The Language Teacher
December 1999

Annotated Bibliography

Neil Cowie

Saitama University

Ethel Ogane

Tokyo International University



The literature on action research (AR) is extensive, covering a large number of professional settings and work situations and a large number of countries. We are extremely grateful to Anne Burns and Graham Crookes, who recommended a great number of texts. We have chosen some from their lists and added others ourselves to give readers a varied guide through the literature. You will find that there are a number of works from general education and some studies from non-educational settings.

Online Resources

XTAR is a US based website and email discussion list for teachers involved in AR. You can reach it at www.ced.appstate.edu/projects/xtar/xtar.

Bob Dick of Southern Cross University runs a twice yearly 14-week email course on AR. It is beautifully and simply written, and there are many chances to collaborate with other teachers from across the globe, as well as those outside teaching: from African farmers to psychiatric counselors. Information from scu.edu.au/schools/sawd/areol/areol-home.html.

Access professional development and teaching resources from this website, Professional Connections, developed by the National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research in Australia. The URL is nceltr.mq.edu.au/pdamep/.

Paper Resources

Altrichter, H., Posch, P. & Somekh, B. (1993). Teachers investigate their work. London: Routledge. pp. 223.

If you are going to buy one book for practical ways to do AR, this is as good as any. The authors have put together a reservoir of forty methods and strategies for each stage of the AR cycle. The first eight chapters are intensely practical, with lots of hands-on activities to help teachers think about research, to collect data, and then to do things with them.The sections on research diaries and ways of making teachers' knowledge public are particularly good.

Burns, A., & Hood, S. (Eds.). (1995). Teachers' voices: Exploring course des{gn in a changing curriculum. Sydney: National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research. pp. 137.

Burns, A., & Hood, S. (Eds.). (1997). Teachers' voices 2: Teaching disparate learning groups. Sydney: National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research. pp. 160.

Burns, A., & Hood, S. (Eds.). (1998). Teachers' voices 3: Teaching critical literacy. Sydney: National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research. pp. 68.

These three volumes are examples of ordinary language teachers doing research and then publishing their findings. The case studies vary in subject matter and quality, but underlying all is a concern for the voice of the teacher to be heard. Burns and Hood do an excellent job in each volume of setting the scene for both AR and the research theme. The third volume is perhaps the strongest, where the editors have found just the right level of research detail and classroom reality in their writers.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (Eds.). (1993). Inside/ Outside: Teacher research and knowledge. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. pp. 310.

The editors have been at the forefront of arguing for teacher knowledge to be viewed as valuable as outside researcher knowledge. In this collection they devote a third of the book to describing how teachers and researchers can work together to create such a community of knowledge and two thirds to the varied voices of the teachers themselves. These voices are expressed in the same genres that the editors suggest could be used as ways of communicating teacher knowledge, for example, journals or oral studies. The result is a marvelous chorus of teacher experiences from a huge number of US educational settings.

Crookes, G. (1993). Action research for second language teachers: Going beyond teacher research. Applied Linguistics, 14 (2), 130-144.

The only journal article we have included is this seminal one by Crookes, in which he articulates his arguments against the technical versions of AR emerging in the language teaching literature. He looks critically at the roles and responsibilities of school administrators and academic researchers. He suggests that schooling systems may need to be transformed so that teacher researchers may be better supported in their AR efforts to effect curricular and pedagogical change in their teaching environments. This is a challenging and thought-provoking article which gets to the heart of critical, participatory, and emanclpatory approaches to action research.

Edge, J., & Richards, K. (Eds.) (1993). Teachers develop teachers research: Papers on classroom research and teacher development. Oxford: Heinemann. pp. 197.

This is the report of the first tdtr conference held at Aston University, which has now spread and grown to its fifth biannual meeting. This first conference brought together people from language teaching and several other fields. Some of the better known contributors include Nunan, Allwright, and Underhill, plus various case studies from teachers around the globe. One article that particularly stands out is Bridget Somekh's on quality in AR, which alone makes the book worth getting. It is also interesting to see how the editors link the pieces together and give their own takes on how to report AR.

Elliot, J. (1991). Action research for educational change. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press. pp. 163.

Elliot was one of the first researchers on Lawrence Stenhouse's Humanities Curriculum Project in the UK in the 1960s, then going on to work in the Ford Teaching Project in the 1970s. Both projects are classic action research approaches to teacher and curriculum development. Elliot revisits that time and brlngs his thinking up to date by looking at a number of issues in British education, including the introduction of a national curriculum. Elliot is a deeply committed educational thinker who looks to both challenge and inspire teachers.

Greenwood, D. (1999). Action research: From practice to writing in an international action research development program. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 282.

This is a recent collection of papers about international collaboration on an industry-based AR project in Scandinavia. It is of particular interest to those who have already done some research and want to read both about taking partnership and collaboration further and about the role of writing in the AR process. Greenwood's chapter on the rhetoric of AR writing is salutory. There is much baring of souls and much evidence of civilised disagreements.

Goswami, D., & Stillman, P. (1987). Reclaiming the classroom: Teacher research as an agency for change. Upper Montclair: Boynton Cook. pp. 242.

