Key Features of Action Research

Action research is ...

• collective and collaborative self-reflective enquiry,
• undertaken by participants in social situations,
• in order to make their own practices more rational, coherent, satisfying and just.

Action research enhances participants' understandings of their practices and the situations in which they are conducted (see also exploratory practice, which has similar aims).

AR is collaborative

Teachers doing action research participate and collaborate, examining their knowledge (understandings, skills and values) and the ways they interpret themselves and their actions. They do action research 'on' themselves, individually and collectively, collecting data about how they teach, for example by audio-taping their interactions with students to study later. They invite students to study their own learning and to comment on the teaching, curriculum and organization of their learning.

AR is a social process

AR is a social process which deliberately explores the relationship between the practices of the individual and of others, for example, when university teachers work together, or with students, to improve teaching practices in classrooms or other learning spaces.

This material on this page is adapted from Kemmis, S., and McTaggart, R. (2000). Participatory action research, in N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd Ed.)(pp. 567-605). Thousand Oaks CA: Sage, by kind permission of Professor Robin McTaggart.

Professor Robin McTaggart is Pro-Vice-Chancellor Staff Development and Student Affairs, James Cook University, Australia.