This article by Dr. Mahmoud M. S. Abdallah provides a comprehensive guide to formulating a research problem in education and language learning, particularly for TESOL/TEFL researchers. It emphasizes the importance of a well-defined research problem as the cornerstone of any research project, guiding the selection of methods, data collection, and…

This article nuances an ongoing discussion among researchers about external researchers in emancipatory action research in the educational field. It examines opportunities and challenges for emancipatory action research for participants in top-down and bottom-up initiated action research projects with external researchers. An analysis based on…

Researcher-practitioner partnerships have gained increasing prominence within education in recent years, yet scholarship on partnerships and tools to guide partnerships' work remain in their infancy. Drawing on our own work in a partnership as well as analysis of abstracts for the 41 partnerships funded by the Institute of Education Sciences and…

This tool is designed for individuals who want to formatively assess a research-practice partnership (RPP) in collaboration with its members. It provides guidance on how to set and monitor progress on quarterly RPP goals aligned to five critical dimensions that researchers and practitioners must address to build and sustain an effective RPP. This…

In this essay, Rachel Schachter and Donald Freeman present the familiar problem in studying and improving teaching: how to connect what teachers know and think with what they do as they teach. They outline how research on the public and private worlds of teaching has become bifurcated, with the private side of the work often disconnected from…

This special issue recognizes EAPRIL as being a platform for practitioner and practice-based research and by organizing the 10th annual conference for practitioner research on improving learning in education and professional practice. Papers in this conference and in this special issue are rooted in practice-based research or practitioner…

Design-based implementation research offers the opportunity to rethink the relationships between intervention, research, and situation to better attune research and evaluation to the program development process. Using a heuristic called the intervention development curve, I describe the rough trajectory that programs typically follow as they…

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…

It is well known that most teachers appear to take little or no interest in the activities and findings of educational researchers. In two successive studies, experienced senior high-school teachers' interest and the questions they pose about their educational practice were studied to establish insights for teacher education and teacher-educator…

Educational researchers are concerned about the ways in which researcher identity can influence practice and findings for better or worse effect. However, writings which offer narratives, intended to instruct others in the ways in which the positioning and reflexivity of the researcher operates for better or worse, often present a view of identity…

Action research in schools implies that the researchers and the teachers should collaborate on solving problems and improving practice. One underlying premise when choosing, such an approach, is that the participants are interested in, and willing to participate in such a process. In this article, the authors explore how words and utterances…

This chapter discusses frameworks and conceptual lenses that help orient design-based implementation research (DBIR) work to the types of infrastructure required for success, while contributing to theories about the processes of educational improvement. Such infrastructures can be conceived as a framework: a set of interconnected elements that…

In recent years, the concept of teachers as researchers in both special and mainstream school settings has become part of our everyday language. Whilst many educational practitioners will see the need for research within their setting, many may not be familiar with the technical elements they believe are required. "Creating Meaningful Inquiry in…

Assessment research is at its best when it packages research results and data so that they can be digested by multiple audiences. Too many assessment researchers spend all their efforts planning and executing the research project with little attention to closing the loop at the end. If assessment findings are not communicated effectively, the…

Although educational leaders, policy makers, and researchers have long emphasized the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for the country's continued prosperity, increasing participation in STEM has remained a challenge for both the education and scientific communities (Pearson & Fechter, 1994; National…