A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

A. What did she think was causing her students’
inability to speak in class? 
B. What did she learn about her students?
C. According to what she says here, in what way(s)
was doing research useful for her, as a teacher?:
“With this exploratory process I discovered that I was 
expecting something from my students but I was not 
giving them something they needed first. I think when
you ‘see’ something wrong in class, you should stop, 
reflect on that issue, collect data, analyse it and action 
plan accordingly.”
What did the teacher do?
Kind of information
“I took notes of everything that happened while my 
students worked: their attitudes, their behaviour, etc.”
“I later collected their different pieces of work and started 
to notice certain differences in their work according to the 
music I played.”
“I also gave them a survey, a simple kind of questionnaire 
for them to give me their opinions.”
“I decided to interview them, so after each activity we did 
with background music, I asked them about how they felt, 
if they had trouble concentrating, if they felt the music 
helped them complete the task and so on.”

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2. What is teacher- 
 research?
In this chapter we learn more about ‘teacher-research’ – research which
is initiated and carried out by teachers themselves into issues of importance
to them in their own work. We will emphasise that such research is by teachers 
for teachers (and their students), being carried out for purposes of professional 
development and improvement of teaching and learning, not primarily for 
academic purposes. It can therefore follow some rules of its own, and does not 
need to mimic academic research – it is research, but of its own kind.

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