Yosi Budiarto: Classroom Action Research

YOSI BUDIARTO
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CLASSROOM ACTION RESEARCH

Understanding
Classroom Action Research is a method of finding out what works best in your own classroom so that you can improve student learning. There are many ways to improve knowledge about teaching. Many teachers practice personal reflection on teaching, others conduct formal empirical studies on teaching and learning. Classroom Action Research is more systematic than personal reflection but it is more informal and personal than formal educational research.

Goal / Aim
The goal of Classroom Action Research is to improve your own teaching in your own classroom, department, or school. While there is no requirement that the findings be generalized to other situations the results can add to knowledge base. Classroom Action Research goes beyond personal reflection to use informal research practices such as a brief literature review, group comparisons, and data collection and analysis. Validity is achieved through the triangulation of data. The focus is on the practical significance of findings, rather than statistical or theoretical significance.
Findings are usually disseminated through brief reports or presentations to local colleagues or administrators.

Process
The research design which used by the researcher is Classroom Action Research (CAR) is Kurt Lewin in Hopkirn’s model. The scheme of Classroom Action Research is following:

• Planning - Planning is the process of setting goals, developing strategies, and outlining tasks and schedules to accomplish the goals.
• Acting - Acting is a translation of planning embodied in concrete actions in the classroom.
• Observing - Observation is the action or methods to analyze and conduct a systematic recording of behavior by looking at or observing individuals or groups directly.
• Reflecting - Reflecting is the action to evaluate the learner when do the material from researcher or doing action that has been conducted, including evaluation of quality, quantity and time of each kind of action.
The aim of this method was to compare descriptively the chain of each cycle. The first stage in this research was done with an observation to know the students’ speaking ability, to find out the identification of problems, which appear, and to determine the kinds of treatment, which are appropriate to be carried out. Each cycle consists of four stages. Those are planning, action, observation, and reflection.

Advantages of Classroom Action Research:
1. Cooperation in action research creates a feeling of belonging. Cooperation in action research projects may meet the needs of modern life. Cooperation provides an opportunity to create a new group that encourages the birth of a sense of connection.
2. Cooperation in the Classroom Action Research encourages creativity and critical thinking. In interaction with others, someone will find that every human being has its advantages and disadvantages. Thus they accept themselves as they are reasonable, and through their group will have various ways of solving the problem, many suggestions completion, a lot of critical analysis, an open situation that encourages creativity and critical thinking.
3. Working together to improve the possibility for change. Trying something new is always risky, and as a group bear the risk. Then the individual risk to be small. In a study showed in group dynamics. Many individuals are more rapid changes than someone who is not a member of the group. In essence, people want progressive change, so that through this study will encourage individual members engaged in a constructive and progressive change.
4. Cooperation in research improve the agreement. Researchers do not feel have all the facts and know all the answers. Researchers try to gather all the facts, and carefully assess and describe the problem. Researchers must be sensitive to the feelings and the feelings of other researchers in the group taking action. They help the group in the broader context of the situation and the possible settlement. Through cooperation in action research trained people to reach agreement in resolving the problem.

Disadvantages Classroom Action Research
1. Lack of knowledge and skills in basic engineering research on the part of researchers. The research is typically done by practitioners such as teachers, principals, managers, supervisors who are always concerned about the imbalance or deficiency that existed at his situation and act umtuk fix it. Because practitioners are always familiar with the practical situation, they are less equipped with the knowledge and skills of basic engineering research. This is getting weaker because of feelings of practitioners (teachers) that only research conducted by the campus community who deals with scientific activities, so that practitioners are generally less interested in doing research. As a result they feel without the help of their consultants are not able to carry out research and are less likely to be justified scientifically.
2. Action research requires a commitment of researchers to engage in the process, this time factor can be a big obstacle. Practitioners who will conduct classroom action research must divide his time to perform routine tasks and to do research. Finally, teachers should concentrate not only teaching, as a result boss rarely granted permission for teachers to conduct research
3. The weakness of the conception of the group process. Group process that works and is highly dependent on the leader of a democratic group, that is someone who allows members to rely on the discussion. To be able to function as a democratic leader, someone demanded sensitive to the needs and desires of group members in particular situiasi.
4. difficulty getting people to make changes. Many people view the changes is hard work, unchanged from the establishment that has been enjoyed, and change through action research through the provision of classroom demands effort, thought, and time and a new attitude. During those already established with his situation, diving was also invited them difficult to change, whereas the action demanded conditions that allow the implementation of action research. The conditions are as follows:
a. willingness to acknowledge shortcomings,
b. an adequate opportunity to do some thing new,
c. the urge to put forward new ideas,
d. the time available to perform the experiment,
e. mutual confidence between the people involved,
f. knowledge of the basics of group process by the participants in the study (Hodgkonson, 1988).
Another drawback, among others, action research can be utilized to legitimize methods, strategies or techniques that had been applied, though less effective, practitioners often consider the results of the study is believed to be applicable in all situations. However, research actions are contextual. Researchers should be aware that the results apply only to situations examined, he should not hold a generalization, although researchers are often tempted to do it.
Things to know, that action research is not the only answer to all problems of education. There are several things to note where other approaches would be more appropriate and more precise. The validity of the approach depends on the skills of research. More research is personal and interpersonal, not lie in the method. This does not mean that sloppy research using the procedure, otherwise the philosophical basis of action research is a broad awareness of and respect for the individual consciousness. However, although action research is not the only recipe to solve the problem, will teatapi research contributes the use of statistical methods and empirical theory.
There are two things to note:
1. the theory has no value unless it can be shown that he has practical implications. This according to them is a basic principle,
2. action research is one approach in solving the problems of education that has evolved from earlier theories. He did not reject it as a theory is wrong, but shift the emphasis and practice. Kuhn, 1987 (in Siswoyo, 1997) suggests that the emergence of new approaches is often accompanied by a critical situation in the paradigm that has been there before. The theory was not born and not killed, but can gradually synthesized into new patterns. Sophistication is the action research has the ability to insert-nyisipkankan previous approaches, because the focus there is on research, not its methodology. The views and understanding of research driven by his involvement in research.

- http://www.julianhermida.com/algoma/scotlactionresearch.htm
- http://edukasi.kompasiana.com/2010/10/19/kelebihan-kekurangan-manfaat-dan-penerapan-ptk-seri-ptk-15/
- http://klik-4all.blogspot.com/2011/06/classroom-action-research-car.html