Abstract

Action research projects have been used as a means of innovations in curriculum and in-service professional up-grading of teachers. Many instructional innovations of the Western world are being replicated in Asian’s education systems often without due consideration of success rates. As such endeavour consumes much time and other resources, it would be prudent that account be taken of success rates based on the Western experiences. This paper suggests using meta-analyzed effect sizes hitherto available for (1) making pre-project decisions as to whether a project is worth trying in view of the relevant past experience and (2) evaluating a project effect, post hoc, vis-a-vis the average effect size available for similar projects for a contextualized interpretation. Examples for doing these are given. Relevant conceptual issues are discussed.