Action research is a simply form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the justice of their own practices, their understanding of these practices and the situations in which the practices are carried out(Carr and Kemmis, 1986)
Action research is the reflexive process by which educators systematically study their problems in order to guide, correct and evaluate their decisions and actions regarding the improvement of teaching and learning in their individual professional context. Practitioners always undergoes self-inquiry to improves their practice or personal understanding. There following are the inquiry processes that carried out by the practitioner:
- Firstly, to clearly define the problem
- Secondly, to specify a plan of action – including the testing hypotheses by application of action to the problem.
- Thirdly, evaluation is then undertaken to monitor and establish the effectiveness of the action taken.
- Finally, participants reflect upon, explain developments and communicate these results to the community of the action researchers.
The general process of action research
1. Planning
2. Action
3. Observe
4. Reflex
Step in action research
1. Identify of problem area
2. Collection and organization of data
3. Interpretation of data
4. Action based on data
5. Reflection
Types of action research
1. Individual action research
- Research usually focuses on the single issue in the classroom
- Researchers/teachers will be seeking solution to the problem of the classroom management, instructional strategies, use of materials or students learning.
- Individual research may not be shared with others unless the researchers/teachers choose to present the findings at a meeting, conferences or submit written material to a journal or newsletter.
2. Collaborative action research
- Involving at least two teachers or a group of teachers and others interested in addressing a classroom issue.
- The classroom issue may be involved one classroom issue or a common problem shared by many classrooms.
- Teachers involve in collaborative action research may be supported by individual outside of the school like University or community partner.
- Improve collegiality and formation of partnership.
3. School-wide action research
- Focuses on school issue, problem or area of collective interest.
- All the staffs in school will work together to narrow the question, gather and analyze data and to decide on a plan of action.
- An example of school action research is to examine their state test scores to identify areas that need improvement and then decide an action plan to improve the students’ performance.
- Team work and individual contributions to the whole are very important and it may cause a problem when the team strives to develop a process and make commitments to others team members.
- Improve collegiality, collaboration and communication and team building.
4. District-wide research
- More complex and utilizes more resources, but reward can be great.
- Focus on district issue or organizational structures.
- Problems and issue can be organizational, community-based and performance-based.
- A district may choose to address a problem common to several schools or one of organizational management.
- Collecting data from all participants needs a commitment from staff to do their fair share to meet agreed-upon deadlines for their assignments.
Example of action research
On the issue of PPSMI, most of the students were lacking interest to learn science and mathematics in English because they are not proficiency enough in using English as a medium to study both subjects. Hence, an action research can be carried out to find a solution and better way to solve this current issue in our educational field.
One of the way that teacher can use to increase students’ interest in learning science and mathematics subject in English is to use “flash card” as a teaching aids to teach scientific terms in the class. This method can help to enhance students’ memorization on those important scientific terms and make them more familiar with those scientific terms. Hence, students may become more familiar with those scientific terms and thus become more interested in learning both subject in English. Besides, this method of teaching may also change their mind concept that learning scientific and mathematics in English is difficult for them who are not proficiency in English.
References:
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-lewin.htm
