Action research is a continuous study of issues within a school, ranging from teaching strategies to improvement on test scores. There are four parts to doing action research:
1. Define an issue to study. This tends to be a hard step for most people because they need to make sure the focus of the research pinpoints the area of concern.
2. Review professional literature about the issue. This step is about not re-inventing the wheel. Somewhere out there someone has had to deal with the same issue. Look to see how they handled the problem to get new ideas.
3. Design an action plan about the issue. Look at everything that has been done before and customize it for your school. Make sure the plan is something that actually can be accomplished.
4. Implement the action plan and share the results. Reflecting on the results of the action plan is very important to see if the plan worked. Sharing of the plan allows for collaboration and learning from peers. From this point the administrator can reevaluate to see their next step in the improvement process.
In my research I will be focusing on the gap between boys and girls in science standardized test scores. What strategies need to be implemented to increase the girl’s scores on standardized tests while keeping the boys scores high?
Hi Sheri! I mostly mirrored your thought process as to what action research is and how to go about using it. I think your topic in focusing on the gap between boys and girls in Science stanardized scores will be very interesting.
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