What is Action Research? How to benefit from it?

Administrative inquiry or action research is an extraordinary procedure in which principals engage in a methodical analysis of their performance in order to take action based on their findings as a consequence of the performed inquiry. These proactive professionals pose questions, read pertinent literature, collect and analyze data, and share their findings with other members of their organization, becoming the ‘head learners’ in their campuses. 

Administrators utilize action research in order to gain a better understanding of their practice and to reflect on their role as leaders of an educational institution. The constant investment of time and effort pays off when it comes the time to decide on professional development themes and topics because the administrator is already empowered with valuable information collected and analyzed on the inquiries practiced. 

Action research can be used in many different educational settings. Nancy Dana states that there are four particularly ripe contexts for facilitating the development of inquiry stances for practicing and prospective school administrators: university coursework, superintendent/ district meetings, leadership teams, and professional learning communities. (Dana, 2009). It can be used as the most adequate approach for professional development planning, as a key component of future administrative personnel programs, in the design of curriculum, and also in creating a system to evaluate campus and/or district performance. 

Examples of action research in action may include:

• An Elementary school might conduct an action research based on this particular problem: Fifth and Sixth English Language Learners are experiencing a lot of difficulty understanding the selections provided on the Reading units benchmarks, resulting in low performance in both English and Spanish assessments. The principal should articulate a wondering such as “Is the 50/50 Dual Language Bilingual Program really addressing the educational needs of our students?
•  A Middle School campus experiencing a very low involvement of their community in school activities. The principal could share his/her concern about the lack of community involvement in such activities, engaging all campus members in an inquiry for a way to reach more community members and business organizations to get involve in many different ways.
•  An Elementary campus administrator could ask his leadership team to conduct an action research on Staff Motivation. The scenario may show this setting: the staff feels overwhelmed due to the high pressure the district is putting on benchmark scores, the staff is worn out because the kids are showing frustration for their low performance, and on top of that, the district is announcing cuts is the budget and some positions may be removed.