Action Research in Public Schools: Is it Research? Should it Be Reviewed?

Teachers conduct in-class action research to solve classroom problems. Cases of K-12 classroom action research were examined to determine which of them require ethics review. A variety of action research projects were collected and transformed into fictitious examples that could be systematically examined to answer these questions pertinent to whether ethics review is required. The resulting analysis suggested that much classroom action research is a local curriculum development activity, which solves important problems but does not require ethics review for various reasons. If it is human research, as defined in the U.S. Common Rule, and is funded by an agency covered by the Common Rule, or if it is not funded but is human research conducted within an institution that has agreed to review all human research, ethics review is legally required unless the intervention is normal educational practice. However, since some action research may trigger other legal requirements, such as the U.S. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1979 (FERPA), it may be desirable to have some form of school-based review, but typically not human subjects ethics review.