Introduction

Literacy is one of the most used concepts in today’s world. It all begins, of course, with good old-fashioned literacy per se. But there are also a number of other sorts of literacy that have risen up and staked claim to public awareness. It is not enough, anymore, to be simply print literate. In order to function in society, people need to be numerically literate, visually literate, culturally literate, and technologically literate. The common wisdom in the field is that educational research is “the application of some generally accepted procedures to examine the knowledge base of education”. Most educational researchers feel that they are following the tenets of the scientific method in their conduct of educational research. Within this broader frame, they define their research designs as either quantitative, qualitative, or mixed designs. One area of growth has been particularly interesting—classroom research conducted by working classroom teachers.