood settings invites collaboration between educators, families and community.
• The focus of an action research project can be personalised to respond to educators’ interests and passions.
• The cycle of action research invites a sustained engagement in a particular aspect of educators’ work, providing many opportunities to question and reflect on the research topic.

Publication

Miller, M. (2017). Action research: The benefits for early childhood educators. Belonging: Early Years Journal , 6 (3) , pp. 26- 3 2 https://eprints.qut.edu.au/114335/ 

Action Research

← explore all resources.

Action research is a method used by teachers to solve everyday issues in the classroom. It is a reflective, democratic, and action-based approach to problem-solving or information-seeking in the classroom. Instead of waiting for a solution, action research empowers teachers to become critical and reflective thinkers and lifelong learners that are dedicated to helping improve student learning and teaching effectiveness.

Teachers or program leaders can take on an action research project by framing a question, carrying out an intervention or experiment, and reporting on the results. Below you’ll find resources, examples, and simple steps to help you get started.

Action Research in Early Childhood Education

Steps for action research.

1. Identify a Topic

Topics for action research can include the following:

• Changes in classroom practice
• Effects of program restructuring
• New understanding of students
• Teacher skills and competencies
• New professional relationships
• New content or curricula
• What problem do you want to solve? What information are you seeking?
• What data will need to be collected to help find a solution or answer?
• How will it be collected, by whom and from whom?
• How can you assure that your data will be reliable?

3. Collect Data

A mixed-method approach is a great way to ensure that your data is valid and reliable since you are gathering data from more than one source. This is called triangulation.

Mixed-methods research is when you integrate quantitative and qualitative research and analysis in a single study. Quantitative data is data that can be measured and written down with numbers. Some examples include attendance records, developmental screening tests, and attitude surveys. Qualitative data is data that cannot be measured in a numerical format. Some examples include observations, open-ended survey responses, audio recordings, focus groups, pictures, and in-depth interviews.

Ethically, even if your research will be contained in the classroom, it is important to get permission from the director or principal and parents. If your data collection involves videotaping or photographing students, you should review and follow school procedures. Always make sure that you have a secure place to store data and that you respect the confidentiality of your students.

4. Analyze and Interpret the Data

It’s important to consider when data will be able to answer your question. Were you looking for effects right away or effects that last until the end of the school year? When you’re done, review all of the data and look for themes. You can then separate the data into categories and analyze each group. Remember the goal of the analysis is not only to help answer the research question, but to gain understanding as a teacher.

5. Carry out an Action Plan to Improve Your Practice 

After the analysis, summarize what you learned from the study.

• How can you share your findings?
• What new research questions did the study prompt you to research next?
• What actionable steps can you make as a result of the findings?

Pine, G. J. (2008). Teacher action research: building knowledge democracies. Sage Publications.

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1 What is Action Research for Classroom Teachers?

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

• What is the nature of action research?
• How does action research develop in the classroom?
• What models of action research work best for your classroom?
• What are the epistemological, ontological, theoretical underpinnings of action research?

Educational research provides a vast landscape of knowledge on topics related to teaching and learning, curriculum and assessment, students’ cognitive and affective needs, cultural and socio-economic factors of schools, and many other factors considered viable to improving schools. Educational stakeholders rely on research to make informed decisions that ultimately affect the quality of schooling for their students. Accordingly, the purpose of educational research is to engage in disciplined inquiry to generate knowledge on topics significant to the students, teachers, administrators, schools, and other educational stakeholders. Just as the topics of educational research vary, so do the approaches to conducting educational research in the classroom. Your approach to research will be shaped by your context, your professional identity, and paradigm (set of beliefs and assumptions that guide your inquiry). These will all be key factors in how you generate knowledge related to your work as an educator.

Action research is an approach to educational research that is commonly used by educational practitioners and professionals to examine, and ultimately improve, their pedagogy and practice. In this way, action research represents an extension of the reflection and critical self-reflection that an educator employs on a daily basis in their classroom. When students are actively engaged in learning, the classroom can be dynamic and uncertain, demanding the constant attention of the educator. Considering these demands, educators are often only able to engage in reflection that is fleeting, and for the purpose of accommodation, modification, or formative assessment. Action research offers one path to more deliberate, substantial, and critical reflection that can be documented and analyzed to improve an educator’s practice.

Purpose of Action Research

As one of many approaches to educational research, it is important to distinguish the potential purposes of action research in the classroom. This book focuses on action research as a method to enable and support educators in pursuing effective pedagogical practices by transforming the quality of teaching decisions and actions, to subsequently enhance student engagement and learning. Being mindful of this purpose, the following aspects of action research are important to consider as you contemplate and engage with action research methodology in your classroom:

• Action research is a process for improving educational practice. Its methods involve action, evaluation, and reflection. It is a process to gather evidence to implement change in practices.
• Action research is participative and collaborative. It is undertaken by individuals with a common purpose.
• Action research is situation and context-based.
• Action research develops reflection practices based on the interpretations made by participants.
• Knowledge is created through action and application.
• Action research can be based in problem-solving, if the solution to the problem results in the improvement of practice.
• Action research is iterative; plans are created, implemented, revised, then implemented, lending itself to an ongoing process of reflection and revision.
• In action research, findings emerge as action develops and takes place; however, they are not conclusive or absolute, but ongoing (Koshy, 2010, pgs. 1-2).

In thinking about the purpose of action research, it is helpful to situate action research as a distinct paradigm of educational research. I like to think about action research as part of the larger concept of living knowledge. Living knowledge has been characterized as “a quest for life, to understand life and to create… knowledge which is valid for the people with whom I work and for myself” (Swantz, in Reason & Bradbury, 2001, pg. 1). Why should educators care about living knowledge as part of educational research? As mentioned above, action research is meant “to produce practical knowledge that is useful to people in the everyday conduct of their lives and to see that action research is about working towards practical outcomes” (Koshy, 2010, pg. 2). However, it is also about:

creating new forms of understanding, since action without reflection and understanding is blind, just as theory without action is meaningless. The participatory nature of action research makes it only possible with, for and by persons and communities, ideally involving all stakeholders both in the questioning and sense making that informs the research, and in the action, which is its focus. (Reason & Bradbury, 2001, pg. 2)

In an effort to further situate action research as living knowledge, Jean McNiff reminds us that “there is no such ‘thing’ as ‘action research’” (2013, pg. 24). In other words, action research is not static or finished, it defines itself as it proceeds. McNiff’s reminder characterizes action research as action-oriented, and a process that individuals go through to make their learning public to explain how it informs their practice. Action research does not derive its meaning from an abstract idea, or a self-contained discovery – action research’s meaning stems from the way educators negotiate the problems and successes of living and working in the classroom, school, and community.

While we can debate the idea of action research, there are people who are action researchers, and they use the idea of action research to develop principles and theories to guide their practice. Action research, then, refers to an organization of principles that guide action researchers as they act on shared beliefs, commitments, and expectations in their inquiry.

Reflection and the Process of Action Research

When an individual engages in reflection on their actions or experiences, it is typically for the purpose of better understanding those experiences, or the consequences of those actions to improve related action and experiences in the future. Reflection in this way develops knowledge around these actions and experiences to help us better regulate those actions in the future. The reflective process generates new knowledge regularly for classroom teachers and informs their classroom actions.

Unfortunately, the knowledge generated by educators through the reflective process is not always prioritized among the other sources of knowledge educators are expected to utilize in the classroom. Educators are expected to draw upon formal types of knowledge, such as textbooks, content standards, teaching standards, district curriculum and behavioral programs, etc., to gain new knowledge and make decisions in the classroom. While these forms of knowledge are important, the reflective knowledge that educators generate through their pedagogy is the amalgamation of these types of knowledge enacted in the classroom. Therefore, reflective knowledge is uniquely developed based on the action and implementation of an educator’s pedagogy in the classroom. Action research offers a way to formalize the knowledge generated by educators so that it can be utilized and disseminated throughout the teaching profession.

Research is concerned with the generation of knowledge, and typically creating knowledge related to a concept, idea, phenomenon, or topic. Action research generates knowledge around inquiry in practical educational contexts. Action research allows educators to learn through their actions with the purpose of developing personally or professionally. Due to its participatory nature, the process of action research is also distinct in educational research. There are many models for how the action research process takes shape. I will share a few of those here. Each model utilizes the following processes to some extent:

• Plan a change;
• Take action to enact the change;
• Observe the process and consequences of the change;
• Reflect on the process and consequences;
• Act, observe, & reflect again and so on.

Figure 1.1 Basic action research cycle

There are many other models that supplement the basic process of action research with other aspects of the research process to consider. For example, figure 1.2 illustrates a spiral model of action research proposed by Kemmis and McTaggart (2004). The spiral model emphasizes the cyclical process that moves beyond the initial plan for change. The spiral model also emphasizes revisiting the initial plan and revising based on the initial cycle of research:

Figure 1.2 Interpretation of action research spiral, Kemmis and McTaggart (2004, p. 595)

Other models of action research reorganize the process to emphasize the distinct ways knowledge takes shape in the reflection process. O’Leary’s (2004, p. 141) model, for example, recognizes that the research may take shape in the classroom as knowledge emerges from the teacher’s observations. O’Leary highlights the need for action research to be focused on situational understanding and implementation of action, initiated organically from real-time issues:

Figure 1.3 Interpretation of O’Leary’s cycles of research, O’Leary (2000, p. 141)

Lastly, Macintyre’s (2000, p. 1) model, offers a different characterization of the action research process. Macintyre emphasizes a messier process of research with the initial reflections and conclusions as the benchmarks for guiding the research process. Macintyre emphasizes the flexibility in planning, acting, and observing stages to allow the process to be naturalistic. Our interpretation of Macintyre process is below:

Figure 1.4 Interpretation of the action research cycle, Macintyre (2000, p. 1)

We believe it is important to prioritize the flexibility of the process, and encourage you to only use these models as basic guides for your process. Your process may look similar, or you may diverge from these models as you better understand your students, context, and data.

