Summary
This resource explains what action research is, as distinct from traditional educational research. It includes four examples of action research; two by teachers and two by trainee teachers. It outlines how to do action research, and brief notes about how to write it up. It provides links to useful sources of information about action research.
Not the same as traditional research
Today, action research is recognized as a valid form of enquiry, with its own methodologies and epistemologies, its own criteria and standards of judgement. Debates still take place about the natures of action research, how people carry out their research and for what purposes, but there is general agreement that action research has an identity of its own and should not be spoken about in terms of traditional forms of research.
That’s a quote from Jean McNiff’s classic text, Action Research: Principles and Practice. Despite Jean’s optimism, not everyone agrees that action research is fundamentally different from traditional forms of research. Indeed, I have read student assignments, called ‘action research’ which are actually very poor examples of traditional research. Superficially action research looks like traditional research, but it’s really quite different.
Seven differences
- Traditional educational research is done by researchers who position themselves as impartial and objective scientists (e.g. men in white coats). Action researchers are practitioners (e.g. teachers) who are subjectively involved in the situation they are researching. They often expect to change themselves, to become more self-aware and self-critical, as part of the research process.
- Traditional research is done on people. Action research is done with people (e.g. teachers and pupils working together, to improve learning).
- In traditional research, findings are ‘reliable’ when any researcher, adopting the same methods, would obtain the same results. Action research accepts that this rarely happens (except when the research question is trivial) because each situation is complex and unique.
- Traditional educational research involves a process of sampling – choosing individuals who are representative of a larger population. Action research doesn’t ‘do’ representative samples: action researchers work with the people they work with, regardless of whether they might be representative of other groups.
- Traditional research starts with a ‘cause and effect’ type of hypothesis that the researcher expects to prove or disprove. Action research looks for evidence of change, and the influences that contribute to that change. (McNiff (2002) says, ‘the word ‘prove’ does not exist in action research’)
- Traditional research involves comparisons between groups – typically, an experimental group and a control group. Action research doesn’t, although it often compares later situations with previous ones, acknowledging that the researcher’s actions are only some of the factors in the change.
- Traditional research sets up artificial situations in which variables are removed. Action research happens in the real world, accepting that variables happen.
What is action research?
Action research is done by practitioners into their own practice, in order to improve it. It starts with questions like, ‘how can I improve what I am doing?’ Action researchers investigate their own practice, plan improvements, implement the improvements, evaluate the intended and unintended consequences and reflect on these, in order to plan further improvements. At each stage, the researchers collect data, so that their evaluations are grounded in evidence. This sequence is often described in a diagram such as this:
Click image to enlarge
Example 1: Involving TAs by Liz O'Connell
Liz is a teacher at Glenmoor School, in Bournemouth. She had a Teaching Assistant (TA) in two of her classes, but she knew that she did not give them any input, and did not always recognise their contributions to the lessons. She used action research to more usefully employ TA support in music lessons.
Reconnaissance: She interviewed the TAs to see how they about being in music lessons and what they could offer kids. She found that TAs rarely knew the content of a lesson before it started; they found this “a big problem”. They wanted to be involved in the planning, in order to understand the lessons better.
Plan: The intention was to give joint ownership of the planning to the TAs, so they felt more a part of the teaching team.
Act: Liz involved the TAs in planning a scheme of work, together with a PGCE student.
Evaluate: Liz observed how one of her TAs worked with three girls who were very weak at music: “The TA became a member of their team, saying, ‘I’m part of this; I’m going to compose a leitmotif for my character – if I can do it, you can do it’. The girls really came to life, worked well as a team and gained a lot of skills … With her [the TA] working with them, they got reassurance and knew what they were doing.”
Reflect: Liz reflected that TAs tended to know individual pupils better than teachers, because they spent more time with them, and saw them in a variety of lessons. They usually found it difficult to support pupils because they rarely knew the content of the lesson before it started. However, when they were involved in the planning they understood better the purposes of the lessons and were able to participate more; this lead to greater pupil confidence. Liz said, “I’m realizing the importance of the TA.”
