Week 2 - What I have learned about action research.

This week I learned that there are nine different areas in which a practitioner can formulate research questions. As Dr. Lewis points out, whatever the question, it must be something that is practical and can be applied to your situation. I also learned that it is important to look at more than just your own data. There may be data and research available that is similar to your question. This research can be used for comparisons and patterns.

Dr. Chargois talked about quantitative and qualitative data. I really did not understand qualitative data. After doing some research, I found out that qualitative data is data that cannot be measured like the scores we receive from the TAKS test. Qualitative data may be other factors that affect student achievement such as teacher quality or non-academic student issues. These factors cannot easily be measured; however, they definitely affect student achievement. I never thought about doing research on social and academic inequitites. Both of these areas can affect the climate of the school.