Action research at St Mark's Academy 2011

Since the foundation of its Evidence for Education research programme, CfBT Education Trust has been committed to practitioner research. In 2010, CfBT published its first book solely dedicated to practitioner research projects, ActionResearch in Abu Dhabi. The book was a collection of practitioner research projects conducted by ten primary schools and kindergartens in Abu Dhabi. The book was a huge success and has inspired many teachers working in the region. The book was endorsed by the Abu Dhabi Education Council, whose Head of Research, Professor Masood Abdulla Badri, wrote in the foreword to the publication ‘initiatives such as this encourage and empower our classroom practitioners’.

With this in mind, CfBT offered other schools that it works with the opportunity to participate in their own practitioner research projects. As a result, teachers at St Mark’s Academy, with which CfBT works as an Academy sponsor, participated in professional development workshops to learn how to conduct action research projects in educational settings. The training included: designing research questions; an introduction to qualitative and quantitative research methodologies; an overview of data analysis; and a brief discussion on research ethics. Following the training, five teachers decided that they would like to conduct an action research project.

The following chapters of this book have all been written by the teachers who participated in the practitioner research project. They each detail:

• the background to the research topic each chose and the reason they chose it
• the methodology that they selected
• the findings from their project
• conclusions and reflections on what was learnt and what might happen next.