Example 2: KS3 Feedback by Sarah Moore
Sarah is Head of Music at Bitterne Park School, Southampton. She noticed that her KS3 pupils tended not to implement feedback given to them in lessons, and she used action research to improve this situation.
Reconnaissance: She used the KS3 Music strategy to evaluate her own approach; she also used a pupil questionnaire and an analysis of a video recording of one of her lessons. This showed that she spent less time giving feedback than she thought, and her feedback was largely correcting errors, rather than getting pupils to think about what they were doing.
Plan: Sarah planned to give feedback to a wider range of pupils, to allow more time before teacher intervention, to allow pupils to explore possibilities rather than being told what to do, to link feedback to objectives and level descriptors, and to give pupils a better understanding of the value of feedback.
Act: She made a feedback diary, in which pupils were expected to record their feedback. At the end of the lesson they reflected on the targets, and at the beginning of the next lesson they reviewed what needed to be done to meet them. She also made prompt cards, to suggest how they might feedback to one another.
Evaluate: Sarah made a video recording of another lesson, and gave the pupils a follow-up questionnaire. In the second filmed lesson, much more time was spent giving feedback, and pupils took more ownership on providing feedback. She asked a range of pupils to give feedback on performances, and every pupil was able to make a comment. The findings from the final questionnaire were compared with those from the initial questionnaire. The results were generally positive; 92% of pupils agreed that feedback helps improve their progress (compared with 71%); 82% agreed that they understood their feedback (compared with 62%); 74% of pupils agreed that feedback during lessons is most useful (compared with 41%); 73% agreed that using feedback cards improved the feedback they gave to others.
Reflect: Sarah felt that a “feedback diary” was useful because it enabled pupils to record their targets, and written prompts enabled them to assess each other. She found that, as a result of her research, her feedback became more focused, and she learned more about her pupils. However, the process was time consuming and not all pupils understood the reasons for the changes in the feedback process.
Example 3: Behaviour Management in the classroom by Joanna Mattock
Jo was a trainee teacher at the University of Southampton. She did an action research assignment, hoping to improve pupils’ behaviour in her lessons.
Reconnaissance: Jo video recorded herself teaching and used the recordings to analyse three lessons on her first placement. The video allowed her to observe herself closely:
There are moments when I am hunched over, sometimes with my arms folded, which creates a very negative, insecure impression ... there are occasions when I fidget and fiddle for example with a pen lid ... I think I speak loudly and animatedly which excites the class ... when issuing instructions I come across as very weak, asking them to do something, rather than telling them in a polite, assertive manner.
Looking at the lessons as a whole, she found that,
The first few minutes were always the worst; uncontrolled and chaotic. However, for the majority of my lessons, once the register had been taken and I actually started to teach, the class settled down, listened and worked well ... I therefore had to look at the beginnings of my lessons and decide where the problems lay.
At the beginning of her lessons she sometimes felt that she was inconsistent, responding to some pupils’ poor behaviour by telling them off and to similar behaviour in other pupils by sending them out of the room. She found that she became emotionally involved in situations, sometimes becoming defensive and occasionally confrontational:
Throughout the Y8 lesson I was confrontational; sometimes rude ... I almost had a full-blown fight with ‘Jack’ ... the aggressive manner in which I dealt with the situation led to ‘Simon’ getting wound up ... My frustration was demonstrated when I shouted, ordering them to ‘shut up’. This is not only rude but exacerbates the situation.
She explored the literature, including Fontana (1985, 1995), Rogers (1998), Cowley (2003) and Jacques and Ellis (2002). She found a great deal of practical advice which was firmly supported with theoretical underpinnings, often from psychology. From Rogers she understood the functions of behaviour management in terms of socialising individuals, providing for their moral development, their personal maturation and in providing emotional security. From Cowley she learned the importance of setting clear expectations, appearing authoritative, applying sanctions in a fair and graduated way, of reacting from the head rather than becoming emotionally involved and avoiding confrontation.