This is a superb book for busy teachers, as all the articles are short, and they are very provocative. You will not get bored reading this. The source of the many articles is the Bread Loaf School of English, which is a network of support for teachers in rural areas of the US. Many of the articles are perspectives on writing, and Mina Shaughnessy's controversial article on teaching writing should be compulsory reading for every teacher. Again, an example of teachers' voices and what the genre of AR reporting might look like.

Hollingsworth, S. (Ed.) (1997). International action research: A casebook for educational reform. Washington DC: Falmer Press. pp. 337.

As the title suggests, this is a collection of international reports of theory, historical review and case studies.There are five sections: discourse, politics, personal, professional, and an epilogue bringing these together. There are 25 articles in all, with each section introduced by a well known scholar in AR. There is just one, rather limited, language teaching example, but the others do give an excellent insight into the huge breadth of AR, particularly how communities of workers, both outsider researchers and insiders, have collaborated to effect change.

Kemmis, S., & McTaggert, R. (Eds.) (1988). The action research planner (3rd ed.). Deakin: Deakin University Press. pp. 154.

For many this is the classic AR text, although it may be a little difficult or expensive to track down nowadays. There are two main sections. In the first section there are two very challenging chapters on the nature and philosophy of AR and a very practical chapter called The Planner, which leads the teacher researcher through a number of questions in the AR process. There are then four appendices which give practical help for doing research as well as several case studies. For those interested in a critical and participatory approach to AR this is compulsory fare.

McDonough, J., & McDonough, S. (1997). Research methods for English language teachers. London: Arnold. pp. 262.

Readers may find this introduction to research methods, both qualitative and quantitative, particularly helpful because it is embedded in the TEFL profession and focused on research issues in the EFL classroom. The first part of the book discusses research issues and traditions in the teaching context and includes a chapter on the teacher researcher and AR. In the second half of the book, the writers present a spectrum of research topics and techniques including observation, diary studies, descriptive statistics, experimental studies, questionnaires and interviews, verbal reports, and case studies.

McKernan, J. (1996). Curriculum action research. A handbook of methods and resources for the reflective practitioner (2nd ed.). London: Kogan Page. pp. 278.

This collection, written by one of the doyens of AR, is divided into three parts: history, methodology, and issues. The history is a superb gloss of the field with McKernan putting forward his own model of AR as well as sixteen defining characteristics, with the warning that, of course, definitions are always changing. If you want to know exactly what AR is and where it has come from, this is your text. The second part has a brief description of 48 qualitative methods, including a very good section on case study, and other less well known methods such as neutral chairperson, dilemma and episode analysis. The final part looks at current issues in AR, including a survey of five lnternational institutions where AR is a taught course.

McNiff, J. (1988, reprinted 1997). Action research: Principle and practice. London: Routledge.pp.164.

McNiff, J. (1993). Teaching as learning: An action research approach. London: Routeledge. pp.125.

Collins, U., & McNiff, J. (1999). Rethinking pastoral care. London: Rooutledge. pp.217.

McNiff has written extensively on AR, and the two earlier books are superb guides to practical AR issues which are well worth getting. In the co-edited book with Una Collins there is a remarkable collection of teachers' stories from schools in Ireland. These are inspiring reports of how teachers cope with issues beyond classroom methodology or techniques. Aidan O'Reilly's chapter, "Sir! Sir!," is a heartbreakingly honest account of his efforts to work with adolescents who were described as awful and unmanageable. A must read and take your tissues with you.

McTaggert, R. (Ed.). (1997). Participatory action research: International contexts and consequences. New York: SUNY. pp. 282.

This is a very good collection of international articles giving a mainly historical perspective on AR. There are several examples of educational projects, including Grundy's survey of Australian work, particularly that done by Kemmis and Carr at Deakin University, and one on the Ford Teaching project in the UK by John Elliot's partner Adelman. The most inspirational chapter is by Batliwala and Patel (mentioned by Graham Crookes in the feature article interview) describing their work collaborating with thousands of street dwellers in Bombay to conduct a census. It certainly puts Monday morning's lesson in perspective.

Noffke, S. E., & Stevenson, R. B. (Eds.). (1995). Educational action research: Becoming practcally critical. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. pp. 228.

The foreword by Cochran-Smith and Lytle and the introductory chapter by Noffke are eloquent essays and must reads. Noffke's fundamental questions are what and how AR can contribute to the development of a more caring and just system of schooling for teachers and students. This book may help readers understand AR from historical, theoretical and critical perspectives and presents 13 case studies in teacher education, in practice, and in teaching support systems.

Wells, G., Bernard, L., Gianotti, M. A., Keating, C., Konjevic, C., Kowal, M., Maher, A., Mayer, C., Moscoe, T., Orzechowska, E., Smieja, A., & Swartz, L. (1994). Changing schools from within: Creating communities of inquiry. Toronto: OISE Press. pp. 286.

In an excellent opening chapter, Wells critiques the current field of teacher research in education. He then introduces a collection of nine studies by teacher researchers who were students in an AR course he taught as part of a graduate studies program in education. The first six studies cover literacy learning in elementary schools, and the last three examine the concerns of teacher educators. The final chapter is an account of Well's own AR as a university-based teacher educator.



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