Mills Chapter 03

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Mills
Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher, 5e
© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Action Research
Geoffrey E. Mills
Fifth Edition
© 2014, 2011, 2007, 2003, 2000
Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
A Guide for the Teacher Researcher

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Chapter 3
Deciding on an Area of Focus

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Overview
 Clarify your area of focus.
 Do reconnaissance.
 Review related literature.
 Write an action plan to guide your work.

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Clarifying an Area of Focus
 General idea: statement that links idea
to action and refers to a situation to
change or improve
 Area of focus: explicit question or
problem to investigate
 involves teaching and learning
 focuses on your own practice
 within your locus of control
 something you feel passionate about
 something you want to change or
improve

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Reconnaissance
 Preliminary information gathering
 Taking time to reflect on your own
beliefs
 Taking time to understand the nature
and context of your general idea
 3 forms
 self-reflection
 description
 explanation

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Self-reflection
 Reflect on
 theories that affect your practice
 educational values you hold
historical contexts
 how your work in schools fits into
the larger context of schooling and
society
historical contexts

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Descriptive Activities
 What evidence do you have that this
is a problem?
 Which students are affected?
 How is the content currently taught?

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Explanatory Activities
 Develop a hypothesis
 focus on the why
 try to account for critical factors
that have an impact on the general
idea

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Review of Related
Literature
 Systematically identifying,
locating, analyzing documents
related to the topic/area of focus
 major themes
 promising practices

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Online Resources
 Educational Resources Information
Center (ERIC)
 Education Full Text
 PsycINFO
 Dissertation Abstracts

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Internet and WWW Resources
 Google: Scholar, Books, UncleSam
 CSTEEP: The Center for the Study
of Testing, Evaluation, and
Educational Policy
 National Center for Education
Statistics
 Developing Educational Standards
 U.S. Department of Education
 Education Resources Directory
(EROD)

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Professional Organizations
 Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development (ASCD)
 National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics (NCTM)
 National Council for the Social Studies
(NCSS)
 National Education Association (NEA)
 National Science Teachers Association
(NSTA)
 International Reading Association (IRA)

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University Library
 Perhaps a statement of the
obvious!
 Meet the librarian. Don’t be afraid
to ask for help.

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Evaluating Sources
 Key questions
 Relevance: What was the problem
statement of the study?
 Author: Who performed the study?
 Source: Where was it published?
 Method: How was it conducted?
 Date: When was it conducted?
 Context: What sources are
referenced?

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Annotating
 Reviewing, summarizing, classifying
references
 read abstract/summary to determine
relevance
 skim article, making mental notes of
main points
 write complete bibliographic reference
 classify and code according to system

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Annotating
 Reviewing, summarizing, classifying
references
 summarize essential points
 indicate responses that come to mind
 identify direct quotations and personal
reactions
 create a literature matrix

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Literature Matrix
 Visual overview of similarities and
differences

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Analyzing, Organizing, &
Reporting
 Make an outline
 Analyze each reference in terms of the
outline
 Analyze the references for similarities and
differences
 Give a meaningful overview of past
research
 Discuss references least related to your
problem first and those most related last
 Conclude with a brief summary of literature
and its implications

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The Action Research Plan
 Write an area of focus statement
 Define the variables
 Develop research questions
 Describe the intervention or innovation
 Describe group membership

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The Action Research Plan
 Describe negotiations
 Develop a timeline
 Develop a statement of resources
 Develop data collection ideas.

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Area of Focus Statement
 Identifies the purpose of the study

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Define the Variables
 Variable: characteristic of your
study that is subject to change
 represent what the factors,
contexts, and variables mean to
you

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Develop Research
Questions
 Validate that you have a workable
way to proceed with your
investigation
 breathe life into the area of focus
statement
 help focus the data collection plan

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Describe
Intervention/Innovation
 What are you going to do to
improve the situation you have
described?

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Describe Group
Membership
 Identify who will be involved in
action research group
 Describe the importance of the
members for the success of the
investigation

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Describe Negotiations
 Head off any potential obstacles to
implementation of the action plan
 permission from an administrator?
parents? students? Other teachers?

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Develop Timeline
 Decide who will be doing what,
when
 Anticipate where, how inquiry will
take place

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Develop Statement of
Resources
 List materials & resources that you
need

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Develop Data Collection
Ideas
 Preliminary statement identifying
kinds of data that may provide
evidence

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Put the Plan into Action
 Develop & implement data
collection ideas

Mills Chapter 03

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