And in the final analysis, this type of information is probably much more useful to us as practitioners anyway. The primary goal of practitioner research is to improve practice through better understanding . This type of research is best conducted where the action happens - our programs, our classes, our students, ourselves. They observe from an involved distance. To the extent that this doing of observations becomes a habit and its own reward, teachers may see and think differently about themselves in their professional roles.
Practitioner research is valid because it is grounded in real life situations.
This type of research uses lavishly detailed descriptions of students, classes, activities, conversations, etc. because the researcher knows the significance of the context. Alternately, the researcher is not concerned with replicability that is, whether or not another teacher conducting similar research in another class will get identical results. Her primary goal is to become a more skillful adult educator. As practitioner research becomes more prevalent, researchers will be able to compare their findings with those of other practitioners and some trends may be found across programs. But for the moment, the first-time researcher can set out to better understand her own students with the confidence that she will end up with information which is useful to her.