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SEAL (Special Education Administration Leadership) and PPP (Principal Preparation Program)

Action Research

Action Research is the process of identifying a problem within your school or teaching environment, researching possible solutions, implementing one or more of those solutions, and observing the outcome within your specific environment. This type of research is crucial for teachers because it allows the teacher to be flexible while still relying on evidence to help students succeed.

Preparing your project:

Framing your problem will help you identify keywords to use when searching the literature and building your base of knowledge. 

  • Problem - A short word or phrase that describes the problem you are facing. 
  • Population - If your problem is specific to a unique group of students, you'll include that information here. If not, you can leave this part blank.
  • Current Practice - A short word or phrase that describes how you/your school currently handles this issue.
  • Potential Change - A short word or phrase that describes the change you'd like to make.
  • Outcome - The way you plan to measure the success of your initiative.

You can take a look at how this plays out in the example action research search plan document.

If you'd like to build your own, you can use the blank template to start your own action research search plan.

Tips for Successfully Searching in Databases