Action research in schools – an important factor in teachers’ professional development

Abstract

Quality performance of the increasingly important professional role of the teacher requires a continued learning and professional growth of every individual. Action research represents one of the important factors in teachers’ professional development, in particular when it is designed as a collaborative process involving teachers and researchers. This dimension of cooperation has been developed as part of the project “Partnership between Faculties and Schools”, which also included an empirical study presented in this article. The survey has shown that among teachers, newcomers and experienced teachers are the most willing to participate in research work. Irrespective of the stage of their professional development, teachers are mainly prepared to be involved in introducing the findings and improvements into school practices, while communicating research results to wider public, preparing techniques and instruments for data collection and writing research reports rank among the least interesting activities for teachers’ involvement.