Action research in education can be traced back to the 1940s and the work of Stephen Corey at Teachers College, Columbia University. Corey and his collaborators maintained that every teacher is a potential researcher and that participating in group research was necessary for good teaching. Action research fell out of popularity in the late 1950s, as policy makers began to depend on experts to create new educational knowledge and curriculums.

Interest in action research was renewed in the early 1980s when Donald Schön published his book The Reflective Practitioner (1983). In this work, Schön argued that professionals such as teachers must look beyond prescriptions and formulas to guide their instruction. According to him, in the real world of educational practice, problems that need to be addressed ...