Passionate Enquiry and School Development : A Story about Teacher Action Research

This book presents a detailed study of the potential of action research in professional education. It depicts a primary school teacher's use of action research, through a series of school-based assignments, to improve her teaching and to develop herself as a person and a professional.

The main feature of this book is a case story of a teacher action researcher, Vicki, undertaking research in her own school as part of an Advanced Diploma course. The second important feature is this study grew out of Dr. Dadds'' own action research on her in-service course with a group of primary and middle school teachers which included Vicki.
The case story examines Vicki''s three action research studies in turn; how they related to her work in the school; how she did her research; what problems she had to encounter; how she felt about her research and the people involved in it; what impact the research had on her feelings and ideas; and, what were some of the outcomes.
Dr. Dadds has written a rare case story of the realities of doing part-time action research in school and in doing so challenges and develops some of the existing theoretical positions on action research. She offers original insights into: the subjective and emotional dimensions of doing action research; the effects of government educational reform on teacher action research in school; and, the relationship between development through the medium of action research. Little so far has been written of the processes by which teacher''s action research projects become part of the life of a developing school.