Through applying her reading of the literature to her interpretation of classroom events she began to understand the need some pupils have for attention and said, ‘It was important for me to make sure that I did not reinforce negative behaviour through giving students attention when they misbehave’. At the same time, she recognised a need to help the students to develop positive self-images.
Plan: Her action plan included the following points,
- Decide on personal expectations for a class
- Develop a personal plan for responding to misbehaviour
- Stay calm, positive, polite and non-confrontational
- Use non-verbal signals (body language, facial expressions), wait for silence
Act: Jo found out about her students by reading their profiles and talking to their teachers. Her greater knowledge of the students helped both with individuals and with the whole class. She discovered, for instance, that a particular pupil was liable to lose his temper if provoked. When he misbehaved she ignored him but later, when the class was busy working, she spoke to him on his own, and was able to discuss his behaviour without attracting an audience. Her knowledge of individual pupils also enabled her to change the way in which they were grouped, specifically to separate the most difficult students. She says, ‘This did not solve all the problems but it made them easier to handle’.
Because most of the poor behaviour happened at the start of her lessons she developed starter activities to focus the class. These were not always whole-class activities. For instance, because a particular class arrived from PE lessons, in twos and threes, she wrote down a simple activity on the board that they could do at their own pace, and was better able to engage students individually.
Evaluate: Jo analysed her improvements by studying transcripts of lessons before and after the plan. These were partly a matter of making expectations clear:
By getting the class to practice [stopping playing instruments] I lay down the rules in a fun and interesting way. By encouraging them to do it better, they felt enthused and wanted to do the best they could ... by telling them that they were the best class I had heard yet, they felt encouraged.
It was partly to do with self-presentation:
My general body language had improved considerably. I stood up straight, with my arms by my side, keeping my body relaxed and open. I moved freely around the classroom when explaining a point instead of standing behind the desk.
And partly to do with language. In an early lesson she was assertive but confrontational, saying, ‘Right, you know the rules. Register in silence or you’re in at break.’ Later, she was able to give the same instruction in a more positive way saying, ‘Okay ... let’s see if you can do this. Register in silence. I know you can do it’. She reported that her voice had also changed:
I found it useful to drop the level of my voice when a class was being particularly noisy, rather than shouting over them ... I also developed several phrases to use when I wanted their attention, such as, ‘Ok, headphones off, keyboards off’ or ‘Everyone turn and face me please’.
Reflect: In conclusion, Jo wrote,
This assignment has allowed me to address the issues that gave me the greatest concern and demonstrate how I have systematically improved in these areas. Developing a discipline plan increased my confidence in dealing with incidents of poor behaviour and implementing my action plan in the classroom meant I had a much better control of the classroom situation. Of course, the work I have done over the past few months does not mean that my abilities in this area are infallible, but it has given me a good foundation to build upon in the future.
Example 4: Freedom to learn by Alison Larrett
Alison was a trainee teacher at the University of Southampton. Her action research assignment centred around the pupil-centred theories of Carl Rogers (for example, Rogers and Freiberg, 1994). Rogers contrasts traditional methods of teaching, which he characterises in terms of teachers imparting knowledge and information, with child-centred approaches in which the needs of the pupil are paramount. Alison found that her own approach to teaching had been influenced by traditional assumptions; she was didactic and teacher-centred, lecturing and demonstrating and not expecting input from pupils.
Reconnaissance: Alison analysed her teaching during the first placement, finding three ways in which she fell short of Rogers’ ideals. First, she imparted information, rather than encouraging learning by discovery. For example, she began a lesson on chord voicing by saying, ‘The words ‘chord voicing’ mean the way that we break up chords, the way we change the notes of the chord around’. She wrote,
On consideration I believe that essentially this statement is already sending a signal to pupils that I do not expect them to think for themselves; merely that I expect them to listen and recall this factual knowledge.
