The Meaning and Role of Action Research in Education

Abstract

Action research in education is known for improving the teachers and administrators’ professional practice and deemed favourable by most educationists for solving problems in education. It is a formative study usually conducted by teachers and administrators in schools. Action research is a cyclical or spiral process that includes problem identification (by a teacher, a group of teachers or administrators) taking action and fact finding about the result of the action taken. Action research in education helps the teachers to adopt or craft the most appropriate strategies within teaching-learning environments. Teachers around the world employ action research in their classrooms and schools, as part of their teaching and research. In this article we discuss action research in education, show the differences between action research and traditional research and we have illustrated forms of action research in education. The paper has also made an attempt at describing the steps in action research. In the concluding section we have discussed the importance of action research to the teacher and all involved in education. All in all, we will labour to present a literature review of what action research is, its elements and the critical role it plays in perfecting the art of teaching.