This paper reports on the background, context, design, and findings of a collaborative research project designed to develop a future roadmap for strengthening an Australian research-rich and self-improving education system. Building on the BERA-RSA Inquiry into the role of research in the teaching profession in the UK (Furlong, 2013), the…

Presents stories from a student and a teacher regarding efforts to have university-level pedagogy encourage students to identify and pursue personally relevant educational topics. Information comes from a teacher education course organized around individual focus projects designed to promote action research. Highlights of the student's journal are…

This article focuses on the problems, dilemmas, and issues which confront facilitators of teacher-based action research in schools. Three action research projects in the United Kingdom are described. An attempt is made to clarify the theoretical and philosophical assumptions which underpin the action research movement in education. (IAH)

Because educational research is the province of professors, knowledge available to people working within the schools is undervalued. Collaborative teacher-initiated inquiry capitalizes on teachers' insider knowledge and helps change the professional activities of researchers. For teacher-initiated research to prosper, it is best developed outside…

Identifies assumptions about teachers' work and working conditions evident in action research, examining patterns in the parameters of work and workplace issues and analyzing research and various projects from the 1970s and 1980s. Aspects of feminist theory are used to address tensions and contradictions in teachers' practice of action research.…

Presents a framework for comparing and evaluating action research that transcends differences among existing models. The dimensions of the framework are theoretical orientation, purpose, and type of reflective process. The paper describes how the framework was developed and presents examples of how it can be used to analyze different approaches to…

Teacher educators addressed negative student responses to a multicultural foundations course by designing an action research study to investigate students' identities, experiences, and beliefs. Analysis of written assignments and focus group discussions uncovered three categories of beliefs about the purposes of schools in relation to cultural…

Examined the experiences of preservice teacher participants in Project TEAM, an initiative at a predominantly white university to increase the number of minority students who completed teacher education and became teachers. Case study data highlight three themes: developing a sense of community with minority student peers, developing a stronger…

Examines how many teacher education programs are using authentic assessments of teaching (cases, exhibitions, portfolios, and action research) to support teacher learning for today's diverse schools. Using specific teacher education programs as examples, the article discusses how and why these strategies support teacher learning and more valid…

Compared the effects on teachers of two common teacher-development methods (skills training and action research) for teaching students how to self-evaluate in cooperative-learning groups. Teachers received training and implemented their strategies. Pretests and posttests of students in both groups indicated that action research made a more…

Examines how writing produced within school-based practitioner research functions in framing and guiding classroom practice and research processes, outlining a model from Saussurian linguistics and from hermeneutical theory. An analogy is drawn with practitioner research, which is characterized as the generation and analysis of a sequence of…

Describes an attempt to strengthen connections between teacher development and school improvement in a required preservice action research course. Students in the course were full-time instructional assistants whose action research projects involved school improvement. Results indicated that students were unable to engage in research that…

Investigated preservice teachers' thinking on research, considering how it might inform approaches to inquiry-oriented teacher education. Surveys and interviews with preservice teachers involved in inquiry-oriented programs indicated that the programs only modestly influenced their thinking about research. To have more influence, goals must be…

Describes how teachers and university researchers collaborated to discuss the teaching of students at-risk due to various social and economic barriers. They used action research to better understand unique teacher identities shaped in classroom settings with large numbers of these students. Teacher stories revealed that, as key interagency team…

Presents quantitative and qualitative data from a study involving a university, school districts and teacher candidates. Preservice-inservice dyads were taught how to use action research to examine, analyze, and reflect upon their teaching. Results indicated general acceptance by both new and experienced teachers, with developmental differences…