Second, she used questioning more to enact her role as a teacher than to encourage reflection. Her questions to pupils were closed – ‘who can tell me what sort of chord I am playing?’ She commented,
The use of questioning techniques was very narrow and used to check factual knowledge rather than encourage independent thinking ... although the use of closed questioning is a useful tool for the traditional teacher to check how much knowledge a class has absorbed, I believe I should begin to consider whether these closed questions would motivate a class to respond or discourage them due to a fear of failure.
Finally, her approach to bad behaviour was dominated by ‘threats, verbal warnings and enforcing tighter discipline’. She described this as ‘largely undemocratic’. In contrast, she wanted to be as Rogers describes:
A person who is perceived as an authority figure in the situation is sufficiently secure within herself and in relationships with others to experience an essential trust in the capacity of others to think for themselves, to learn for themselves. She regards human beings as trustworthy organisms. (Rogers and Freiberg, 1994: 212)
Plan: Alison drew up an action plan in which she aimed to become more pupil-centred in her pedagogy and aimed, ‘to develop a semi-facilitative role, in which students feel valued’.
Act: Alison identified various activities, ranging from highly teacher-centred to more pupil-centred, as follows:
- Lecturing
- Closed questioning
- Questioning encouraging independent thinking and guided discovery
- Musical modelling
- Teacher demonstration
- Pupil demonstration
- Self evaluation
- Pupil discussion
In her lesson planning, she aimed to spend less time in the teacher-centred activities, and more time in the pupil-centred ones.
Evaluate: Alison video-recorded some of her lessons and found evidence that she had improved in all three aspects she had identified. Her approach became less dogmatic; for instance, in her final recorded lesson she led a rhythmic exercise and, once it had been mastered, asked pupils to come to the front of the class and lead similar exercises while she herself sat with the pupils. Her questioning became more open:
Ali: What do you think you could have improved?
A: We did it for too long. It was meant to go faster as the music went up.
Ali: Okay. Can you think of any other musical devices that you might use?
B: We could have used a drone.
Ali: Maybe you can get that in next week then. Anything else?
C: Silence.
Ali: Yes. Perhaps silence because the music was fairly constant. [A, B & C are pupils]
She found evidence of a more facilitative approach to class management. For example,
When students were asked to sit in a circle it became clear that the circle was not round and some students were left outside ... I said to the pupils, ‘Okay guys, look, at the circle. What needs to happen?’ In this way, pupils are encouraged to think for themselves ... it also eliminates the potential hostility that could be caused through using teacher dictatorship to instruct students.
Reflect: Alison wrote,
Upon reflection, I felt that this research was not sufficient to show whether or not I had met the aims of my action plan. The implementation of more child-centred learning into the classroom is a gradual process which demonstrates a change in the atmosphere of the learning environment which is a joint venture between teacher and pupil. I did not feel that recordings and lesson plans could capture truly how pupils felt about this process.
She therefore carried out a brief questionnaire survey of pupils’ opinions and, from this, learned that most of her pupils enjoyed, ‘having an element of choice in the work’, ‘taking on responsibilities in the classroom’ and agreed with the statement that they ‘find it easier to be creative when working with others’. This confirmed that the moves she was making made the pupils feel better about their work. Nearly all of her respondents agreed with the statement ‘I understand how to behave in music lessons’, which showed that her move towards greater freedom did not produce confusion as to acceptable behaviour although only around 50 percent agreed that they enjoyed, ‘evaluating my own work’.