Definitions of Action Research and Examples

At this point, it may be helpful for readers to have a working definition of action research and some examples to illustrate the methodology in the classroom. Bassey (1998, p. 93) offers a very practical definition and describes “action research as an inquiry which is carried out in order to understand, to evaluate and then to change, in order to improve educational practice.” Cohen and Manion (1994, p. 192) situate action research differently, and describe action research as emergent, writing:

essentially an on-the-spot procedure designed to deal with a concrete problem located in an immediate situation. This means that ideally, the step-by-step process is constantly monitored over varying periods of time and by a variety of mechanisms (questionnaires, diaries, interviews and case studies, for example) so that the ensuing feedback may be translated into modifications, adjustment, directional changes, redefinitions, as necessary, so as to bring about lasting benefit to the ongoing process itself rather than to some future occasion.

Lastly, Koshy (2010, p. 9) describes action research as:

a constructive inquiry, during which the researcher constructs his or her knowledge of specific issues through planning, acting, evaluating, refining and learning from the experience. It is a continuous learning process in which the researcher learns and also shares the newly generated knowledge with those who may benefit from it.

These definitions highlight the distinct features of action research and emphasize the purposeful intent of action researchers to improve, refine, reform, and problem-solve issues in their educational context. To better understand the distinctness of action research, these are some examples of action research topics:

Examples of Action Research Topics

• Flexible seating in 4th grade classroom to increase effective collaborative learning.
• Structured homework protocols for increasing student achievement.
• Developing a system of formative feedback for 8th grade writing.
• Using music to stimulate creative writing.
• Weekly brown bag lunch sessions to improve responses to PD from staff.
• Using exercise balls as chairs for better classroom management.

Action Research in Theory

Action research-based inquiry in educational contexts and classrooms involves distinct participants – students, teachers, and other educational stakeholders within the system. All of these participants are engaged in activities to benefit the students, and subsequently society as a whole. Action research contributes to these activities and potentially enhances the participants’ roles in the education system. Participants’ roles are enhanced based on two underlying principles:

• communities, schools, and classrooms are sites of socially mediated actions, and action research provides a greater understanding of self and new knowledge of how to negotiate these socially mediated environments;
• communities, schools, and classrooms are part of social systems in which humans interact with many cultural tools, and action research provides a basis to construct and analyze these interactions.

In our quest for knowledge and understanding, we have consistently analyzed human experience over time and have distinguished between types of reality. Humans have constantly sought “facts” and “truth” about reality that can be empirically demonstrated or observed.

Social systems are based on beliefs, and generally, beliefs about what will benefit the greatest amount of people in that society. Beliefs, and more specifically the rationale or support for beliefs, are not always easy to demonstrate or observe as part of our reality. Take the example of an English Language Arts teacher who prioritizes argumentative writing in her class. She believes that argumentative writing demonstrates the mechanics of writing best among types of writing, while also providing students a skill they will need as citizens and professionals. While we can observe the students writing, and we can assess their ability to develop a written argument, it is difficult to observe the students’ understanding of argumentative writing and its purpose in their future. This relates to the teacher’s beliefs about argumentative writing; we cannot observe the real value of the teaching of argumentative writing. The teacher’s rationale and beliefs about teaching argumentative writing are bound to the social system and the skills their students will need to be active parts of that system. Therefore, our goal through action research is to demonstrate the best ways to teach argumentative writing to help all participants understand its value as part of a social system.

The knowledge that is conveyed in a classroom is bound to, and justified by, a social system. A postmodernist approach to understanding our world seeks knowledge within a social system, which is directly opposed to the empirical or positivist approach which demands evidence based on logic or science as rationale for beliefs. Action research does not rely on a positivist viewpoint to develop evidence and conclusions as part of the research process. Action research offers a postmodernist stance to epistemology (theory of knowledge) and supports developing questions and new inquiries during the research process. In this way action research is an emergent process that allows beliefs and decisions to be negotiated as reality and meaning are being constructed in the socially mediated space of the classroom.

Theorizing Action Research for the Classroom

All research, at its core, is for the purpose of generating new knowledge and contributing to the knowledge base of educational research. Action researchers in the classroom want to explore methods of improving their pedagogy and practice. The starting place of their inquiry stems from their pedagogy and practice, so by nature the knowledge created from their inquiry is often contextually specific to their classroom, school, or community. Therefore, we should examine the theoretical underpinnings of action research for the classroom. It is important to connect action research conceptually to experience; for example, Levin and Greenwood (2001, p. 105) make these connections:

• Action research is context bound and addresses real life problems.
• Action research is inquiry where participants and researchers cogenerate knowledge through collaborative communicative processes in which all participants’ contributions are taken seriously.
• The meanings constructed in the inquiry process lead to social action or these reflections and action lead to the construction of new meanings.
• The credibility/validity of action research knowledge is measured according to whether the actions that arise from it solve problems (workability) and increase participants’ control over their own situation.

Educators who engage in action research will generate new knowledge and beliefs based on their experiences in the classroom. Let us emphasize that these are all important to you and your work, as both an educator and researcher. It is these experiences, beliefs, and theories that are often discounted when more official forms of knowledge (e.g., textbooks, curriculum standards, districts standards) are prioritized. These beliefs and theories based on experiences should be valued and explored further, and this is one of the primary purposes of action research in the classroom. These beliefs and theories should be valued because they were meaningful aspects of knowledge constructed from teachers’ experiences. Developing meaning and knowledge in this way forms the basis of constructivist ideology, just as teachers often try to get their students to construct their own meanings and understandings when experiencing new ideas.  

Classroom Teachers Constructing their Own Knowledge

Most of you are probably at least minimally familiar with constructivism, or the process of constructing knowledge. However, what is constructivism precisely, for the purposes of action research? Many scholars have theorized constructivism and have identified two key attributes (Koshy, 2010; von Glasersfeld, 1987):

• Knowledge is not passively received, but actively developed through an individual’s cognition;
• Human cognition is adaptive and finds purpose in organizing the new experiences of the world, instead of settling for absolute or objective truth.

Considering these two attributes, constructivism is distinct from conventional knowledge formation because people can develop a theory of knowledge that orders and organizes the world based on their experiences, instead of an objective or neutral reality. When individuals construct knowledge, there are interactions between an individual and their environment where communication, negotiation and meaning-making are collectively developing knowledge. For most educators, constructivism may be a natural inclination of their pedagogy. Action researchers have a similar relationship to constructivism because they are actively engaged in a process of constructing knowledge. However, their constructions may be more formal and based on the data they collect in the research process. Action researchers also are engaged in the meaning making process, making interpretations from their data. These aspects of the action research process situate them in the constructivist ideology. Just like constructivist educators, action researchers’ constructions of knowledge will be affected by their individual and professional ideas and values, as well as the ecological context in which they work (Biesta & Tedder, 2006). The relations between constructivist inquiry and action research is important, as Lincoln (2001, p. 130) states:

much of the epistemological, ontological, and axiological belief systems are the same or similar, and methodologically, constructivists and action researchers work in similar ways, relying on qualitative methods in face-to-face work, while buttressing information, data and background with quantitative method work when necessary or useful.

While there are many links between action research and educators in the classroom, constructivism offers the most familiar and practical threads to bind the beliefs of educators and action researchers.  

Epistemology, Ontology, and Action Research

It is also important for educators to consider the philosophical stances related to action research to better situate it with their beliefs and reality. When researchers make decisions about the methodology they intend to use, they will consider their ontological and epistemological stances. It is vital that researchers clearly distinguish their philosophical stances and understand the implications of their stance in the research process, especially when collecting and analyzing their data. In what follows, we will discuss ontological and epistemological stances in relation to action research methodology.

Ontology, or the theory of being, is concerned with the claims or assumptions we make about ourselves within our social reality – what do we think exists, what does it look like, what entities are involved and how do these entities interact with each other (Blaikie, 2007). In relation to the discussion of constructivism, generally action researchers would consider their educational reality as socially constructed. Social construction of reality happens when individuals interact in a social system. Meaningful construction of concepts and representations of reality develop through an individual’s interpretations of others’ actions. These interpretations become agreed upon by members of a social system and become part of social fabric, reproduced as knowledge and beliefs to develop assumptions about reality. Researchers develop meaningful constructions based on their experiences and through communication. Educators as action researchers will be examining the socially constructed reality of schools. In the United States, many of our concepts, knowledge, and beliefs about schooling have been socially constructed over the last hundred years. For example, a group of teachers may look at why fewer female students enroll in upper-level science courses at their school. This question deals directly with the social construction of gender and specifically what careers females have been conditioned to pursue. We know this is a social construction in some school social systems because in other parts of the world, or even the United States, there are schools that have more females enrolled in upper level science courses than male students. Therefore, the educators conducting the research have to recognize the socially constructed reality of their school and consider this reality throughout the research process. Action researchers will use methods of data collection that support their ontological stance and clarify their theoretical stance throughout the research process.

Koshy (2010, p. 23-24) offers another example of addressing the ontological challenges in the classroom:

A teacher who was concerned with increasing her pupils’ motivation and enthusiasm for learning decided to introduce learning diaries which the children could take home. They were invited to record their reactions to the day’s lessons and what they had learnt. The teacher reported in her field diary that the learning diaries stimulated the children’s interest in her lessons, increased their capacity to learn, and generally improved their level of participation in lessons. The challenge for the teacher here is in the analysis and interpretation of the multiplicity of factors accompanying the use of diaries. The diaries were taken home so the entries may have been influenced by discussions with parents. Another possibility is that children felt the need to please their teacher. Another possible influence was that their increased motivation was as a result of the difference in style of teaching which included more discussions in the classroom based on the entries in the dairies.

