Teacher as Researcher: Becoming Familiar with Educational Research to Connect Theory to Practice

(Paperback)

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Teacher as Researcher: Becoming Familiar with Educational Research to Connect Theory to Practice is written for teachers involved in research on improving classroom instruction and helping students in their learning process. This is a complete guide for in-service teachers doing research in their classroom or for pre-service teachers as a guest teacher in a classroom. The purpose of this book is to offer a set of research tools for teachers to follow through the inquiry process and provide effective solutions to significant problems in their classroom.
The books structure will help teachers to target the problem in their own classroom, inquire about different strategies that may provide solutions, and then finally examine the effective solution to the problem. The clarity and brevity of this book will help teachers conduct an action research study in a classroom or learn to do a case study with their student(s) in order to help students in their learning process. Designed for busy teachers, this book is simple to follow throughout the research process.

Reviews

Teacher as Researcher: Becoming Familiar with Educational Research to Connect Theory to Practice, written by Dr. Smita Guha, is an essential guide for teacher-researchers on writing a masters thesis. Concerned students, teachers, and researchers will learn how to formulate their research questions, articulate the purpose and significance of their study, and find related scholarly published articles. Viewing related literature will help the teacher-researchers to create a protocol for their own research. Lastly, this book will also teach researchers how to analyze the results of data and write a discussion on that data. -- Ashok Chakraborty, adjunct professor, Sacred Heart University; retired Yale faculty cancer research scientist
At long last, a comprehensive and reader-friendly guide book that assists undergraduate, graduate, and even doctoral students to understand the research process from the inside out! With clarity and focus, Dr. Guha guides the reader through the conceptualization of each stage of a study, and provides extensive suggestions, resources, websites, forms, and checklists for qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and action research studies. She offers students the needed support necessary to follow a line of investigation, explore multiple scholarly sources, manage their data, elaborate upon their findings/conclusions, and produce their own evidenced-based classroom studies that connect theory to practice. This will certainly be one of the recommended texts for my case courses at Touro Graduate School of Education. Thank you Dr. Guha! -- Dr. Joanne Robertson-Eletto, associate professor of education in the master of science in teaching literacy program, Touro College Graduate School of Education
Teacher as Researcher: Becoming Familiar with Educational Research to Connect Theory to Practice is written by a university faculty member who spends time in the real world of classroom teaching which makes its approach relevant to actual practice. The text provides the classroom teacher with a concise, easy to understand overview of the research process and how it can be incorporated into daily teaching processes without taking away from or lumbering the teacher with tedious and often unnecessary discussion. -- Peter Quinn, former professor and chair of department of curriculum and instruction, school of education, St. Johns University

As an adjunct professor of education at St Johns University who teaches the thesis research course for masters degree recipients, I have long searched for the perfect textbook to introduce to students who have to be engaged in a research project that will inform their work in accomplishing classroom success amongst their own students. Dr. Guhas book achieved what I have been searching for: a compendium that leads the graduate student involved in an action research project, which when we look at the cognitive continuum, from novice to expert.
Teacher as Researcher: Becoming Familiar with Educational Research to Connect Theory to Practice addresses the need for an introductory text that is easy to read and does not bog the reader down with statistical language and methodology. This text serves as a guide for educators involved in a thesis project to examine significant issues and problems in the classroom. It leads the researcher engaged in action research from developing a plan, to organizing a draft that segues to the actual action research itself, to reporting the results.
Overall, Dr. Guhas book provides the teacher researcher a pathway from initial concept to enduring understanding, and from research question to analysis of an action research project. In this manner the researcher can develop a clearly stated research question, make connections to literature reviews with concomitant hypotheses, and conduct the actual research. Incorporated within this structure are ethical considerations in conducting research. Within the text, Dr. Guha provides readers with a rubric (developed at St. Johns University) that acts as road map to the contextual cues needed for a successful project. The attention to detail makes this a landmark text!

-- Leonard Golubchick, adjunct professor at St. Johns University, Metropolitan College of New York, and Long Island University Rockland, greater New York City area
Teacher as Researcher: Becoming Familiar with Educational Research to Connect Theory to Practice is a step-by-step guide on educational research and covers such topics as choosing the title, writing the abstract, preparing the literature review, deciding on methodology, preparing qualitative and quantitative studies, collecting and organizing data, analyzing the data, and drawing conclusions. The author includes worksheets and sample forms on peer observations, organizing research, evaluating the literature review, rubrics for research, test instruments, and rubrics for case studies. Also included are assignment worksheets for the research process and an extensive bibliography of resources. Dr. Guhas book is a very helpful and practical resource. -- Lucy Heckman, associate professor and head of reference, St. Johns University Libraries
This short and concise primer of how to conduct basic research is essential for the novice researcher. Written in words that are clear and understandable, this primer may be used as an introduction to reading more complex works in action research or case studies. It can also be used as a stand-alone text amongst beginning researchers as it gives good examples and homework assignments that will afford these pre-and in-service teachers the confidence that they, too, can read and conduct research. Many books on research frighten off the reader with their technical jargon and implicit expectations. Dr. Guhas primer breaks that mold. -- Brett Elizabeth Blake PhD, professor and senior research fellow at the Vincentian Center for Social Justice and Poverty at St. John's University; co-author of "Teaching All Children to Read"

Author Bio

Dr. Smita Guha is a professor in the teacher education field at St. Johns University. She is involved in research in the area of mathematics and science teaching.