Action research is the systematic inquiry that teachers and educational leaders conduct in their own classrooms and schools to understand and improve their practice — and it is increasingly recognized as one of the most powerful forms of professional learning available to educators. Unlike external research conducted by university researchers on teachers and students, action research is conducted by practitioners on their own practice, generating locally relevant knowledge that practitioners can act on immediately. ED8515 develops the advanced action research competencies that teacher-leaders need to design rigorous investigations, analyze data credibly, and lead collaborative research communities in their schools.
Advanced action research methodology
Sophisticated approaches to practitioner inquiry
- Action research traditions: ED8515 examines the major action research traditions and their methodological implications. John Dewey's pragmatist tradition grounds action research in the idea that genuine knowledge arises from reflection on action and its consequences — knowledge is not merely described but tested through its practical application. Kurt Lewin's model of planned change (the plan-act-observe-reflect cycle) provides the iterative structure that characterizes most action research frameworks. Stephen Kemmis and Robin McTaggart's participatory action research tradition emphasizes collaborative, democratic inquiry in which practitioners and communities engage together in transformative research aimed at changing both practice and the social conditions that constrain it. Paulo Freire's critical pedagogical tradition grounds action research in social justice — using research to understand and address structural inequities that produce educational disadvantage
- Research design for practitioner inquiry: The course examines research design choices for action research — qualitative designs (case study, narrative inquiry, ethnographic approaches) that are well-suited to the deep contextual understanding that action researchers typically seek; quantitative approaches (pre-post comparisons, single-subject designs, time series analyses) that can provide credible evidence of intervention effects; and mixed methods designs that combine qualitative understanding of what is happening with quantitative evidence of the magnitude of change. The course develops the capacity to select and justify research designs appropriate to specific action research questions, acknowledging the methodological trade-offs between rigor (threats to validity that any design faces) and practicality (what is feasible in a classroom or school context while maintaining educational responsibilities)
- Trustworthiness in action research: ED8515 examines the standards for evaluating the credibility of action research — the equivalent of validity and reliability for practitioner inquiry. Lincoln and Guba's (1985) trustworthiness criteria (credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability) provide a framework for ensuring that action research findings warrant the conclusions drawn and the actions taken. Practical strategies for enhancing trustworthiness include member checking (sharing findings with participants to verify accuracy), triangulation (using multiple data sources or methods to converge on findings), audit trails (documenting the research process transparently), and peer debriefing (discussing findings and interpretations with critical colleagues)
Identifying and investigating barriers to student achievement
ED8515 develops the diagnostic capacity to identify the barriers that prevent students from achieving at high levels — and to design action research investigations that illuminate these barriers clearly enough to guide effective responses. The course examines the barrier identification process: using multiple data sources (assessment data, attendance records, student work samples, classroom observation, student and family interviews) to triangulate the nature, extent, and distribution of achievement gaps; distinguishing between barriers that operate at the individual student level (specific learning needs, language development, social-emotional challenges), the classroom level (instructional design, curriculum alignment, assessment practices, classroom environment), the school level (program design, scheduling, resource allocation, school culture), and the systemic level (district policies, community factors, structural inequities). This ecological framing is important because action research interventions targeted at the wrong level will produce minimal impact — addressing individual learning needs when the barrier is an instructional design problem, or addressing classroom practice when the barrier is a school-level resource allocation inequity, wastes effort and demoralizes practitioners. ED8515 develops the investigative skills to characterize barriers accurately before designing interventions — recognizing that the quality of the problem statement determines the quality of the research question, which determines the quality of the evidence generated.
Collaborative action research and teacher leadership
ED8515 examines collaborative action research as a form of teacher leadership — positioning teacher-leaders not merely as individual practitioner-researchers but as facilitators of collaborative inquiry communities in their schools. Collaborative action research takes several forms: collaborative action research teams in which teachers from a common grade level or department investigate a shared instructional challenge; lesson study (the Japanese-derived professional learning practice of collectively planning, teaching, observing, analyzing, and revising research lessons); professional learning communities (PLCs) that use structured protocols to examine student work, analyze assessment data, and collectively generate and test instructional hypotheses; and participatory action research in which students are engaged as co-researchers in investigations about their own learning. The course develops the leadership skills to initiate and sustain collaborative inquiry in school settings — building the relational trust that enables honest conversation about practice, structuring collaborative time productively, managing the facilitation of data analysis discussions, and maintaining the connection between collaborative inquiry and instructional improvement.
Dissemination and utilization of action research findings
ED8515 addresses the utilization challenge of action research — what happens after the data is collected and analyzed. Too often, action research cycles conclude with findings that are filed in a course portfolio and never acted upon, or that influence only the individual practitioner who conducted the study rather than informing the broader professional community. The course develops dissemination strategies appropriate to action research: internal dissemination (presenting findings at faculty meetings, sharing data with departments and grade-level teams, incorporating findings into school improvement plans), external dissemination (presenting at local and regional education conferences, contributing to practitioner journals and online communities, sharing through professional networks), and the representation of action research findings to skeptical audiences who may question the rigor of practitioner research. ED8515 also examines the ethical obligations of action research — IRB exemptions and their conditions, informed consent in classroom research, data privacy protections for student information, and the power relationships between teacher-researchers and their student participants that require particular care.
ED8515 assignments include action research proposals, literature reviews, data analysis reports, and dissemination presentations
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Frequently asked questions
ED8515 addresses this fundamental distinction directly, because understanding how action research is both similar to and different from formal educational research is essential for designing credible action research and for communicating its value to skeptical audiences. Action research and formal educational research share the goal of generating warranted knowledge claims — both involve systematic data collection, rigorous analysis, and transparent reporting of findings. Both require careful attention to research ethics, appropriate methods for the questions being investigated, and honest acknowledgment of limitations and alternative explanations. The key differences lie in purpose, scope, audience, and generalizability. Purpose: formal educational research aims to generate generalizable knowledge that advances the field's understanding of educational phenomena — findings that apply beyond the specific context in which they were produced. Action research aims to generate locally useful knowledge that improves specific practices in specific contexts — the practitioner-researcher is simultaneously the primary beneficiary and the primary audience. Scope: formal research typically involves larger samples, more controlled conditions, and more rigorous experimental designs that enable causal inference. Action research typically involves smaller samples (one classroom, one school), less controlled conditions (teachers cannot randomly assign students to treatment and control conditions or control for all confounding variables), and research designs appropriate to the naturalistic educational setting rather than to an experimental laboratory. Generalizability: formal educational research aims to produce findings that generalize to other contexts and populations. Action research findings are explicitly local — they may suggest hypotheses worth investigating in other contexts, but they do not claim to demonstrate what will work in classrooms and schools other than those in which the research was conducted. This localism is both a limitation and a strength: action research findings are immediately applicable in the specific context where they were generated, without the implementation challenge of transferring findings from research settings to practice settings. These differences do not make action research inferior to formal research — they make it different and complementary. The field of education benefits from both: formal research that advances general understanding of educational phenomena, and action research that generates locally applicable knowledge and develops practitioners as inquirers who understand their students and schools deeply.