She did not intend her lessons to be as child-centred as Rogers advocated; what she sought was a balance in which, ‘pupils benefit from an increased amount of freedom and choice in their learning without losing the structure and security of the more traditional practice to which they may have been accustomed’. Through analysis of her lessons against her coding categories, she also found that she had learned to use a much wider range of teaching strategies, including guided discovery, role play, inquiry and self assessment. She felt that her teaching had improved and concluded that,
As a direct result of giving pupils ‘freedom to learn’ ... teachers [too] can benefit from freedom to experience increased trust ... teaching and learning become a shared experience rather than a teacher dominated affair.
Doing action research
There are lots of texts that tell you how to do action research; the following is just a summary. Some possible focuses include:
- justice (pupil voice, pupils’ access to instrumental lessons or extra-curricular music)
- lessons (musical starters, transitions, plenaries)
- curriculum (teaching singing or composing or improvising or music technology)
- pupils (SEN, EAL, G&T, those with instrumental lessons)
- pedagogy (musical modelling, questioning, pupil-directed learning)
- assessment (AfL, self-assessment, peer-assessment)
Reconnaissance: When you have chosen your focus, don’t rush to fix what is wrong. Take time to consider whether this is a problem for everyone, or just for you. Find out what other people think about it (it might turn out to be trivial and not worth working on!)
Plan: Involve other people in your planning, including pupils. Consider how you would collect data that might show improvement. Think about your ethical responsibilities. (Should you ask your pupils for permission? Should you ask their parents, or school managers?)
Act: When you implement the plan, collect relevant data, but not too much! Data can include:
- observations by you or by others
- journal or diary notes
- questionnaires
- interviews
- pupils’ work
You could use test data, but steer clear of very general data (such as exam results) that are far removed from the actions you take during the research.
Evaluate: Look at the data to see if it contains evidence of improvement or not. Always look at the ‘negative’ data that shows the limits of your improvements. You might have to be selective about the data, but be clear why you are selecting some, rather than others.
Reflect: Think about what you have learned. This will probably go beyond just ‘this action led to this improvement’. Include thinking about:
- yourself – how you have changed (or not)
- your pupils – what they have learned (or not)
- your relationships with the people you have been working with
- the action research process – how it contributed to your learning
Writing up action research
- Action research is usually written in the first person – ‘I conducted an inquiry…’, not ‘an inquiry was conducted…’
- It is usually written as a narrative
- It is usual to select data, but also to be clear about how the data were chosen for inclusion
- It can usefully be described under sections such as, aims/reconnaissance/plan/evaluation/reflection
- You can find extracts of trainee teachers’ writing at www.practitionerresearchinmusiceducation.org
Information about action research
www.jeanmcniff.com: Includes a very readable, downloadable booklet about action research, by an international expert on the subject.
www.infed.org/research/b-actres.htm: Good definitions of action research
www.nipissingu.ca/oar/archive-Vol1-V111E.htm: The full text of an action research report in music education
www.practitionerresearchinmusiceducation.org: Summaries of action research in music education. Includes further information about the above research.
journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0265051708008115: My review of action research reports in music education, published in British Journal of Music Education.
Challenges for ITE
- There is evidence that teachers and trainees misunderstand the nature of action research. For example, Clayton & O’Brien et al. (2008) found that teachers had ‘quantitative and essentially positivistic’ understandings of action research, linked to the government’s focus on the using performance data in schools’ (p.78). Trainees might need to be steered away from inappropriate use of traditional research methods.
- Action research which focuses on trainees’ own practice has the potential to make them more reflective, self-aware and self-critical. It can also encourage them to seek their pupils’ views.
- When trainees choose an aspect of their own practice to research and improve, I find that they actually want to read about it. Most of my trainees’ action research assignments have literature reviews which they undertake because they want to learn more about the topic, not because they have to fill their text with quotes from books.
- When I asked a group of trainee teachers what they gained from doing their action research assignments, only one said that the assignment had not had a positive impact on their teaching.
