A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

1. Your own written reflections and/or notes
2. Other people’s written ideas on the topic
3. Notes from informal conversations with colleagues
4. Reflective writing by students
5. Notes or recordings of focus group discussions
6. Notes or recordings of interviews / chats
with individuals
7. Responses to a questionnaire 
8. Lesson plans and materials
9. Lesson recordings
10. A critical friend’s notes about your lesson
11. Pictures of your class
12. Students’ performance on tasks (written
or recorded)

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77 
| What happens?
8.3 Comparing exploratory and action 
research findings
In Chapter Four you identified your own topic and 
exploratory questions (EQs). Then in Chapter Five we looked 
at a range of different ways to collect information to help 
you answer these questions, and thereby help you gain 
more understanding of your learners and teaching situation. 
The initial, exploratory information you gained will be very 
useful (necessary, in fact) as we attempt to answer the key 
question for the present chapter – the action question (AQ): 
What are the effects of the change(s) that
I attempt?
You can most effectively answer the basic action research 
question by comparing the data you collected earlier, 
during the exploratory phase, and the data you collect
after the change, like Lorena did. 
This is why the exploration part of the Exploratory Action 
Research cycle is essential. Without the earlier observation 
and description to help you understand the situation as fully 
as possible, it is difficult to analyse the impact of what you 
have done. While it is not necessary to collect exactly the 
same type of data each time, the more similar it is, the 
easier it is for you to evaluate the impact. 
So, you can often use the same ways of gathering 
information, for example the same questionnaire, or the 
same observation framework to give to colleagues with
only some minor amendments. 
Task 8.4 @
Look back at Esteban’s story, which you read at the end
of Chapter Seven. Notice how he collected data before
and after the intervention. Did he use the same methods
to gather evidence before and after? Did he alter the 
methods in any way? Check your answer in the answer key. 
If you are gathering the same kind of data after or during
as well as before your new action(s), then noticing change
is usually quite straightforward, especially if the data 
involves numbers – you can just compare the data and
spot any differences. Let’s practise this by looking again
at Javier’s Exploratory Action Research study (we have 
been following this in 6.3 and 7.2 already). 

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