This perspective takes the researcher into the community and the society as a whole to look at the wider domain in which formal education functions. A study of error correction, for example, requires linguistic analysis of the learners' contributions as well as interaction analysis of teacher-learner behavior. In the next section, I will describe an approach to carrying out small research studies, called action research. Action research is one form of CCR which is seen as being small scale and situational, that is, focused on a particular problem, to try to understand and perhaps solve some concrete problem in an individual teacher's classroom. It can be carried out by a group of teachers who decide to cooperate, and thus is collaborative, or can be done by one teacher.
Action research tends to be directly linked to achieving results in the classroom setting.
This should lead to improvements in practice. It focuses on what works best with students in a particular setting. One way of looking at theory is to understand it as speculations about cause and effect that are backed by logic. Every time we stop to think about why something has or has not happened, we engage in theory making. There are expert theories, such as those by scholars like Einstein and Chomsky, and theories of classroom practitioners.