ABSTRACT

Planning and conducting action research in your classroom includes finding ways to document practical changes and changes in your personal perspectives. Previous chapters suggested how you might name an issue that you wish to investigate and critically think about it. During this process you will have noticed that your personal perspectives are not static. What happens in classrooms is not static either. The complexities of teachers’ work do not lend themselves to a definitive model for researching one’s practice. So, instead of offering a model for classroom research, this chapter offers suggestions on how to adopt a pragmatic approach. Research methods that have real relevance to your work situation are needed because you are not only examining your work in the hope of improving professionally but also looking for ways to make your new ideas public for critical evaluation. As well as being distinctively personal research, I am looking at ways to generate theory through action. I am suggesting a classical five-stage approach to action research, but by clarifying the values base of your research and your philosophical stance you can move from action towards theory generation.