12 Action Research and Evidence-Based Practice Select one of the research reports/articles from your Learning Resources, and Provide your thoughts about the purpose(s) and application(s) of action research in/to evidence-based practice. Imagine that you are working as school-based mental health counselor on one of the smaller Hawaiian Islands. On the island the student population is made up of children from Hawaiian, Tongan, Asian, Mexican, and European descent. You discover that the children in the school have little exposure to the larger outside world, have parents with limited education, and have little hope for employment outside of the tourist trade. You also realize that the student population has a high degree of truancy and poor graduation rates. As a scholar practitioner, you would turn to the professional literature to help you understand the phenomenon and to guide your development of an intervention strategy. Unfortunately, because the issues you face are so specific, there would be little to guide you in your decision making. Action research is a hands-on process that could be used to gain a greater understanding of the underlying problems in your system and to determine real world solutions. In this Discussion, you review strategies for conducting action research and evaluate the applicability of action research to developing evidence-based practices. Learning Resources Readings Article: Kidd, S., & Kral, M. (2005). Practicing participatory action research. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52(2), 187195. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.52.2.187 Article: Rowell, L. (2006). Action research and school counseling: Closing the gap between research and practice. Professional School Counseling, 9(5, Special Issue), 376384.

12 Action Research and Evidence-Based Practice Select one of the research reports/articles from your Learning Resources, and Provide your thoughts about the purpose(s) and application(s) of action research in/to evidence-based practice. Imagine that you are working as school-based mental health counselor on one of the smaller Hawaiian Islands. On the island the student population is made up of children from Hawaiian, Tongan, Asian, Mexican, and European descent. You discover that the children in the school have little exposure to the larger outside world, have parents with limited education, and have little hope for employment outside of the tourist trade. You also realize that the student population has a high degree of truancy and poor graduation rates. As a scholar practitioner, you would turn to the professional literature to help you understand the phenomenon and to guide your development of an intervention strategy. Unfortunately, because the issues you face are so specific, there would be little to guide you in your decision making. Action research is a hands-on process that could be used to gain a greater understanding of the underlying problems in your system and to determine real world solutions. In this Discussion, you review strategies for conducting action research and evaluate the applicability of action research to developing evidence-based practices. Learning Resources Readings Article: Kidd, S., & Kral, M. (2005). Practicing participatory action research. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52(2), 187195. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.52.2.187 Article: Rowell, L. (2006). Action research and school counseling: Closing the gap between research and practice. Professional School Counseling, 9(5, Special Issue), 376384.