Action Research in Education

ACTION RESEARCH
Dr. Sarita Anand
Assistant Professor
Department of Education
VinayaBhavana
Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan
West Bengal-731235, India
10/17/2019 6:33:59 AM Action Research by Dr. Sarita Anand 2

Action Research:
“A disciplined process of inquiry conducted by and
for those taking the action. The primary reason
engaging in action research is to assist the actor
in improving or refining his or her actions.”
-Sagor (2000)
10/17/2019 6:33:59 AM 3Action Research by Dr. Sarita Anand

Background:
The term “action research” was coined in 1944 by Kurt
Lewin, a German-American social psychologist and a
professor, who is widely considered to be the founder of
his field.

Background:
In his 1946 paper “Action Research and Minority
Problems” he described action research as “a
comparative research on the conditions and effects of
various forms of social action and research leading to
social action” that uses “a spiral of steps, each of which
is composed of a circle of planning, action and fact-
finding about the result of the action”. The basic
principles of action research that were described by
Lewin are still in use to this day.

Background:
In the 1950s Stephen Corey and his Colleagues from
Columbia University drew directly upon the work of
Lewin and brought action research in education.
Corey (1953) believed that teachers would make better
decisions in the classroom if they conduct research to
determine the basis for their decisions.

Fields:
There are many ways to conduct research. Each of these
ways is used in various professional fields, including-
psychology,
sociology,
social work,
medicine,
nursing,
education and so on.
In Education-teaching, curriculum development and
student behavior in the classroom etc.

Goals of Action Research
 Improvement in teaching and educating others.
 opportunity for continued reflection. In all
professional fields, the goal of action research is to
improve processes.
 Benefit in teaching practice- settings in which
continued improvement is the focus.

Goals of Action Research
Action research may also be applied to programs or
educational techniques that are not necessarily
experiencing any problems, but that educators simply
want to learn more about and improve.
The general goal is to create a simple, practical,
repeatable process of interactive learning, evaluation,
and improvement that leads to increasingly better
results for schools/colleges, teachers, or programs.

Action Research in Educational setting
Refers to- a wide variety of
 evaluative,
 investigative, and
 analytical research methods
designed to diagnose problems or weaknesses-whether
 organizational,
 academic, or
 instructional and help educators develop practical
solutions to address them quickly and efficiently.

What Is Action Research?
A cycle of action or cycle of inquiry-
 Identify a problem to be studied
 Collect data on the problem
 Organize, analyze, and interpret the data
 Develop a plan to address the problem
 Implement the plan
 Evaluate the results of the actions taken
 Identify a new problem
 Repeat the process

What Is Action Research?
Action research is typically focused on solving a specific
problem (high rates of student absenteeism, for
example) or
answer a specific question (Why are so many of our
ninth graders failing math?),
Works within a relatively closed system such as
school/college, or network of connected organizations
like KVs & RYANs

Methods of Action Research
There are many methods like:
 Observing individuals or groups
 Using audio and video tape recording
 Using structured or semi-structured interviews
 Taking field notes
 Using or taking photography
 Distributing surveys or questionnaires
Researchers can also use more than one of the methods
above to assist them in collecting rich and meaningful
data.

Types of Action Research
various types of action research in the fields of
education, including individual action research,
collaborative action research and school/college-
wide action research. For example:

Types of Action Research
 Individual action research: involves working
independently on a project, such as an elementary school
teacher conducting her own, in-class research project with
her students.
 Collaborative action research :involves a group of
teachers or researchers working together to explore a
problem that might be present beyond a single classroom,
perhaps at the departmental level or an entire grade level.
 School/college-wide action research generally focuses on
issues present throughout an entire school or across the
district. Teams of staff members would work together using
school/college-wide action research. As you can see, action
research can be used in many educational settings.

Process of Action Research:
Action Research Cycle

Questions related with different steps-

Step 1- Problem Identification:
 Why do you want to do study this topic?
 Is the problem broad enough to allow for a range of
insights and findings?
 Is it narrow enough to be manageable?

Step 2 – Devise a Plan or Plan of Action
 Will you develop and implement a new strategy or
approach
 to address your question? What data do you need to
learn about your question?

Step 3 – Act to implement your Plan-Data Collection
 What, why, when, where, and how will you collect your
data?
 How will you ensure that you have multiple
perspectives?

 Step 4 – Observe -Analysis of Data
 What can you learn from the data?
 What patterns, insights, and new understandings can
you find?

 Step 5 – Reflect and share-Plan for Future Action
 What will you do differently in your classroom as a
result of this study?
 How will you write about what you have learned so
that the findings will be useful to you and to others?

Understanding Step 1:
To begin the action research process, identify the
focus.
 Determine the area of teaching and learning that you
want to explore. The focus should be on an area over
which you have some control and you would like to
change or improve.
 Describe the situation you want to change.
 Why do you want to change it?
 What specifically would you like to try?

