Action research (AR) in an educational setting as described by Tillotson (2000), is an approach to "classroom-based problems" or "specific school issues". This process involves identification of the issue or problem, development and implementation of an action plan, gathering and interpreting data, sharing the results within the community, and "action planning" as a cyclical endeavor. AR is utilized as a key component of developing pre-service teachers in the University of Michigan-Dearborn certification program. Illustrating the five components of Tillotson's approach, pre-service elementary teachers develop and analyze pre-assessments of K-8 student knowledge about a specific science topic to identify prior student understanding; they create and teach two lessons to provide applicable scientific content, post-assess to determine the impact of their teaching and write a research journal style report describing their project. The AR assignment is more structured than a typical action research project in order to support the pre-service teachers, many of whom have never conducted a literature review, created assessments linked to research, or completed an AR project (Luera & Otto, 2005). This article provides an action research study of the capstone course, 24 final AR reports from capstone courses offered between Fall 2009 through Winter 2011 were examined to determine the kinds of pre-assessments administered. The AR projects covered in these final reports included all grade levels, kindergarten to sixth grade; each project was conducted in a different local school. All of these schools are located within a large, diverse metropolitan area with correspondingly diverse socio-economic levels. Pre-service teachers who connected their assessments to prior research were able to obtain deeper insights into K-8 student understandings and their analyses were more robust and thoughtful. Rich information was obtained from the pre-assessments that included drawings but more guidance from course instructors would improve both the preassessment itself and the subsequent analyses. For in-service teachers, the recommendation is to not only measure student knowledge by use of multiple methods, (i.e., triangulating assessment data) but also to employ drawings as a means of assessment. For many, drawings are typically thought of as "art" rather than as a cognitive task. Drawings in science are useful for students, in particular young children and ELL students, as a way to convey their understanding or their mental models of a science topic in a way that words cannot.