Here you can see the challenge for the action researcher is working in a social context with multiple factors, values, and experiences that were outside of the teacher’s control. The teacher was only responsible for introducing the diaries as a new style of learning. The students’ engagement and interactions with this new style of learning were all based upon their socially constructed notions of learning inside and outside of the classroom. A researcher with a positivist ontological stance would not consider these factors, and instead might simply conclude that the dairies increased motivation and interest in the topic, as a result of introducing the diaries as a learning strategy.

Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, signifies a philosophical view of what counts as knowledge – it justifies what is possible to be known and what criteria distinguishes knowledge from beliefs (Blaikie, 1993). Positivist researchers, for example, consider knowledge to be certain and discovered through scientific processes. Action researchers collect data that is more subjective and examine personal experience, insights, and beliefs.

Action researchers utilize interpretation as a means for knowledge creation. Action researchers have many epistemologies to choose from as means of situating the types of knowledge they will generate by interpreting the data from their research. For example, Koro-Ljungberg et al., (2009) identified several common epistemologies in their article that examined epistemological awareness in qualitative educational research, such as: objectivism, subjectivism, constructionism, contextualism, social epistemology, feminist epistemology, idealism, naturalized epistemology, externalism, relativism, skepticism, and pluralism. All of these epistemological stances have implications for the research process, especially data collection and analysis. Please see the table on pages 689-90, linked below for a sketch of these potential implications:

Again, Koshy (2010, p. 24) provides an excellent example to illustrate the epistemological challenges within action research:

A teacher of 11-year-old children decided to carry out an action research project which involved a change in style in teaching mathematics. Instead of giving children mathematical tasks displaying the subject as abstract principles, she made links with other subjects which she believed would encourage children to see mathematics as a discipline that could improve their understanding of the environment and historic events. At the conclusion of the project, the teacher reported that applicable mathematics generated greater enthusiasm and understanding of the subject.

The educator/researcher engaged in action research-based inquiry to improve an aspect of her pedagogy. She generated knowledge that indicated she had improved her students’ understanding of mathematics by integrating it with other subjects – specifically in the social and ecological context of her classroom, school, and community. She valued constructivism and students generating their own understanding of mathematics based on related topics in other subjects. Action researchers working in a social context do not generate certain knowledge, but knowledge that emerges and can be observed and researched again, building upon their knowledge each time.

Researcher Positionality in Action Research

In this first chapter, we have discussed a lot about the role of experiences in sparking the research process in the classroom. Your experiences as an educator will shape how you approach action research in your classroom. Your experiences as a person in general will also shape how you create knowledge from your research process. In particular, your experiences will shape how you make meaning from your findings. It is important to be clear about your experiences when developing your methodology too. This is referred to as researcher positionality. Maher and Tetreault (1993, p. 118) define positionality as:

Gender, race, class, and other aspects of our identities are markers of relational positions rather than essential qualities. Knowledge is valid when it includes an acknowledgment of the knower’s specific position in any context, because changing contextual and relational factors are crucial for defining identities and our knowledge in any given situation.

By presenting your positionality in the research process, you are signifying the type of socially constructed, and other types of, knowledge you will be using to make sense of the data. As Maher and Tetreault explain, this increases the trustworthiness of your conclusions about the data. This would not be possible with a positivist ontology. We will discuss positionality more in chapter 6, but we wanted to connect it to the overall theoretical underpinnings of action research.

Advantages of Engaging in Action Research in the Classroom

In the following chapters, we will discuss how action research takes shape in your classroom, and we wanted to briefly summarize the key advantages to action research methodology over other types of research methodology. As Koshy (2010, p. 25) notes, action research provides useful methodology for school and classroom research because:

Advantages of Action Research for the Classroom

• research can be set within a specific context or situation;
• researchers can be participants – they don’t have to be distant and detached from the situation;
• it involves continuous evaluation and modifications can be made easily as the project progresses;
• there are opportunities for theory to emerge from the research rather than always follow a previously formulated theory;
• the study can lead to open-ended outcomes;
• through action research, a researcher can bring a story to life.

Action Research Copyright © by J. Spencer Clark; Suzanne Porath; Julie Thiele; and Morgan Jobe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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38 Action research – how and why action research in ECE, Steps in action research

K. Srividya

1.   INTRODUCTION:

There is many issues pertaining to early childhood, with regard to the schools, problems within the schools, teaching practices and the target group. There is a need to address these issues by the teachers, care takers, facilitators and other persons concerned in this field. Looking at the problems is just the start, but looking for reasonable solutions, within certain constrains matters a lot. To look in problems and come up with solutions one needs to follow an approach and that is called as action research.

Action research is a form of research or a study, that is carried out during the course of an action. ‘Action’ refers to an activity or an occupation, or a classroom transaction between teacher and students, employees involved in a project work and so on. Action research is carried out to improve the quality of life of the people involved in the research as well as the researcher. Action research helps change one thought processes, actions and gives new direction.

Action research is a process of systematic inquiry that seeks to improve social issues affecting the lives of everyday people (Bogdan & Bilken, 1992; Lewin, 1938; 1946; Stringer, 2008). Action research is found to be practiced by people in the field of education. Let’s learn in general about action research to get more understanding and then it’s importance in the field of Early Childhood Education.

2.   LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• To understand action research and its process, and the steps to be followed to conduct action research.
• Understand the importance of action research.
•  Helps the learner to apply action research in everyday classroom transactions with children belonging to early childhood years.
• Identifying problem areas, to improve the quality of teaching – learning approaches practiced in the classroom.
• HISTORY OF ACTION RESEARCH

Kurt Lewin, a social psychologist, was the first person to coin the term ‘action research’ during the 1940’s. Stephen Corey was the first person to use action research in the field of education. During it’s genesis, action research was not approved by the researchers and was termed as ‘unscientific’, because it can be used by common man for any purpose. But again in the 1970’s action research picked up momentum and practitioners started rationalising it applicability in the field of scientific research designs and methodologies.

Over the years, action research has been defined in many different ways, and has acquired new meanings.

• ACTION RESEARCH – A NEW MEANING

    Action research is a systematic inquiry, whose aim is to answer questions of any practitioner of local concern which does not require any training.

Action research aims to contribute both to the practical concerns of people in an immediate problematic situation and to the goals of social science by joint collaboration within a mutually acceptable ethical framework. (Rapoport, 1970, p. 499)

A general term to refer to research methodologies and projects where the researcher(s) tries to directly improve the participating organization(s) and, at the same time, to generate scientific knowledge. (Kock, 1997)

EXERCISE 1: SELF CHECK QUESTIONS

• ______________ was the first person to coin the term action research. Ans: Kurt Lewin
• Action research can be used only in the field of education. True or False Ans: False

   5.1    Identifying the problem – problems can be numerous, but it is very important to identify the pressing issue that needs to be addresses. Planning starts at this stage as soon as the problem has been identified.

5.2    Data collection – collecting the relevant data from various sources is an important factor to understand the problem identified by the researcher. Data can be collected in the form of interviews, observations, diaries, photos, videos, questionnaires.

5.3    Analysing the data collected – the data collected has to be categorised and analysed qualitatively or quantitatively .

5.4    Action plan – depending upon the analysis of data, the researcher will have plan the nature of intervention that needs to be given to address the problem identified through data collection.

5.5    Applying the action plan – once the action plan is finalised, it has to be applied to test the efficiency of the plan as well to observe any changes in the subjects involved in the action research process.

5.6    Analysis of the action plan – to test the efficiency of the action plan, data can be collected, analysed and evaluated.

5.7    Plan future action – evaluation of the action plan will help the researcher in knowing the efficiency of the action and will help define further actions that can be taken if needed.

6.      VARIOUS MODELS OF ACTION RESEARCH

The steps followed in action research are all similar to the few models given below;

EXERCISE 2: SELF CHECK QUESTIONS

1.Write the correct sequence of steps in action research.

Data collection, analysing, identifying problem, future action plan, applying action plan.

Ans: Identifying problem, data collection, analysing, applying action plan and future action plan.

7. GIVEN BELOW IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE PROCESS OF ACTION RESEARCH IN A CLASROOM SETTING

7.1  Identifying the problem – A teacher finds that some children in her classroom are not able to follow instructions given by her for writing alphabets in spite of having been given learning experiences previously. So the first step has been taken in identifying the problem

7.2 Data collection – now the teacher will have to look in her teaching methods, and also try and find any commanalities in the particular group of children who are facing the problem. Get data from other teachers who are handing the classes, compare their data with yours. Collect the note books, any dairy entries and teaching methods followed. Also look for any developmental delays.

7.3  Analysing the data collected – once the data is ready, the teacher will be able to find the root cause of the problem, by making comparisions qualitatively or quantitatively.

7.4  Planning and applying the action plan – if for example the cause of the problem differences in teaching method, the teacher will have to make a plan to change her teaching method, and the change has to be implemented at a slow pace so that the other children will also not feel change. The plan has to be followed for a certain time duration to get results and it requires the patience of the teacher.

7.5  Analysis of the action plan – once the teacher feels that his/her action plan has brought in the desirable changes, the teacher will have to collect data to analyse the success of the action plan. This data can be again note books of children, periodic assessments, and also anecdotes from other teachers.

7.6  Plan for future action – from the analysis the teacher finds an improvement in the learning of the children, he/she can recommend the action to other teachers, share results and so on. The teacher can also improvise the action plan for any future purpose also.

8.  WRITING ACTION RESEARCH REPORTS

It is very important to document all the research process, and so it is important to know the steps in writing an action research report which is similar to the methods used in other forms of research. Given below is a very generalised way of writing action report.

8.1  Introduction – an introduction which informs any person reaading the report about the topic of research choosed. The introduction define all the variables and also answer the reason for conducting the research.

8.2   Review of related literature – presenting releated research studies, articles will make the research strong as well acts as a support for the report. The research articles must be related to the problem defined by the investigator.

