This conceptual model introduces a process to help school counselors use data to drive decision making and offers examples to implement the process. A step-by-step process is offered to help school counselors and school counselor supervisors address educational issues, close achievement gaps, and demonstrate program effectiveness. To illustrate…

Written for pre- and in-service educators, this "Third Edition" of Craig A. Mertler's "Action Research: Improving Schools and Empowering Educators" introduces the process of conducting one's own classroom- or school-based action research in conjunction with everyday instructional practices and activities. The text provides educators with the…

This paper aims to make a contribution to the stream of literature on action research by describing a longitudinal collaborative research project which evolved out of a long-term, participation partnership with Volvo Cars. The collaboration was aimed at developing innovation capabilities in the company and accumulating knowledge on how…

In as much as educational research is concerned with individual student assessment and development, it is surprising that single-subject designs are not more readily utilized in classroom-based action research. The purpose of this article is to emphasize benefits of single-subject research in the K-12 setting, given that teachers teach and assess…

Purpose: The main aim of this paper is to develop guidelines on the critical issues to consider in research design in an action research (AR) environment for SME network capability development. Design/methodology/approach: The issues in research design for AR studies are developed from the authors' experience in running learning sets but, in…

This action research study was conducted for purposes of changing the formal evaluation for school administrators to one constructed around the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) 2008 standards, inclusive of multifaceted components aimed to increase the active participation of both the evaluator and the individual being…

This highly readable text demystifies the qualitative research process--and helps readers conceptualize their own studies--by organizing the different research paradigms and traditions into coherent clusters. Real-world examples and firsthand perspectives illustrate the research process; instructive exercises and activities build on each other so…

Background: Following the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the NSW Premier, Mr Bob Carr, launched a school-based initiative in NSW government primary schools called the "Gold Medal Fitness Program" to encourage children to be fitter and more active. The Program was introduced into schools through a model of professional development, "Quality…

Useful as a classroom text and self-teaching tool, this book outlines the process of designing and reporting action research projects in schools. The underlying assumption of the book is that research is not a domain that belongs only to academics, but is a powerful approach that can be used by practitioners to contribute to school renewal and…

This introductory level text provides a background for understanding the uses of qualitative research in education, its theoretical and historical underpinnings, and specific methods of educational research. This revised edition places qualitative research into the context of current discussions of research methods and alternative ways of knowing.…

Action research combines the development of competence with community action. It provides a means of organizing large numbers of people around well-defined, short-term jobs; engages people face to face with a problem; and translates research into politics by building a base of mass support for a given problem. The basic components of any action…

This book is designed to provide knowledge about educational research and to help graduate students in education organize and conduct their own research. No prior familiarity with the principles, procedures, or terminology of educational research is required. Chapters are: (1) "Educational Research: Its Nature and Rules of Operation"; (2) "Types…

This paper, which is intended to assist adult literacy practitioners interested in conducting research about their programs, discusses the four stages of the action research process: identifying questions to guide the research, collecting information to answer the questions, analyzing the information collected, and sharing the results with others.…

This book was developed to provide guidance in the process of systematic inquiry in the field of adult education and training. The book contains 11 chapters. It begins with an introduction and overview of the research process, followed by two chapters on how to shape a research problem and conduct a review of the literature that will help to…