A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

Mario:
 
But do they tell you that they don’t like the
 
activities or do you just feel it?
Isabel:
Well, they don’t seem very interested – but they
 
haven’t actually told me that. And if they are
 
bored, I guess it could be for another reason,
 
so maybe I should find a way to find out! Another
 
thing, though, is it takes me a long time to get
 
through activities because I spend such a long
 
time trying to get the students to do them in the
 
first place.
Mario:
 
The same thing happens to me but I’ve noticed
 
that it always happens with the same group
 
of students.
Isabel:
I get the feeling that, in my case, they’re all
 
unhappy or bored, or uninterested. They just
 
don’t seem to want to participate in anything
 
I plan.
In this dialogue, you can see how Isabel manages to go 
deeper into the idea that her students lack motivation.
She discovers that their apparent lack of participation
is upsetting her mainly because: 
■
■
her students don’t participate in the activities she 
prepares;
■
■
they look bored and unhappy;
■
■
her activities take longer than expected because she 
spends time trying to get students on task.
She also realises that she might need to consult the 
students to find out what they actually think. 
Notes on a conversation like this would be useful to Isabel 
because they enable her to uncover her own perceptions. 
By then moving on to collect information about her 
students’ perceptions and also their behaviour, she will be 
able to confirm whether her concerns are valid and, later, 
how she can address the situation.