Comments
Action research
The area of action research is one that needs careful consideration in light of the first proposals surrounding the ‘Masters in Teaching and Learning’. Tim suggests that ‘Action research is done by practitioners into their own practice, in order to improve it.’ Of course, it is essential that we aim to develop reflective practitioners, whether in teacher education programmes or in the early or subsequent years of a teacher’s career but we need to ensure that the reflection is real and deep.
In terms of teacher education it is important to build in a range of reflective possibilities. For instance, student teachers will reflect on their practice in formal lesson evaluations. However, such evaluations often seem to result in student teachers writing what they think their mentors and tutors wish to read. More powerful forms of reflection result from allowing student teachers to engage in more pertinent, personal reflection and a good example of this might be in a reflective Learning Journal. I would suggest that my students’ most powerful reflections come after a period of real exploration of reflective writing. I think that we need to think carefully about exactly when in a programme or in an NQT year beginner teachers are ready to fully engage in the deep reflection that is intrinsic to action research.
Tim mentions that ‘When trainees choose an aspect of their own practice to research and improve, I find that they actually want to read about it.’ This is an admirable sentiment and I am sure that this is true of Tim’s students. However, I feel that, as a teacher educator, I should be ensuring that my student teachers have been guided towards a variety of readings which they engage with before they embark on any sort of action research. In this way their action research will be strongly underpinned. Hopefully, their action research will lead them to research further, more specific literature which is an important part of the process. It is clear from Tim’s fourth example that this has happened.
My concern is that the ‘Masters in Teaching and Learning’ might force beginner teachers to engage in action research without early opportunities in their very busy NQT year to develop reflective reading and writing skills and might result in weak examples of action research.
Action research
Hi Julie,
I do share your concerns about the MTL, and I very much hope it won't lead to teachers undertaking superficial, quasi-research; be it action research, case study or any other type of research.
I think it's important for student teachers and their tutors to realise that quality in action research is different from quality in 'traditional' research. In 'traditional' research, quality is assumed to be tied up with matters of validity (are the research findings true?) and reliability (would the same findings be discovered by any researcher, following the same methods?) Such concepts serve natural scientists well, but not social scientists, and the ontological basis for educational action research holds them to be deeply problematic because, in education, situations vary greatly and 'truth' is tied up with the values of those who proclaim the 'truth'.
The ontological basis for action research is that the world is a messy place, but it isn't random. What we know is the result of our different, subjective, interpretations of a reality that does exist, but cannot be known from an objective viewpoint because there isn't such a thing. (There's an article by Heron & Reason that explains this much better than I can - I can point you in the right direction if you're interested.)
Given that validity and reliability do not make sense in the social world, what counts as 'quality' in action research? This is a matter of continuing debate. For what it's worth, I think it includes:
1. An investigation into the 'current situation' that sets out what the problem is, and why it is important. The 'why it's important' bit should go beyond matters such as pleasing Ofsted, maybe relating to the teacher-researcher's values and/or the political contexts of the research. High quality action research will also involve a critical account of what other people have written on the subject.
2. A real sensitivity to ethical issues. Particularly this involves researching with people (such as students), not researching on them.
3. The use of trustworthy data. I know some action researchers have a problem with this word, but I think it's really important that, if you tell people that you have made a change (in yourself or your pupils), you present evidence for this. This includes presenting any contradictory evidence.
4. Involving at least one other person (perhaps a 'critical friend') in looking at the evidence and checking whether it stacks up. (If you present sufficient raw data in the report, the reader can fulfill this role.)
5. Ideally there should be more than one cycle in the research, as the teacher-researcher makes a sustained commitment to drilling down into the matter under investigation.
In all of this, the quality of the reflection is vital, as you rightly suggest. I sometimes wonder whether student teachers can reflect deeply on their teaching, especially after I've marked a few honest, but basically fairly superficial action research assignments. But every year, there are some assignments that renew my faith in student teachers, in reflection and in action research.
(Incidentally, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that my students read texts about music education that are unrelated to their action research. I never intended to suggest otherwise!)