Key Resource: Researching in the Classroom

Good teachers like to find out as much as they can about their classes and the teaching approaches that work best. This is often a very informal process. For example, it is very common to discuss the best way to teach a certain topic with other teachers. These same discussions might extend to other topics. Why is the attendance of boys in the school much poorer than the attendance of girls? In what ways can parents or guardians be encouraged to come and talk to us about their children’s progress? This can become a more thorough process if you adopt the sorts of approaches and methods that researchers use. You can use what is often termed ‘action research’ to help improve your teaching and your school generally. The word ‘action’ is used to signify that you expect to gain information upon which you can ‘act’ fairly quickly. Many books and publications now describe the ‘action research’ approach. Here we set out a very straightforward approach in just four stages.