Action Research

Book excerpt: Action Research: Using Strategic Inquiry to Improve Teaching and Learning is a core text for the Action Research course in Education. The proposed text seeks to address the needs of practitioners as it will be primarily written for use within a graduate level action research class. It will be oriented towards proactive planning as part of an organized, efficient process for developing and conducting an action research study. The book will be organized around implementation of the action research process using self-regulatory principles, which is characterized by four phases: task definition, goal setting and planning, enacting, and adapting. These four phases will be addressed as the learner considers what action research encompasses and a topic to be studied, then proceeds to establish a plan and enact it. This overall process is organized as can be seen in the Table of Contents. Michael Putnam and Tracy Rock will highlight methods and processes that incorporate formative data that is readily available to teachers, facilitating associations between classroom instruction and the action research process. The text will also reinforce how action research can improve the teaching and learning process by reinforcing or changing perceptions about the use of informal data, including anecdotal notes or observations, in the research process.