What is Action Research?

Action Research

“It is a part of a broad movement that has been going

on in education generally for some time.
Action Research involves taking a self-reflective,
critical, and systematic approach to exploring your
own teaching contexts.”

Burns (2010,p.2)
 Action Research

 Something that characterizes AR, is its process in

which one as a teacher identifies a problem in the
class that can be improved.

“AR improves a classroom dilemma by using a

reflective research cycle of planning, acting, observing
and reflecting.”
Burns (2010,p.4)
 Steps

 According to Kemmis and McTaggart (1988), who

are the major authors in this field, AR typically
involves four broad phases in a cycle of research:
planning, action, observation, and reflection.
 Planning

 “In this phase it is identified a problem or issue and

develop a plan of action in order to bring about
improvements in a specific area of the research
context.”
Burns (2010,p.8)
 It has to be considered:
 What kind of investigation is possible within the
realities and constrains of your teaching situation;
and what potential improvements you think are
possible.
 Planning

 This stage basically focuses on identifying a problem

or and issue. It not necessarily needs to be a learner’s
issue but a teacher’s issue. This is for check and
gather as much data as possible for start the plan and
improve specific details about the class, this for make
it a better class.
 Action

 “The plan is a carefully considered one which

involves some deliberate interventions into your
teaching situation that you put into action over an
agreed period of time. The interventions are
‘critically informed’ as you question your
assumptions about the current situation and plan
new and alternative ways of doing things.”

 Burns (2010,p.8)
 Action

 In this stage, the teacher or the researcher, puts in

practice different techniques in order to have a
critical idea and check if the plan is functioning as it
has been thought.
 Ideally this stage should be criticized by another
person, who ideally has to have certain level of
knowledge. This for give a productive feedback to the
researcher.
 Observation

 “This phase involves you in observing

systematically the effects of the action and
documenting the context, actions and
opinions of those involved. It is a data
collection phase where you use ‘open-eyed’
and ‘open-minded’ tools to collect
information about what is happening.”
 Burns (2010,p.8)
 Observation

 At this point there already had been some actions

from part of the researcher. Therefore, it is time to
recollect new information and analyze it. In this
stage the effects of the action already done are
checked for reflect about them in the next part.
 Reflection

 Atthis point, the teacher reflect on, evaluate and

describe the effects of the action in order to make
sense of what has happened and to understand
the issue that has been explored more clearly.

(Adapted from Kemmis & McTaggart,1988, pp. 11-14)

 Reflection

 In this last stage of AR, the teacher analyzed the

data, and reflect about how good the recollection and
critic of the information has been done. The teacher
should be aware of what has been done and see if the
issue was corrected or if there is something else that
can be done.
 Example #1

 Case study: Correcting Grammar

 Place: Singapour

 The researchers wanted to see whether there was a

discrepancy between beliefs and classroom practices
while assessing grammar in student written work
(Farrell and Lee, 2003)
 Example #1

 Planning: The teachers at the research made the

following questions in order to focus in the issue they
were investigating:

1. Should learner errors be corrected?

2. If so, when should learner errors be corrected?
3. Which learner errors should be corrected?
4. How should learner errors be corrected?
5. Who should correct learner errors?
 Example #1
 “Responses from the teachers' interviews were transcribed and
analyzed to find out what the teachers claimed to do in the area of
grammar correction in compositions and their underlying rationale
for their perceived actions. The teachers' claimed practices were
then verified through an analysis of their correction techniques as
observed in the collected writing samples Recorded tapes and field
notes from classroom observations were also used to confirm (or
deny) the teachers' claimed practices in giving grammatical
feedback. If data from the analysis of teachers' correction
techniques in the writing samples and the classroom observations
supported the responses made in the teacher interviews, this was
regarded as an alignment between beliefs and practice. On the other
hand, if data from the analysis of teachers' correction techniques in
the writing samples and the classroom observations contradicted
the responses in the teacher interviews, this was considered as a
discrepancy between beliefs and practice.”
Thomas S. C. Farrel (2007)
 Example #1

 Based on the results of the action step, there can be

inferred different options. Depending on the results
whether they were the ones that were expected or
not, the observation and reflection depends of them.

 For more information about this specific research:

 http://www2.uah.es/master_tefl_alcala/pdf/arp_ar
ticle.pdf
Example #2
 References

 http://www2.uah.es/master_tefl_alcala/pdf/arp_ar
ticle.pdf
 Thomas S. C. Farrel (2007) “Action Research” in
Reflective Language Teaching: From Research to
Practice, (pages 94-106) Continuum.
 Video Example #2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6ABV8rg28k
 Doing Action Research in English by Anne Burns
(2010)(pages 2-12)