Action Research

This week I've had the opportunity to learn about a whole new concept that I have never in my life heard about. It is known in the education realm as action research. I have a degree in business administration and I try very hard to relate business with education. I have been able to successfully compare the education field with the business field in many instances. In the business field you may hear about strategies such as Total Quality Management or "kaizen" (continuous improvement) or Six Sigma to minimize defects or improve processes. All of these strategies have a common goal and that is to improve processes and perform "change for the better" (Wikipedia). After reading about action research I am convinced that is very similar to these strategies except they apply to education and the improvement of education processes. It strives to have continuous improvement and uses data to decide on the actions to be taken.

Administrative inquiry or action research sometimes used interchangeably is defined in various ways by the author Nancy Fichtman Dana and others. My understanding of the definition is: “administrative inquiry is a process taken by principals that lead to changes not by traditional research rather by action based continuous learning and improvement with a fundamental core stemming from posing questions and putting into practice their inquiries to become effective leaders and head learners”.


You must be careful however not to confuse action research with traditional research. In traditional research, you may not get the results you need because the information may be general and not specific to your situation. My overall understanding between traditional and action research is comparing “general vs specific”. Traditional research is very general information because the research can be a blanket concept related to various schools while action research is very specific in nature to what principals may need to better understand and serve their specific problems or situations at their campus or district.

Sources:
pp. 1-15 from
Fichman, Nancy Dana (2009). Leading with passion and knowledge: The principal as action Researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Kaizen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved August 26, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen