Who Conducts Action Research
Who Conducts Action Research
The short answer
The practitioner. In education, usually the classroom teacher.
Who else
A head, a coordinator, a supervisor, an education specialist working in the school. Sometimes older students.
The key idea
The researcher is an insider. They work in the situation they study.
Who Conducts Action Research
The short answer is the practitioner. In education that usually means the classroom teacher. The teacher is the one with the daily access, the relationship with the students, and the practical stake in the outcome.
Action research can also be carried out by:
- A school head looking at a school-wide pattern, such as why morning attendance dipped in Grade 7.
- A coordinator or supervisor studying how teachers use a new textbook.
- An education specialist working inside a school on a question that the school cares about.
- Sometimes the students themselves, in older grades, on questions about their own learning.
The pattern in every case is the same. The researcher is an insider. They are not visiting. They are working in the situation they are studying.
This is the inside-out model of research. A university researcher coming in from outside is doing something else. They are doing formal academic research, and that comes with different rules.
The word insider is worth a separate card because it is the heart of the idea.
A short, exam-ready version of the insider idea.
