What is Action Research???

My blog today concerns action research in an educational setting. Action research is a type of research that involves 4 steps; Identifying a problem, formulating a strategy to solve the problem, Implementing and evaluating that strategy, and finally clarifying the outcome. With the last step, a whole new set of problems are identified and the process repeats. In researching this type of research, I've found that in a setting where the dynamics of the job are ever changing, this type of research is most useful as opposed to traditional types of research. In the field of education, this type of research is particularly useful because many times in a traditional research setting there is no real connection with what is going on in the schools and the researcher. I have been exposed to this type of research at the school I am currently working at. In regards to taks scores in the inner-city. I feel though that this research method could be applied for attendance issues, the meeting of needs for the special ed students just to mention a few.