Action Research Model: An Exercise

In the trainings I conducted about action research , I used a model for the participants to get the feel of how an action research is conducted. The process involved studying a model of an action research by Sherri Blose. the participants were then asked to trace the process done by the researcher. The exercise involved identifying the activity that would fit into the cycle of action research presented in a brief lecture . The cycle looks like the schema below:



As an exercise, read the model of an action research below, and using the diagram above trace the process done by the researcher in the conduct of her action research. Doing the exercise will lead you to some learnings about how to conduct an action research.

Sample action research by Sherri Blose


This action research project investigated the issue of language creativity. Language creativity, or the ability to combine and recombine learned material in novel ways, is an important goal of foreign education because it is a hallmark of an intermediate-level speaker as specified by the ACTFL proficiency guidelines . In this study, the teacher wanted to discover whether her French II students attempted to use language creatively or merely parroted memorized utterances she had taught them.

To answer her question, the teacher tape-recorded a conversation between each of her nine students and a native French speaker, then transcribed the conversations for analysis. Her analysis revealed that the conversations consisted of 74 student utterances made up of either memorized utterances that the students routinely used in class or creative utterances that they had never used before. These creative utterances consisted of language already learned but applied in new ways. To insure the reliability of her own ratings, she allowed the class to judge whether the utterances she had analyzed were creative or memorized chunks of language. She found that she and her class agreed 60 out of 74 times, or 80 percent of the time, on whether an utterance was previously memorized or creatively constructed.

She then tried to identify which students used creative utterances during their conversations with the native speaker and was pleased to learn that all nine students used creative utterances , with the high-achieving students using the greatest number of creative utterances and the low-achieving students using the fewest. Although the quantity of the utterances varied across nine students , the interesting finding was that all students used some creative utterances during the conversations.

Finally, she compared the number of creative utterances that students used to the number of memorized chunks of language and found that 60 percent of the time, students were relying on what they had previously learned in class for conversing with the native speaker. The other 40 percent of the time , their utterances were novel combinations of learned material. Another important finding was that when students attempted to be creative with the language , they often made errors. The teacher thus appropriately entitled her project, “ To Err Is to Be Creative”.

In rethinking her practice, the teacher stated that the project made her more aware of when her students were being creative with the language and the importance of documenting and pointing out these creative productions to the class. Additionally, she informed her students that error in language learning is not necessarily bad, but a necessary part of the language learning process. Finally, she decided that her classroom assessment needed to give credit to students who went beyond the comfort of memorized language and made efforts to use the language in new and creative ways to express their personal ideas.

You can email your exercise to guscepe@yahoo.com for my comments about your exercise.