The Recognized Cycle
The Recognized Cycle
The most widely cited model of action research has four stages. You will see them in almost every guide on action research in education.
- Plan. Identify the problem and design the intervention.
- Act. Run the intervention in the classroom.
- Observe. Collect data on what happened.
- Reflect. Analyze the data and decide what to change.
This four-stage cycle is most often attributed to Stephen Kemmis and Robin McTaggart, two Australian educators who refined Kurt Lewin’s earlier work in the 1980s. You will sometimes see the cycle credited as the Kemmis and McTaggart model.
Other models exist. Some authors use seven steps (identify problem, plan, act, collect data, analyze, reflect, revise) or three (look, think, act). The wording varies. The structure does not. Every model captures the same loop: a teacher decides on a plan, runs it, watches what happens, and reflects.
Why it is called a cycle
A cycle is something that repeats. The reflection at the end of one round does not just close the study. It feeds the planning of the next round. The teacher does the work over again with a sharper question, a better intervention, or a different sample.
Most authors draw the action research model not as a circle but as a spiral. The teacher does not return to the same starting point. She returns to a new starting point, one level up. Each cycle teaches her something the previous one could not.
A short summary
The most widely recognized model, attributed to Kemmis and McTaggart, has four stages: plan, act, observe, reflect. Action research is cyclical. The reflection stage of one cycle feeds the planning stage of the next.
Here is one more idea worth holding onto from this chapter.