8.3  Methodology –aim, objectives and hypothesis of the study has to be defined. Terminologies used in the research process has to be defined. A detail description of the tools used to collect data for the study, the sample size and subjects taken up for the study, statistical analysis if applied.

8.4  Intervention – a detail description of how the action plan will be planned and executed by the researcher. The researcher can prepare modules, or use mapping technique, can use various art form methods to see the effects of the action plan.

8.5  Interpretation – the data collected has to be tabulated, graphs can be used as an extra source of analysis results and the results obtained has to discussed with supportive reseach studies.

8.6  Summary and conclusion – the report will be summarised and concluded, with recommendations for future research. Care has to be taken to put the references and appendix.

9.  CHARACTERISTICS OF ACTION RESEARCH

• Focuses on the problem that needs to be addressed immediately and finding solutions as quickly as possible.
• Action research does not look at creating theories of making any general statements.
• Through action research one can improve one’s own practices, bring a change in the community as well in the work environment.
• Action research is not back breaking and needs very little resources and finances.
• Practicality of the purpose is given a lot of focus.
• There is no set rules to be followed, the researcher can set his/her own rules and frameworks.
• Action research is a collaborative and dynamic research involving a lot of action and sharing of results.

10.  ADVANTAGES OF ACTION RESEARCH

• Anybody can use action research.
• Action research helps researchers, eucators get concere data, and not just rely on others preferences and doubts.
• Action research addresses both the quality of learning outcome gained as well as professional growth.
• A very beautiful aspect of action research research is that there action happening alomost immediately after the recognition of the problem and leads to change in the surrounding.
• At a classroom level, action research leads to developing lots of various teaching-learning techniques, which will encourage students and teachers to practice inquiry based teaching and learning.

11.  DISADVANTAGES OF ACTION RESEARCH

• The findings of one researcher/educator cannot be generalised for everyone. The same issue can be overcome in a very different approach by another researcher/educator.
• Obstacles and delays maybe faced by the researcher/educator due to various reasons.
• There are various models avaliable, which can add to the confusion of the researcher/educator in choosing an appropriate model.
• Action research is prone to lot of bias.

12.  METHODS OF APPLYING ACTION RESEARCH IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

There are three ways of conducting action research in an educational set up as given by Ferrance (2000);

12.1 Individual teacher research –a single teacher takes charge of doing the research study. The statement of research problem, methods of data collection, analysis, action plan and evaluation depends on the single teacher. The outcomes of the research can be shared with other staff and can be used also.

12.2 Collaborative action research – a team of two or more investigators is formed. The team may include teachers, principal, other officials and so on. Tasks are divided amongst the team members after the research problem has been identified. The team will be meeting regularly to discuss the progress. The group follows the same process of data collection, analysis, action plan, evaluation and will share the outcomes of the research which can be made susceptible to future changes.

12.3 School wide action research – involves every person who is involved with the institution. This action research is usually a long term project with the aim of bringing in changes into the entire system of the institution. For example, if the school has to change the curriculum, the higher authorities of the school will have to identify issues with the current curriculum and bring in experts to suggest their opinions about different curriculum. Groups will be formed, who will work in the same level of collaborative action research. Care should be taken that, the action plan must be feasible for both teachers and the students. Once this issue is addressed, the results should be shared with all the members of the school. Once the action plan has been set and starts functioning, care should be taken to assess it periodically and give sufficient time for the whole school to reform on the changes.

EXERCISE 3: SELF CHECK QUESTIONS.

    1.      Anybody cannot do action research. True of False Ans: False

2.      ___________ is a method where only one person is involved in the action research process.

Ans: Individual teacher research.

13.  NEED FOR ACTION RESEARCH IN ECE

According to UNESCO, Early Childhood Care and Education is an integral part of basic education and represents the first and essential step in achieving the goals of Education-for-All. It is a very well known fact that early years are most crucial years of a child’s life. Therefore improving the quality of life of children by providing adequate nourishment, care, giving importance to the cognitive, social, psychological and emotional development has become a major concern for educators in the field of early childhood. Given below are few points where action research can help in the field of ECE;

• Access to early childhood care and education.
• Preparation for school readiness. Transitions are one of the most difficult phases the child passes through, which is very stressful and the child faces a lot of anxiety. To help children overcome this action research is a way to address.
• Improvement of early childhood curricula, programmes and policies.
• Bring about changes in the early childhood education training programmes.
• Application of theory into practice. There are many theoretical perspectives of learning which can be applied in classrooms for which can use action research to test best theories that can used in classrooms.
• To address delays in development. All children go through the same develomental process, but the rate of development is unique to every single child. If the teacher comes across any of these issues steps can be taken through action research the means to address these issues.
• To educate the imporance of play as a medium of learning and teaching children through art forms. Play are in many forms, every type of play gives a hands on learning experience to the children. Rhymes, stories, drammatisation, creative activities are also another froms of learning, through which the teacher can learn to innovate by using action research.

 Action research is a matter of pressing demand in the field of education and cannot be taken for granted. It is very important to acknowledge the quality and quantity of work that goes into action research. One’s task is accomplised when the effects of the action research is visible in the classroom. It is very important on the part of educators who have used action research to enlighten their co-fellows about the importance practising action research in classroom. The early childhood years are also called as a vital and foundational years because of the vulnerablity of this age group. The education to children at this age is what stays throughout.

Action research is conducted in the field of education to improve quality of education programmes, improve schools and teaching learning environments. It is always a challenge to meet the standards of community, and to meet it, there is a need to encourage research, experimentation and inquiry. Being in an era of technological advancements there is a need for educators to practice, recreate the prevailing systems, and hence a right time to put action research into practice.

• E.F(2000).ACTIONRESEARCH.NortheastandIslandsRegionalEducationalLaboratory.From https://www.brown.edu/academics/education  alliance/sites/brown.edu.academics.educationalliance/files/publications/act_research.pdf
• Hine, G. (2013). The importance of action research in teacher education programs. Issues in Educational Research,23(151),2ndser.Retrieved May & june, 2017, from  http://www.iier.org.au/iier23/hine.pdf Mertler,C. (2009).Actionresearch.ThousandOaks, California,USA:SagePublications,Inc. From https://www.slideshare.net/trudythorson/action-research-15184448

Embrace Action Research

Improve classroom practice with action research ... and tell the story

The action research process can help you understand what is happening in your classroom and identify changes that improve teaching and learning. Action research can help answer questions you have about the effectiveness of specific instructional strategies, the performance of specific students, and classroom management techniques.

Educational research often seems removed from the realities of the classroom. For many classroom educators, formal experimental research, including the use of a control group, seems to contradict the mandate to improve learning for all students. Even quasi-experimental research with no control group seems difficult to implement, given the variety of learners and diverse learning needs present in every classroom.

Action research gives you the benefits of research in the classroom without these obstacles. Believe it or not, you are probably doing some form of research already. Every time you change a lesson plan or try a new approach with your students, you are engaged in trying to figure out what works. Even though you may not acknowledge it as formal research, you are still investigating, implementing, reflecting, and refining your approach.

Qualitative research acknowledges the complexity of the classroom learning environment. While quantitative research can help us see that improvements or declines have occurred, it does not help us identify the causes of those improvements or declines. Action research provides qualitative data you can use to adjust your curriculum content, delivery, and instructional practices to improve student learning. Action research helps you implement informed change!

The term “action research” was coined by Kurt Lewin in 1944 to describe a process of investigation and inquiry that occurs as action is taken to solve a problem. Today we use the term to describe a practice of reflective inquiry undertaken with the goal of improving understanding and practice. You might consider “action” to refer to the change you are trying to implement and “research” to refer to your improved understanding of the learning environment.

Action research also helps you take charge of your personal professional development. As you reflect on your own actions and observe other master teachers, you will identify the skills and strategies you would like to add to your own professional toolbox. As you research potential solutions and are exposed to new ideas, you will identify the skills, management, and instructional training needed to make the changes you want to see.

The Action Research Cycle

Action research is a cycle of inquiry and reflection. During the process, you will determine 1) where you are, 2) where you want to be, and 3) how you are going to get there. In general terms, the cycle follows these steps:

• Identify the problem and envision success
• Develop a plan of action
• Collect data
• Analyze data and form conclusions
• Modify your theory and repeat the cycle
• Report the results

Identify the Problem

The process begins when you identify a question or problem you want to address. Action research is most successful when you have a personal investment, so make sure the questions you are asking are ones YOU want to solve. This could be an improvement you want to see happen in your classroom (or your school if you are a principal), or a problem you and your colleagues would like to address in your district.

Learning to develop the right questions takes time. Your ability to identify these key questions will improve with each iteration of the research cycle. You want to select a question that isn’t so broad it is almost impossible to answer or so narrow that the only answer is yes or no. Choose questions that can be answered within the context of your daily teaching. In other words, choose a question that is both answerable and worthy of the time investment required to learn the answer.

Questions you could ask might involve management issues, curriculum implementation, instructional strategies, or specific student performance. For example, you might consider:

• How successful is random grouping for project work?
• Why is the performance of one student lacking in a particular area?
• Will increasing the amount of feedback I provide improve students’ writing skills?
• What is the best way to introduce the concept of fractions?
• Which procedure is most effective for managing classroom conflict?

Determining the question helps focus your inquiry.

Before you can start collecting data, you need to have a clear vision of what success looks like. Start by brainstorming words that describe the change you want to see. What strategies do you already know that might help you get there? Which of these ideas do you think might work better than what you are currently doing?

To find out if a new instructional strategy is worth trying, conduct a review of literature. This doesn’t have to mean writing up a formal lit review like you did in graduate school. The important thing is to explore a range of articles and reports on your topic and capitalize on the research and experience of others. Your classroom responsibilities are already many and may be overwhelming. A review of literature can help you identify useful strategies and locate information that helps you justify your action plan.

