A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

Where does the data lead you?
Noticing change and trying to work out what led to it is only 
the first step in evaluating change. In order to understand 
the data and its implications for our practice, we need to 
interpret further, just as you did during the exploration 
phase of your research. 
As we saw in Chapter Six, ‘interpret’ means to decide what 
something ‘means’ by answering the question ‘So what?’. 
Knowing the meaning or ‘value’ of something in the case of 
teacher-research primarily involves knowing what it means 
for your practice and in relation to the questions you asked. 
So, you may be happy with what has happened, and perhaps 
seek to reproduce your success in later lessons. Or it may 
not have worked, and you may either (1) not mind because 
you’ve gained understanding in other ways or (2) want to 
find out more about why it didn’t work or try out new things 
for the same purpose. In all these cases, you are answering 
the ‘So what?’ question by thinking about the implications 
the new action has had for your teaching and/or continuing 
research.
Often we may only get a partial answer to a question.
This, on its own, may be useful enough, or may prompt us
to make changes and collect more data at a later stage.
It’s also very common that our findings will throw up new 
questions, as they did in the case of Esteban, whose story 
you read at the end of the last chapter:
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A key characteristic of action research – and of 
Exploratory Action Research – is that we can continue
to adapt and improve the changes that we introduce
for as long as we keep teaching, while continuing to 
research and reflect on the impact of these changes – 
there is no end to the process of discovery!

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