What Action Research Is Not

What Action Research Is Not
1. It is not the usual things teachers do when they think about their teaching. Action Research is systematic and involves collecting evidence on which to base rigorous reflection.
2. It is not just problem-solving. Action Research involves problem-posing, not just problem-solving. It does not start from a view of problems as pathologies. It is motivated by a quest to improve and understand the world by changing it and learning how to improve it from the effects of the changes made.
3. It is not research on other people. Action Research is research by particular people on their own work to help them improve what they do, including how they work with and for others. Action Research does not treat people as objects. It treats people as autonomous, responsible agents who participate actively in making their own histories by knowing what they are doing.
It is not the scientific method applied to teaching. Action Research is not just about hypothesis-testing or about using data to come to conclusions. It is concerned with changing situations, not just interpreting them. It takes the researcher into view. Action Research is a systematically-evolving process of changing both the researcher and the situations in which he or she works. The natural and historical sciences do not have this aim.