July 18, 2012

Week One Assignment

One of the first things that I did for this assignment was to look up a definition for action research. A definition that I chose was provided by North Central Regional Educational Laboratory: Action research is inquiry or research in the context of focused efforts to improve the quality of an organization at its performance. Action research can be done by an individual or collaboratively as a team. One of the most important aspects of action research is that feedback is required. Feedback is the major difference between action research and the traditional form of research in an educational setting.

Action research is a circular type of research. That means you try something to see if it works, if not you investigate and see why it did not work, and finally you make changes. If not, you then repeat the process. some areas of this research may not take as long as other areas. As mentioned above, this type of research is circular; therefore it may require repeating certain steps while not repeating others. People who are affected by the change are usually involved in the research. Action research takes a situation and tries to solve the problem by using data and collaboration to implement a plan to solve the problem the problem that was being investigated.

Action research can be very beneficial in the educational setting. It allows for individuals or groups to research a problem and try to make a change to solve that  problem. Action research may not be the first type of research that was developed, but it is the one to implement if one truly wants to bring about a change.