Investigating Teacher Educators' Reflections on Challenges of Conducting Action Research

Action research is a useful way to assist teachers to overcome their problems and improve their teaching and learning practices. The design of the study is qualitative and explores teacher educators' perceptions to address the benefits and challenges of conducting action research. For this purpose, 250 teacher educators with master or doctorate degree were invited to participate in this study. First, they were familiarized with action research through a workshop. Then they were invited to conduct their own action research in their classes at school and reflect on that through reflective essays and interviews. The obtaining data were scrutinized to find emerging themes in relation to the main purposes of the study. Results revealed action research led to improving students’ behavior, teaching techniques, engagement, interactions, and enhancing motivation. The teachers’ perceived benefits of action research were increasing reflectivity and awareness about their own practice, enhancing students’ motivation, improving students’ engagement and interaction and improving teaching techniques and students’ learning. The major challenges that teachers encounter in the process of conducting action research include a lack of sufficient time to conduct action research and administrative restrictions and lack of teachers’ freedom to conduct action research was a significant challenge for the teachers. This study suggests that action research should be considered more seriously as a framework for promoting reflective teaching and prior conditions such as extra research hours and administrative support are required for teachers to be able to conduct action research in their schools.