Action research in educational leadership and management: learnings from the design and delivery of a graduate course

Developing countries often have highly differentiated educational ecosystems, making it difficult for local students of educational leadership and management programs to connect their experiences to the global knowledge base on school effectiveness and improvement (SEI). Spread over a four-year period, this action research study contextualized the design and delivery of a graduate-level course in an educational leadership and management program in higher education settings in Pakistan. Using an adaptive-reflective approach and by engaging multiple sources of data in a mixed methods design, the course was successively improved to situate the stakeholder experiences in the global knowledge base on SEI. The results indicate that making explicit connections between indigenous and international discourse on SEI is necessary to contextualize learning. The study demonstrates action research as a fitting methodological paradigm and pedagogical tool to prepare would-be educational change agents who can effectively respond to and lead in the continuously changing landscape of SEI in the developing world contexts.