A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

11 
| Foundations
‘Evidence’: n. ‘Information indicating whether a
belief or proposition is true or valid; information 
used to establish facts’.
2
Let’s look again at Paula’s example of a successful situation. 
Even though the things she noticed are valuable, more 
information can be collected to establish with more clarity 
all the features of this situation. In her example, Paula said 
things like “I saw them working, taking notes, I heard them 
encouraging each other to pronounce the words correctly 
so I finally felt the activity fit its purpose”. Such signs of 
what worked, although valid, can be looked at in more 
detail in order to understand if the strategy was effective, 
and why. She cannot say for sure, for example, that: 
■
■
all students are very active / involved – if not, which 
ones are, and which ones are not, and why?
■
■
students are using the vocabulary words of the lesson
■
■
all students enjoy the class
■
■
all students’ English level has improved
■
■
all students enjoy classes based on games.
In the case of the challenging situation, Camila realised
that although she tried different strategies to reach PIE 
students “nothing seemed to work” but the following things 
are not clear: 
■
■
what students thought of the different strategies
she used
■
■
what students’ lack of motivation looked like
■
■
which activities in class motivated students more/less. 
Task 1.3 @
Why don’t we try to help Camila understand her challenging 
situation better? There is a lot that she doesn’t know for 
sure. Read the statements below and write ‘know’ if we
are certain, and ‘don’t know’ for the areas we don’t yet have 
enough information about. You can check your answers
in the answer key.