The Web makes literature reviews easier to accomplish than ever before. Even if the full text of an article, research paper, or abstract is not available online, you will be able to find citations to help you locate the source materials at your local library. Collect as much information on your problem as you can find. As you explore the existing literature, you will certainly find solutions and strategies that others have implemented to solve this problem. You may want to create a visual map or a table of your problems and target performances with a list of potential solutions and supporting citations in the middle.

Develop an Action Plan

Now that you have identified the problem, described your vision of how to successfully solve it, and reviewed the pertinent literature, you need to develop a plan of action. What is it that you intend to DO? Brainstorming and reviewing the literature should have provided you with ideas for new techniques and strategies you think will produce better results. Refer back to your visual map or table and color-code or reorder your potential solutions. You will want to rank them in order of importance and indicate the amount of time you will need to spend on these strategies.

How can you implement these techniques? How will you? Translate these solutions into concrete steps you can and will take in your classroom. Write a description of how you will implement each idea and the time you will take to do it.

Once you have a clear vision of a potential solution to the problem, explore factors you think might be keeping you and your students from your vision of success. Recognize and accept those factors you do not have the power to change–they are the constants in your equation. Focus your attention on the variables–the parts of the formula you believe your actions can impact.

Develop a plan that shows how you will implement your solution and how your behavior, management style, and instruction will address each of the variables. Sometimes an action research cycle simply helps you identify variables you weren’t even aware of, so you can better address your problem during the next cycle!

Collect Data

Before you begin to implement your plan of action, you need to determine what data will help you understand if your plan succeeds, and how you will collect that data. Your target performances will help you determine what you want to achieve. What results or other indicators will help you know if you achieved it? For example, if your goal is improved attendance, data can easily be collected from your attendance records. If the goal is increased time on task, the data may include classroom and student observations.

There are many options for collecting data. Choosing the best methodologies for collecting information will result in more accurate, meaningful, and reliable data.

Obvious sources of data include observation and interviews. As you observe, you will want to type or write notes or dictate your observations into a cell phone, iPod, or PDA. You may want to keep a journal during the process, or even create a blog or wiki to practice your technology skills as you collect data.

Reflective journals are often used as a source of data for action research. You can also collect meaningful data from other records you deal with daily, including attendance logs, grade reports, and student portfolios. You could distribute questionnaires, watch videotapes of your classroom, and administer surveys. Examples of student work are also performances you can evaluate to see if your goal is being met.

Create a plan for data collection and follow it as you perform your research. If you are going to interview students or other teachers, how many times will you do it? At what times during the day? How will you ensure your respondents are representative of the student population you are studying, including gender, ability level, experience, and expertise?

Your plan will help you ensure that you have collected data from many different sources. Each source of data provides additional information that will help you answer the questions in your research plan.

You may also want to have students collect data on their own learning. Not only does this provide you with additional research assistants, it empowers students to take control of their own learning. As students keep a journal during the process, they are also reflecting on the learning environment and their own learning process.

Analyze Data and Form Conclusions

The next step in the process is to analyze your data and form conclusions. Start early! Examining the data during the collection process can help you refine your action plan. Is the data you are collecting sufficient? If not, you have an opportunity to revise your data collection plan. Your analysis of the data will also help you identify attitudes and performances to look for during subsequent observations.

Analyzing the data also helps you reflect on what actually happened. Did you achieve the outcomes you were hoping for? Where you able to carry out your actions as planned? Were any of your assumptions about the problem incorrect?

Adding data such as opinions, attitudes, and grades to tables can help you identify trends (relationships and correlations). For example, if you are completing action research to determine if project-based learning is impacting student motivation, graphing attendance and disruptive behavior incidents may help you answer the question. A graph that shows an increase in attendance and a decrease in the number of disruptive incidents over the implementation period would lead you to believe that motivation was improved.

Draw tentative conclusions from your analysis. Since the goal of action research is positive change, you want to try to identify specific behaviors that move you closer to your vision of success. That way you can adjust your actions to better achieve your goal of improved student learning.

Action research is an iterative process. The data you collect and your analysis of it will affect how you approach the problem and implement your action plan during the next cycle.

Even as you begin drawing conclusions, continue collecting data. This will help you confirm your conclusions or revise them in light of new information. While you can plan how long and often you will collect data, you may also want to continue collecting until the trends have been identified and new data becomes redundant.

As you are analyzing your data and drawing conclusions, share your findings. Discussing your results with another teacher can often yield valuable feedback. You might also share your findings with your students who can also add additional insight. If they agree with your conclusions, you have added credibility to your data collection plan and analysis. If they disagree, you will know to reevaluate your conclusions or refine your data collection plan.

Modify Your Theory and Repeat

Now that you have formed a final conclusion, the cycle begins again. In light of your findings, you should have adjusted your theory or made it more specific. Modify your plan of action, begin collecting data again, or begin asking new questions!

Report the Results

While the ultimate goal of your research is to promote effective change in your classroom or schools, do not underestimate the value of sharing your findings with others. Sharing your results helps you further reflect on the process and problem, and it allows others to use your results to help them in their own endeavors to improve the education of their students.

You can report your findings in many different ways. You most certainly will want to share the experience with your students, parents, teachers, and principal. Provide them with an overview of the process and share highlights from your research journal. Because each of these audiences is different, you will need to adjust the content and delivery of the information each time you share. You may also want to present your process at a conference so educators from other districts can benefit from your work.

As your skill with the action research cycle gets stronger, you may want to develop an abstract and submit an article to an educational journal. To write an abstract, state the problem you were trying to solve, describe your context, detail your action plan and methods, summarize your findings, state your conclusions, and explain your revised action plan.

If your question focused on the implementation of an action plan to improve the performance of a particular student, what better way to show the process and results than through digital storytelling? Using a tool like Wixie , you can share images, audio, artifacts and more to show the student’s journey. Action research is outside-the-box thinking… so find similarly unique ways to report your findings!

All teachers want to reach their students more effectively and help them become better learners and citizens. Action research provides a reflective process you can use to implement changes in your classroom and determine if those changes result in the desired outcome.

Your ideas and experience combined with action research are a powerful formula for effective change!

Grady, M.P. (1998). Qualitative and Action Research. Bloomington: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.

Sagor, R. (2005). The Action Research Handbook. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.

by Melinda Kolk

Melinda Kolk ( @melindak ) is the Editor of Creative Educator and the author of Teaching with Clay Animation . She has been helping educators implement project-based learning and creative technologies like clay animation into classroom teaching and learning for the past 15 years.

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Action research in the classroom: A teacher's guide

November 26, 2021

Discover best practices for action research in the classroom, guiding teachers on implementing and facilitating impactful studies in schools.

Main, P (2021, November 26). Action research in the classroom: A teacher's guide. Retrieved from https://www.structural-learning.com/post/action-research-in-the-classroom-a-teachers-guide

What is action research?

Action research is a participatory process designed to empower educators to examine and improve their own practice. It is characterized by a cycle of planning , action, observation, and reflection, with the goal of achieving a deeper understanding of practice within educational contexts. This process encourages a wide range of approaches and can be adapted to various social contexts.

At its core, action research involves critical reflection on one's actions as a basis for improvement. Senior leaders and teachers are guided to reflect on their educational strategies , classroom management, and student engagement techniques. It's a collaborative effort that often involves not just the teachers but also the students and other stakeholders, fostering an inclusive process that values the input of all participants.

The action research process is iterative, with each cycle aiming to bring about a clearer understanding and improvement in practice. It typically begins with the identification of real-world problems within the school environment, followed by a circle of planning where strategies are developed to address these issues. The implementation of these strategies is then observed and documented, often through journals or participant observation, allowing for reflection and analysis.

The insights gained from action research contribute to Organization Development, enhancing the quality of teaching and learning. This approach is strongly aligned with the principles of Quality Assurance in Education, ensuring that the actions taken are effective and responsive to the needs of the school community.

Educators can share their findings in community forums or through publications in journals, contributing to the wider theory about practice . Tertiary education sector often draws on such studies to inform teacher training and curriculum development.

In summary, the significant parts of action research include:

• A continuous cycle of planning, action, observation, and reflection.
• A focus on reflective practice to achieve a deeper understanding of educational methodologies.
• A commitment to inclusive and participatory processes that engage the entire school community.

Creating an action research project

The action research process usually begins with a situation or issue that a teacher wants to change as part of school improvement initiatives .

Teachers get support in changing the ' interesting issue ' into a 'researchable question' and then taking to experiment. The teacher will draw on the outcomes of other researchers to help build actions and reveal the consequences .

Participatory action research is a strategy to the enquiry which has been utilised since the 1940s. Participatory action involves researchers and other participants taking informed action to gain knowledge of a problematic situation and change it to bring a positive effect. As an action researcher , a teacher carries out research . Enquiring into their practice would lead a teacher to question the norms and assumptions that are mostly overlooked in normal school life . Making a routine of inquiry can provide a commitment to learning and professional development . A teacher-researcher holds the responsibility for being the source and agent of change.

Examples of action research projects in education include a teacher working with students to improve their reading comprehension skills , a group of teachers collaborating to develop and implement a new curriculum, or a school administrator conducting a study on the effectiveness of a school-wide behavior management program.

In each of these cases, the research is aimed at improving the educational experience for students and addressing a specific issue or problem within the school community . Action research can be a powerful tool for educators to improve their practice and make a positive impact on their students' learning.

Potential research questions could include:

• How can dual-coding be used to improve my students memory ?
• Does mind-mapping lead to creativity?
• How does Oracy improve my classes writing?
• How can we advance critical thinking in year 10?
• How can graphic organisers be used for exam preparation?

Regardless of the types of action research your staff engage in, a solid cycle of inquiry is an essential aspect of the action research spiral. Building in the process of reflection will ensure that key points of learning can be extracted from the action research study.

What is an action research cycle?

