A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

In class, what is the percentage
you understand from it?
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

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Extra material | 
107
Answer Key
Chapter 8 
Task 8.1
“By the end of two weeks I observed several changes.
The first one was that they actually did the activities, 
handouts were completed with the correct answers and
I could observe many hands up to participate in the 
lesson. I conducted another survey in which students 
answered that working with the listening materials as if 
they were songs allowed them to work better. They also 
said that they were able to identify information from the 
text and that the activities they liked the most were 
underlining the correct word, filling in the gaps and 
crossing out the odd one out. They still found it difficult
to order the information because sometimes the material 
was too fast. The focus group participants mentioned that 
they now felt motivated and more successful because 
they were able to do the tasks, and do them well. This
was confirmed by another peer observation, where the 
student-teacher told me that students were able to focus 
on the activities and they did not get distracted by 
anything else.”
1. Lorena’s account indicates that it took her about two 
weeks to begin to notice the effect of the changes
she had made.
2. There were four types of evidence: she first observed 
a change in the behaviour of her learners during 
lessons (making a mental or written note of this), and 
followed this up by collecting both quantitative data 
(through a second survey) and qualitative data 
(through her second focus group interview). Her 
comment: ‘From the peer observation’ indicates that 
she also asked the student-teacher to observe her 
lesson again and provide more feedback. This could 
have been quantitative (e.g. number of times students 
volunteered answers) or qualitative (e.g. general notes 
on aspects of students’ participation).
3. Lorena collected data in similar ways before (during 
the exploration phase), and after her new actions.
This enabled her to compare the data and analyse 
what change had happened. The four types of 
evidence all pointed towards the students being more 
engaged and having more success in listening lessons. 
According to the four different sources of information, 
Lorena was able to see clearly that her attempted 
change had been successful.