01 / Reading Guide
Reading Guide
Choose an education research guide and plan evidence you can defend
Compare a free action-research text with two project guides; define a measurable question and solve an original missing-response example before making claims.
Study route and exercise: University Reading List editorial project.
Who this book is for
For graduate education students, practising teachers and educators conducting a first action-research project. The book treats inquiry as a way to improve practice while examining the researcher’s own assumptions. Its practical orientation makes it useful when a classroom concern must become a manageable research question rather than an attempt to prove an entire teaching philosophy.
Prerequisites
Teaching experience or regular access to an educational setting is helpful. Basic research vocabulary supports the literature review and evidence discussions. A completed statistics course is not a general requirement, although the design and analysis you choose may demand additional skills and institutional permission.
What it covers
Eight chapters explain action research, professional learning, reviewing literature, research planning, classroom practicalities, collecting and analysing data, sharing results and a teacher’s account of the process. Ethical and contextual considerations accompany the methods. The approach supports iterative inquiry, with attention to what evidence can justify a local change and what would require a stronger comparative design.
How to use it
Choose a problem small enough to investigate within one teaching cycle. Describe the current situation before proposing an intervention, then identify evidence that could challenge your preferred explanation. Plan consent and confidentiality before collection. Analyse contradictory cases as well as improvements, and write a reflection distinguishing changes in student work from changes in your own expectations. Share a bounded finding with its limitations and next question.
Edition and sources
The current Kansas State web book identifies ©2020, New Prairie Press and ebook ISBN 9781944548292, with CC BY-NC 4.0. It is the publisher’s designated current text; later updates do not imply a new numbered edition.
Edition, access and reading scope
The university-hosted book identifies the 2020 ebook ISBN 9781944548292 and offers authorized full-text reading and downloads. Chapters 3–4 support question development and practical preparation, 5–6 evidence, and 7 sharing. Its practitioner cycle is a way to examine local practice; a before-and-after account alone does not establish a general causal effect. A paper-only planning exercise needs no classroom data.
