Assalammualaikum and a good and fruitful day to all ...
Conducting an Action Research as a requirement for the teacher trainees to graduate is truly a challenging but exciting experience . They will have to discuss an issue that they found throughout their three practicum experiences ( or any issue related to teaching and learning that they can think of ) . This is to train them to become an educator who is more dedicated to his / her work and would stop at nothing to ensure that the pupils who come to school learn something .
The issues , once located , will then be solved through an intervention ( or a series of interventions / cycles ) , planned and conducted by the trainees using action research models such as Kemmis & Mc Taggart (1988) or Kurt Lewin (1946) to name a few .
The first obstacle that they have to overcome is the issue(s) that they have to find. Some of the trainees choose an issue which they themselves are not familiar with such as phonics or sounds of language . This topic needs the correct framework and instruments in order to come up with the correct findings to show the outcome of the intervention . This is where the role of supervisors come in . They will have to guide the trainees in choosing the correct angle to tackle the issue(s) that they have chosen because most of the time the topics that they choose is too wide to be addressed with just one action research . Having said that , the trainee then has to present his/ her Action Research in front of evaluators . In other words , the trainee has to convince the evaluators on his / her topic . Some trainees , during presentation , gave a good presentation on their work while some did not . However , the supposedly good presenters suddenly started to stutter during the Question and Answer session . Here is where the trainees are tested on their work , to see whether the Research is actually theirs . It is important to mention here that the questions asked are meant to test the trainees and not to find faults . Here we can see some trainees whose explanations are totally opposite from what they had presented . When these contradictory statements are questioned , they will try very hard to say that they are right even though they they do not possess any sufficient evidence !
My advice to all is be prepared ! Make it a point to do ALL the work yourselves and know WHY you are doing them such as why are you using Model 'A' and not Model 'B' or why did you choose this group of pupils instead of that group ? Justify whatever it is that you do . Show or prove to the evaluators that this work is indeed yours and not just a plagiarized copy from the internet .
At the end of the day , when you have this work of yours in a hardbound copy , you will be very proud to say that this is YOUR own work . The feeling is PRICELESS ... believe me ! Good luck to all .
