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Action
Research (AR) is an idea, which you can apply to improve your
own teaching practice, as well as other facets of academic work
such as curriculum design and course evaluation.
By
making your teaching practice the subject of your research you
can critically examine and modify it. The main difference between
teaching per se and action research on teaching, is that you will
need to adopt a more systematic approach to making observations
and keeping records than may presently be the case. At various
stages in a project, your findings can be communicated to colleagues
through seminars, conferences and journal publications.
There
is quite a large literature on action research including its theoretical
underpinnings and historical development. Since the aim of this
website is to assist you in getting started with an action research
project, only a brief outline of the main theoretical ideas is
presented here. Those of you who wish to pursue the theory further
will find useful sources in the action
research resources.
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Basically
it is an approach to improve your own teaching practice. You start
with a problem you encounter in your teaching practice. It could
be a concern that students do not spend enough effort in reviewing
course materials; or they have great difficulty learning a particular
topic in the course. Faced with the problem, the action researcher
will go through a series of phases (reflect, plan, action, observe)
called the Action Research Cycle to systematically tackle the
problem. In practice, things rarely go perfectly according to
plan first time round. Usually you discover ways to improve your
action plan in light of your experience and feedback from the
students. One cycle of planning, acting, observing and reflecting,
therefore usually leads to another, in which you incorporate improvements
suggested by the initial cycle. Projects often do not fit neatly
into a cycle of planning, action, observation and reflection.
It is perfectly legitimate to follow a somewhat disjointed process
if circumstances dictate.
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Built into action research is the proviso
that, if as a teacher I am dissatisfied with what is already going
on, I will have the confidence and resolution to attempt to change
it. I will not be content with the status quo...
Jean McNiff, Action Research, Principles and
Practice, McNiff,1988, 50
Acquiescence is not a characteristic of
an action researcher. He is resourceful, committed, tenacious,
and above all, curious. He will not be satisfied with a given
system if he sees elements of the system as unsatisfactory. He
will seek to change it. In doing so, he refuses to be a servant,
but becomes an acting agent. He rises above the role of a skilled
technician and becomes an educator.
Jean McNiff, Action Research, Principles and Practice, McNiff,1988,
50
...my own work within the politics of educational knowledge would
suggest that it is largely up to teachers to gain the initiative
within the academic community by strengthening the explanatory
power of their accounts of professional practice.
Jack Whitehead, Action Research, Principles and Practice, McNiff,1988
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Special thanks to Dr. David Kember of the Educational Development
Unit, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, formerly coordinator of
the Action Learning Project; and Dr. Mavis Kelly, one of the authors
of the booklet Improving the Quality of Teaching through Action
Learning Projects, for providing CELT with a lot of useful materials
on this site.
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