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An Action Research Cycle in an Academic Skills CourseVI. ConclusionThe data indicates that the students in the Academic Skills course showed a gradual and significant improvement in their test scores over the term. The comparison of the midterm and final tests suggests that with increasing familiarity with the type of test items, ie. note-taking, students improved their scores, regardless of which version of the test they wrote. However, in comparing the two versions of the test, the midterm seems easier than the final test.Quantitative education research seeks to establish relationships between variables in order to determine causes and their effects. The same standards cannot as easily be applied to action research studies. Anderson (1994) suggests that the criteria for validity in action research may be the value and utility of the knowledge gained in respect to a specific educational context. Furthermore, the concept of experimental validity might consist of five criteria: (1)democratic validity in that the research offers perspectives from all the stakeholders: teachers, students, and administrators; (2)outcome validity or the success of the actions and the subsequent development of new research questions; (3)process validity where the data was examined from several different perspectives; (4)catalytic validity in that the participants' understanding of the educational context and how they can make changes to it; (5)dialogic validity where the research is monitored through publication (p.30, 31). These criteria have been met in this study. Both teachers and the course developers who were also program administrators offered perspectives as did students. New research questions were developed through the process of analysing and discussing the results. There were multiple sources of data and the teachers involved developed a greater understanding of the course and potential improvements that could be made to it. Afterward, the 2 course developers and the 3 teachers involved in the project agreed upon the benefits of engaging in action research. Wallace (1998) articulates these benefits as an increase in the depth and coverage of the research, the increased reliability of the results through using several classes, the benefit of obtaining more than one teacher's perspective on the problem and the results, and the potentially motivating experience of teacher collaboration on a large project. On a practical level, the meeting between the 2 developers and the 3 teachers also led to further refinements in the course and in the teaching methodology used in it. The teachers shared effective classroom strategies that they had developed. They felt an increased sense of collegiality and of ownership of educational research through undertaking a collaborative action research project such as this one. Furthermore, they also planned to present their results to the other teachers of the Academic Skills course at the next course program orientation and to continue their examination of the course. (See Strong, G, et al., 2000; Strong, G., 2000). Action Research in Academic Skills. JALT Proceedings 2000: annual conference of the Japan Association of Language Teachers: Shizuoka, Japan. The literature on action research suggests the cyclic, recursive aspect of action research. Burns (1999) notes "...It is difficult to determine a finishing point for these cycles; they could continue for as long as the individual or group feel that the research is producing curricular change and improvement in the course" (p.5). Further research on the Academic Skills course might also determine whether or not students continue to improve their listening and note-taking abilities as measured on a post-test at the end of the semester. The author would like to thank the co-developer of the course, Jennifer Whittle, as well as Vivian Cohen, Trish Hilson, Richard Kringle, and Simon Himbury of Aoyama Gakuin University for participating in the development of the course and their assistance in testing the students. In addition, Peter Robinson provided valuable assistance in preparing the statistics. |
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