Action Research and Reflective Practice
Action Research and Reflective Practice
This domain tests whether you can improve your own practice systematically and write about it honestly. Items ask you to identify the cycle, choose an appropriate method, or spot an ethical or design flaw.
Core rules
- Action research: small-scale, cyclical enquiry by the practitioner into their own setting - plan, act, observe, reflect, then re-plan. Kemmis and McTaggart's spiral is the standard reference. It is participatory and aimed at improvement, not at generalisable theory.
- Types: individual (one teacher, one class), collaborative (a department or cluster), school-wide; technical, practical and emancipatory forms.
- Methods: observation schedules, interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, document and artefact analysis, audio or video, reflective journals, learner work samples. Triangulation of at least two sources strengthens any claim.
- Ethics: consent from learners and parents where required, head teacher's approval, anonymity and confidentiality, no harm, and honest reporting of what did not work.
- Reflection: Schön's reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action; Gibbs' cycle (description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, action plan); Kolb's experiential cycle; Brookfield's four critical lenses (self, learners, colleagues, literature). Reflective practice is evidence plus analysis, not a diary of complaints.
Worked example
'A teacher notices that only four learners speak during group work. She plans to assign rotating roles (chair, recorder, reporter, timekeeper) for six weeks, observes participation with a tally sheet, interviews three quiet learners, then reviews the tallies.' Reasoning: this is action research - a bounded intervention, an observation instrument, learner voice, and reflection feeding a second cycle. It would not be action research if it stopped at 'I tried group work and it did not work'.
Traps that cost marks
- Calling any survey or one-off change 'action research' - the cycle and reflection are missing.
- Skipping consent and anonymity because 'it is only my class'.
- Reporting only successes.
- Writing a descriptive journal with no analysis or next steps.