TRAINING OF TEACHER EDUCATORS ON RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS

Abstract

All out efforts are being made to achieve the goal of "Education for All" in the country. It has many aspects, including access, enrolment, retention, and learning. Teachers in schools face problems in all these areas. Action research is an approach that can empower teachers to overcome problems in aJI these areas and may prove useful in achieving the above national goal. It is a continuous, dynamic set of process that a teacher follows to improve the educational situation. The teacher does not remain a mere employee, rather she/he gets to know her/his students well, interact with them, observe them and gather information about them. This adds-up to the professional development of teacher. Hence, research in schools has the strength of challenging the quality of the teachers, teaching ­learning process, and finally, the total set-up of the schools. Over the last decades, research has begun to capture the attention of teachers, administrators, and policy makers around the country. Educators at various levels have embraced it as something that makes conducting research a more 'manageable' task brings about results that a more informative and have immediate and direct application. Research, therefore, is defined as "a process where in activities are carried out systematically to find the solution of a problem". It can also be defined as "any systematic enquiry conducted by teachers, administrators, counselors, or others with vested interest in the teaching and learning process or environment for the purpose of gathering information about how their particular school operates, how they teach, and how their students learn" (Mills, 2003). Research allows teachers to study their own classrooms, for example; their own instructional methods, their own students, their own assessments; in order to better understand them and be able to improve their quality or effectiveness. It focuses specifically on the unique characteristics of the population with whom a practice is employed or with whom some action must be taken. This, in turn, results in increased utility and effectiveness for the practitioner. Research helps the practitioners in shouldering the responsibility to improve the existing practices and to act as the agent of change through proven research and intervention. Teachers are the real agent agents of change. They translate the training into actual classroom practices. DIET/CTE faculties play a great role in training the teachers in the country. They prepare the future teachers of the country. Therefore, it is necessary that teachers/DIET/CTE faculties should be trained in conducting the Research of different types as per the requirement of the situation. Taking into consideration these above facts this training programme is being organized.