Improving Quality of Educational Research

The book, comprising two volumes, has been designed to facilitate both the students as researchers at the university level and teachers as practitioners at the school level. Educational Research as an extensive activity in the institutes for higher learning generates lot of enthusiasm among students and researchers, but little is known about the relevance and applicability on the area and clientele on which investigations have been carried out. An attempt has been made in the book to document the research outputs on school education and to examine how could these be best used as an instrument for improving school education and its functioning thereof. The study further documents and reviews the trend of research studies with a view to examine where we stand now, what are the gaps and weaknesses in the researches and on what areas could these be best carried out in future. Recognizing the need for building contextualized research capacities to investigate local specific problems, the book introduces the notion of practitioner research by strengthening school-university partnerships. This move is envisaged to reinforce school practitioners to take up small but meaningful researches on their day to day teaching and learning situations. It is felt that due to lack of professional guidance, the school practitioners fail to carry out a small research project. The book, therefore, provides guidelines and directions to school practitioners on how to move on a practice-based research plan. It is expected that the book would be of great use to students, researchers, practitioners and educational managers, right from school to university stages of education as well as professional and vocational education training institutes — at least to those who show concern and belong to the entire education system but are committed to initiate the process by making strides toward school improvement as a preliminary step.