Linking theories and actions-in-practice: infusing N=1 action research projects into educational psychology courses

This article discusses a study that examined how pre-service teachers could link academic theories and their teaching in graduate educational psychology courses. A mini-action research project to tutor individual students in the form of ‘N = 1 Action Research’ (NAR) was assigned in psychological foundation courses required in masters-level teacher education programs. The content analysis of 61 NAR papers found that some of them merely cited psychological theories without linking them to their teaching or were rigidly confined by their scope of the theories. Others flexibly made use of psychological theories to make sense of the varying needs of their students and engaged in critical inquiries into how academic theories could be further developed to encompass the complex needs of their students. This study suggests the need to look into pre-service teachers’ relationships to academic theories and help them engage in reflective inquiries into their personal theories and assumptions on teaching.