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Education Studies

why or why not action research

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  • Action research is ‘empowering’; it impacts on individual teachers who to feel more in control of what they are teaching, by engaging with learner voice it empowers children and adult learners.
  • Very often action research projects are descriptive, context heavy reporting. It is very difficult for policy makers to generalise from action projects as they are local accounts.
  • Other professionals can learn from action research projects as they provide contextual details: action research is relatable, it does not make false claims to generalisability.
  • Action research is often engaging for those undertaking it and builds on the propensity of teachers and other professionals to reflect on practice, however it does this more systematically.
  • Action research improves what is going on and contributes to sustainable change.
  • Action researcher seeks to be collaborative and this takes different forms: collaboration with peers; collaboration with learners; and, at a wider level, collaboration between practitioners and outside supporters including academics.
  • Action practitioner researchers may be the gate keepers between academic and professional practice and breaks through the dispiriting cycle that most academic research ignores most teachers because most teachers ignore most academic research.
  • Many action research projects are little more than short term adaption of practice.
  • Action research is not a natural process for most practitioners: they are overworked and they lack time and conceptual tools.
  • Action research helps in building up a knowledge base about teaching and learning.
  • When action research projects provide insight into teaching and learning this tends to be at great effort and something that could more easily be gained by literature review and by applying evidence based guidance
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