Action research in education is a cycle of reflection and action inquiry , which follows these steps:

1. Identifying the problem

It is the first stage of action research that starts when a teacher identifies a problem or question that they want to address. To make an a ction research approach successful, the teacher needs to ensure that the questions are the ones 'they' wish to solve. Their questions might involve social sciences, instructional strategies, everyday life and social management issues, guide for students analytical research methods for improving specific student performance or curriculum implementation etc. Teachers may seek help from a wide variety of existing literature , to find strategies and solutions that others have executed to solve any particular problem. It is also suggested to build a visual map or a table of problems, target performances, potential solutions and supporting references in the middle.

2. Developing an Action Plan

After identifying the problem, after r eviewing the relevant literature and describing the vision of how to solve the problem; the next step would be action planning which means to develop a plan of action . Action planning involves studying the literature and brainstorming can be used by the action research planner to create new techniques and strategies that can generate better results of both action learning and action research. One may go back to the visual map or table of contents and reorder or colour-code the potential outcomes. The items in the list can be ranked in order of significance and the amount of time needed for these strategies.

An action plan has the details of how to implement each idea and the factors that may keep them from their vision of success . Identify those factors that cannot be changed –these are the constants in an equation. The focus of action research at the planning stage must remain focused on the variables –the factors that can be changed using actions. An action plan must be how to implement a solution and how one's instruction, management style, and behaviour will affect each of the variables.

3. Data Collection

Before starting to implement a plan of action , the researcher must have a complete understanding of action research and must have knowledge of the type of data that may help in the success of the plan and must assess how to collect that data. For instance, if the goal is to improve class attendance, attendance records must be collected as useful data for the participatory action. If the goal is to improve time management, the data may include students and classroom observations . There are many options to choose from to collect data from. Selecting the most suitable methodology for data collection will provide more meaningful , accurate and valid data. Some sources of data are interviews and observation. Also, one may administer surveys , distribute questionnaires and watch videotapes of the classroom to collect data.

4. Data Analysis and Conclusions

At this action stage, an action researcher analyses the collected data and concludes. It is suggested to assess the data during the predefined process of data collection as it will help refine the action research agenda. If the collected data seems insufficient , the data collection plan must be revised. Data analysis also helps to reflect on what exactly happened. Did the action researcher perform the actions as planned? Were the study outcomes as expected? Which assumptions of the action researcher proved to be incorrect?

Adding details such as tables, opinions, and recommendations can help in identifying trends (correlations and relationships). One must share the findings while analysing data and drawing conclusions . Engaging in conversations for teacher growth is essential; hence, the action researcher would share the findings with other teachers through discussion of action research, who can yield useful feedback. One may also share the findings with students, as they can also provide additional insight . For example, if teachers and students agree with the conclusions of action research for educational change, it adds to the credibility of the data collection plan and analysis. If they don't seem to agree with the data collection plan and analysis , the action researchers may take informed action and refine the data collection plan and reevaluate conclusions .

5. Modifying the Educational Theory and Repeat

After concluding, the process begins again. The teacher can adjust different aspects of the action research approach to theory or make it more specific according to the findings . Action research guides how to change the steps of action research development, how to modify the action plan , and provide better access to resources, start data collection once again, or prepare new questions to ask from the respondents.

6. Report the Findings

Since the main approach to action research involves the informed action to introduce useful change into the classroom or schools, one must not forget to share the outcomes with others. Sharing the outcomes would help to further reflect on the problem and process, and it would help other teachers to use these findings to enhance their professional practice as an educator. One may print book and share the experience with the school leaders, principal, teachers and students as they served as guide to action research. Or, a community action researcher may present community-based action research at a conference so people from other areas can take advantage of this collaborative action. Also, teachers may use a digital storytelling tool to outline their results.

There are plenty of creative tools we can use to bring the research projects to life. We have seen videos, podcasts and research posters all being used to communicate the results of these programs. Community action research is a unique way to present details of the community-related adventures in the teacher profession, cultivate expertise and show how teachers think about education , so it is better to find unique ways to report the findings of community-led action research.

Final thoughts on action-research for teachers

As we have seen, action research can be an effective form of professional development, illuminating the path for teachers and school leaders seeking to refine their craft. This cyclical process of inquiry and reflection is not merely a methodological pursuit but a profound professional journey. The definition of action research, as a systematic inquiry conducted by teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders in the teaching/learning environment, emphasizes the collaborative nature of improving educational strategies and outcomes.

Action research transcends traditional disciplinary practices by immersing educators in the social contexts of their work, prompting them to question and adapt their methods to meet the evolving needs of their students . It is a form of reflective practice that demands critical thinking and flexibility, as one navigates through the iterative stages of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting.

The process of action research is inherently participatory, encouraging educators to engage with their learning communities to address key issues and social issues that impact educational settings. This method empowers professionals within universities and schools alike to take ownership of their learning and development, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and participatory approaches.

In summary, action research encapsulates the essence of what it means to be a learning professional in a dynamic educational landscape. It is the embodiment of a commitment to lifelong learning and a testament to the capacity of educators to enact change . The value of action research lies in its ability to transform practitioners into researchers, where the quest for knowledge becomes a powerful conduit for change and innovation. Thus, for educators at every level, embracing the rigorous yet rewarding path of action research can unveil potent insights and propel educational practice to new heights.

Key Papers on Action Research

• Utilizing Action Research During Student Teaching by James O. Barbre and Brenda J. Buckner (2013): This study explores how action research can be effectively utilized during student teaching to enhance professional pedagogical disposition through active reflection. It emphasizes developing a reflective habit of mind crucial for teachers to be effective in their classrooms and adaptive to the changing needs of their students.
• Repositioning T eacher Action Research in Science Teacher Education by B. Capobianco and A. Feldman (2010): This paper discusses the promotion of action research as a way for teachers to improve their practice and students' learning for over 50 years, focusing on science education. It highlights the importance of action research in advancing knowledge about teaching and learning in science.
• Action research and teacher leadership by K. Smeets and P. Ponte (2009): This article reports on a case study into the influence and impact of action research carried out by teachers in a special school. It found that action research not only helps teachers to get to grips with their work in the classroom but also has an impact on the work of others in the school.
• Teaching about the Nature of Science through History: Action Research in the Classroom by J. Solomon, Jon Duveen, Linda Scot, S. McCarthy (1992): This article reports on 18 months of action research monitoring British pupils' learning about the nature of science using historical aspects. It indicates areas of substantial progress in pupils' understanding of the nature of science.
• Action Research in the Classroom by V. Baumfield, E. Hall, K. Wall (2008): This comprehensive guide to conducting action research in the classroom covers various aspects, including deciding on a research question, choosing complementary research tools, collecting and interpreting data, and sharing findings. It aims to move classroom inquiry forward and contribute to professional development.

These studies highlight the significant role of action research in enhancing teacher effectiveness, student learning outcomes, and contributing to the broader educational community's knowledge and practices.

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You are here, learning and teaching stories: action research on evaluation in early childhood education: final report to the ministry of education.

A learning story is a documented account of a child's learning event. These stories are structured around five key behaviours: taking an interest, being involved, persisting with difficulty, expressing a point of view or a feeling, and taking responsibility. A teaching story, on the other hand, is about evaluating practice.

In this research project, learning stories refers to the framework developed for assessment during the Project for Assessing Children's Experiences. Teaching stories refers to the systems, structures, and processes put in place by teachers/practitioners as part of on-going evaluation and accountability procedures.

The project was designed to:

• construct an overall framework for assessment and evaluation in early childhood programmes in Aotearoa-New Zealand
• use this framework to develop an evaluation process through an action research trial in a small range of early childhood centres.

The report sets the context of the research project; outlines the theoretical foundations and the methodological approach; summarises and synthesises the data; and suggests some overview issues and implications for self-evaluation processes in early childhood centres.

Expertise Area

Early Childhood Education

RFA is engaged in a variety of research, evaluation, and policy analyses focused on issues related to child care and early childhood education. Children’s early experiences provide a foundation for learning both socially and academically throughout their lives. Through our research, we hope to improve early childhood programs and systems for children, families, and the early childhood workforce.

Some projects we have worked on include assessing the feasibility of a National Lead Teacher Certification for Early Childhood Educators; understanding the cost of quality child care and examining that status of non-traditional child care in Pennsylvania; and evaluating Children’s Literacy Initiative’s pre-k curriculum and coaching model, Blueprint for Early Learning. To learn more about our early childhood education projects visit the projects and publications below.

Related Projects

Please touch museum kindergarten readiness experience, assessing the feasibility of a national lead teacher certification for early childhood educators, evaluation planning and technical assistance for the pennsylvania office of child development and learning’s preschool development grant, evaluation to measure impact of detroit wolf trap’s early learning through the arts on teacher growth in instructional ability, examining the status of non-traditional child care in pennsylvania, evaluation of children’s literacy initiative’s curriculum and professional development model for kindergarten readiness, a detroit-area early childhood education workforce study to support head start agencies in recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers, detroit-area early childhood workforce report, examining cross-sector collaboration in pittsburgh: a mixed-delivery system for pre-k education, early literacy instruction and pre-k curriculum in philadelphia, examining child care funding and finance in pennsylvania, an evaluation of children’s literacy initiative’s blueprint for early literacy, improving early literacy: an evaluation of early reading matters, an evaluation of science all around us: please touch museum, related publications.

Publication

Children’s Literacy Initiative’s Blueprint for Early Learning: Evaluation Report

Alyn Turner, Jill Pierce, Kendall LaParo

Top 5 Insights from RFA’s Community Research Partnership: Becoming a Community-Engaged Research Organization

Kate Callahan, Saxon Nelson

Boosting Children’s Language and Literacy Skills Through Blueprint: An Evaluation of Children’s Literacy Initiative’s Blueprint for Early Literacy 2017 – 2019

Alyn Turner, Rachel Comly, Rebecca Reumann-Moore, Matthew Rigsby, Kendra Strouf, Ryan Kapa

Making It Work: Bibliography and Technical Appendix

Kelly Sloane, Jason Fontana, Anna Shaw-Amoah, David Lapp, Alyn Turner

Making It Work: Examining the Status of Non-Traditional Child Care in Pennsylvania

Trauma-informed schools in pennsylvania: aligning expansion with high-quality implementation.

