The Role of Action Research in Teachers’ Professional Development

Abstract

The challenges of contemporary education and teaching profession have resulted in an increased demand for the appropriate professional advancement and practice-based research. The action research is an approach that encourages teachers to manage and control their own work. This research was conducted with the purpose of being primarily beneficial for primary and secondary school teachers. The empirical research presented in this paper was based on the factor analysis, by which the research factors were extracted, as well as on the examination of the teachers’ attitudes towards methodological education, cognition and metacognition in teaching, reflexive practice, science education and lifelong learning in the context of the action research. The method used was descriptive together with the scaling technique and the five-level Likert scale (AISE) consisting of 29 items. The research was realized in 2020, and then retested in 2021. The number of 1021 teachers from the Republic of Serbia participated in this research. The research results showed statistically significant differences in the respondents’ responses related to the independent research variables: education cycle, teaching experience and the number of professional development seminars attended. The significance of action researches is reflected in the fact that the problems are resolved by the teachers themselves, not the scholars or academics who are not directly involved in teaching. Therefore, this research contributes to a greater motivation and support of teachers to raise their classroom activities and accomplishments to the level of a scientific research.