Action Research in Schools

Abstract

ACTION research to improve practices in schools has received its greatest impetus during the last six years. A survey of the literature revealed relatively few references to educational action research as such prior to 1948. Writers (5, 66) for many years, however, have urged teachers to become more consistent consumers of research, and some (9, 22, 50, 66) have proposed that teachers themselves conduct research as a means of improving their teaching. The type of research proposed involved cooperation with research specialists in the collecting of data for certain fundamental studies. Cutright and Dahl (22) described teacher research involving the use of experimental and control groups but recognized this as difficult and suggested cooperative research to avoid a danger of neglecting the teacher's responsibilities to his pupils. The development of action research in schools represents an attempt to provide a research methodolgy which is suitable for study and solution of school problems in relation to the total social situation and which can be conducted by teachers as a part of their teaching activity. Corey (15) traced the term action research and its methodology to two somewhat independent sources: (a) the activities of John Collier who, when he was Commissioner of Indian Affairs, advocated action research as a means of more effective social planning; and (b) Kurt Lewin and his students, who used action type research in improving human relations and studying