Brief background

Most people agree that the term ‘action research’ originated in the 1940’s with the social psychologist Kurt Lewin. Lewin was interested in taking research beyond books and looking at how it could bring about real social change. He developed a spiral cycle of steps in his process of action research which is very similar to that used by many involved in educational action research today.

What is action research?

Action research is a means by which teachers can experiment with and reflect on their own teaching and in doing so resolve problems and develop a deeper understanding and knowledge of their students’ needs and their teaching practice. For many this is a way that teachers can explore and develop themselves independently, though many practitioners of action research believe that this is a process best done collaboratively within a community. Very often this community is your fellow teachers and the students in your class.

Why do action research?

For many teachers their formal training ends when they start their first teaching job. Many aren’t observed and if they are it is a formal process for the purposes of quality control rather than for their own development. Many teachers don’t have a group of fellow professionals within easy reach to consult and share ideas with. Many work in isolation and have little or no support or training.

This can lead to very low motivation and as teachers often feel they don’t have the time or opportunity to study and develop. Action research, also known by some as ‘classroom research’ is a process by which teachers can work alone or with colleagues to examine their teaching practices and create their own plans and goals for self development.

Action research uses the opportunities present in every lesson to help teachers to examine and better understand the things that they do and the things that the students do each day in their classroom.

The action research cycle

The procedure for action research can be described as a cycle in four stages;

Plan – Think of a problem that you have identified within your classroom or some aspect of your teaching that you would like to improve or understand better. Plan a lesson that involves attempting to deal with some aspect of this problem.

Act - Teach the lesson

Observe – During and after the lesson collect data about what happens in the lesson. This could be from someone observing you, a video or audio recording or from some form of questioning or analysis of student responses. It could also be from your own reflections.

Reflect – Analyse your data, think about what happened in class and see if you can draw some conclusions regarding how to develop your approach.

This is not the end of the procedure as this act of reflecting should inform the process of planning your next lesson and so the cycle should begin again. Many good teachers believe that every lesson should include some aspect of action research and that the continued development of a teacher is dependent on this ongoing process.

What to research

There are many aspects of your teaching practice that you can decide to do research on. Here are just a few suggestions that you can use to get started.

Classroom management

Good classroom management can be the key to successful teaching, so you may decide to research some aspect of your classroom management. Here are some possible areas you might want to explore.

• Instructions This area is especially important if you are giving your instructions in English. Are your instructions to your students clear? Do the students always understand you instructions? Are you checking that your students have understood you instructions?

• Participation Did all the students have the opportunity to participate in the lesson? Did some students dominate pair, group or open activities? Were any of the students inactive or not involved in different parts of the lesson? Did I vary the types of interaction?

• Pace Did the lesson follow my anticipated timing? Were there times when the lesson dragged or when the pace was too fast for the students to keep up? Did the students have time to complete all the activities?

• Balance of talking time Did I spend more of the lesson speaking than my students? What percentage of my lesson involved the students using language for real communication?

Coursebook and teaching materials

The coursebook and the materials you use with your students can have a significant effect on their progress. Here are some possible research areas to explore.

• Themes Are the topics within the book interesting? Do your students have sufficient understanding of the target culture to deal with the materials? Does the material provide theme with sufficient cultural and content information? Are the themes of the texts motivating / relevant for your students? Would your students benefit from more / less authentic material?

• Approach Does the coursebook have a balance between skill development and skill testing? Are there a variety of approaches to suit all learning styles? Are any of the approaches within the book inappropriate?

• Level Is the material at the correct level for your students? Is the grammar input at the right level for your students? Is any of the skills work too easy / difficult?

Planning

This is another area that can have a significant impact on the success of your students’ learning.

• Lesson objective Am I achieving my aims within each lesson? Are my learning objectives for my students the same as theirs? Are the objectives clear to my students? Are they realistic or am I expecting too much – too little of my students?

• The plan Is my plan helping me during the lesson? Is what I plan actually happening within the lesson? Do I need tom plan in more / less detail? Do I understand my plans and can I reuse them when I come back to them at a later date?

• Timing Am I getting to the end of my plan? Is the timing of each stage accurate? Do I have to rush things to stick to the plan? Have I allowed too much time for some activities?

• Balance of activities Am I planning in a sufficient balance of all four skills? Am I planning a good balance of activity types? Am I planning in a balance between student and teacher focus? Am I including enough freer or controlled language practice? I am I planning in enough revision?

Classroom dynamics The dynamics of your classroom can have a significant effect on the motivation and success of your students.

• Your relationship to your students Could you improve your relationship with your students? Do you ‘know’ them all as people? Do you know what each student’s individual needs and learning styles are? Do your students respect / admire / feel intimidate by you?

• Your students relationship to each other Are there any tensions within the class? Are there some students who don’t participate? Do all the students know and work well with each other? Are there any discipline problems within the class?

How to collect research

There are a variety of methods for collecting your research. These can be as simple as just writing down your own reflections after each lesson or they could include complex questionnaires which you give to your students, getting a peer to observe you or making video or audio recordings of your lesson. You will need to choose carefully which method you use depending on the aims of your research. The key factor though is that your means of data collection should provide you with a reasonable amount of data that can help you reflect on your lesson and make informed decisions about what is happening in your classroom.

How to reflect

This is possibly the most difficult part of the action research process. Once you have taught your lesson and collected your data, you need to analyse it objectively and see what it tells you. It is very important at this stage that you:

Don’t take the feedback too personally. Action research is about finding out about teaching practices and processes, it’s not about evaluating and judging you as a teacher, so try not to get demotivated by negative feedback. Look at it as an opportunity to grow and learn.

Try not to decide what you want the information to tell you before you look at it. Try to reflect on your class with an open mind and genuinely look for what the process can teach you.

Don’t use the process only as a means to bolster your own ego. Be careful that you are not only looking for the positive messages. It’s important to know what you do well, but you must be honest about your weaknesses too.

Consider getting other people involved in the analysis of your data. Share what you think you have discovered by talking to your peers, your students or with a wider community of teachers through websites or writing for journals and other publications.

Be prepared to be wrong. You may think that you have come up with some useful insights, but you need to test these with more research and by sharing your opinions and comparing your experiences with that of other teachers. Sometimes what you discover with one class can be totally contradicted by what you discover with another.

Conclusion

Whether you do it alone, with a peer or within a community the key to successful action research is open-minded reflection and a real willingness to learn and develop. That willingness, ability and opportunity to keep learning and developing is one of the greatest and most rewarding aspects of being a teacher and one of the most valuable things we can pass on to our students.

Written by Nik Peachey - January 2008

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