THE PRACTICES OF ACTION RESEARCH AND ITS CONTRIBUTION FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF BORENA ZONE, OROMIA REGIONAL STATE

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the practices of action research and its contribution for schools improvement in selected secondary schools of Borena Zone. Hence, descriptive survey method with mixed approach was employed in order to collect relevant data from the respondents. For this study, from 29 secondary schools 7 sample secondary schools were selected by using stratified random sampling technique. The subjects of the study were 102 teachers, 35 leaders, 7 principals and 7 Woreda Education Curriculum officers by using stratified random sampling and available sampling technique respectively. Both primary and secondary source of data were gathered from the respondents through questionnaire, interview and documents. The questionnaires were pilot tested and administered to 28 teachers. About 97% of the questionnaires were properly filled and returned. In addition to this, interview was conducted and document was observed to collect the necessary information. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage and mean score, standard deviation, grand mean, were used to analyze quantitative data, whereas, qualitative data was analyzed in verbal description in line with research objectives simultaneously with quantitative data. Furthermore, inferential statistics (t- test) was used to compare statistical significance difference among the teachers and leaders using the responses of two groups in their respective schools. The major findings of the study were: teachers’ involvement in conducting action research and practice of action research, support provided from the school leaders and contribution of action research for enhancing school improvement, were below the required levels. However, the extent to which teachers were professionalized in conducting action research was found to be positive. From these findings it can be conclude that even though, teachers had positive basic knowledge and skills of research to be engaged in conducting action research, their practical involvement in conducting action research was affected by other factors like insufficient research facilities, lack of support from their leaders and their personal factors like lack of commitment, interest, self-confidence and experience in conducting action research. Finally, commitment in fulfilling and supplying resources, providing professional support, continuous training and workshop in order to build the capacity of teachers in research competence, creating commitment to motivate teachers through recognition, reward and incentives were recommended.