A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

 
What shall I explore – and what are my questions? | 
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Task 4.5 @
The conversation on the previous page between Andrea and her mentor illustrates how various questions can be asked 
about a given situation. Based on this conversation, what do you think Andrea’s main exploratory questions could be? 
Look in the answer key to discover the research questions she actually set out to answer.
4.4 Teresa’s exploratory questions
As you have seen, in order for you to understand a situation 
better and gather data effectively, it is important to have a 
particular question or questions in mind which you will later 
– with evidence – be able to answer. 
Here is an example from a Chilean Champion Teacher, 
Teresa Ríos, in her own words (you have read a third-person 
account of her research already, if you did the follow-up 
task for Chapter One). Teresa is a high school teacher, who 
was concerned about her students not speaking English
in class. Read her description and pay attention to how, 
from her main topic area, she proposes exploratory 
questions (EQs). 
“I believe it is very important for my students to use the 
language they are learning: they can read and write 
simple texts but I noticed that my students did not speak 
in class as was expected. I was afraid that they did not 
have enough vocabulary to communicate what they ought 
to, that they were not easily communicating orally their 
thoughts or opinions or whatever they wanted to say.
I wanted to know why my students did not speak in class. 
Why was it so hard to them to use the language orally?
I needed my students to speak in class, because the 
national curriculum says that we need to emphasise 
speaking.
I wanted to make sure what the problem was for them
in using the language they are acquiring or they have 
been acquiring since they started English at school,
using simple patterns. I know speaking is one of the
most difficult skills to develop.
In order to develop this project, my initial research 
questions were:
■
■
Why is it that my students do not speak in class?
■
■
Do my students like to speak in English?
■
■
What opportunities do they have to speak in class?
Having these questions in mind, I needed to reflect on my 
teaching so I asked two of my colleagues about the kind 
of activities they do to have their students practise orally. 
Simple questions like ‘What strategies do you use in class 
to make students speak more freely?’. Both answered 
“dialogues”, guided ones at first, then personalizing them.
Secondly, I prepared a survey to my students in order
to collect data about the activities they liked most and 
when (at the beginning or the end of the class) they liked 
to speak or have oral activities. Three questions about 
how they feel, and what activities are their favourite ones 
in class.
Then, I invited a fellow teacher to observe my class and 
check which activities I was doing to have my students 
practice orally. I handed him a sheet of paper with some 
questions to lead his “critical-friendly-visit”.
I also had informal conversations, after the surveys, with 
my students about the activities they like most/least, and 
what they did like to do orally.