Action Research Summary

After much reading on action research versus traditional educational research I believe the main difference is the involvement of the person implementing the plan prescribed after the research.  In traditional educational research, educators and administrators often adopt a plan or approach to fix a problem based entirely on outside research.  This is usually a broad based study of a situation and the campus culture, environment, and defencies may be quite different than those studied.  Regardless, the decision is made to adopt a particular set of rules or methods based on data driven results and the plan is implemented with very little if any input at a local level.  In contrast, action research involves the administrator, or other educator in a much more intimate capacity.  The administrator is the author of the problem and utilizes all available resources, as well as outside research, to attack and solve the problem.  This solution will directly address the needs of the campus and the solution to the problem is widely shared and implemented.