Action research : getting started

Abstract

Action research is conducted by teachers in the classroom to scientifically measure questions or notions they may have about aspects of their teaching or their students’ learning. Although much like the reflective model, action research differs in that it is written down and shared with members of the teaching community. Like most first attempts, the starting point for teachers new to action research is perhaps the hardest. This paper briefly introduces the action research cycle and focuses on the preparation stage where teachers develop a research question and come up with a plan to collect the data; once the preparation stage has been completed, teachers may put their plan into action and work through the different stages of the action research cycle. The intention of this paper is to break the preparation stage into distinct parts and to provide a model for teachers who may be interested in conducting their own action research.