Research that is Applicable and Intriguing

As I went through this week's study and learning of action research, I felt like there were two main themes about the topic that kept coming up. The first one that I noticed was, when choosing what to do as a study, make sure that it is something that is applicable or needed for your current situation. Unlike most research papers you did in high school or your undergrad, action research is meant to make a difference now in what you are doing. For example, researching how the education of students characterized as having a low socioeconomic status is affected by their adverse living conditions, is a great and noble topic for action research. However, it would not really be practical for you to embark on that study if you worked in a school that serviced students who come primarily from middle to high class families. With how much is already required of educators, doing research on something that cannot immediately have a positive impact on the students that you are currently working with, is of little help to anyone other than yourself. There is nothing wrong with learning for the sake of learning, but that is not the purpose of doing these types of inquiries. There should always be one primary purpose in your mind, and that is to positively impact the learning of the students you are working with.

The second recurring theme that I noticed was that you should choose something that intrigues you. The main reason that I can see for doing this is so that you put your full effort into it. If you are not interested in what you are researching, you will likely only do the bare minimum of what you need to. We want action research to be effective and helpful to our schools, so we need 100% put into the topic. Along with this same idea, while you want to choose something interesting, you also should not choose something that you already know the answer to or are very familiar with. Doing a full action research on something you already know seems like a big waste of time. The only reason I can see someone doing this would be to take the easy way out on something they were asked to do by a superior. Once again, we need to remember that action research is not meant to be busy work, to impress someone, or to be punishment. Do it to help your students and help them now.