A Short Guide to Action Research

This book is required for a graduate class in special education research. It is a practical and simply-written guide to producing decent research in the field of education. While action research is not as "rigorous" as traditional, scientific research, there are benefits for trying a strategy and measuring results. Whatever we can do to measure what we're doing, and report/share it, is good!

I bought this book to have a glimpse at what was awaiting me in my upcoming Action Research class for my masters program. I found the samples much better in comparison to the custom book that my program offered for this class. It gives a step by step directions, I know I will have to use it for further classes in my upcoming Doctorate degree. This book is a good place to start if you have no idea of where and how to start your project for research.

This book will tell you exactly how to conduct an action research project in your school or classroom. It takes you through ever step of the process and describes how reports and papers should be presented. It presents a variety of ideas for data and data collection, and describes how to analyze qualitative data. the most important chapter for me was the chapter that described how to use action research for a thesis or disertation. The author describes what would go into each chapter.

Teachers, administrators, human service personnel are often encouraged to be engaged in action research. However, obtaining a sound, thorough but readable text to assist such professionals in conducting action research has been very difficult. This book fills this void wonderfully. The book lays out the steps of action research, provides practical examples all in a way that is scholastically sound but engaging and interesting reading. No mean feat for any book on research! I would highly recommend this for working practitioners and for guides for students involved in masters and even doctoral projects associated with action research. An excellent resource!!

Finally, a book about action research that gets right to the point. It provides a good overview of action research in the context of other research paradigms. It describes many very simple and practical methods for collecting data. It can be used with a thesis or dissertation as well as short research projects.