First, I found a number of accounts of educational action research that specified
pedagogical aims, which referred to qualitative dimensions of the learning process,
and viewed teaching as an ethical practice (see, for example, Casey 2013, 147–163;
Foreman-Peck and Travers 2013, 28–41; Goh and Loh 2013, 202–217; Mockler
2014, 146–157). However, in some of these accounts there was relatively little systematic
reflection about such aims, and attempts to clarify their ethical implications in
the form of procedural principles were few. The focus of reflection tended to be on
the means as opposed to the means and ends jointly. There was little evidence in the
articles I looked at where in the process of action research teachers developed their
conception of educational aims in the process of reflecting about the means of achieving
them. Aims tended to be treated as fixed ends. Such action research might be
depicted as a quest for virtuous action but is rather limited as a dynamic process of
practical philosophy in which ends and means are treated as joint objects of reflection.