STEPWISE Action Research
To continuously improve teaching approaches like STEPWISE, researchers often use collaborative action research (CAR); e.g., with cooperation among several, often diverse, ‘stakeholders.’ In doing so, we typically focus on possible ’cause –> result’ relationships like those here and here. For example, in the video at right/below, a teacher describes his ongoing reflective practice for teaching about actor-network theory, a key concept used in STEPWISE. Broadly, AR can “improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of these practices, and the situations in which the practices are carried out” (Carr & Kemmis, 1986, p. 162). Some general results of our action research – including for teacher & student outcomes and for our research purposes – are summarized below and here.