Practices of Secondary School Language Teachers in Conducting Action Research

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to assess the Practices of Secondary School Language Teachers in Conducting Action Research. In order to achieve this objective, three instruments, namely, questionnaire, interview, and document analysis were used. While the questionnaires were used for teachers, semi-structured interview were done with school directors. Besides, document analysis was made with carefully prepared checklists.350 LanguageTeachers were selected using simple random sampling which was representative of total number. The researchers used both qualitatively and quantitatively methods of data analysis. While the close ended questionnaires were discussed using SPSS version 20, that is, with frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation; the interview and document analysis were done through detail explanation and discussion with qualitative descriptive approach. The findings of the study depicted that there are inadequate involvement of teachers in conducting action research in the sample secondary schools. Moreover, it was indicated that there is little/no financial and material support on the part of the school to motivate teachers in doing research that enhance the teaching learning process. On the top of this, although the schools included conducting action research as part of their annual plan, there is no budget allocated for that purpose as well as scheme of acknowledging research work by giving some sort of incentives such as certificate, money, promotion, etc. for teachers. It was also identified through this study as there is skill gap, shortage of appropriate reference materials, heavy workload, lack of team spirit among teachers and less supportive environment to conduct action research. On the basis of the finding, it was recommended that teachers should get awareness on the role of action research, should be provided with appropriate and adequate training, integrating action research into teaching-learning process and motivating teachers using various techniques in order to increase their involvement in doing action research which in turn boosts the quality of education with reflective and innovative research outputs which can solve classroom related problems.

Keywords: Action research, Practice, Language Teachers, Secondary Schools

DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/9-9-03

Publication date:May 31^st 2019