Mark Duffy, Rachel Comly

Detroit-Area Early Childhood Workforce Study

Alyn Turner, Kelly Etter (Policy Equity Group)

Partnering for Pre-K: Opportunities to Scale-Up Pittsburgh’s Collaborative Early Learning Model

Della Moran, Tosin Shenbanjo, Jason Fontana

Technical Appendix: Child Care Funding and Finance in Pennsylvania

David Lapp, Joshua Lin, Ashley Campbell, Della Moran

Executive Summary: Child Care Funding and Finance in Pennsylvania: Budgeting for Survival or Paying for the Cost of True Quality?

Della Moran, Joshua Lin, Ashley Campbell, David Lapp

Full Report: Child Care Funding and Finance in Pennsylvania: Budgeting for Survival or Paying for the True Cost of Quality?

Case Study: Montgomery Early Learning Centers

Case Study: Bullfrogs and Butterflies

Case Study: Children’s Village

Case Study: Seton Center

Quality ratings and improvement systems in early childhood education: promising approaches for pennsylvania.

Della Moran, Katie Englander

RFA’s 2015 Annual Report

Research for Action

Parent Education in an Urban Neighborhood: An Evaluation of the McKinley Family Center for Child Development

Eva Gold, Maria Mulero, Jolley Bruce Christman

Home to School: Numeracy Practices and Mathematical Identities

Diane Downer Anderson, Eva Gold

EYFS Best Practice: All about… action research

Dr Kay Mathieson Monday, October 30, 2017

Action research might sound like the last thing that time-pressed practitioners will want to do, but it is a really useful tool to demonstrate the improving quality of your practice, finds Dr Kay Mathieson

Working with young children is a relentless and hectic occupation. Our days are filled with interactions and demands on our time and thinking. Paperwork is named, shamed and blamed for making the job impossible. By the end of the day we feel washed out and exhausted, then the pressures of our home life fill our thoughts. So why would we even consider trying to fit in ‘action research’?

As their reasons for working with young children, practitioners most often cite: making a positive difference to each child’s life, improving the quality of the setting, and developing their own skills and abilities. I believe that using action research in our day-to-day practice will enhance these experiences, as well as provide evidence for ourselves and others, including Ofsted, of the difference that we are making and how much we are improving.

Over the past few years, we have moved out from under the microscope of political and local authority gaze to an increasingly independent but sometimes isolated position. The better our quality of provision, the more we have to find our own training, interpretation of reports, guidance and so on.

Through action research, we can be sure, and demonstrate to others, that we are a setting that reflects on our practice, cares about the individual and group progress of our children, takes professional development seriously and has a positive approach to problem-solving. It is a useful tool in feeling justifiably confident in the improving quality of our own practice.

WHAT IS ACTION RESEARCH?

Although there are earlier similar approaches, Kurt Lewin, an American social psychologist in the early 20th century, is generally credited with having a major influence on the evolution of the ‘action research’ process. His main area of interest was change management in organisations. He saw this as research leading to social action and improvement in the quality of systems and practice in the organisation, rather than just adding to theoretical understanding.

He proposed a cyclical process consisting of three key elements:

• Considering what was to be done.
• Taking action.
• Reflecting on and fact-finding about the result.

This original idea has stood the test of time and has evolved to suit many contexts. The advantages are many, including enabling us to:

• focus on a particular aspect of our practice
• look at that aspect of practice in different ways
• put effort into addressing issues of local concern
• work collaboratively, share thinking and encourage creative approaches and ideas among participants
• use a solution-based rather than problem-focused perspective
• provide data and evidence of action as well as impact
• create a context for professional learning and improving practice within an organisation.

As with all new processes and procedures, the cycle of action research will feel strange at first. Inevitably, though, the more we do it, the more familiar and achievable it will become – ideally, with it becoming part of our everyday practice and learning.

An action research approach can be used to explore any aspect of practice, and the following examples give a flavour of how colleagues have used it. They also show its flexibility, as it can be applied to an aspect of practice or organisation, an individual child or a specific skill.

Early Years Pupil Premium

In this instance, the setting wanted to improve its use of Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) funding. Some of the staff team were unclear about the EYPP and which children were eligible and/or receiving the funding. This, it was felt, was reducing the effective use of the funding through well-targeted resourcing and activities.

Having identified the individual children involved, the staff team reviewed their observations and knowledge to gain an insight into where, how and in what context the children were currently learning most effectively.

Looking at the routines of the day from the child’s perspective suggested that adult expectations of the children were unrealistic, as they were failing to understand clearly what they needed to do. Specifically, this related to language development and levels of involvement in tasks.

Next, the team used flexible small-group time to increase adult engagement with the children and so enhance their understanding of each child’s needs. By working collaboratively with the SENCO, the practitioners gained a deeper knowledge of each child’s current level of language, comprehension, social connections and self-esteem. They were then able to use this knowledge to develop more realistic expectations of the children as well as differentiate activities to increase levels of involvement.

Communicating with parents

Our engagement with parents is a perennial cause for concern, so one setting used the action research cycle to improve its connections with its current group of parents. It focused particularly on those whose children were eligible for the EYPP.

First, the practitioners investigated the current quantity and quality of their communication with parents. Through sharing their own experiences and being creative, they were then able to tailor their responses to individual parents, helping both parties feel more confident and at ease. By focusing their discussions on a child’s current interests and relating these to the child’s development, they were able to foster a shared view of a child’s progress.

Individual child’s progress

The action research cycle can also be used to think constructively about the progress that an individual child is making.

One staff team was concerned about a child who found it difficult to settle into morning activities. After sharing their collective understanding of the child, the practitioners began using his interests to ease the transition into the session. In addition, through discussions with the boy’s parent, they were able to uncover behavioural issues, which would have escalated had they not been recognised.

The routines in early years settings can easily become rigid and unresponsive to changes in children’s needs, while also creating challenging times for adults. In one setting, snack time was a particular problem.

The way it was organised had worked with previous groups of children, but not the current one. Gathering evidence about the existing system gave the practitioners a clear starting point for change. They began involving the children in preparing and serving the snacks and drinks and focused on the children’s language development and social connections, so transforming the experience for all.

While all of these changes could be made without using the action research cycle, practitioners report that having the structure as a guide was helpful. It offered a more systematic approach to improving practice and led to more effective change, with clear evidence of the actions and impact available to be shared.

STEP BY STEP

While the benefits of action research are clear to see, it can still be daunting to embark on a project. Many practitioners have shared with me their anxieties about the word ‘research’, saying it sounds academic or reminds them of essay writing and Level 3 assignments – not always happy memories!

Although I understand and identify with these feelings, I don’t see action research in this light (see box). I also don’t see the need to ‘reinvent the wheel’. In fact, we already use an action research approach in our settings when we have concerns about the emerging special educational needs of a child. The ‘assess, plan, do, review’ cycle from the SEND Code of Practice (2014) is a perfect example of an action research cycle.

However, even experienced SENCOs will express their anxieties about writing the ‘right’ thing under each of these headings. Maybe if it becomes an extension of using action research to reflect on our practice, it will be demystified and less daunting. Using action research in all aspects of our practice would increase our familiarity with the cycle, build our confidence when documenting potential SEND cases and enable us to adapt the cycle to suit our research needs.

Having worked with several groups of practitioners to explore and refine the process, I currently use this simple four-step approach based on the ‘assess, plan, do, review’ cycle.

Step 1: Assess

To ensure that we are clear about the problem we want to tackle, this step is about gathering current information and views about our concern.

The clearer we are about ‘how things are now’, the easier it is to return to this information at the end of the cycle in order to see what impact we have had.

Useful prompts that can help to elicit more factual and detailed descriptions include:

How does it feel?

Examples of describing how things are now

Seven parents stay for an average of two minutes when dropping off their children in the morning and are unable to stay for feedback at the end of the session. Staff report that they feel rushed in the morning and are frustrated by the lack of continuity in communication with this group of parents.

Activities for small groups feel repetitive while recorded observations are vague, making it very difficult to evidence the progress of individual children.

Six activities are set up ready for the children to arrive, but only two children engage regularly with the activities during the first 20 minutes of the session.

Step 2: Plan

This step involves sharing thinking, ideas and experiences of practitioners, parents and children, as appropriate. The purpose is to listen and reflect on possible ways to improve the situation we want to change. From the range of possibilities, one solution is then selected to try out.

Examples of possible solutions

Gather all parents’ views about their preferred method of daily communication with practitioners. Display suggestions and ideas near the entrance to the setting. Talk to specific parents about their preferences. Keyworkers select a developmental theme per week – for example, physical development – and tell the parents about their child’s experience and progress in this area.

Review recent observations and knowledge of children’s current interests and developmental progress. Clarify what the practitioner needs to look for during small-group activities and explore simple ways to record observations during the session.

Review recent observations and knowledge of activities that have most engaged the children, along with the associated learning and level of challenge. Talk to the children about how they would like the room to be when they arrive for the session.

The third step is purely practical: doing what has been decided. Interestingly, this is often a time when, with a heightened awareness, practitioners see more innovative, creative ways to improve their practice. It is important that these ideas are recorded along with any surprises – for example, the children’s reactions might indicate a greater-than-expected impact. Sometimes new information or influences from outside the setting can inform thinking too.

A decision also needs to be made about how long to trial the new way of working before assessing the impact. As a minimum, I would suggest three weeks, but it will depend on the aspect of practice being explored. However, if the timescale is too long, then momentum and enthusiasm can wane and reduce the impact of the change.

Step 4: Review

Revisit the information gathered in step 1 – our memories are not reliable! – and then use the same indicators to describe and assess how things are now.

