Section archive - Research Methods

This article describes how the authors designed activities to assist K-6 teachers in conducting action research on their NOS instruction to enable them to better assess their students’ NOS understandings and the lessons learned by the professional development staff about this process. The data suggest that action research can be a valuable tool to engage classroom teachers in inquiry and to promote NOS instruction and assessment, thus changing how they taught.

This paper reports on how science teachers as action researchers investigated their teaching roles through autobiographical and collaborative reflection to become familiar with the changes in their teaching role when teaching with computer technology. Furthermore, the article details the author's role as the facilitator of the collaborative action research project.The design of the study was framed by the action research space framework and the conditions for quality collaborative action research framework. Collaborative sharing of teaching and learning experiences helped participants negotiate the changes in their teaching roles and also revealed how they underscored these changes in relation to students’ learning of science content.

This paper presents the action research component of a Master of Natural Science degree program for physics teachers at a large research university in the southwestern United States. The article describes both process and outcomes of this research experience from the perspectives of the research coordinator and the teacher–researchers. The teachers who have completed the MNS degree program indicate their AR process was a valuable and interesting experience despite the manifold challenges of conducting classroom research in cooperation with a team of teachers while simultaneously teaching full time.

In this paper, three educational scholars share insights from their lived experience as qualitative researchers trying to work in collaboration with diverse populations. The authors discuss the role that culturally responsive improvisation plays in ethnographic research and interactions. Their experiences reveal that jazz-like democratic improvisation facilitates reciprocal interactions and meaningful relationships among and between researchers and respondents.