07.798, Selected Topics: Action Research

Huge amounts of lab testing goes into construction, but testing in “real life” can bring about unpredictable elements that labratory testing could not forecast – but, are valuable in the overall assessment.

I discovered action research is a type of research that I could get on board with! Research has always appeared to me as monotonous with depressing amounts of detail to come up with mathematical statistics to try to unrealistically capture a humanly-variable situation. (Very dramatic!) I became sold on action research for it’s “living” approach to defining, testing and assessing an actionable challenge. There is a definite structure to designing such a project to ensure ethical and reliable results, but the ability to move, change and cycle the research as needed is something that I could get excited about and potentially implement.

Many elements came together for this action research proposal that served as our final project. My current teaching environment, resources that I collected, the strategy of action research and my desire to do more towards social action. Putting it all together in a package to implement made me understand the purpose for research and sharing the findings.