A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

Task 3.2 @
How did Andrea explore the situation she identified?
Check your answers in the answer key. 
Read the following text and fill in the gaps using the
words provided:
Andrea decided to do this research because she didn’t 
know whether the way she (1) 
her lessons was effective. In order to clarify this situation, 
Andrea came up with some (2) . 
Then, in order to answer her questions, she gave a
A. Plan to explore [plan questions and how to get 
data]
This is the stage where you review your practice and 
decide on an area or situation you will focus on. Here 
you also think about the questions that need to be 
answered and you plan how to gather information to 
answer the questions being asked. 
B. Explore [gather data]
Here you collect data to clarify the situation you 
identified. The important thing is to gather data in an 
orderly fashion so that you can analyse and interpret it 
effectively. 
C. Analyse and reflect [answer questions on the 
basis of data]
This is the stage where you analyse the entire process 
and reflect on what has happened. Here is where you will 
be able to clarify the puzzling or challenging situation 
you identified in order to later make an action plan if 
needed. 

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What is Exploratory Action Research? | 
23
Task 3.3 @
Based on the stages above, read the summary of the things Andrea did during her exploration and match them with the 
corresponding stage. (The order of activities is mixed up, and there is more than one activity on the left for both A. and B. 
on the right.) You can check your answers in the answer key. 
3.3 Action research: Andrea’s story
part 2
We’ve seen what research to explore a particular situation 
looks like. For some people exploring the situation can be 
enough (they might even find it helps to solve the situation) 
and we’ll be focusing on this kind of exploratory research
for the next few chapters (until Chapter Six, in fact). But in 
this book we’ll also consider how such research can become 
‘action research’ – how you can attempt to bring about
some change and systematically observe what happens.
Let’s go back to Andrea and her example about how she 
wrapped up her lessons. Here is how Andrea carried on
with her research: 
“In that moment I decided that something must be done,
I had to make a change in order to change that situation. 
So I asked the same colleague to go to my classroom 
again and observe my class, take notes and meet me 
again to talk about the class.
This time I decided to change the activity … I started 
thinking ‘what is useful for me when I study something 
that I want to remember later?’ and I realised that the 
activity that is effective for me is a Mind Map. I did my 
class as usual, and at the time I had to close the class I 
took more time for it; I started that activity ten minutes 
before the bell. I asked them to do a pair work in which 
they had to do a map with all the things they learned in 
class. They talked with their partners, took notes, used 
colors, etc. 
I chose a group at random to explain their map in front
of the class, they drew their map, they explained it,
and surprisingly some other groups started adding 
information from the class, examples they created, and 
also some things they had previously learned, I noticed 
something changed because many of them were