Examples of changes

Seven parents stay for about two minutes when dropping off their children in the morning. Practitioners now to talk them about their child’s progress within a chosen theme of the week, such as physical development. This group of parents is also now telephoning or visiting the setting more often to discuss their child’s progress. Staff report that they feel less rushed even though the morning time slot is the same, as they are clearer about what they want to say. Parents have been asking more questions and sharing observations of their children that relate to the current theme.

Activities for small groups are more interesting, while recorded observations provide evidence of progress by individual children in language and social development. Children are more involved for longer during activities and choose to spend time with friends from small-group activities.

Six activities are set up ready for the start of session. The children are now involved in deciding the activities to be set up for the next morning. After all the children have arrived, key practitioners observe and consider for ten minutes the progress in children’s learning, their levels of involvement and the degree of challenge within the activities. Twenty children now engage regularly with the activities during the first 20 minutes of the session, and some 15 per cent use the activities as a stimulus for their play throughout the morning.

Needless to say, we will sometimes find that our ‘solution’ has not delivered the desired improvement, so this review stage also needs to be a time to reflect on alternative ways to tackle the problem, make the impact greater or extend the impact to other groups, individuals or contexts.

Finally, capturing and sharing our learning is essential if we are to embed action research in our practice. Detailing simply what we have done (see example sheet) means the information can be added to the setting’s record-keeping – for example, used as part of the Ofsted Self Evaluation Form and made available to parents, other settings, all staff, visitors and other professional colleagues.

Creating a display with photographs and annotation is a useful way to highlight the setting’s commitment to this approach to reviewing and improving practice. Seeing that their ideas are being used and developed may well encourage parents and children to take part too.

The main challenge in using this process lies in the level of detail gathered at the ‘assess’ step – vague and woolly wording makes it hard to establish if, by the Review stage, there really has been any improvement. But the skill of capturing how things are improves with practice. It also makes sense to start small, so that everyone can get used to the process and experience how useful it can be before tackling bigger challenges.

From my experience, the process generally enables practitioners to tune in more effectively to why some children may be struggling with their learning and relationships. Establishing the causes helps them to recognise the importance of their actions and interactions in supporting each child’s progress, and this in turn has led to increased confidence, enthusiasm and motivation for both adults and children.

By using the research approach, practitioners can quantify the impact that they are having and recognise small changes in children’s level of involvement, well-being and progress. This can then become a virtuous circle, as practitioners become more familiar with the process, while a simple recording system provides evidence of reflective practitioners and continuous improvement of provision.

Related Articles

Learning & development: action research - a closer look, learning & development: action research - question time.

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About the Early Learning Action Plan

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• About Adverse Childhood Experiences
• Risk and Protective Factors
• Program: Essentials for Childhood: Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences through Data to Action
• Adverse childhood experiences can have long-term impacts on health, opportunity and well-being.
• Adverse childhood experiences are common and some groups experience them more than others.

What are adverse childhood experiences?

Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years). Examples include: 1

• Experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect.
• Witnessing violence in the home or community.
• Having a family member attempt or die by suicide.

Also included are aspects of the child’s environment that can undermine their sense of safety, stability, and bonding. Examples can include growing up in a household with: 1

• Substance use problems.
• Mental health problems.
• Instability due to parental separation.
• Instability due to household members being in jail or prison.

The examples above are not a complete list of adverse experiences. Many other traumatic experiences could impact health and well-being. This can include not having enough food to eat, experiencing homelessness or unstable housing, or experiencing discrimination. 2 3 4 5 6

Quick facts and stats

ACEs are common. About 64% of adults in the United States reported they had experienced at least one type of ACE before age 18. Nearly one in six (17.3%) adults reported they had experienced four or more types of ACEs. 7

Preventing ACEs could potentially reduce many health conditions. Estimates show up to 1.9 million heart disease cases and 21 million depression cases potentially could have been avoided by preventing ACEs. 1

Some people are at greater risk of experiencing one or more ACEs than others. While all children are at risk of ACEs, numerous studies show inequities in such experiences. These inequalities are linked to the historical, social, and economic environments in which some families live. 5 6 ACEs were highest among females, non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native adults, and adults who are unemployed or unable to work. 7

ACEs are costly. ACEs-related health consequences cost an estimated economic burden of $748 billion annually in Bermuda, Canada, and the United States. 8

ACEs can have lasting effects on health and well-being in childhood and life opportunities well into adulthood. 9 Life opportunities include things like education and job potential. These experiences can increase the risks of injury, sexually transmitted infections, and involvement in sex trafficking. They can also increase risks for maternal and child health problems including teen pregnancy, pregnancy complications, and fetal death. Also included are a range of chronic diseases and leading causes of death, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and suicide. 1 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

ACEs and associated social determinants of health, such as living in under-resourced or racially segregated neighborhoods, can cause toxic stress. Toxic stress, or extended or prolonged stress, from ACEs can negatively affect children’s brain development, immune systems, and stress-response systems. These changes can affect children’s attention, decision-making, and learning. 18

Children growing up with toxic stress may have difficulty forming healthy and stable relationships. They may also have unstable work histories as adults and struggle with finances, jobs, and depression throughout life. 18 These effects can also be passed on to their own children. 19 20 21 Some children may face further exposure to toxic stress from historical and ongoing traumas. These historical and ongoing traumas refer to experiences of racial discrimination or the impacts of poverty resulting from limited educational and economic opportunities. 1 6

Adverse childhood experiences can be prevented. Certain factors may increase or decrease the risk of experiencing adverse childhood experiences.

Preventing adverse childhood experiences requires understanding and addressing the factors that put people at risk for or protect them from violence.

Creating safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for all children can prevent ACEs and help all children reach their full potential. We all have a role to play.

• Merrick MT, Ford DC, Ports KA, et al. Vital Signs: Estimated Proportion of Adult Health Problems Attributable to Adverse Childhood Experiences and Implications for Prevention — 25 States, 2015–2017. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019;68:999-1005. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6844e1 .
• Cain KS, Meyer SC, Cummer E, Patel KK, Casacchia NJ, Montez K, Palakshappa D, Brown CL. Association of Food Insecurity with Mental Health Outcomes in Parents and Children. Science Direct. 2022; 22:7; 1105-1114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2022.04.010 .
• Smith-Grant J, Kilmer G, Brener N, Robin L, Underwood M. Risk Behaviors and Experiences Among Youth Experiencing Homelessness—Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 23 U.S. States and 11 Local School Districts. Journal of Community Health. 2022; 47: 324-333.
• Experiencing discrimination: Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Impacts of Racism on the Foundations of Health | Annual Review of Public Health https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-090419-101940 .
• Sedlak A, Mettenburg J, Basena M, et al. Fourth national incidence study of child abuse and neglect (NIS-4): Report to Congress. Executive Summary. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health an Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.; 2010.
• Font S, Maguire-Jack K. Pathways from childhood abuse and other adversities to adult health risks: The role of adult socioeconomic conditions. Child Abuse Negl. 2016;51:390-399.
• Swedo EA, Aslam MV, Dahlberg LL, et al. Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences Among U.S. Adults — Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2011–2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2023;72:707–715. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7226a2 .
• Bellis, MA, et al. Life Course Health Consequences and Associated Annual Costs of Adverse Childhood Experiences Across Europe and North America: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Lancet Public Health 2019.
• Adverse Childhood Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Associations with Poor Mental Health and Suicidal Behaviors Among High School Students — Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey, United States, January–June 2021 | MMWR
• Hillis SD, Anda RF, Dube SR, Felitti VJ, Marchbanks PA, Marks JS. The association between adverse childhood experiences and adolescent pregnancy, long-term psychosocial consequences, and fetal death. Pediatrics. 2004 Feb;113(2):320-7.
• Miller ES, Fleming O, Ekpe EE, Grobman WA, Heard-Garris N. Association Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes. Obstetrics & Gynecology . 2021;138(5):770-776. https://doi.org/10.1097/AOG.0000000000004570 .
• Sulaiman S, Premji SS, Tavangar F, et al. Total Adverse Childhood Experiences and Preterm Birth: A Systematic Review. Matern Child Health J . 2021;25(10):1581-1594. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-021-03176-6 .
• Ciciolla L, Shreffler KM, Tiemeyer S. Maternal Childhood Adversity as a Risk for Perinatal Complications and NICU Hospitalization. Journal of Pediatric Psychology . 2021;46(7):801-813. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsab027 .
• Mersky JP, Lee CP. Adverse childhood experiences and poor birth outcomes in a diverse, low-income sample. BMC pregnancy and childbirth. 2019;19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-019-2560-8 .
• Reid JA, Baglivio MT, Piquero AR, Greenwald MA, Epps N. No youth left behind to human trafficking: Exploring profiles of risk. American journal of orthopsychiatry. 2019;89(6):704.
• Diamond-Welch B, Kosloski AE. Adverse childhood experiences and propensity to participate in the commercialized sex market. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2020 Jun 1;104:104468.
• Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption, and Dependent Care, & Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), e232–e246. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-2663
• Narayan AJ, Kalstabakken AW, Labella MH, Nerenberg LS, Monn AR, Masten AS. Intergenerational continuity of adverse childhood experiences in homeless families: unpacking exposure to maltreatment versus family dysfunction. Am J Orthopsych. 2017;87(1):3. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000133 .
• Schofield TJ, Donnellan MB, Merrick MT, Ports KA, Klevens J, Leeb R. Intergenerational continuity in adverse childhood experiences and rural community environments. Am J Public Health. 2018;108(9):1148-1152. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304598 .
• Schofield TJ, Lee RD, Merrick MT. Safe, stable, nurturing relationships as a moderator of intergenerational continuity of child maltreatment: a meta-analysis. J Adolesc Health. 2013;53(4 Suppl):S32-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.05.004 .

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

ACEs can have a tremendous impact on lifelong health and opportunity. CDC works to understand ACEs and prevent them.