Appendix C: The reflective practitioner
explain the nature of a research project clearly, either in a letter written in simple language or in a face-to-face
conversation, or both. Parents and students need to give clear indications that they actually understand what class
activities or materials will constitute data that could be made public. In most cases, indicating informed consent
means asking students’ parents signing a letter giving permission for the study. Sometimes, in addition, it is a good
idea to recheck with students or parents periodically as the project unfolds, to make sure that they still support
participation.
Insuring freedom to participate
When a student fails to participate in an ordinary class activity, most teachers consider it legitimate to insist on the
student’s participation—either by persuading, demanding, or (perhaps) tricking the student to join. Doing so is ethical
for teachers in their roles as teachers, because teachers are primarily responsible for insuring that students learn, and
students’ participation presumably facilitates learning. If a teacher designates an activity as part of an action research
project, however, and later shares the results with them, the teacher then also becomes partly responsible for how other
teachers use knowledge of the research study. (Remember: sharing results is intrinsically part of the research process.)
The resulting dual commitment means that “forcing” a student to participate in an action research activity can no
longer be justified solely as being for the student’s own educational good.
Much of the time, a simultaneous commitment to both teachers and students presents no real dilemma: what is
good for the action research project may also be good for the students. But not always. Suppose, for example, that a
teacher wants to do research about students’ beliefs about war and global conflict, and doing so requires that students
participate in numerous extended group discussions on this topic. Even though the group discussions might resemble a
social studies lesson and in this sense be generally acceptable as a class activity, some parents (or students) may object
because they take too much class time away from the normal curriculum topics. Yet the research project necessitates
giving it lots of discussion time in class. To respond ethically to this dilemma, therefore, the teacher may need to allow
students to opt out of the discussions if they or their parents choose. She may therefore need to find ways for them to
cover an alternate set of activities from the curriculum. (One way to do this, for example, is to hold the special group
discussions outside regular class times—though this obviously also increases the amount of work for both the teacher
and students.)
Practical issues about action research
Is action research practical? From one perspective the answer has to be "Of course not!” Action research is not
practical because it may take teachers’ time and effort which they could sometimes use in other ways. Keep in mind,
though, that a major part of the effort needed for action research involves the same sort of work—observing,
recording information, reflecting—that is needed for any teaching that is done well. A better way to assess
practicality may therefore be to recognize that teaching students always takes a lot of work, and to ask whether the
additional thoughtfulness brought on by action research will make the teaching more successful.
Looked at in this way, action research is indeed practical, though probably not equally so on every occasion. If
you choose to learn about the quality of conversational exchanges between yourself and students, for example, you
will need some way to record these dialogues, or at least to keep accurate, detailed notes on them. Recording the
dialogues may be practical and beneficial—or not, depending on your circumstances. On the other hand, if you
choose to study how and why certain students remain on the margins of your class socially, this problem too may be