A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

‘Data’: n. ‘You can refer to information as data, 
especially when it is in the form of facts or statistics 
that you can analyse’.
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Task 2.1 @
Now that you have read some definitions of research, 
consider the situations below and tick the ones you think 
can be considered examples of research. 
1. Luis needs to buy a flight ticket to go from Bogotá 
to London on the fastest and cheapest route. In 
order to find what he is looking for, he searches in a 
number of airlines’ websites online and also in other 
websites to choose the most appropriate flight for 
him. He makes notes about a number of choices 
which he later compares before buying the ticket. 
2. Francis realises he cannot see any of channels 
offered by his cable provider. He only sees a black 
screen. He wonders how to get the channels back 
on his TV so he presses several buttons on his 
remote and nothing happens. Then, he remembers 
that he was given a guide for the cable set box.
By looking for the instructions on how to re-
configure cable channels, he manages to watch
his favourite channels again. 
3. Claudia decides to change her desktop computer 
since it has been working slowly recently. She 
decides to buy a laptop which is light enough to be 
carried around but with good RAM capacity and 
speed. A week later, she goes into a shop and buys 
a desktop computer which she finds on sale. 
As you can see, we do engage in research in everyday life. 
So, research is not only done by academics, it is also an 
essential part of our everyday lives. Now, let’s consider 
some classroom examples.
Task 2.2 @
Read the following classroom situations and choose the 
ones you think show examples of research. 
1. A maths teacher has decided to start using group 
work in class to allow her students to work 
collaboratively and talk to each other to solve the 
tasks. However, she notices that students are not 
working in groups properly; they do not finish the 
tasks assigned and one or two students per group 
do all the work. Because of this, she decides to stop 
doing group work since she feels this approach is 
not effective in her class. 
2. An English teacher usually uses videos in her 
classes. Lately, she has noticed that students are 
not really engaged and do not finish the tasks 
assigned. She asks her students and finds that 
students consider the language in the videos too 
advanced and they have difficulties understanding 
it. She asks a colleague to check the videos. This 
colleague confirms what the students had told her. 
As a result, she begins to choose the videos more 
carefully, based on students’ level, as well as 
providing them with the language they need to 
understand the videos. 
3. A science teacher receives a visit from his school 
inspector. After the visit, the inspector tells the 
teacher that every time he asks questions, the same 
group of five or six students answer and that he 
should try and make all his learners participate 
more actively. After this, he decides to direct his 
questions to quieter students and to allow more 
confident ones to volunteer freely.