Center for Faculty Development & Excellence

Action Research

Ask questions. Test ideas. Strengthen learning.

Action Research is a practical, evidence-based approach to continually examining and improving your teaching practices. You begin with a question or challenge from your own teaching environment, collect information to better understand the issue, implement new strategies, and evaluate their impact on student learning and engagement. In addition to fueling continuous improvement, your Faculty Action Research project can also provide a great platform for participation in our Faculty Innovation Lab and Faculty Innovation Fund.

How it Works

1. Identify a Question or Opportunity
   Choose something about teaching, learning, engagement, assessment, or student success that you want to better understand or improve.
2. Gather Evidence
   Look at relevant information, such as student feedback, assessment results, course data, observations, or teaching and learning research.
3. Try Something
   Choose an evidence-informed strategy or change and put it into practice.
4. Assess What Happened
   Examine the results to understand the effect on student learning, engagement, or another outcome you’re interested in.
5. Reflect and Refine

Use what you learned to continue, revise, expand, or explore the approach through another cycle.

What Could You Explore?

Action Research can be applied to virtually any teaching or learning challenge:

• Student engagement and active learning
• Generational learning
• AI-resilient course design and assessment
• Student success and retention
• Clinical, laboratory, and simulation-based learning
• Feedback and assessment strategies
• Course organization and clarity
• Emerging teaching and learning technologies

Your project doesn’t have to end with your course. Action Research can also help you document the impact of your teaching innovations and contribute to scholarly teaching, presentations, publications, and future faculty development initiatives.