Teachers’ experience doing action research

Abstract

How do teachers carry out action research? What kinds of difficulties do they encounter? How do they deal with them? Students in our action research courses often ask these kinds of questions, and we are embarrassed to be able to give only hypothetical answers. Academics have long been pleading for accounts of teachers' experience with action research, but few have appeared. Most available pieces appear in books of collected articles about action research (for example, Nixon, 1981: Kemmis, 1982); only a few appear individually (Enright, 1979; Byers, 1982; Burton, 1986). For teachers, the rewards of publication are often outweighed by the time and energy required to organize, write, type and decide where to submit an article on action research. Although many teacher journals, and especially journals of professional associations, contain articles in which teachers state a problem and explain their solution, these are not thought of as action research. Action research is often more situation-dependent than are the tips and tricks of the trade found in teacher journals. Consequently, its results appear less generalizable. Action research is essentially done for oneself to improve one's own practice, not for the benefit of others. In spite of the lack of firsthand accounts, we and many others like us continue enthusiastically to