Gwynn Mettetal

Indiana University South Bend

Research about Teaching and Learning

Resources for Teacher-Researchers

• List of common problems in conducting research and suggested solutions
• Brief bibliography for beginning teacher researchers, and an extensive bibliography
• Search for background information using ERIC to find research reports and Metacrawler to find websites
• Links to other Action Research Web Sites
  • Action Research on Web
  • George Mason Univ.'s Teacher Research site
  • International Conference for Teacher Researchers
  • Guidelines for planning Action Research
  • Educational Action Research Journal, an online journal
  • Networks: an online journal of teacher research
  • Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, online journal that includes action research
• How to report statistics, a quick guide
• A discussion of Ethical Issues for teacher-researchers
• A quick guide to APA reference style
• Submitting your research report to ERIC

Steps for Classroom Action Research

• Overview of steps and strategies
  
• Decide on a question--Meaningful and important to you.
• Read literature on your topic (the ERIC database is an excellent source)
• Plan your overall research strategy
• Follow guidelines for ethical research
• Collect data
• Make sense of the data (qualitative and/or quantitative)
• Reach conclusions about your question. What is the practical significance of your findings?
• Take action based on your conclusions
• Share your findings with others

Note: these steps are not always completed in this sequence and you may loop back through some steps several times.