Starting points-
 I would really like to improve...
 I am puzzled by...
 Some people are unhappy about...
 I’m curious about...
 I want to learn more about...
 An idea I would like to try out in my class is...
 Something I think would really make a difference is...
 Something I would like to do to change is...
 Some areas I am particularly interested in are...

Guidelines for Developing a Question-
 One that hasn’t already been answered
 Higher level questions which get at explanations, reasons,
relationships
 Not yes-no
 Everyday language, avoid jargon (slang)
 Not too lengthy, concise
 Manageable, doable in the context of your work
 Follow your passion, meaningful
 Keep close to your practice and provides opportunity to
stretch
 Question leads to other questions

Example:
 Area of Focus: Reading
 Question: How will using technology improve
student’s reading vocabulary?
 Area of Focus: Parental Involvement
 Question: What strategies will result in more parents
attending parent-teacher Meetings?

Understanding Step 2 :
 Will you develop and implement a new strategy or
approach to address your question?
 Is there a new curriculum , instructional strategy you
are interested in?
 Have you implemented a change and you want to
document results?
 What data do you need to learn about your question?

Data sources may include:
 Test results
 Observations
 Surveys
 Interview
 Student records
 Videos
 Artifacts
 Checklists
 Questionnaires

 Analyze Interpret and summarize and describe
the findings.

Now Reflect and Share your results...
 What have you learned?
 How do you feel about what you have learned?
 How do your conclusions differ from what you
thought you would learn?
 Do the conclusions seem believable?
 What actions might you take based on your
conclusions?
 What new questions emerge for you from the data?
 Who else might be interested in these conclusions?
 What are strategies to share your conclusions with
others?

Examples:
We'll explore two examples of action research being
used in the field of education.
The first example discusses observation as the method
of choice for collecting data in the classroom.
The second example discusses using surveys as the
method of choice for collecting data.
The cycle of action research is emphasized in each of the
examples.

Example 1:
Individual Action Research
(by Observation method)

Step 1: Identify the Problem
You are a fifth grade teacher
The problem-your students have less experience working
in groups, and you believe that they need to have more
opportunities to do so.
You want to assess the skill set of your students and
observe their overall approach to group work. By doing
this, you feel that next time you offer group work,
you will have some new insight into what works well and
what needs improvement regarding conducting group
work in your class.

Step 2: Devise a Plan or Plan of Action
Your plan includes having your students work together
in groups for their upcoming science project.
By doing this, you hope to explore a variety of
information, such as how the students brainstorm
together,
how they interact with each other and how they
distribute work among the task groups.
Provide them an instruction sheet and a time frame to
work from.

Step 3: Act to Implement a Plan
You act by assigning your students into groups and
having them work through their science projects.
This step can also be thought of as initiating and
carrying out the plan.

Step 4: Observe
observe the groups of students working together.
Take notes on-
 how they are progressing and
 what types of issues they are having,
 watch them brainstorm and form interesting ideas
 even observe some students not getting along,
 arguing and not participating altogether.

Step 5: Reflect and Share
This final step is the end point of action research...
however, it also might be the beginning!

Example 2:
Individual Action Research (by Survey method)

Example 2:
Individual Action Research (by Survey method)
The second example discusses using surveys as the
method of choice for collecting data.
Whole process will be the same using survey method
with some questionnaire or any other research tool,
e.g. Today by me.

Action research in organization
development:
Wendell L. French and Cecil Bell
define Organization Development (OD) as
"organization improvement through action research".
If one idea can be said to summarize OD's underlying
philosophy, it would be action research as it was
conceptualized by Lewin.

Action research in organization
development:
Concerned with social change and, more particularly,
with effective, permanent social change, Lewin
believed that the motivation to change was strongly
related to action.
If people are active in decisions affecting them, they are
more likely to adopt new ways called "Rational social
management“.

Systems Model of
Action-Research Process

Systems Model of
 Unfreezing: Faced with a dilemma or
disconfirmation, the individual or group becomes
aware of a need to change.
 Changing: The situation is diagnosed and new
models of behavior are explored and tested.
 Refreezing: Application of new behavior is evaluated,
and if reinforcing, adopted.

Systems Model of
 In Figure1 closely follows Lewin's repetitive cycle of
planning, action, and measuring results.
 As indicated in the diagram, the planning stage is a
period of unfreezing, or problem awareness.
 The action stage is a period of changing that is,
trying out new forms of behavior in an effort to
understand and cope with the system's problems.
 The results stage is a period of refreezing, in which
new behaviors are tried out on the job and, if
successful and reinforcing, become a part of the
system's problem-solving behavior.

Conclusion:
In conclusion we can say that action research is problem
centered, client centered, and action oriented.
It involves the system in a diagnostic, active-learning, problem-
finding and problem-solving process and
educators typically can conduct action research as an extension
of a particular educational-improvement plan, project, or
goal—i.e., action research is nearly always an institutional-
reform strategy.
The object of action research could be almost anything related to
educational performance or improvement, from the
effectiveness of certain teaching strategies and lesson designs
to the influence that family background has on student
performance to the results achieved by a particular academic
support strategy or learning program.

Thanks

Action Research in Education

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